Frantic Franko Demo

There are circumstances where the absurd can come in handy, or are at least be appropriate. However, it can also be abused in all the wrong situations, because it is much more convenient just to pretend like nothing has to make sense when you are unable to create a coherent storyline. In essence, the subject is quite fragile and it rarely works as intended.

Frantic Franko is a point-and-click adventure game in which you play the role of Franko himself, who happens to be a classic dwarf with an attitude problem. The game uses regular gameplay mechanics for the genre, but it also changes them quite a bit and it tries to innovate even the most mundane mechanics. However, these ‘improvements’ are not always helpful, unfortunately.

To begin with, the story can only be deduced from the game’s description, because it doesn’t really make sense when you hear bits and pieces of it in the game. In essence, it all starts when Franko gets insulted by a dwarf from another clan and he goes on a quest to teach him a lesson. Along the way, he meets up with some sort of wizard, who proposes him another quest instead, but he’s not very straightforward about it.

While in regular point-and-click adventure games you have the possibility to inspect the objects surrounding you, things are no different in this case either. However, Franko has to lick, smell and hit everything with the axe instead, which is not exactly helpful in most circumstances. Various items can be stored in the inventory and used later, or even combined to obtain other objects.

The most disappointing part of the game is the technical aspect, because almost every component is awful. To start with, the graphics are ugly, and there is nothing you can do to change that. Even worse, the voice acting is hilariously bad and you’d be much better off playing without any sounds at all, especially since the game comes with subtitles for every dialog line.

All thing being equal, Frantic Franko fails to feature any real attraction, which is why it is rather difficult to recommend it to anyone. Hence, unless you are prepared to sort through the mess and maybe see the beauty underneath of it all, you’d better try something else instead.