LPQ | "Beyond Time" aka "Obelisk: Project Oscar - オベリスク" (1996-1997) How to Double your profit
6This game in itself is a gigantic rabbit hole ... it was made in 1995 , pushed in Japan by Nec in 1996... then picked up by DreamCatcher , that in 1997 financed re-shooting of those FMV scenes with American Actors, published it under the name "Beyond Time" and in some regions under "Shadow of the Obelisk" ... the company "Jones & Jones Multimedia, LLC" in itself is also a mystery, since it made Hundred titles ... but some sites only post the American remake "Beyond Time" , and some only theirs Disney Games that they made in 2000s ...
Info about the game :
Shadow of the Obelisk is set in the time of Akhenaten the heretic king, who, in an attempt to unify Egypt under his god, Aten, ordered closed all the temples dedicated to the many other gods of Egypt. At the heart of the mystery are the Looters, time travelers who have come to a lonely, almost deserted temple on the banks of the Nile. Here they have built a Time Gate to enable them to pillage the art treasures of the past. Residing in the temple alone was Menet, the High Priestess. Old and ailing, Menet had observed the strange and terrible changes which had come over the sacred precincts, the strangers who had taken over the labyrinth beneath the pyramid on the west bank and filled the once holy place with fear and death. Menet summoned Nefertare, last hereditary priestess of Osiris, Isis and Horus to come back to the temple, but dies before her young successor arrives. Nefertare finds herself alone in the temple complex on the east bank, and herself in the midst of a terrible mystery which threatens the very nature of existence. Menet died before she could initiate her into all the temple secrets, but left behind a few scraps of papyrus which record some of her discoveries, as well as clues to the temple mysteries. Before Nefertare succeeds in discovering the nature of the danger, she is caught in an inter-time rift caused by the strangers across the river, known only as the Looters. She remains in the temple complex, trapped and able to communicate only when someone comes near.
Centuries later, an archaeologist who is investigating the mysterious disappearance of some famous antiquities, is caught in the same inter-time rift and transported back to Akhenaten's Egypt. He appears in the deserted temple, and discovers the plight of the trapped priestess. With her assistance, he travels into the ancient mysteries of Egypt and through the perilous labyrinth. From the time gate located there, he may undertake the perilous attempt to access the remaining open destinations: a deserted Mayan city in the depths of the jungles of Central America, the lost Royal City of Atlantis, and a remote and secret Tibetan Lamasery. Each of these locations holds a piece of the puzzle necessary to solve the game and repair the malfunctioning time gate. With Nefertare's assistance, the archaeologist tries to piece together the scattered clues and solve the ultimate mystery--how to save all that is and will be. As the player, (who is the archaeologist), moves through the game, the story unfolds in a series of quick-time movies, journals and scrolls as he is able to enter other times and places looking for clues and trying to unlock the mystery hidden in the Shadow of the Obelisk.
IMO : Game bombed in reviews, for its short time you need to complete it of 1h (if you skip the Diaries). It was also compared by many, as a awful "Timelapse" Knockoff that did the same story 100x better in 1996 www.gog.com/game/timelapse . Not to mention,the devs knew this game was short, so they placed 2 similar puzzles (Snake Pyramid, Tibet Cycle of Equality) that have 100 correct solutions, but forced on players only THEIRS ONE SOLUTION of 100 POSSIBLE !!!... making the player not use his logic skills to solve it , but GUESSING what of those 100 correct solutions is the right one ... and ass move
Showing the 1996 and 1997 version , its FMV and story changes ... in 1996 all survived ,and its shown the main Museum Curator that send you on this mission ... was female\male Howard but now as a old Man\Woman ... a ending explanation missing from the American version , not to mention in the 1997 version the team is lost in time ... and Howard at the end laughs ,and you are teleported back to the same spot you started the game ... with his laugh hanging in the air ... making you clueless what its all about ... a thing that the Jap version explains in detail...
______Chapters
00:00 Menu+Logos
01:14 Making of Obelisk
10:36 Japan 1996 Intro
15:18 Western 1997 Intro
19:26 Gameplay of the Japan and Western versions combined showing different cutscenes
01:04:30 Comparison of Diaries, American 1997 to Japan 1996 ...
02:27:57 SOS message
02:32:50 Ending Cinematics Japan vs American
This Video is a part of my Cynical Games Review Site : https://gbacklog.blogspot.com/
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