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Lone McLonegan: A Western Adventure Review

Game: Lone McLonegan: A Western Adventure
Genre: Adventure, Puzzle
System: Nintendo Switch (Also on PS4, Xbox, Atari VCS and Steam)
Developer|Publisher: Sonomio Games | Flynns Arcade
Age Rating: EU 12+ | US Teen
Price:  US $9.99 | UK £9.99 | EU € 9,99
Release Date: November 4th, 2021

Review code provided with many thanks to Flynns Arcade

Back in the Point and Click Day

Back in the old days of gaming when I was young and had no grey hair, there was a genre of games on PC that used to captivate the hearts of gamers everywhere. I am talking about the point and click genre. Once all the rage with infamous hits like Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max Hit the Road and Broken Sword. But after Grim Fandango the genre just kinda disappeared for a while. It wouldn’t be until several years later that we would see the genre kinda resurface with releases of the classic games above.

The genre would see somewhat of a resurgence with notable hits like the many Tell Tale games and Life is Strange. But, things were not quite the same as the old days focusing more on stories than puzzles. So of course it’s up to the young and attractive indie developers to once again fill the void left from years past to release something new for audiences today. Lone McLonegan absolutely captures the love and feel of the old point and click adventure but is it any good? Time to put on those ol’ cowboy boots and find out. 

LadiesGamers Lone McLonegan
Just chilling in the West with my radio

Most Wanted

Lone McLonegan was once the most wanted outlaw in the Wild West. A title he was very proud of. But then a new player, Bragg Badass, pulled off a heist taking him to the top. But Lone is not one to settle down and accept this fate. It’s up to you to help Lone reclaim his title as well as have a fun-filled Western adventure along the way. The game has a good sense of humour and expects you to smirk and possibly roll your eyes at its frequent attempts at humour.

I have to give the developer credit here, this game doesn’t have the benefit of voice actors like most modern games do but the humour and script come off very well even though you are just reading it. It also felt a bit nostalgic for me as my PC growing up wasn’t even powerful enough to play the voice acting from games capable so I often relied on subtitles.

LadiesGamers Lone McLonegan
Meet plenty of odd but witty NPCs

Using the Right Action in the Right Place

When you begin the game your main goal is to head into the local town to find someone to repair your broken wagon. But it doesn’t take long before your goals change. You have multiple actions you can use like talking, looking, moving and even kicking. Using these actions in the right place is the key to success. To progress further you need to pick up items and use them to interact with certain objects or NPCs to progress onwards. You also need to talk to the NPCs and choose the correct dialogue option which will advance things further. It all requires a lot of exploration, exploring areas over and over. You can’t really fail at the game.

Even if you make a mistake with the dialogue options you just simply chat to the NPC again to restart the conversion even though they strangely seemed to just forget what you just spoke about. A nice touch from the developer is that the game features a small mini-game where you click on random stars hidden in the environment. Since you’re going to be revisiting areas a lot it adds an extra layer to gameplay if you want to engage with it.

LadiesGamers Lone McLonegan
Expect lots of pop culture references

Controls are simple and easy to use. The analogue stick acts as your cursor and you can easily switch to different actions like use, talk/eat and even kick at the press of a button. The game does include touch controls in handheld mode. However, switching to different actions felt a lot more finicky here so I mostly stuck to analogue controls myself, but you can of course do a hybrid of the two if you prefer. The game ran super smooth in both TV and handheld modes.

LadiesGamers Lone McLonegan
Why ride when you can hang?

Hand Drawn Western

The graphics are very nice hand-drawn 2D sprites on some highly detailed Western backgrounds. The game may be set in the old West but you will certainly see a lot of modern technology dotted around the environment which only adds to the humourous charm of the experience. Expect to see vending machines, arcade cabinets and even high tech alarm systems all placed in very old fashioned wooden buildings.

The game is also loaded with several pop culture references, something I felt the game relied a little too much on for quick laughs. Maybe I’m just getting old but I’m starting to not really understand a lot of modern references the more I distance myself from internet pop culture. Still, there is plenty of laughs to be had even if you are clueless like me.

LadiesGamers Lone McLonegan
Discover neat little mini-games

Niggles

The main niggle of this point and click puzzle design is the inevitable wall you will eventually hit. This is when you reach a point in the game when you don’t know how to progress. For some, the fun of this genre is trying to figure out the solution no matter how long it takes. But for me, it gets a bit dull to essentially comb through areas talking to all the NPCs and try items in your inventory on everything. Then it’s only a matter of time before you hit that wall again.

Modern versions of point and click games like Broken Sword modernized this idea by offering a hint system for the player to use if needed. But sadly that is absent in this game. Sure one could wait for the inevitable walkthrough online or YouTube video to pop up to seek the solution but that just doesn’t feel as satisfying. 

LadiesGamers Lone McLonegan
The art style is well suited to the game’s sense of humour

Conclusion – Lone Star

Lone McLonegan: A Western Adventure, is a classic point and click adventure game that keeps gameplay firmly in the past for better and for worse. Fans of the old days of this genre should absolutely check out this title but if you need some assistance with the game’s tougher puzzles you’ll have to seek that elsewhere online. But at a very attractive price point, you will get a quirky puzzle adventure that packs as many laughs as it does challenges. 

Final Verdict: I Like it
I like it

 

3 comments

  1. Trying to figure out how anyone could think PnCs disappeared after Grim Fandango. I didn’t start playing the genre actively until around ’96, but we (me and my family) were still playing them pretty much through the early 2000s. If nothing else, Cyan released 3 more in the Myst series (aside from Uru) in the years after Grim Fandango was released, and there were 3 more in the Atlantis franchise after that. Longest Journey, Sanitarium, the Darkfall Series, the Dracula series and the Dream Chronicles games all came after Grim Fandango.

    If anything, I’d consider the hey-day of the Point-n-click adventures to be 1995-2005. And in 1998, my favorite release was Black Dahlia.

    I have played a few PnC style on Switch so far, and it does seem the genre is resurging right now, which is great. Though I prefer something a little less low-tech, like one I finished last week, Jenny LeClue. 🙂

    1. Hi Kat, first of all thank you for reading! I can see you are a big fan of the PnC genre, and I agree, it’s great to see the genre getting more attention on the Switch.I never played any in the earlier years, as I’m all Nintendo when it comes to gaming. I am curious though, which PnC would you say are your favourites on the Switch?

  2. Kat your absolutely correct. Point and click adventures never went away and its lovely to hear about your experience with classics like Longest Journey and Black Dahlia. I actually played Dracula 2 on PSone and it was awful without a mouse. My method for the article was from my experience growing up. So after Grim Fandango me and my circle of gamer friends sort of payed no attention to the other stuff for a while. It kinda reminds me of how 2D platformers were all the rage in the 16-bit generation for me growing up. But when things 3D I played a lot less of them. Thank you for your comment. I love hearing about peoples gaming experiences growing up.

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