Simon the Sorcerer Origins

Simon the Sorcerer Origins is a great experience if you want to enjoy a wonderful story. There are lots of gags in there, and they don’t shy away from adding some creative gameplay ideas. Sure, there are small frustrations, like stiff animations at times or bad inventory management, but that didn’t push me away from the game. If anything, it’s a solid game that certainly earns its spot as one of the best adventure games in the past few years.

This point and click adventure ticks all the boxes to feel like a retro classic. Stunning presentation, great design, and really good acting.

Funny, quirky, creative, and brilliantly staged—a true Simon adventure through and through.

Simon the Sorcerer Origins is a finely crafted and gorgeous throwback to the heyday of the genre. It is witty, fun, and wholesome in a way that should delight gamers of all ages. I loved it more than I could have anticipated.

Overall, we decided to give Simon The Sorcerer Origins a high score because we genuinely enjoyed it — but rarely has it felt more important to properly contextualize what that number actually represents. We wanted to reward it as a clear signal to fans of LucasArts-style adventures and similar titles that this game was made specifically for them. It stays true to that vision to the point of making design choices that might not sit well with players who aren’t very familiar with the point-and-click genre. But Smallthing Studios clearly defined its audience, leaving no room for misunderstanding, and stripped away all the elements alien to the genre that other studios have added over the years in an attempt to attract people who barely know what an adventure game even is. It’s a radical choice, of course, and some may even see it as a flaw — fair enough. So make your own judgment, but hopefully our reasoning here is clear enough.

Simon the Sorcerer Origins is an excellent debut for the team at Smallthing Studio. On the one hand, it revives the mechanics of the old-school graphic adventures that inspired it, with just a few adjustments: a bold move in an era when attention spans are a thing of the past. On the other hand, it renews the genre with hand-crafted aesthetics and a few small concessions to the modern player. The result is a fresh game that recalls the past without getting lost in nostalgia. Graphic adventures are still alive and well.

I’ve quite happily played through and enjoyed Simon the Sorcerer: Origins, and for fans of the series, this is genuinely a pretty great return for this 90’s adventure game anti-hero. In many ways, it feels made by a group of fans that loved these classic games, and as such, is made with a fair amount of care and passion. I hope they get to make another one.

Simon the Sorcerer Origins is a nostalgic adventure set in a vibrant fantasy world filled with jokes. Visually, the game ranges from “acceptable” to “excellent”.

If you’ve missed Simon as much as I have, you can nicely satisfy that longing with Simon the Sorcerer: Origins. It may not be a masterpiece or a genre-defining game, but it’s clear that it was made by a team deeply passionate about the series.

Simon the Sorcerer: Origins is an adventure game aimed primarily at fans of adventure games and the series in general, and we would not recommend it to someone new to the genre, due to the way the puzzles are implemented. It will not change Simon's status in the adventure world, but it is a fine addition to the series, which respects the material it is called upon to manage.

Beautiful, unexpectedly emotional, but frequently frustrating, Simon the Sorcerer is back in an intriguing if uneven series prequel reboot.

Simon The Sorcerer Origins is a game which some will love, and some will drop off of. However, in a time of re-releases with an extra 'episode' of content tacked on to the end, it's nice to get a full-blown new game in an old franchise. I hope the game does well enough to get a sequel/prequel/presequel so that they can take some more risks with the puzzles and potentially add in some help for those of us who didn't grow up with these types of adventures.

Simon the Sorcerer Origins is coming out of retirement, and fans couldn’t be happier. There are some great visuals, to the point where the art team truly outdid themselves, and the music is downright fantastic and fits right in with the world. Though the puzzle difficulty isn’t forgiving, and unfortunately, they don’t offer a hint book for those who need it. Chris Barrie, the voice of Simon, voices a bratty kid well, but he’s not believable enough that he could be an eleven-year-old. With all that said, Origins is filled to the brim with a lot of humour and genuine laugh-out-loud moments that made me want to push through the punishing puzzles to find out what Simon would say next. Hopefully, there’s a chance for a remaster of the original two games from Smallthings Studios, and I cannot wait.

For those who carry a nostalgic torch for the franchise, Simon the Sorcerer Origins is as close as you'll get to the original in 2025.