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King’s Quest ‘2015’ (All The Positive Talk)

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Daventry - 03 August 2015 08:51 PM

Did anyone else get stuck trying to figure out how to get the pumpkin on their first playthrough? Man, that took me awhile.

Also, it was a nice touch how they completely revised Grahams look between the prologue and the main story to show the separation of time. Metal knights boots, silver belt buckle, leather armor, ruby brooch, fancy cape lining and a more stately hat all adorn him in the prologue and are absent during the main quest in favor of a set of more rumpled, travelers clothes from a time before he was a knight.

I think all animals related puzzles were easy to figure out.
And they all were cute. The strife between badger and squirrels was shown in a cutscene, iirc so it was easy to guess.
However , puzzle knock code took me a while.
Also I was super bad at last board game, even after duping the opponent i managed to route the arrow to myself. Pan

     

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i thought the hardest puzzle option was: if you buy the pumpkin lantern first during the eye quest, youre supposed to realize that dipping it in purple paint makes it look like an eye (and that the teeth whitening is actually purple paint).. i think that one was borderline not fair. I really liked that there were multiple ways to do things though.

     
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So, just beat it a second time using a different path. The ending graphic was different! So it changes to reflect the decisions you make in the game. I am going back to play it along the thinkers path now. 2 PSN trophies left to obtain.

     
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I think I was stuck the longest time in getting the pumpkin. Took be some time to use the meat on the bush to get the other animal.
Also needed some tries in the last game.

Funniest part: WHISPER CAN DO IT - the whole duel of speed was pretty funny

     
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So, here is my official review of the game:

It was a long wait. I will admit that I had given up hope.

Once, looking back in the mists of my memory, now, like disconnected dreams, I see myself, pressed close beside my two brothers, my fathers head a silhouette before the small monitor, the only light in the room.

We were enthralled, enraptured. We were on an adventure, far from home, together. Love was on the line, and honor. We needed to save our family who had been stolen away by a dark wizard. The journey was long and arduous and there was no knowing what manner of wonder or enchantment waited for us around the next corner or on the next screen. My father wielded the mouse as though it were our sword. We were his advisors on the trip, offering up our most ingenious ideas for outwitting the game. Sometimes our ideas would work, and during those times we felt like the cleverest of all adventurers, like heroes on a King’s Quest.

Together there, in the dark. Sometimes my mother would poke her head into the room and call out that it was time for bed. We could not hear her. We were far away traversing snowy peaks, endless deserts, tropical islands and gloomy forests. We were exploring ice caverns and hidden treasure vaults. Rescuing the hearts of fair maidens and learning the secret language of animals. It was a special time.

Sometime later, we would journey to the land of the green isles in pursuit of true love. We would not be denied. No minotaur or mint loving genie would keep us from our destiny. We sailed stormy seas, scaled impossible cliffs and even conquered death itself in our quest.

Later still, we entered into an animated fantasy, involved in the plight of a mother and daughter lost and separated from each other. We were charged with reuniting them. The road would not be simple. It never was. It wound through many curious avenues and startling revelations before we found the two together again at the last.

By this time, we were more than fans. We were an extension of the royal family, having joined them on all of their formative adventures. Having guided them through safely back to the warmth and safety of castle Daventry each time.

I moved away from home. Far removed, in a dorm room of my own, I sat alone and every day followed the news on the development of the next chapter of our family saga. King’s Quest 8 was in development and Sierra utilized this new thing called the internet to update their website frequently with previews an glimpses of what we could expect in this new adventure that would see the series move into 3D for the first time. Every week, there was a new 3D character or creature model on display in animated form, to whet our appetite for more. I was so excited. Upon arrival, the game was… dark. My brothers were far away. My father too. I drove the adventure. It was a different feeling and not just because the game was a vast departure from what we had come to know and love from King’s Quest. Nevertheless, within that dark and lonely game, I found the makings of a fantastic 3D adventure.

And then, night truly fell over the kingdom of Daventry. The castles doors were shuttered. The callls of past adventures, of joy and sorrow, defeat and victory echoed through it’s empty halls. Sierra was no more.

Through the long years I waited, along with many other fans, for any word of a re-launch, or next installment. A few times, we were teased with a sudden light but ever it was faint and quickly doused. 15 years passed by. I became a father. Time took it’s toll.

It was a long wait. I will admit that I had given up hope.

Then suddenly, without warning the proclamation came. King’s Quest was to be reborn. The first flicker of a light. Oh, but we had seen these before only to falter. But this was different. Backed by the largest video game publisher in the world, surely this time would be different. That of course carried with it a different set of concerns. Activision did not necessarily have a reputation for being sympathetic to the desires of adventure game fans. Could we trust this incarnation to remain true to what we had known?

