Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure for Wii Reviews by Gamers

Wow...this game is a pain. I don't mean to come out the gates with such negativity but seriously. It's not that it's difficult it's just frustrating. You remember that scene from Happy Gilmore when Happy keeps on trying to shoot the ball into the clown head and it keeps spitting it back at him? Yeah, that's what this game is like. "Hey good try but not good enough" hock a loogie, spit in your face. And yes you do wish to have the satisfaction of smashing the nose of this game with putter. And it starts right from the beginning.
For starters, the moment you begin to play the game you can't help but have the urge to want to mute the game, due to the continuous annoying sounds that the characters were ill-programmed to make (if that's made up word I apologize, it just seemed right). Between the main character's zelda-esque grunts to your(more notably) annoying side kick's pokemon like sounds, the mute button will be in your future.
Another annoying thing in regards to sounds made by characters is that when a character has a dialogue box appear, whether it be for character info or actual dialogue, they get stuck in (what I will call) a loop stance or loop expression. This is when a character is supposed show a certain action stance or expression in order to show what he/she/it is saying and will repeat it until you continue to the next dialogue box. Similar to older Square Soft games (minus the whole being a good game part). While they do this they will sometimes make sound as well....and continue to make this sound....until you press continue. This almost makes you not want to finish reading the dialogue box just to keep your sanity. I mean I already have a wife who gets stuck in these loops. Seeing them in a game just blurs the line of reality and imaginary. At least here you have the option to skip through. (inhales)....That' enough about minor annoyances lets get to the major ones...if we must....(exhales)
out of space contact at FB (Ranier Aponte) for full review

This game has a lot of charm; the puzzles, when well designed, can be a lot of fun; there's not much better than being told you're Smart or (a) Genius for solving the riddles. At times I was having a blast!

But at other times...

Many of the puzzles are poorly designed. If you don't notice the one thing you're supposed to click that may be hard to reach, forget it, kiss a half hour goodbye before you give up and look for help. If you don't remember that every now and then you can flip an item by shaking the Wiimote, forget it. Some of these puzzles just require monotonous trial and error. In some levels you could easily be killed and have to start again... and this is not a fast game! Sure, if you already solved part of the puzzle it's a lot quicker to get back to where you left off, but it's still annoying when you sometimes must do so again and again while trying to make forward progress. Other times, you can do things out of order and break a puzzle, but the game won't stop you from trying to continue on...

And then there's the motion controls. Sounds fun to make like you're turning gears, pulling levels, reaching for things... right? Only problem is, it doesn't work! I tried to give this game the benefit of the doubt, I was willing to kindly call the controls inconsistent... but no, they just mostly don't work. I found myself shouting "Up! Up!" in trying futilely to raise, not lower, a lever. Turning anything is a gamble. And it's all made worse because if you don't make just the right motions sometimes, the action won't work the way you expect and so you'll think you're trying to solve the puzzle the wrong way when you were really on the right track all along. Kiss another half hour goodbye for that!

All this said... if there were a sequel with better puzzle design and controls, I would go all-in again, because this has a lot of potential. If you have more patience than me you may get more out of this. But as it stands, I cannot recommend it.