Childhood memories are precious. Very, very precious. And because they’re precious, some of us can get, well, more than a little protective. I’ll admit to wincing when I first saw the name, “Little Red Riding Cap.” Why not something a little more lovely to the ear? The hard “a” just kills, guys.

But I digress.

I began The Adventures of Little Red Riding Cap full of hope that it would live up to the dark and interesting story on which it was based.

First, I picked a cat companion from a group of kitties of varying colors. Admittedly, this part was rather nice. I’m always down with and/or up for furry cuteness. Next, I was ready to wait patiently as the opening cutscene played on my PC. And continued playing. And continued some more. It was long. Very long. Patience ... waning. Strike one.

The dialogue in the cutscene was awkwardly phrased, and Little Red Riding Cap’s conversation with her mother sounded like a single voice actor having a conversation with herself. It hurt. Luckily, everybody knows that skipping cutscenes and dialogue should be a standard, basic feature on all games, right? Right?!?!

Apparently not.

I was stuck watching this painful scene go by ever so slowly. The seconds left in my life ticking away, one by one. It got to a point at which I was so frustrated that I muted my PC. Just a few minutes into the game, and I was already irritable and practicing avoidance. Strike two.

Next, I was assaulted by their carpel tunnel syndrome-inducing map. It was enormous and difficult to navigate, and I spent more time trying to figure out where I was going than I did paying attention to having fun. I’d prefer a system that would allow me to click on a preferred destination on the world map and have Little Red Riding Cap automatically do the navigating for me. If I’m spending a lot of my energy determining where I am in relation to what I need to do, I’m not having fun. Strike three.

I suppose three strikes is normally the point at which one would traditionally throw a game out. But I persevered, oh attractive reader of mine. I kept on keeping on — just for you.

The next agonizing feature that garnered my attention were the graphics. I like games in which you can really sense that somebody took great care with the details. This wasn’t one of those games. A little image popped up at the bottom of the screen whenever two characters interacted. Unfortunately, this little image had a black outline that emphasized each and every flaw in the job the graphics person did cutting around it. There was a gigantic, floating black dot above the little graphic, where the artist forgot to delete some stray pixels, and the black outline only served to highlight this garish blemish. It was incredibly messy.

I couldn’t call myself a reviewer if I didn’t manage to get past the 15 minute mark in the game. Of course, it actually took me more than 15 minutes to figure out where I was going, how I could move there and how to finally begin my first quest. Unfortunately, the quest didn’t go by so quickly either. (What’s that quote about relativity? Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it feels like a minute; sit on a hot stove for a minute and it feels like an hour. The latter sums up how I felt about Little Red Riding Cap.)

By the time I hit my first minigame, I was close to losing it. The minigame itself, which involved memorizing and repeating increasingly complex sequences, wasn’t bad. The directions, on the other hand, were horrendous. They were both convoluted and redundant. Awkwardly long pauses existed between the time the directions ended and gameplay was supposed to begin. Worse — the directions continued intermittently throughout the game. Eleventy billion hours of slow talking punctuated by mere seconds of action. Strike 1,249,092,235,671.

At this point, I couldn’t handle it anymore. I gave up and subsequently felt a great sense of relief wash over me.

You’re a smart reader, so I’m going to let you figure out what my recommendation is on your own. Do you think you should buy a game described as agonizing, painful, slow and poorly executed?