What the game is missing in length / quantity is rich in charm and style.
Graphics: 6 (serves its purpose – nice hand drawn backdrops)
Sounds: 8 (great voice acting / musical scores – felt like a great movie production)
Value: 7 (quite short however selling very cheaply)
Tilt: 9 (the ending is one of the best I have seen for a long while – very entertaining)
Actual score 7.3
Emerald City is not like the Emerald City in those thirteen (or so) novels about the Wizard of Oz. I guess you can blame it on the Phanfasm War 40 years prior to the game's setting. Regardless, Emerald City is now a resemblance of the 40s noir, filled with femmes fatales, people in trench coats, dark gloomy skies and the like. And your main character, Petra, is a private investigator doing the odd jobs just to make ends meet. Yet Petra also has a darker side where she's in constant search for her long lost brother.
So the story kicks off when Petra, yet again, fails to capture the ever so slippery Lion (as he is now a shady lawyer) and then gets a case from Dee (Dorothy) in search of for her missing fiancé Anzel. Of course, as the adventure progresses, it's becomes more and more sinister as Petra trolls through the seedy underbelly known as Emerald City.
Emerald City Confidential plays as your typical point and click adventure game. As you scroll your mouse across the screen, your cursor can change to indicate a hotspot, or interaction. There is also your typical inventory management however the game is not hard at all. It's actually quite an easy adventure game which does assist in maintaining a good pace as well. So because of its simplicity, the pacing is quite fast as it's like viewing a great cartoon flick accompanied by some decent action sequences.
There are also 'side missions' where Petra searches buttons for Scraps and each button you find, will reward you a sketch (and funny enough, Petra comments somewhat negatively towards them). In addition, you can earn up to twelve achievements however some achievements can only be earned whilst complete a set (so to speak).
If your knowledge of the Wizard of Oz is decent enough, the vast majority of characters are there (save for of course Petra). However, prepare to view them in a different light, so to speak. For example the Lion is now a shady lawyer; the tin man has 'drinking' problems (and again without a heart but the game explains this very well why); Scraps, the Patchwork Girl (now dealing in 'secrets'); General Jinjur, Ruggedo and many more. Kudos goes to Wadjet Eye Games for doing their homework on the Wizard of Oz.
Visually it looks quite charming. Vibrant colours, nice hand drawn backdrops and thankfully, minimal pixel hunting, it's oozing with character. The game's engine was created by Playfirst's Playground SDK and it's quite decent for what it does. However the stronger points are the sounds. Top quality as the entire game are mostly voice acted (and I do love Petra's harsh voice especially when she says 'I would like to ask you some questions' with authority of course). And the background musical scores are great – suitable for a decent movie flick.
When completing the game though, I felt that the game was unfinished as there are some areas that I thought was left out or incomplete. Maybe because of the time restraints, budget or whatever, it did feel something was missing. My feelings was confirmed when I visited their site (and with all good reasons though) however don't let that put you down. Granted that the game is quite short (and because the easy difficultly certainly doesn't help) however what the game is missing in length / quantity is rich in charm and style. And the ending is one of the best I have seen in a long, long time.