Awakening: The Skyward Castle Collector's Edition

[Note: Time shown in-game reflects a lot of idle time.] A solid HOPA with lots to do. The art is lovely, the puzzles are mostly easy-moderate (with a couple of frustrating parts), and the HO scenes are fun and don't rely on dark colours and shadows for challenge. I enjoyed the music. If you like fantasy settings, this game is firmly in the fantasy HOPA genre, with a newly awakened princess journeying through a magical land populated by goblins and elves. The series as a whole is worth playing. I didn't find Skyward Castle as entertaining as the previous entry in the series, but it's still a nice game. I recommend getting it on sale, or at least in the bundle available, if possible. I had no difficulty with the controls, although I found the "click once then drag" function in HOPAs (and other places) hard to get used to. The game is well put together.

This is [I]Awakening[/I] #4, a continuation of the story. Though excellent in many ways, it features similar frustrations to those of [I]Awakening[/I] #3, such as a confusing and poorly conceived list of achievements. In this case I thought the annoyances tipped the scale enough towards me not recommending this game. The main issue is a handful of poorly designed puzzles that spoil the experience. Again, we have puzzles that require mouse precision, which never work well. There is one puzzle where you need to put together pieces of paper to reveal a code, but there's one piece that does not visually fit. I had to watch a few video walkthroughs to see it connect. It still doesn't make sense to me. There are also just some [I]very[/I] difficult puzzles. I'm not averse to challenges, but they are a poor fit for a series that until now has had a casual tone. And some point-and-click adventuring puzzles don't make much sense at all. I need to use the flowers on a floating castle in the far distance? Huh? Of course, you can always skip puzzles that are too hard or use the hint button, but where's the fun in that? I also think the story is below the standard set until now. It seems rus…

I like this game. I really do. I just have one very nitpicky minigame that I have a personal vendetta against. The series does a thing where it's essentially the same type of puzzle just with slightly different variables. And one of those games is a "make sure no repeating icons are in the same row" and that ♥♥♥♥. There is one, that PISSES ME THE ♥♥♥♥ OFF. And it is the STUPID CLOTH ONE THAT IS PUT AS A 'MINIGAME' IN A HOP ABOUT COLLECTING GLOVES. I HATE IT AND IT TOOK ME 30 MINUTES OF BLINDLY SWITCHING ♥♥♥♥ AROUND BEFORE I GAVE UP AND LOOKED UP THE GUIDE SINCE I WAS PLAYING IT ON DREADMYRE MODE. But besides that, the game is really good. It is, I swear to anyone who lays their eyes on this review. It's very similar in quality to the Goblin Kingdom installment, which in my opinion might be the best out of the entire series.

The fourth game of the Awakening series, the Skyward Castle is probably the largest and most elaborate of the series. It's also the visually prettiest and the one with the most story development. It would be almost perfect if it didn't unfortunately also ramp up the puzzle difficulty to an insane level. I consider myself a seasoned puzzle and point'n'click player and I finished the whole rest of the series on hardest difficulty without ever using walkthrough, skip, or even hint - apart from one single puzzle from this installment. It is worth mentioning that all games from the Awakening series have longer play time than what's usual for these types of games and it's especially true for this one. So if you're not afraid of challenge, then this is definitely worth your time and money.

Finally, a MAP!

[i]Awakening: The Skyward Castle[/i] is the fourth game in the Awakening series and continues Princess Sophia's quest to find what happened to her parents and the humans. I continues the series' tradition of lovely artwork, soft music, and light gameplay. It's pretty much standard hidden-object fare, but it's a relaxing game with lovely artwork. Recommended.