In the 1990s, there were two names for adventure games: Sierra and Lucasarts. Of course, there were other contenders as well, but few managed to become as well-liked as Adventuresoft's Simon the Sorcerer. Or at least Simon the Sorcerer was a hit in Europe, I have no idea how well the (mis)adventures of the sarcastic teenage sorcerer went down elsewhere.
As an interesting side note, before striking gold with Simon the Sorcerer, Adventuresoft was better known for their horror titles they published under a name of Horror Soft. There are very few similarities between Simon, a game drawing inspiration from Monkey Island, and their horror titles, them being mostly 1st person adventure/RPG hybrids, the best known of them bearing the name of voluptuous, both in hair and body shape, Elvira.
After Simon's dog escapes to the attic, he stumbles upon an old magic book. Simon discards the book, but it ends up being a real deal and a portal between worlds opens. His dog runs through the portal, so Simon has to follow it. He ends up being captured by goblins, but luckily enough his doggy rescues him and the two end up in the house of wizard Calypso. The man is nowhere to be seen though, but he has left a note, stating that Simon has been chosen to be a wizard and he has to defeat an evil wizard Sordid. The first thing the boy needs to do is to become a wizard with the help of a group of wizards slumming at the local tavern. I think I've seen this plot somewhere, but with pirates.
In truth, the story matters very little. It's just a vehicle for a cavalcade of jokes about fantasy, adventure games and all things in between. That's all the story is meant to do here, as otherwise, you just mainly walk around the beautifully rendered locations and solve puzzles until you finally get to the end. It's all a bit silly, at times a bit crude, but always in good spirits. Simon keeps breaking the fourth wall constantly on his journey to find the means of defeating the evil Sordid, whom we actually see only briefly at the final location. He's not some kind of a LeChuck style of a menace always looming over you. While people talk of Sordid, no one seems to take him too seriously, as evil wizards planning on world domination are dime a dozen.
As far gameplay goes, Simon the Sorcerer is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, it does copy its game mechanics from Lucasfilm games, having a verb-based point and click interface, which does make playing it a breeze. If you've ever played games like Monkey Island, you'll feel right at home. On the other hand, it does have quite a bit of pixel hunting. It is very easy to go through a location multiple times and keep missing an important item just because it is sized only a couple of pixels. Some screen exits are hard to miss as well, so when in doubt, it pays to comb the screens with the mouse cursors, which is never a sign of good design policy.
The puzzles are, surprisingly enough, mostly pretty fair. Some puzzles do veer in the direction of moon logic and are based more on trial and error, but overall, most of them should be solvable with a mere mortal brain. At times it's even possible to solve some puzzles merely by accident if you've already gathered all the needed things prior to meeting the puzzle itself.
Graphically, Simon the Sorcerer is a great looking game. The backgrounds are nicely drawn and detailed and the animation works nicely as well. The character movement never manages to reach the levels of Sierra and Lucasfilm but is from the better end of adventure games. There are even quite a few situation animations, as you can see things like a bird catching a mouse in the forest or a wolf running mids trees. It all makes Simon the Sorcerer quite a lively looking game and a lot of time and effort was clearly spent in building the game.
Another nice surprise is the quality of the voice acting. It's not always given, that the voice work in the early 90s games was always up the snuff, but Simon the Sorcerer is a rather nice surprise in that department. While not all the voices are good, the main voice of Simon's is very nicely portrayed by Chris Barrie, who is perhaps better known for the Red Dwarf series. On the aural side of things, the music is really the biggest disappointment in Simon the Sorcerer. It consists mostly of forgettable blips and blobs.
Simon the Sorcerer is not quite a slamdunk. It's by no means a bad game and it has aged reasonably well with some caveats. In many ways, even as it is, it does belong in the better side of 90s adventure games, especially, if you aren't looking for some kind of a deep and meaningful narrative. If some decent puzzles lazed with some decent comedy is what you are after, then Simon the Sorcerer is a solid game to glance at. That said, there's a relatively lazy looking "25th anniversary remaster" of Simon the Sorcerer floating around in digital stores. While it has hotspot detection, it also has "high-resolution graphics" consisting of an ugly filter atop the gorgeous pixel art, making the game look like molten wax. If you do buy the game, make sure you can get the original version.
As far I know, the version GOG sells has the original version as an extra, so you can play that. I've not personally tried the "remaster", as I do find the "enhancements" it has rather disappointing, especially because Simon the Sorcerer has some of the best looking pixel art around. Steam version has the original as a free DLC. But yeah, go and play it.
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