Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

The important thing to understand before going in is that this gift edition is a package, not a separate follow-up. The playable centerpiece is Pilot Brothers: On the Track of Striped Elephant; the T-shirt, badge, calendar, and video CD are there to sweeten the purchase rather than reshape the time you spend at the keyboard.

That makes the first-hour hook very simple: you are either already drawn to the original game or you are not. There is no new mode, added campaign, or bonus game listed here to turn the package into a different recommendation. Buy it for the core game, then treat the rest as a shelf-worthy reward.

The strongest use case is a fan who wants more than a disc or installable copy. A badge and calendar are small things, but together with the shirt they make this feel like a specific piece of 1997 game culture rather than a bare software release. For a gamer only chasing playtime, that material value will be much less persuasive.

Graphics

This edition adds a video CD containing the Investigation held by Kolobki cartoon, giving the package an extra screen-based bonus alongside the game. The shirt, badge, and calendar also make the themed artwork part of the ownership experience rather than something confined to the game itself.

Story

The gift edition does not position itself around a new story. Its narrative draw remains whatever you come to On the Track of Striped Elephant for, while the included cartoon acts as a companion item rather than a stated continuation.

That distinction matters if you are hoping the video CD unlocks more plot or fills in the game’s events. The package is better understood as a themed collection: one game, one cartoon, and several physical keepsakes gathered under the Pilot Brothers name.

For fans, the cartoon is still a worthwhile inclusion because it extends the time you can spend with the property away from the computer. For anyone who needs a new chapter before buying a special edition, however, this bundle does not make that case.

Overall Experience

As a gift edition, this is charmingly direct. You get the game, a cartoon on video CD, and the kind of small branded objects that used to make boxed PC releases feel like occasions. The T-shirt is the headline extra; the badge and calendar give the bundle a pleasantly complete, slightly old-fashioned collector feel.

Its weakness is also its honesty: the value depends heavily on how much you care about owning those objects. None of the listed extras changes the game itself, so a purely practical buyer will find little reason to prioritize this over an ordinary copy of the original.

Still, for a Pilot Brothers enthusiast or a collector of Russian Windows releases, this is easy to like. It turns a single game into a compact memorabilia set, and the cartoon CD gives it a bit more personality than the usual bundle of paper inserts. Everyone else should judge it strictly on their desire to play On the Track of Striped Elephant.

Retro Replay Score

6/10