When a veteran explorer entrusts you with his dying legacy, you embark on a wild adventure that tests your mental limits. Years have passed since the veteran made a big mistake that ruined a native tribe, and he seeks to make up for the mistake in Amerzone – The Explorer’s Legacy. But cleaning up the mess he left behind is a dangerous prospect filled with a variety of puzzles. Examining your environment carefully and interpreting clues are the only ways you can progress.

Amerzone – The Explorer’s Legacy, a remake of the original from 1999, presents challenging puzzles that make you double-check every object and clue you encounter. The environments have amazing design, and there’s good support if you are struggling to complete the challenges. Navigation is slow, frame rates often drop, and reading some of the text is difficult due to the writing style. This is an upgrade on the classic adventure, but it’s tough to adjust from a modern perspective.

The story takes place in 1998, where you, a journalist, are interviewing veteran explorer Alexandre Valembois. Alexandre went to the exotic island of Amerzone in 1938 and stole a precious bird egg from the native tribes. This interference endangered the balance of Amerzone’s environment, but Alexandre is too old to fix his mistakes. He entrusts you with the mission, and you take it on. However, Amerzone has changed, and new obstacles stand in your way.

Amerzone – The Explorer’s Legacy keeps the main story the same as the original, but there are new side stories you can pursue. These side stories elaborate on character backgrounds and events that give you a better idea of who they were. For example, Alexandre Valembois seems like a greedy man who gave up love for potential fame. But an early side story reveals he’s also a great educator and is mostly adored by his students.

The side stories give you a greater incentive to explore the environment and look for the necessary items. They provide a decent diversion from the main puzzles while immersing you in the game’s world. Completing these side stories doesn’t provide an extra reward, letting you skip them if you are stuck or just want to proceed with the story. They function as a good narrative break or another way to investigate the new features of the game.

Puzzles can be frustrating, but the game has a detailed hint system to help guide you to the answer. Depending on the difficulty, you can get the immediate answer or gentle nudges in the right direction. This cuts down on the annoyance while still giving you the feeling of accomplishment. There are also ways to highlight all interactable objects to ensure you don’t miss anything. These changes make it easy to focus on what you must do instead of struggling in the dark.

However, navigating through this world is an exhausting task. You play from a first-person perspective, but move like you are in a point-and-click game. This makes backtracking a chore, especially if you don’t know how items work together or what you must examine. It’s possible to speed up the transitions, but there’s a considerable effect on gameplay. You don’t feel like you have full agency to walk around, which damages the immersion if you get lost.

Animated scenes also tend to have framerate drops during cutscenes. While it’s not obvious when people are speaking, it’s noticeable when walking into new environments or large action scenes. A good portion of the game’s story is animated, and there are even options to interact with some animated scenes. Seeing the slowdown breaks the immersion and makes you wonder if the game can run smoothly.

Puzzle solving can also be difficult because some text is in cursive handwriting and is sometimes unclear. Solutions can also be dated and not easy to guess without hints. Trying to read cursive handwriting for puzzles is a struggle, especially if they are important clues. While it does make sense for the time period, it’s a struggle to interpret in modern times. This sometimes makes you rely on the hint system because it’s the only way to interpret what is written in front of you.

Amerzone – The Explorer’s Legacy is a fun puzzle game that improves in some areas but also brings the past with it. It’s great to go through a revamped environment and immerse yourself while solving puzzles. But this comes with frame rate drops, slow travel, and some dependence on the hint system. It’s a great pick if you want to revisit a classic adventure, but it may not hold up well for a modern audience.