Adventure Game Check: The Whispered World

To give you a small impression of this adventure game I'm going to outline the most important aspects of the game.

Title: "The Whispered World" (available on Amazon *here*)

Platform: PC

Genre: point & click adventure

Developer: Daedalic Entertainment

Publisher: Daedalic / Deep Silver

Graphics:
I have always been a fan of 2D-adventures. Some developers made the step and tried to realise an adventure game in 3D. As far as I'm concerned the outcome could just never keep up with the traditional 2D graphics. Above all because 3D is simply unnecessary when you control the game through point & click and only makes it needlessly complicated.
Anyway, the drawn backgrounds in this game are just breathtaking. Every single one is an entire artwork on its own. The amount of details is literally out of this world. Here are a few screenshots to give you at least a small idea of it:

Soundtrack:
This might very well be the best video game soundtrack I've ever heard. It is just indescribably beautiful and will most certainly leave you with goosebumps.
*click* for a playlist of the whole soundtrack on Youtube

Characters:
Every single character in this game is lovingly drawn and elaborated. Each character is absolutely unique in his very own way. Either it is a depressive, cynical but very honest clown, a senile but really affectionate grandfather, a transformable caterpillar or two megalomaniac stones wanting to take over the world domination.

Story:
The story in this game manages to carry you off into its own beautiful, magical and idyllic world that is potentially coming to an end soon. Don't worry, I'm certainly not going to spoil anything for you. I'm only going to say that the story is totally compelling right from the beginning and also has some unforeseeable twists in it ... word has it that I might have shed one or two little tears towards the end.

Puzzles:
My only little point of criticism concerns the puzzles you have to solve in the game. Most of them are in fact acceptably logical but a few ones are just reeeeeally frustrating. Besides, the game doesn't offer any kind of help when you get stuck at one point. I totally hate having to resort to a walkthrough but there were two situations in this game where I would probably have despaired if I hadn't done so.

Conclusion:
Definite buy recommendation! This is an absolute masterpiece of an adventure that is certainly going to keep you thinking well beyond the end of the game.