The uncertainty only grew when the developer was announced. The Odd Gentlemen had never crafted anything tied to a property as beloved as King’s Quest before. Could we trust them to pull it off? Were they capable enough? I will admit that my fears were somewhat put at ease when I heard Matt Korba tell his tale. It seemed he was a genuine fan of the property and that it had touched his heart early, just as it had many of ours. When he presented his case to the legendary Roberta Williams and she bestowed upon him her blessing, it carried my ease even further.

It was time to get excited. Oh, but the wait was excruciating. In my dreams I played the new King’s Quest and wondered at how the finished product would turn out. Finally, finally the game was upon us.

Would it be worthy? Could it be worthy?

The screen faded up to the majestic King’s Quest logo on the title screen. A flash of fiery light ignited the emblem, working itself across in a wondrous flash before abating and we are left with the burnished gold that we recall from our youth.

With that the music begins, and I knew, right there, that I was in store for something special. A muted anthem, beautiful and melancholy but treading softly, as someone who is returning home after a long absence. Home to a place filled with memories of warmth and laughter and love but unsure if they will be remembered for who they were when they left. So much time has passed after all. How they captured that feeling in song is beyond me, but it is a triumph.

Then you are Graham. Standing before a well. No direction or tutorial to pull you out of the story. The game continues to ease us back into Daventry slowly. We are not returning with trumpets blazing. We are rediscovering something tender and fragile from long ago. An ancient journal whose pages are brittle. (To be continued…)

     
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My review continued…

Within it’s pages are kept tales of wonder and enchantment to sweep you away. But we must be careful in it’s handling.

Down the well we go, and oh what splendor awaits us there. The art design is staggering in it’s beauty. The caverns below the well are lush and rich with color. We wander through, fully transported to this magical place. Cautiously we pick our way through the dank and narrow corridors until we emerge into a vast cavern, replete with mysterious waterfalls lending their music to the atmosphere. The camera pulls back to show us the impressive scale of this place and pans with us as we continue through the various hues of blue and green and gray of the cavern walls. Somewhere far below us, something monstrous lurks, filling the caverns with it’s wall rattling presence. What will we discover? Only one way to know for sure. And, with that we plunge into adventure.

The graphics and art remain impressive throughout the story. The characters move with a smoothness and comedic timing of a big budget animated feature. The range of emotion they are able to convey through facial expression and body language, particularly Graham, is incredible, rivaling that of a Disney Masterpiece. I was constantly floored at how polished his character turned out. Everything from how he has to push his hat out of his face after shoving a tree, to his curious expressions when standing idle, to a particularly believable bout of grief and anger halfway through the game.

The land of Daventry too, benefits from the beautiful art design. Trees are brimming with life and color, their tops bending at randomly exaggerated angles to maintain stylized realism and a diversity of scenery. Green moss grows on underground water grates, and thorny forest bowers arch over racing pathways reminiscent of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. Exploring always yields beautiful and unexpected delights, like stumbling upon a picnic set before a breathtaking vista of a fairytale version of Castle Daventry in the distance. I personally loved how many atmospheric elements were represented with traditional animation. The splash of water beneath our feet or the purple smoke wafting from a bubbling cauldron. The quality of these seemingly insignificant bits was remarkable and truly shows the level of care and detail that went into the crafting of the game world. When you find yourself pausing to admire the smoke drifting up from a cauldron, you know the artists have done something right. I have seen other reviews comparing the art to Disney or Dragon’s Lair quality and they are correct. To give you adventure game fans a final idea at how wonderful the art is, imagine if “Curse of Monkey Island” were able to retain it’s ambient beauty while being rendered in 3D. Yes, this game looks that good.

The voice acting is another highlight of the game. Every voice hit exactly the right note (sorry). I was worried at the prospect of Christopher Lloyd as King Graham the elder at first, but he nailed it, delivering a warmly rich performance that endears you instantly to the character. Grahams granddaughter Gwendolyn is also endearingly performed, avoiding the annoying side effects of over cuteness that often times befalls young characters. Their exchanges seem genuine and heartfelt and really made me fall in love with their characters.

I was not familiar with Josh Keaton before this game, but am now a fan. Josh pulls off the younger Graham flawlessly. He fills him with a youthful earnest, enthusiasm, innocence and fortitude that comes off as completely believable. I would say that his take on Graham is nearly as impressive as Dominic D’Armato’s Guybrush Threepwood. In fact, there may have even been a little bit of Threepwood channeling in Keaton’s performance. After playing the game, I could totally see young Graham and Guybrush hanging out as best friends on an adventure together.

