Post a Comment On: The Dreamcast Junkyard

[Image] ### WARNING! SPOILERS APPROACHING! ### WARNING! SPOILERS APPROACHING! ###
  Here at the 'yard, we're big fans of Leona's Tricky Adventures - one of the finest and most polished indie games released on our favourite little box of tricks. You can find our review of the game here, and if you hurry, there's still time to enter our recent competition to blag yourself a free copy.

However, even in our high esteem for the game, we still recognise that it has some imperfections. One of the main criticisms leveled at the game (mainly vocalised from the bleary-eyed, pasty-skinned, obsessive-compulsive completionist shut-in minority at the back of the room, who've toiled away through sleepless nights to finish every puzzle and find every gem) is that the end of the game isn't entirely satisfactory. It seems as if KTX had big plans for Leona's Adventure, and not all of this grand vision was realised in the final product. This means the game has a kind of incomplete feeling towards the end, with a number of dead ends and mysteries left unsolved to confuse and bewilder the hapless player seeking to satisfy that itch of achieving a state of 100% complete nirvana.

Hopefully, these loose ends in the story will be addressed in a potential (and hoped for) sequel, but until then, here is a dossier of screenshots highlighting the things you can safely ignore on your quest to beat the game into total submission. This will save you the trouble of wondering around the game world aimlessly looking for that next puzzle fix (like my bleary-eyed pasty-arse did). Be warned, end of game spoilers are featured heavily.

NO REALLY, MUCH SPOILERS







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DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU.







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[Image] This is as far as I can get - 457 completed puzzles. There are also 59 gems to find - you trade in 45 to make one Super Gem towards the end of the game, leaving 14 useless gems left over. [Image] Here is the fully explored game map. Notice how in the furthest South-Eastern and South-Western corners there are red markers indicating NPCs, but you can't speak to these as they are off the map. [Image] One of these NPCs is our froggy friend from the game's front cover, hiding on the path above this cliff. It doesn't seem like it's possible to get to meet him. [Image] This happy fellow goes to great lengths to describe a snowy village in the mountains populated with Yetis.  Not sure why, you never get to go and visit it. [Image] This map of the nine known worlds got me really excited heading towards the end game teleporter. I was (unrealistically) expecting the game to continue across all of these worlds, a bit like the unveiling of the Dark World in A Link to the Past. [Image] As the paths are revealed in the game by completing puzzles, you can often spot where spaces have been left for future paths to appear. Case in point: notice how the path below seems to have a space reserved for an alternate route heading East. [Image] And again here appears to be another missing path?  Come on Leona, let's go off road. [Image] The mystery of the sarcophagi remains a mystery, I thought Leona might get the ability to read the ancient text at some point... [Image]  ...and it would reveal that the helpers of the god would be the names of the people who worked on the game as a neat alternative to scrolling text in the end credits.  Didn't happen though. [Image] More mysterious panels in a language you can't translate. [Image] One of the most annoying doors in the game. It seems to suggest that after collecting 100 gems, you would be able to open it. With only 59 gems to collect tough, the door remains shut.[Image] This acolyte will not allow you to pass deeper into the catacombs of the temple.  Rat bastard.  [Image] Another shut door in the final cave.  "Open Sesame"? [Image] I found this present late in the game, I thought perhaps it was the start of a fetch quest like in Link's Awakening, where you trade items between NPCs until you get the last awesome item for yourself. Unfortunately, no-one was interested in my rock with a bow on it.  And I did actually ask everyone.
And that's about it. I still really enjoyed the game, but it would have been better if I wasn't distracted by all of these red herrings. Did you find any other unsolved mysteries in the game? Or have you bested me by finding a way around some of these dead ends. If so, please let us know in the comments.