Zwerg Nase - Review English

Zwerg Nase
(Little Long Nose)

Release date: 11/2003
Developer/publisher: Cornelsen Software
Game language and manual: German

USK: for all ages

Publisher's age recommendation : 5 - 10 years

A review by André 7th January 2004
(translated by slydos)

In this year fortunately so many new adventures were released that I nearly couldn't cope with purchasing and of course playing them. It's great that beside all those 3D-render-adventures there are also a few classic 2D-games such as Tony Tough or this one. That's the way it should be! However this game is actually a kids-adventure, whereby I assume that the publisher also zeroes in on an adult target group either. In any case I enjoyed "Little Long Nose".

Story

The story is basically probably identical to the fairy tale of the same name by Wilhelm Hauff, which we all have read, or haven't we? Okay, I never read it too. Therefore here the plot in brief:

As a small boy Jakob is lured into a trap by the witch Herbwhite (hope the name is translated correct), is kept imprisoned for seven years and now must cook for the evil witch every day. As if that wouldn't be enough punishment already, he must do this in the shape of a dwarf, into which he is mutated by the witch. One day Jakob succeeds to escape. But nobody recognizes him anymore, dwarfish and deformed. And they call him Little Long Nose from now on.

And that's the point the players can start to interact, trying to find the herb the witch gave him at that time, in order to reverse Jakob's bedevilment.

Controls

Let us now look at the biggest point of criticism: Little Long Nose beats all negative records in matters of walking-speed only trudging from scene to scene. Compared to this even April Ryan, who could at least be urged to run by a doubleclick, or dear Floyd act as high speed athlets. I do not know whether the game should be protracted by this or why 'Little Snore Nose' ambles around so sedated. I only know that the game becomes more boring by that.

In addition we have very long loading times between the individual scenes, although the game is actually a simple built 2D-adventure, so that I regrettably must take off some rating points.

Besides there are well proven point&click controls with inventory and all that jazz. Somewhat more unusual is only, that you get to know certain information about certain hotspots only if you look at them with the magnifying glass from the inventory in addition. Often you can only interact with a hotspot if you come close enough.

Otherwise I have to tick only a small thing: Some objects can be taken by the click of a button, others must be dragged with pressed mouse button to the right place. That sometimes provides irritations, since one does not always know, how the respective item is to be moved.

Puzzles

There are two difficulty levels, which we can select at the beginning. I would have wished myself a bit higher degree of difficulty or perhaps another mode particularly for adults. Thus the publisher could market and sell the game more purposefully to all ages.

The puzzles in Little Long Nose are of course not very hard, but they aren't completely easy either. The puzzles are quite linear and not really innovative, but partly very interesting.

To a large extent one has to - like so often - find the right (sometimes very small) objects and use them in the correct place. These should be again examined in the inventory by the magnifying glass and sometimes even be manipulated.

Then there are a few numeral puzzles and simple mechanical puzzles, to open e.g. a secret entrance.

It becomes really dynamic and exciting when the egg timer runs (faded in at the bottom of the screen). Then one should act fast. Even if there will be no direct Game-Over, one has to replay the whole sequence after failing. Although I don't like timed sequences normally, this really made fun to me because of the moderate degree of difficulty and the nice puzzle design.

Graphics

Little Long Nose is a classic 2D-adventure (as I like it) and the graphics are in principle very simple. There are no effects or lavish film sequences, as for instance in Torin's Passage. Besides the game mainly consists of a few animated fixed images only. Nevertheless or perhaps because of the plainness, I found the graphics very beautiful. It looks a bit antiquated, perhaps also a bit as taken from a book of fairytales and pleasantly differs from overload looking 3D-adventures.

Some unusual objects, like built-in elevators or gramophones however seem misplaced and naturally neither couldn't be found in this epoch nor in the story of the fairy tale. However some mechanisms contribute to the puzzle design and thus it's all right with me. Finally secret passages or the like enrich a solid graphic/fantasy-adventure very much and form its appeal.

And so it still fits, that a lot of artistic freedom is used here and in the course of the game many things were altered in a creative way. And at the latest, when finally Einstein appears, not much is remaining from the classic fairy tale story.

Sound

The music is quiet and sweet, partly classical and fits nicely into the atmosphere of the game. One can however turn down the music only one level. And I did that, because what is more nerving than too loud music? Speech and sound effects cannot be adjusted at all.

The texts were not only professionally spoken but also suitably for a fairy tale adventure. In short: During the synchronisation everything was done all right.

Installation

The installation ran smoothly and there were no bugs. But it's somewhat laborious that one must manually set the resolution to 800 x 600 before each game start.

Result

The weary sneaking and the lame change between scenes were nerving during the whole game. Nevertheless I was sorry, when Little Long Nose ended (after quite a short playing time of about 2 evenings). That was surely because of the successful fairytale-atmosphere and -graphics and the nice puzzle design. From time to time it even gets really exciting, when you had to come up fast with an idea, in order not to get catched.

If the programmers in the announced (and hopefully also following) further games of the series would provide the main character with a running function, shorten the loading times and prolong the game, the rating would be around 80 %. Thus it gets provisionally fairly earned 74% for a small, quiet and atmospheric kids-adventure serving also adults for an in-between entertainment.

Well, besides I also get inspired and will soon cook a tasty potato soup á la Long Nose.

Rating: 74 %

Adventure-Archiv rating system:

80% - 100% excellent game, very recommendable

70% - 79% good game, recommendable

60% - 69% satisfactory, restricted recommendable

50% - 59% sufficient (not very recommendable)

40% - 49% rather deficient (not to be recommended - for Hardcore-Adventure-Freaks and collectors only)