The action in Gobliiins 4 is typical genre fare and you click on the map to send your character scurrying over to investigate. You have a choice of three characters you can control. There is Tchoup, Stucco and Perlius and each one has different abilities. Tchoup is the leader; he can talk to people and has the inventory which is accessed by right clicking on him. Perlius can perform magic tricks and Stucco is the strongest of the three. In combination they can solve each puzzle and you can flick between them by clicking on the character. This was a nice innovation in the original series and working out where to use each character is part of the challenge.
The game starts with Tchoup receiving a letter from a noisy bird which is a summons to see the King. Tchoup is supposed to be a kind of detective and with the help of his two pals he is tasked with finding Riri, the pet of King Balderon VIII. This leads the trio on a linear adventure across a series of 16 static one screen levels. On each screen you have to solve a series of puzzles in order to progress and if you collect gold teeth along the way you will unlock a bonus level.
The plot is very basic and the simple levels fail to engage. The puzzles range from fairly easy to ridiculously difficult and progress is frustrating at times. Being reduced to randomly trying combinations of every object in your inventory and repeatedly clicking round and round the same screen gets tired very quickly. I’m not a big fan of point-and-click adventures with obscure puzzles in them and this one really tried my patience.
It is surprising to see so many point-and-click adventures hitting the market and the genre clearly still has a following. However while the recent release Ceville, was gently fun, well polished and never too taxing this game seems to combine the most infuriating features of old. Gobliiins 4 refuses to get with the times. It is a throwback, a reminder of hours wasted trying to solve irritating puzzles. There is no save option and instead you get codes for each level. It is not helped by the occasional bug and production values in general seem low. The humour is endearing at the start but quickly becomes boring and the game has a childish tone. However it is tough to imagine kids wanting to play this or having the patience to try and solve an illogical puzzle which might take them an hour to work out.
