During the 1980s and 1990s, Sierra On-Line dominated the point-and-click adventure market. With game series such as King’s Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, Gabriel Knight, and many others, the company was a force to be reckoned with. Sierra wanted to expand its presence in the European market and found a solution by acquiring the French developer and distributor Coktel Vision. Coktel Vision was primarily known for its educational software and games aimed at the French market. One of its most notable franchises was the Gobliiins series.
These point-and-click adventures, centered around a group of goblin characters, achieved moderate success and spawned several sequels over the years. On February 16, 2026, Gobliiins 6 was released as a direct sequel to the second entry in the series and received positive reviews.
Story-wise, this may be somewhat confusing for newcomers who have never played a Gobliiins game before. That is why it is great to see Red Art Games bringing all five classic Gobliiins titles to modern platforms in a single compilation.
Five games for the price of one
As mentioned before, this compilation includes all of the Gobliiins games, with the exception of the newest entry. In each game, you take control of a team of up to three different characters, with the roster changing from one title to the next.
The heroes’ quests range from rescuing a king’s pet and finding his abducted child to solving a widespread epidemic that turns people into potatoes (seriously?). While most point-and-click adventures place a strong emphasis on narrative, the Gobliiins games definitely do not.
Although each game features a simple story and some light narrative through conversations with NPCs, the lore never becomes particularly deep. To be honest, however, I did not find this to be a problem at all. The focus of every Gobliiins game is on solving a wide variety of puzzles using your team’s unique abilities, and that is where the series truly shines.
Teamwork
As mentioned above, the real highlight of the Gobliiins games is their puzzles. Each game presents a variety of environmental challenges that often require you to make use of each character’s unique abilities.
For example, in the first Gobliiins game, Oups is the only character who can pick up and use items. Asgard relies on his strength to overcome obstacles, while Ignatius is the one you turn to when a bit of magic is required. Many puzzles require you to combine these abilities in creative ways, and some even demand quick reactions as you switch between characters to solve time-sensitive challenges.
It is in these moments that the controls can become a little cumbersome when playing with a controller. Rapidly swapping between characters and performing actions under pressure does not always feel as intuitive as it should, which can occasionally lead to frustration.
Controller issues
With the Gobliiins games originally being designed for PC, I was curious to see whether playing with a controller would cause any issues—and unfortunately, it did.
To control your characters, you move a cursor around the screen with the thumbstick and press a button to send them to a specific location. However, whenever I tried to point at a particular object, the cursor would automatically drift away. At first, I thought one of my controllers was suffering from some kind of acute stick drift. After testing several different controllers, however, I concluded that the problem was not caused by my hardware.
There is an option to slow down the cursor by holding the left bumper, and while this does help to some extent, I am fairly certain this was not the intended solution. I understand that faster cursor movement is necessary for some of the game’s puzzles, but having to slow it down manually at the press of a button does not strike me as good controller design.
As mentioned earlier, some puzzles require you to use all three goblins in quick succession. To facilitate this, the game allows you to switch between characters with the press of a button. At least, that is what is supposed to happen. As you may have guessed, however, this feature often failed to work as intended, making certain puzzles more frustrating than they should have been.
Bugs, bugs, bugs
During my playthrough of the individual games, I encountered several minor bugs as well as a few more serious, game-breaking issues. As mentioned earlier, I experienced a number of controller-related problems where inputs did not register as they should have.
In addition, I ran into several environmental glitches, including one instance in Gobliiins 4 where my characters stopped moving altogether. I also encountered a crash while loading a new level, which prevented me from progressing further.
That said, I do want to give credit where it is due. This latter issue was resolved quickly after I contacted Red Art Games and exchanged a few messages with their team, so kudos to them for their prompt support.
Extras
Normally, with every compilation package, you can expect upscaled graphics, a remastered soundtrack, and some extra content for the fans. I was hoping for a deep dive into the history of the Gobliiins franchise, but unfortunately there was far less content than I had expected.
First of all, each game has been upscaled to 4K Ultra HD, which is especially noticeable in the later entries, where the vibrant colors are a real treat for the eyes. There is also an option to play the games in either fullscreen or windowed mode, with a selection of different background borders to choose from.
For the first three games, players can choose between the original floppy disk and CD-ROM versions, each featuring different music. For this review, I played all of the games in their “ultimate” CD-ROM versions, as that was also how I experienced them when I was younger. Still, it is nice to see that players who remember the games in other formats have not been forgotten.
When it comes to the extras, however, I was very disappointed by what this collection has to offer. There is an option to listen to the soundtracks of all the games, watch a handful of interviews with the series creator, Pierre Gilhodes, and browse a collection of artwork from the franchise.
As someone who enjoys learning about gaming history, I was disappointed to discover that the total interview content amounts to only 15 to 20 minutes, split into several short segments. I really wish there had been more, because these games truly deserve a more in-depth retrospective.
Gobliiins Collection brings a piece of gaming history to modern platforms—one that every point-and-click enthusiast should experience. It is just unfortunate that the collection suffers from a number of minor issues that can occasionally detract from the overall experience. The extras included are simply too limited and left me wanting more. So, should you avoid this collection? Not really. Despite its shortcomings, you are still getting five games that each offer around ten hours of gameplay for roughly 25 euros or dollars.
Just keep in mind that it is not always the smoothest ride.
pro
- 5 games for a small price
- soundtracks
con
- bugs
- small amount of extra's
- controls