The rest of the cast does a fantastic job as well, including Wallace Shawn who practically recreates the character of Vizzini from ‘The Princess Bride’. The animators did a great job of capturing the mannerisms of that character and portraying them within Shawn’s character of Manny in the game. It was a lot of fun trying to catch all of the references to The Princess Bride, Back to the Future and older King’s Quest installments throughout the game. I laughed when older Graham references addendum 1.21 (jigowatts?) towards the end of the game. This chapter of King’s Quest seemed to draw upon our own pop culture for inspiration in addition to the fairy tales and lore that inspired the original series.

The writing was of sound quality. Funny and serious at appropriate times. While I do not believe the humor was quite as sharp as that found in a Monkey Island game, I feel like the writers were able to write a more complete arc for the character of Graham than what is typically found in other humorous adventures. They tell a complete tale of Grahams introduction to the realm of Daventry, show the character grow and progress throughout the adventure and even allow the player to feel like they have a direct influence on the story at multiple points, which all told, is very impressive and much more than I had dared to hope for when starting out.

Finally, I believe the writers have even set themselves up to allow for a greater and deeper character progression for Graham than what is shown in the first chapter. At certain points throughout this initial journey, Graham will suddenly jump into a boisterous, hyperactive, super excited, version of himself when he encounters something that ignites his imagination such as an epic looking battle scythe, or cauldron of mysterious potion. These moments reveal an aspect of Grahams personality that we are not used to seeing from previous installments. I think that they are clever beyond their immediate comedic value however. (Continued…)

     
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This game shows us a Graham who is youthful, naïve, innocent and excited at being fresh from home and stepping out into the wide world for the first time. We all were there once. But life has a way of shaping or warping us. Long years of duty as a knight, king and ultimately parent will inevitably force Graham to mellow out. I believe it will resonate with players as we see Graham mature under his burden and slowly evolve away from this over excitable youth in future installments, toward the wise, logical, compassionate, strong and noble king and father we remember. We may even look back and miss this version of him in the same way that we sometimes look back and miss younger versions of ourselves. What happened to that kid that used to get excited at seeing something as simple as a fancy gardening tool? What happens to our imaginations as we age? I think it can end up being part of a brilliant mechanic to leverage the structure of an episodic game in order to tell a poignant tale of a character growing up in a world of adventure and I am personally looking forward to seeing how it plays out in future chapters.

The music is also wonderfully written and integrated into the game. I am listening to the soundtrack available from Amazon now and am reminded at how polished it was while playing. It perfectly accentuates each scene of the game in just the right way. I love how they subtly wove in the King’s Quest 5 theme throughout the adventure. It carries the same level of quality as the rest of the game and would not seem out of place in an animated feature. I do wish they would find a way to involve Mark Seibert in future chapters however. It would be wonderful to have his influence as a nostalgic connection to the older games.

The gameplay was a nice evolution of the inventory based adventure genre. I like how they used the mirror as a device to indicate when it was possible to try using items. When you were not within range of an interactive portion of the screen, the mirror in your inventory screen remains clouded over. When you approach a part of the scenery that can be interacted with, the mirror reveals the interactive portion. A good way of recreating a highlighted cursor in a game that does not use one.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that there are quick time events in this game but, surprisingly, they are designed well. The controls are fluid and responsive (in an adventure game… imagine that!). I never felt frustrated at the game during any of the action sequences and in fact they seemed to heighten my enjoyment of the game. At times, I felt like I had stepped off of a ride in Disneyland only to find that it wasn’t a ride at all, but a living, breathing world I could explore and interact with.

The puzzles were all fairly easy compared to other recent adventure games, but that seems to be an adventure gaming trend. They were much, much easier than pretty much anything encountered in previous installments of the series. I did get stuck once when trying to find a way to clear some squirrels away from a pumpkin. I thought I knew what had to be done, but the game would not allow me to interact with the item so I eventually gave up on that “line” of thinking and wandered around for an inordinate amount of time trying alternatives. When I finally returned to the scene of my original idea, I tried interacting with another part of the scenery that I assumed was just decoration before, and voila! It brought the item I desired right into my face… er, hands.

The total time of my first playthrough was about 11 hours, mainly because I really wanted to take my time and enjoy every portion of this game that I had waited so long for. When I went back and played it a second time, knowing how to solve all of the puzzles, the game took me about 5 hours. That is a fairly significant amount of time for the first chapter in a series that is going to receive 4 more installments. It looks like the complete collection could take anywhere between 25 to 50 hours of play time when fully assembled.

