The Little Match Girl 5: The Hunter's Vow

I played this game over about two months during lunches at work. I kept thinking I was close to completing it, only to find that there was more.

There are two main gameplay phases of the game (although they aren't the whole game). In the first, you play as a new main character (not the match girl) who has a special key that opens portals in locked doors. You have to hand out five invitations, but a lot of the puzzle is figuring out who the invitations are for, how to deliver them, and what the event is. There are historical areas, fantasy areas, and sci-fi areas.

In the second phase, you command five PCs (!) all of whom can operate independently. I was quite shocked a second phase even existed, as the first phase was very long. This second phase includes a large and complex multi-story map, and each of the characters has unique properties.

Playing this in bits and pieces over weeks, it was easy to get lost, but each time I came back I operated on the assumption that the game was fair and logical and that if I explored and kept notes I could move forward. This worked, although I did have to ask the author about one puzzle involving distracting someone.

The story was full of good twists and turns, and I found enjoyment in the polish of the game and in the well-crafted storytelling. I feel like it has a lot of implications on the match-verse.

Each main installment of the Little Match Girl series has introduced some new and interesting mechanic, and this installment's is (Spoiler - click to show)Linus's skeleton key for Part 1, and (Spoiler - click to show)controlling the five Ebenezabeths for Part 2. The former is a novel approach to this series's core concept, but the latter is unlike anything I've seen in IF games before.

The narrative of Hunter's Vow has also improved upon it predecessors, giving players a protagonist other than Ebenezabeth, showing (Spoiler - click to show)Ebenezabeth at various points in her life, and several fun characters from and references to previous games in the series.

Fun game, definitely worth playing!

Little Match Girls, assemble! This episode immediately subverts the LMG formula by putting you in the shoes of Linus, an NPC from previous games, who can jump between worlds by locking/unlocking doors. He's hunting five different versions of Ebenezabeth, to bring them together for a daring rescue mission foreshadowed in LMG4. The second part of the game gives you control over all five match girls, jumping between them at will, as they infiltrate a vampire's lair and use their unique skills in conjunction to save the day.

Big maps, lots of NPCs, action sequences, character switching, cut scenes, all contribute to the cinematic feeling of of Little Match Girl 5, but it's the story where this episode really excels: giving glimpses of vast world-building, then pulling back and making it all about Ebenezabeth and her immediate circle of friends and enemies, a story about people instead of just places or ideas. This trick is repeated multiple times, and culminates in possibly the biggest thing to happen to Ebenezabeth in the series so far.

"The Little Match Girl 5: The Hunter's Vow" is the tenth game about the titular Match Girl overall. Being familiar with the previous nine, I correctly expected it to be smooth, pleasant, gripping, and take me to some more interesting times and places.

What I didn't expect is to be genuinely surprised. Come on: it's the tenth game on the same subject.

It surprised me. Then again. And again.

P. S. "Goroshinka" means "Little Pea" in Russian. That's another Andersen reference.