One of the classic genres that has had a wonderful resurrection in the last generation has absolutely been the point-and-click adventure. While it once reigned practically supreme in the earlier PC days, over time it absolutely fell off for the most part. Thankfully, through a combination of re-releases, and seeming enthusiasm from many indie developers who’ve been making new ones, that has been turned around. Old Skies is absolutely coming to the genre party a bit late, at least in terms of the Switch’s lifespan, but it's pretty fresh take on the workings of time travel at least give it a seat at the table.

Generally opting for a more serious tone than most have gone for this generation, it’s no surprise that the decision was to go with some old reliable sci-fi. It turns out that in a future world where time travel is and has been quite possible, there have been some changes… and if care isn’t taken that can have some scary results in the form of chronal rifts. Playing as an agent of ChronoZen Time Travel Agency, your job will be to take high-value customers into the past, then being responsible for making sure they stay on plan and don’t do anything reckless. As you can assume, this frequently isn’t how things shake out, and so across seven different cases you’ll deal with a wide variety of eras and either clients behaving badly, or dangerous chronal circumstances that you’ll need to resolve, or there will be dire consequences.

In general this works out in a classic point-and-click fashion, with you being transported to a new location, and then working each of the handful of areas each entails, looking to work your way through the trip and to figure out your path to success. That will involve finding objects to work with, people to talk to, and working through a series of puzzles. Most of these are at least sensible, but I would say that they could sometimes be quite plodding as you’d need to repeatedly go back and forth between the same spots to work out the solution to the same problem. You can work through it, but some sequences do feel like they overstay their welcome, especially in what works out to be a game with plenty of length… making it seem like perhaps some fat could have been cut for a more lean experience that doesn’t feel bloated by filler. 

Since the adventure elements themselves are pretty standard, and the puzzles don’t tend to be terribly hard aside from some controls and sections feeling a bit cumbersome, what will likely make or break the experience will be its story and concepts. Curious about why people would pay to visit specific times if such travel were possible? If there was a risk of a paradox, how would it be dealt with? Things like this are folded into the story well and do make it more interesting, even if the pacing can sometimes let those story beats down. Regardless, this is a smart adventure worth embarking on if you enjoy sci-fi storytelling.