Eric the Unready

by Bob Bates

Fantasy , Humor
1993

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- Edo, November 25, 2023

- Drew Cook (Acadiana, USA), July 26, 2023

- Cryptic Puffin, March 15, 2023

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Eric the ultimately unsatisfactory, February 6, 2022
by Rovarsson (Belgium)
Related reviews: Fantasy, Comedy

The Legend game Eric the Unready takes the damsel-in-distress trope and uses it as a framework for a grand tour of wacky silliness and over-the-top parody.

The "chapters" of the story are implemented as stand-alone mini-adventures. Each of these is completely self-contained. The biggest of them has eight locations, and none of the puzzles is especially challenging (except for unintentional reasons, see below...)

The strongest point of Eric the Unready is certainly the humour. The constant barrage of slapstick, parody and some of the most groanworthy puns I ever heard kept me chuckling all the way through. Be that as it may, there still is such a thing as too much of a good thing. It seems as if every joke that sounded even remotely funny upon first thinking of it was included in the game. So there are a lot of just plain bad jokes in there.
A particular example of something that didn't work for me is the almost verbatim incorporation of a Monty Python scene. A television sketch works on facial expressions, tone of voice and, most importantly, tempo and rhythm. In translating this scene to IF, so much is lost that what is left feels pathetically uninspired.

The division of the overarching story into separate stand-alone bits makes it an extremely linear game. I don't really mind this, but I would have appreciated a bit more narrative tension as you progress to the later chapters. As it stands, the final chapter is no more serious or exciting than the introduction.

Although the puzzles can be rated as easy, I found that they are sometimes harder than (I suppose) intended. The utter silliness often stands in the way of logical cause-and-effect thinking, leading to a strategy of let's-try-anything-on-everything.

A very funny game, but not a very good one.

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- Karlok (Netherlands), April 14, 2021

- KathB (Toronto, Ontario), January 22, 2021

- Durafen, July 17, 2020

- Elizabeth DeCoste (Canada), April 2, 2020

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Remains a favorite, October 23, 2019

This game, a cross between graphic and text adventures, remains one of my very favorites. Its cultural references (to SNL characters, to Mel Brooks films, to beer commercials) somehow do not feel dated and retain a certain freshness; all the while, its own jokes are hilarious and clever, and require the player to occasionally think in puns. The game is not short (which is probably to be expected since it was originally a commercially published game) and its multiple different puzzles and scenes are satisfying in their depth. May not be for younger players since some portions are a little PG-13.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Funniest game I've ever played, May 6, 2019
by deathbytroggles (Minneapolis, MN)

Rated by many the best adventure game of 1993 and it’s pretty obvious to see why. You are the infamous Eric the Unready. You have been assigned to save the princess from her evil stepmother. Unbeknownst to you, you were assigned because you are the most ill-equipped knight in the land.

As with the early Legend games that used a text parser, you can play the game with or without graphics. The graphics are gorgeous for the time, and being a comedy they do well to serve the humor. The music is pleasant if too repetitive.

It’s more of a parody than a game. To the skilled adventurer, this should take less than a couple of weeks to win. The puzzles are not all that well-developed, and can even be annoying at times. But it is without a doubt the funniest game I have ever played. Bob Bates spoofs everything from Star Trek to Saturday Night Live to Zork and has a grand ole time with medieval culture. There is something here for everyone. I haven’t played the game since 2000, however, so it’s possible the jokes have become dated.

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- jusw85, March 26, 2018

- jakomo, September 21, 2017

- sushabye, September 2, 2017

- Mr. Patient (Saint Paul, Minn.), January 20, 2017

- winterfury (Russia), December 10, 2016

- amciek (Opole), March 1, 2015

- shornet (Bucharest), March 23, 2014

- Kuffen Bach (Brno), November 25, 2013

- Paolo Jose Cruz (Manila, Philippines), January 31, 2013

- Perry Simm (Vienna, Austria), December 2, 2012

- lavonardo, July 23, 2012

- AaronP, October 27, 2011

- Nathan (Utah), August 31, 2011

- André St-Aubin (Laval, Québec), May 31, 2011

- MKrone (Harsleben), April 26, 2011


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