Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure Review

Anybody who’s anybody would do nothing other than heap loads of flowery praise on Zack & Wiki. I wish I could be cool like that. Unfortunately, I hate this game. I think Zack & Wiki has managed to piss me off more than any other game I’ve played on Wii. So what’s the big deal? I was a fan of point-and-click adventure games back in the day, and Zack & Wiki is like a modern, Wii-ized version of the genre. But this has a lot to do with what separated LucasArts’s adventure games from Sierra’s adventure games. King’s Quest, for instance, liked to punish you by killing you for trying random things or leading you into an inescapable dead end when you forgot to pick up an important item five hours ago. And that’s Zack & Wiki.

Okay, to be fair, Zack & Wiki isn’t that bad. Instead of taking place in one giant, connected overworld, Zack & Wiki is split up into different levels. So when you die or find that you’ve messed up a puzzle beyond repair, you’re only getting set back by maybe a half hour. But why die at all? It would have worked just as well to see Zack get smashed flat, then come right back to life and pick up where he left off. That being the case, however, the game would become a lot easier. With no threat of death, the only progress to be made is forward. Say… that doesn’t sound so bad! Maybe Zack & Wiki should have gone with the massive overworld idea, after all. It could have stretched the puzzle-solving out across multiple locations and felt like a real adventure (akin to Monkey Island or Sam & Max) instead of yet another video game.

The best levels, then, are the ones where you can’t die. Dying in a puzzle-oriented game is pointless, because you end up repeating the same steps to get back to where you were before. This isn’t an action game where, the more you play it, the better you get at it. Puzzles only have one way of doing things, and already knowing how to do it takes the fun out of it. In some cases, though, Zack & Wiki presents alternative solutions if you’ve screwed up one avenue. And this is fantastic. This is what the whole game should have been like: punishing you by forcing you to take the long route instead of just plain killing you. In one level, you are supposed to remove a block of ice surrounding a treasure chest. By accidentally (or purposefully, take your pick) destroying an item you need, however, your remaining option is to slowly whittle away at the ice with any tools lying around nearby.

I’ll give the game some leeway, because you can buy golden tickets that will revive you to the point right before you died. Every time you buy a ticket, though, they get more and more expensive. And every time you die, you lose all the money you collected in that level. Near the end of the game, then, you’ll be hard-pressed to keep a smile on your face. You can also buy and use hints if you want to be overly cautious, but I would stay away from these. Hints end up not being very helpful, frequently telling you something you already knew. Besides, the fun of the game is discovering the solutions on your own. But this is made quite stressful when you know you could die at any moment for being too adventurous. Oh, whoops! I wasn’t supposed to touch that, because the giant fish just ate me! It’s difficult to think ahead like that. It’s difficult to refrain from pushing every button and pulling every lever you come across. But solutions aren’t always obvious, and you need to do a bit of experimentation. Such a dilemma…

It’s a shame these things have to be an issue, because the game nails the Wii controls otherwise. Like your standard point-and-click adventure, you don’t control Zack directly. Instead, you click where you want him to go or click on objects for him to pick up and/or interact with. When Zack is ready to use an item or push a button or whatever, the game goes into a first-person perspective and basically says, “All right, do what you would do if you were really holding this,” whether it’s a saw or a hammer or a cup of water you need to dump out. So you do. And it works. Of course, it works, because you first have to set your starting position. From there, the game assumes you are holding it close enough to their default and responds accordingly. It doesn’t always get it perfect, though; there were some levers I had a very hard time manipulating. It’s pretty clear Zack & Wiki is aimed at right-handed players, too, because playing left-handed often felt backwards. Thanks, Capcom. Thanks a lot.

Another thing Zack & Wiki does right, though, is its style. This game looks amazing. It may be cartoony, but these are some of the best cel-shaded graphics I’ve seen. The characters are also pretty endearing, even though they don’t speak and have but a handful of obnoxious squeals. Zack definitely comes across as an amateur pirate prone to carelessly harm and kill himself for the sake of treasure (oh wait, that happens all the time). You would think his partner, Wiki, a flying golden monkey, would keep Zack in line. Wiki, however, seems just as self-absorbed, pointing out when you are falling to your death that he can fly and Zack is on his own, now.

Wiki may not seem important at first, but, with a shake of the Wii remote, he has the ability to turn animals into items. This ends up being an essential, recurring part of the game. Snakes turn into extendable grabber arms, frogs turn into bombs, and pirate henchmen turn into big stumps. What makes this an interesting mechanic is that you can turn these items back into their animal forms again. It acts as a way to transport a snake to an area where a snake is needed, since not even Zack is stupid enough to carry a snake when it’s a snake. When you’re a snake, you’re a snake all the way…

Final Comments

I feel bad about giving this game such a low score. Believe me, I really do. Zack & Wiki isn’t like all the other crap that gets put on Wii. It’s a charming, original IP built specifically with the hardware in mind and is chock-full of style and other good ideas. But there’s one glaring problem–and it’s a big problem–that keeps this from being entirely recommendable: Zack & Wiki is too damn frustrating. It’s not a “tough as nails, turns little boys into grown men” kind of frustrating, either. This is all about cheap deaths and having to repeat menial tasks. I’m sure there are people out there who really dig such trial-and-error gameplay. If that’s your forte, go nuts. May all your dreams come true. I, on the other hand, can’t stomach that. Therefore, Zack & Wiki gets a hesitant thumbs down from me.