Zork III

by Dave Lebling and Marc Blank

Episode 3 of Zork
Fantasy , Zorkian , Cave crawl
1982

Return to the game's main page

Reviews and Ratings

5 star:
(22)
4 star:
(26)
3 star:
(22)
2 star:
(2)
1 star:
(0)
Average Rating:
Number of Ratings: 72
Write a review


Previous | << 1 2 3 >> | Next | Show All


- LoquySSS46 (Longueuil, Québec, Canada), March 27, 2024

- Artran (Taipei, Taiwan), February 10, 2024

- ENyman78 (Gold Beach, OR), October 30, 2023

- Andrew Schultz (Chicago), September 8, 2023

- Phil Riley, March 24, 2023

Adventure Classic Gaming

In some ways, Zork III: The Dungeon Master is the original Myst clone. There is a sliding blocks puzzle and some mechanical puzzles, all in the context of little plot and lots of ambience. There are also some standard inventory based problems, and a few very strange people to deal with. As such, there is not much of a story to propel you through the dungeon, just your love of exploration.
-- David Tanguay

You wrote this review - Revise it | Direct link | Add a comment

- cgasquid (west of house), January 29, 2022

- Lance Campbell (United States), December 24, 2021

- Pirate Gopher (Fort Worth TX), September 2, 2021

- heasm66 (Sweden), August 10, 2021

- Ogre (A Cave), January 6, 2021

- Zape, August 23, 2020

- Tim Delag (Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan ), August 20, 2019

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
I finished the trilogy and all I got was this lousy grue, May 3, 2019
by deathbytroggles (Minneapolis, MN)

An ambitious final entry into the original trilogy that is a pleasure to read but a veritable nightmare to play, Zork III’s value now is mostly for posterity.

Unlike the treasure hunting of the first two games, Zork III has you on a more heroic mission not surprisingly involving coming face to face with a dark foe of Frobozz. This is ultimately more satisfying than just collecting antiquities, and with high-level prose that provides a chilling atmosphere, it could have been a memorable adventure. However, the puzzles are incredibly hard with most of them being patently unfair. There’s even a non-obvious way to lock yourself out of victory, which was annoying as *$@! then and is intolerable now. And with even less character interaction and humor than earlier in the series, it really breaks the game for me.

That said, if you want to play the game for completionist’s sake, have a walkthrough handy so you can enjoy the ride.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

- ishashobar, September 4, 2018

- Guenni (At home), February 6, 2018

- e.peach, December 28, 2017

- nosferatu, July 22, 2017

- TheAncientOne, March 25, 2017

- Spike, February 26, 2017

- EngineerWolf (India), December 18, 2016

- Xavid, December 7, 2016

- NinaS, July 3, 2016

- Denk, April 17, 2016

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
A haunting and evocative finale to the Zork series., February 3, 2016

The finale in the Zork series is a big change from the first two games. The game is smaller as to puzzles and map, but much bigger on ambiance. This game feels like a refining purgatory, with a chance to demonstrate your courage, mercy, trust, and bravery. The setting is dreamlike and thoughtful. The puzzles are very difficult. For all of them, it is easy to try to solve them, get part way through, and have no idea if you succeeded or failed. Almost all of them are time-based, requiring you to wait, do several actions in succession, or to return frequently to a given place. Some places (like the land of shadow or the viewing table) will stay in my mind for a long time.

The Royal Puzzle breaks up the gameplay a bit, but I loved it. I first solved it in MIT Zork; as a mathematician that is terrible at most IF puzzles, it was fun to have a puzzle that I could finally solve on my own. I literally used a walkthrough on every other puzzle in this game.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 


Previous | << 1 2 3 >> | Next | Show All | Return to game's main page