A charming little game that won't take you too long to finish...
Brief plot, you play a pre-historic lad who has a calling to be a cave artist. However your drawings are not just your normal stick-type drawings, they are representations of the spirits of nature, and they come alive and dance in the walls (which actually comes into play during gameplay and is sometimes the only way to advance through a puzzle.)
Many years ago your Mentor gave you a painted stone to remember him by, and he instructed you to follow after him when you were old enough. The time has now come and you are ready to leave your village and fulfill your destiny.
As you progress through the adventure you get to make your own tools and weapons, and you get to solve some simple, and some not so simple, logic puzzles which take you through several cave networks and across some beautiful countryside.
Each step of your journey teaches you a lesson about your (in-game) abilities and there is a built-in real-world encyclopedia which prompts you with actual related historical evidence as you unlock certain parts of the game.
If you get stuck then you have a journal that is automatically updated for you, and you can always ask somebody else in the game to help you... nice touch.
The ending is a bit of a let-down and I have to admit I expected a little more, but you finally meet your Mentor and become the master cave painter that you were born to be.
At times when you play this game you feel as if you are actually in the game itself, it has that easy-going feel about it that you can relax into. Even when you are in danger it doesn't seem threatening, it is just another obstacle to overcome, and there are very few time-limits in the game so there is very little pressure put on you as the player.
From start to finish this game has a reasonable pace and is not too cluttered with meaningless puzzles just to pad the gameplay. Each puzzle has been thought out carefully and they are solved easily enough if you keep your wits about you... except for one near the end which requires a great deal of patience and logic and will have you cursing...
The scenery is as stunning as Return to Mysterious Island, and the game has the same 3D 360 degree scrolling world engine and a static cursor that changes shape when you hit hot-spots.
As regards to hot-spots, not too bad, only a small amount of pixel-hunting in certain areas of the game, but on the whole not too bad. Where you do need to pixel-hunt it seems to feel neccessary in order to add reasonable difficulty to an otherwise easy puzzle.
One noticeable difference is the inventory system, it is not as complex as RTMI and you cannot directly combine objects in the inventory, instead you have to find "combining rocks" where you can place several objects that need combining. These combining rocks often contain extra tools needed to complete the combination, however these tools stay with the rock and are not removable.
The music is atmospheric and sets the scene very well for the pre-historic world in which the game is set, and the instruments chosen fit very well into the time scale. It is not too intrusive and it can be set at a lower level so that it plays unobtrusively in the background.
As is usual with these games, you can die, but mostly you re-appear at the same spot where you can immediately try whatever you were trying to do again. Death is merely a way of saying you didn't solve a puzzle quite right, it is not a punishment and you do not lose any objects when you do die (exactly like the robot scenes in RTMI.)
Other than that, not a lot else to say without giving away vital plot elements. This game is definitely worth playing at least once, even if it is just to experience the fantastic atmosphere and the beautiful scenery.
If you have played Return to Mysterious Island, then you will definitely enjoy the full rich atmosphere and the immersive plot of this charming adventure.