I’ve always disliked  the cartoonish art style that so many modern games use..... just kills the magic for me.

When I think of what makes the genre special, pixel art is essential, lower pixels leave just enough unsaid for your brain to complete the image.
Powerful, because it turns every scene into a collaboration between artist and player. (reading a book effect). A blurry candle glow or a few orange pixels on a wall can feel more alive than a fully rendered modern light source, because your imagination animates it. (The studies on why pixel art works so great are fascinating)

Then there’s something like Machinarium ,  proof that you can evolve that style without losing its soul. Hand-drawn, textured, tactile, moody. It feels alive and timeless.

But these new “reboots”, like the latest Simon the Sorcerer,  go all-in on the flashy, smooth, vector-animated look. Bright colors, thick outlines, rubbery faces. It’s like a Saturday-morning cartoon rather than a world you want to explore. It strips away the subtlety, the mystery, the texture that made classic adventures feel immersive. I DONT WANT a  nickelodeon show lol

 my hate list includes Kings quest 7, the new monkey island etc 

Finished origins upon release in two gaming sessions. From the trailer i was waiting it to be quite easy but i was actually pleasantly surprised because it was actually quite challenging at times and the world gradually opened up with interconnecting puzzles. the hat and spells added a nice variety. It had features that i usually recognize in adventures that offer a more "advance" elevated gameplay in this kind of games like reused items, varied multilayered puzzles, not too lengthy dialogues and minimal help that i appreciate. With that said i think it was quite short ,shorter than 1 and 2. I would also prefer for the map to access all the areas so the backtracking would be easier not that is a huge problem because the world is quite small. As someone also mentioned a couple of transition areas do appear a bit empty and some polish would be nice like adding possible answers to interactions that actually make sense except of generic answers or more interacting hotspots to screens to add some flair, world building and red herrings to the environment.
Regarding the rest i actually played all of them but never advanced too much on Simon the sorcerer 3d, finished the rest. I remember really liking 1 and especially 2 which was my favorite and I believe the one i found the hardest. It had a really interesting setting with fairytales mixed in like Goldilocks and the Three Bears and princess and the pea that i found really funny. I remember Simon the sorcerer 1 had a bit of pixel hunting i didn't like and 2 had a really awful puzzle at the end that I had to click on anything on the inventory and the weird verb based user interface (although in retrospect I think it was designed intentionally
at the end to frustrate you). 4 and 5 didn't wowed me but i remember liking 5 more.

The series is good enough but it seriously went downhill after 2. I've got mixed feelings about Origins. I enjoyed the puzzles but the game is very empty. Like FREAKING EMPTY. Also, the scene changes and the animations were very so poor that they became distracting.

Here's a question open to everyone, what impact do you feel the character Swampling had on the entire series. Did it make you like or dislike the series more? I personally consider Swampling to be my favourite character. He is the complete polar opposite of Simon's personality.

Simon is an entertaining protagonist, however, he delivers only three kinds of jokes. Sarcastic quips, astonishment at the absurd, and lastly mean-spirited comments. Swampling offers a much needed counterbalance to Simon's acerbic style.

Swampling is a needy, naive, well-meaning, somewhat annoying, saccharine swamp creature. He views Simon as a very close "friend", which is probably news to Simon. In the first game he lives in a rustic folklore-esque treehouse by the swamp. The developers cleverly introduced 'MucSwamplings' in the second game as a parody of 'McDonald's'. This kept things from getting boring and was funny, as clearly indicated by Simon's initial reaction "My God! He's gone commercial!" - and yet Swampling himself hadn't changed, he was still the loyal and kind friend that Simon had met in the previous game. overall, I feel they got the balance right with these two characters.

https://it.ign.com/simon-the-sorcerer-or...ng-studios

Someone on Discord posted this article that suggest there is a remake of Simon 1 coming next year

Swampling was easily the best character in the game. He was even fun to move him around. He's much faster than Simon and he feels like he floats rather than walk. I wish there was more character interaction or more characters for that matter.

Got to admit, I never played the Simon the Sorcerer games back in the day so I'm quite intrigued by this title.
Obviously it means stumping up for all of the others to calm my 'collection OCD'...