Publisher: Virgin Interactive
Developer: Revolution
Year: 1992
Platform: DOS, Amiga, Atari, Windows, Mac, Linux

Rating: 2

Showing signs of things to come for Revolution Software, Lure of the Temptress certainly has some innovative features and touches of humor. But an incredibly dull story combined with a janky user interface makes this one a tough road to hoe.

Diermot has been thrown in a dank cell by the Skorls, a brutish species that has been doing the evil Serena’s bidding, including terrorizing the locals. While escaping, you help free another prisoner; Ratpouch vouches to follow you and do your bidding. Entering the castle town of Turnvale, you seek out support in learning how to save other prisoners and defeat the evil temptress.

Uncluttered by icons, gameplay proceeds with you clicking on the screen to walk or to examine what you see. Common now but less so back in the day, the action menu is pulled up by right-clicking and choosing from a verb list. The most common is “Talk To” and you simply then click on the person you wish to start a conversation with. Otherwise there is a slew of verbs to select that will then pull up a noun list, then another verb list and so on until you decide to finish the sentence. For example, you can form the sentence, “Tell Ratpouch to ask Mallin about the book.” Alternatively, you can ask Ratpouch to do things in a different area by first asking him to travel to said area. The possibilities are infinite; sadly, the utility of this system is fairly low.

There are only a few puzzles in the game that require you to ask for help from someone else and most of those don’t include your trusty Ratpouch. Thus he’s mostly just obnoxious, especially since his advice is worthless as well. The other NPCs all have their own agendas and rarely stay in the same spot. While this provides a sense of realism to to the town, it gets quite tiresome walking around the confusing map in search of someone. Most of the time it makes sense just to stay in one spot until they pop on the screen, which is not my idea of fun.

NPCs will also on rare occasions block a doorway, preventing you from advancing. Sometimes all you need to do is wait and with some folks you can ask them to move. But on one occasion I was forced to restore because my partner would neither move nor talk to me. More frustrating is the awkwardness of interactions. You may call out to an NPC on the other side of the room, but as Diermont approaches them, another NPC strolls between, blocking your path and canceling your command.

Puzzles are another beast. Most simply require you talking to everyone in town to get their thoughts on a subject until you find the one person who’s helpful. While not difficult, it requires a lot of endless walking from one end of the town to another. Characters will send you on bizarre fetch quests. In a few cases you must give an item to another character to help you without any logical reason why you would give them the item or any idea of what you might get in return. Early on when I had to give a gem to a bartender in order for her to give me a drink that I didn’t even know was on the menu, I resorted to a walkthrough quite often. Some puzzles are enjoyable, but they’re few and far between. Bribing is a fun verb choice at your disposal, but it can only be used once and feels like a wasted opportunity.

The story doesn’t really broaden beyond the original goal and while there are a couple of town secrets to uncover, nothing is given any depth. Characters have a few laconic responses and you learn nothing but the most superficial history of each. And Diermont himself may as well be a cipher given his complete lack of a personality. Most laughably, Serena herself only appears in the game’s final scene after you’ve taken the last action necessary. Yes, the game’s climax requires literally zero input from the player, and then just like that it’s over. 

Man, what else sucks about this game? The graphics are generally drab and there’s too much pixel-hunting considering the presence of hotspots. The music is bizarre in so far that it’s not so much music but rather a repetition of various notes with long stretches of silence. Oh, and there are two areas in the game where you must battle an enemy with an axe. These actions sequences are nigh too difficult, but they’re poorly set up, not fun, and one of them ends the game. Just awful design choices all around.

A couple things save this adventure from being at the bottom of the barrel. Despite the lifeless graphics, there’s a couple of well-done cutscenes reminiscent of Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers. Sometimes character give genuinely funny responses. My favorite scene involves talking to some monks inside their monastery (they won’t talk anywhere else) as they definitely do not respond in the way you’d expect. I’ll also give credit as I didn’t find any walking dead situations; you can die throughout the adventure, so as long as you save regularly (and not right before a fatal mistake), you’ll be fine.

Lure of the Temptress is blissfully short. Those wanting to see the underpinnings of the engine that eventually made Beneath a Steel Sky might find some interest here. Everyone else should save their time. If you do play, avoid the free GOG version at all costs; it’s incredibly buggy and painfully slow. Instead, find the original, fire up DosBox, and look up how to get past the copy protection.