Amerzone – The Explorer’s Legacy

Amerzone – The Explorer’s Legacy is a game made by Benoît Sokal. I’ve played another game series by him, the Syberia series, though he was only a part of the first game. I am a fan of the Syberia games, and this one captures the same feeling of fantasy within our world. Amerzone is actually his first game, and the one I am playing is a remake that brings about fancy new visuals.

Amerzone is a point and click game where you follow in the footsteps of Valembois, an explorer. He is too old to go out again, so you decide to do his final task, return the great egg to the jungles of Amerzone, a fictional country located in South America.

Find it on Steam.

In the game, you are an unnamed young aspiring reporter. Your first major assignment just happens to take you to Valembois, an old explorer with unfinished business. Of your own volition, you decide to finish his task of returning a strange giant egg to its home deep in the Amerzone jungle. Time to start your wild adventure.

The atmosphere and world design of Amerzone is fantastic. It takes place in the real world, but a more wondrous version of it, especially the fictional country of Amerzone where you’re trying to reach. The game has a magical feel all while maintaining a sense that it could be taking place in our regular world. The various locations you go to all have a lonely feel. The sparse amount of people you can see and interact with only makes the world feel more fantastic. And each location has a magical feeling from an island full of shipwrecks to an abandoned village in the middle of the jungle. Everything is shown through a first-person view, and there are quite a lot of fantastic views.

Also, like Australia, Amerzone is full of unique plants and animals not found anywhere else. You’ll get to interact with some of them over the course of your adventure whether you want to or not. They are interesting to see and experience, though.

The music in the game is alright, though I want to give special mention to the main theme. It has a wonderful mystical feeling that is fitting for what is quite an important journey.

Of course there is more to the story than simply taking an egg back to its home. You’ll learn more about Valembois and his old travel companions. You’ll learn much about what happened to Amerzone since he was last there and how it fell underneath a harsh dictator. What happened to the country has not been kind, but maybe your journey can help out the people living there.

The game is primarily a point and click game controlled with the mouse. There are keyboard shortcuts to go to your journal or inventory. You do get help in the form of objectives and the ability to highlight interactable objects in the world. The puzzles are mostly knowing what are the options you have to achieve your objectives. Once you know what you want to do, observe the world and it’ll usually lead you to an answer. And remember to highlight things in case you miss something. There are a few harder puzzles that purely rely on you looking at the world since that information is not among those you can examine closer. And if you really get stuck, there is an in-game hint system, though I haven’t used it enough to know how helpful it is.

There are also optional investigations you can do at each area. If you are diligent in reading and examining objects, you’ll get more information about the game or characters, though told through the perspective of the main character.

My favorite part of the game is the Hydrafloat, your means of transportation. It is a multi-mode vehicle going from plane to submarine to many more as the game progresses. It is amazing what kind of instructions you can fit on a diskette to operate that vehicle. While you don’t really need to make any choices since at each point of the game there is only one way to proceed using the Hydrafloat, seeing it change and get different functions over the course of the game is great. It is a fun little vehicle that is your sort of home base over the course of the game.

Amerzone – The Explorer’s Legacy is a remake of the Amerzone game. I haven’t played the original, but this version is fantastic. You’ll go on a great adventure through many wondrous locations that make you think what if it could all happen in our world? Benoît Sokal’s ability to create a more fantastical version of our world is great and makes for an engaging experience.

Find it on Steam.