Simon the Sorcerer Origins

I went into Simon the Sorcerer Origins knowing nothing about the 1993 original, and it still landed. That tells you something important: Smallthing Studios built a genuinely accessible entry point here, not a nostalgia delivery system with a toll booth at the door. The setup is quick and funny - Simon is a mouthy eleven-year-old, freshly expelled, dragged to a new house by his mum, and promptly sucked through a purple portal into a fantasy world that has been waiting specifically for him. Wizard Calypso hands him a robe, a magical hat that works as an inventory, and an ancient prophecy to complete. Simon does not care about the prophecy. He just wants to go home. That dynamic powers the whole game. The writing is the standout. Chris Barrie reprises his role from the original CD-ROM version of the game, and he is excellent throughout - dry, bratty, and genuinely funny in a way that earns comparisons to classic British comedy rather than just trading on the name. The supporting cast holds its own too. Dialogue puzzles sit alongside the standard inventory work, and even when you are stuck, talking to every NPC is time well spent. The game spans 12 chapters and runs roughly 10 hours for a confident adventure player, longer if the puzzles chew you up. There is a map for fast travel and a magical diary that tracks objectives, both sensible concessions to a modern audience. The spell system and the hat mechanic are the smartest additions. Simon learns spells - Windado, Freezesneezius, Flambergo - and can switch between different hat versions, each of which changes the properties of the items stored inside. It is a clever layer on top of the classic collect-and-combine format, and it creates some genuinely novel puzzle moments rather than just rehashing what the originals did. The hand-drawn art style, influenced by the Disney Renaissance aesthetic and produced with animators who worked on the film Klaus, looks clean and expressive in motion even if it divides people who loved the original pixel work. Here is the honest caveat: this game has no hint system, and it does not apologize for that. Some puzzles are logical and satisfying; others are exactly the kind of lateral-leap obscurity that drove people to call the 90s era of adventure games both brilliant and maddening. A late chapter in particular overstays its welcome. If you hit a wall - and you will hit at least one - your only in-game option is to click on absolutely everything until something works. A contextual hint button would fix this without dumbing anything down, and its absence is a real miss in 2025. The Metacritic score sits at 76, which feels accurate: it is a confident, well-made point-and-click with a few rough edges rather than a flawless revival. Fans of the original saga get the most value here - returning characters, nods to earlier events, and payoff moments that newcomers will enjoy without fully registering. But if you have never played a Simon game and you like the idea of a witty British adventure with real puzzle teeth, Origins works on its own terms. Approach it with walkthrough tolerance or a stubborn streak, and it delivers.

Alex · Scout Team

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