I pretty much had given up on the series based on my play through of 1 & 2, only starting Dracula 3 in order to finish it and get the bundle off my pc. What a pleasant surprise I had. Dracula 1 and 2 were abysmal adventure lites, with annoying 3d control wonkiness, lame puzzles, huge pixel vampire boobs and bad graphics made me wish I had not gotten the series.

However, the 3rd installment blew my mind. This time they seemed to take pains to make the interface user friendly, with plenty of quick loads/saves. The many characters were well fleshed, the graphics pretty good. However, its puzzles are what shone. Its been a long time since I pen and papered a game, making notes and trying to sort out the huge amount of clues. There were lots of data to peruse, lots to shuffle round and get wrong till you screamed with frustration. Yes, they were pretty complex and without a walk through I never would have finished but that was perfect in my mind. The story was also very captivating and at times the ambiance was down right scary, with the odd jump scare or two, sometimes unintended. Redundant back tracking only seemed to happen towards the end which was a relief.

All in all a toothsome offering of adventure goodness. the only blip of the game in my mind ..

(spoiler spoiler spoiler )


was the ending. A bit of a let down and graphically subpar for the final boss encounter.(i kept thinking pirate zombie for some reason)..I also wanted to see an alternate ending for going evil which I felt was important to the storyline.


Now I wonder if I should give the next bundle a go. Are they up to number 3s quality?

Take this with a pinch of salt, as it's nothing more than my opinion, but I think you should really try 4 and 5. Bear in mind they're not as good as the third installment -- I think it's honestly one of the best point and click adventures ever made, so it would be hard to follow up --, but they're still better than Dracula 1, and kind of on par with 2. Since you didn't like the first two all that much, you'll probably won't like 4 and 5, as well.

Personally, I would rate them as follows:

- Dracula 3;
- Dracula 2;
- Dracula 4+5 (they seem like the same game, to me);
- Dracula 1;

If it's worth anything, the puzzles on 4+5 are a bit better than those you find on 1 and 2, but the atmosphere is a bit... lacking, hence why I think they're inferior to Dracula 2, overall. Definitely not as great as the third one,as a whole, that's for sure.