As you can probably tell by now, I was pretty much in love with every part of this game. My only complaints were that the scope of the games environments, while beautifully rendered, were somewhat conservative for this first chapter. I was hoping to be flung out to distant, exotic locations throughout the journey, but instead we were pretty much contained to the area of Daventry immediately surrounding the castle. This means, mysterious caverns and pretty forests but no snowcapped peaks, underwater kingdoms or palaces in the clouds. Hopefully future chapters will take us further away on our adventures in a way that feels more like the old King’s Quest games.

My other complaint is echoed by pretty much every review or discussion I have read on the game and involves the players inability to skip cut scenes or conversations once they have already been viewed. Personally, I am the type of gamer that wants to see and hear everything. I don’t care how long it takes, I don’t want to miss out on any exposition or lore that can deepen my understanding or appreciation of the game world. However, after soaking that information in, I would like at least the option of skipping past it, the next time I play through the game or that particular scene.

Those two points aside however, combined with a desire for slightly more difficult puzzles are pretty much my only perceived faults of this lovely, lovely game. The art design, graphics, animation, voice acting and music are all of the highest caliber. Writing and game design are great. Game length and replayability are high.

In the end, after all the waiting… was it worthy?

Affa Notta!

(That means yes.)

I can’t wait for the next one! Thankfully, the wait should not be as long, or as painful.

Verdict: 9/10

     
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Holy crap. And I thought *I* wrote walls of text when reviewing… Gasp

     

The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka

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God help the server once all 5 episodes are released.

     

An adventure game is nothing more than a good story set with engaging puzzles that fit seamlessly in with the story and the characters, and looks and sounds beautiful.
Roberta Williams

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Think he gives it a 2/10 Wink

     

Recently completed: Game of Thrones (decent), Tales from the borderlands (great!), Life is Strange (great!), Stasis (good), Annas Quest (great!); Broken Age (poor)

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Not sure if I’m allowed into this thread, but my opinion of Episode 1 is mostly negative. Some things on the technical level are already bad enough. Unskippable dialog lines. Placing checkpoints before cutscenes. Naturally, cutscenes are unskippable too. Very loose active zones for objects, which get activated when I’m standing several steps away from the object and also facing away from it. They could at least consider the direction the character is facing.

I think people sometimes overestimate the design quality of the old adventure games. Very few of the old games can compare with the level of design in games such as Harvey’s New Eyes or the last three Pendulo games (those three I think are in a league of their own). So KQ is in some ways similar to the old games, but is that a good thing? Traversing mostly empty locations many times back and forth trying to see if something has changed or something new has appeared after being triggered by some event elsewhere. Maybe you’ll even find the coin that you need, fancy that. Trading items for other items, that’s always mind-numbingly interesting. And I do have fond memories of Restore/Restart/Quit, but I’m not so sure I like to see something similar in a modern game.

Speaking of triggers, I was hoping that Jane Jensen with Gray Matter was the last developer not understanding that hidden triggers are one of the worst anti-patterns in adventure games. Trying to figure out which character now has a new dialog option, which door is now unlocked, which location a character has moved to or in which location something new and completely unrelated has appeared—that’s just not fun. Larry Reloaded was one of the worst in that aspect, and it was also featuring another anti-pattern strongly—not giving any feedback however close you were to the correct solution until you have got it exactly right. At least KQ is better in that aspect, but it also has issues there.

In addition to that, KQ combined some of the worst things from old-style adventure games (are we going to see a maze too?) with some of the worst things from platformer games.

     
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Promise is fullfilled.Best cellshaded graphics and animations,balanced gameplay and script.Some minor flaws can easly be overlooked.Quintessential revival of ags history so far.

     

“Going on means going far - Going far means returning”

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wilco - 04 August 2015 07:05 PM

WHISPER CAN DO IT - the whole duel of speed was pretty funny

Reminded me of MI sword fights, also shows how some idiosyncrasies in characters if done right can be eternally memorable in a saturated market with mostly forgetful characters.
I hope they put more duels in future, for instance Banjo or some other instrument match like MI3.

 

     
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Decided to give this a go. Very impressed so far. The Princess Bride vibe suits the series well, it doesn’t feel exactly like the old KQs, but it’s in the same spirit. It’s much more of a real adventure game than I feared, and the production values are really quite good.

Such a good time for adventure games. Feels like a real renaissance.

     

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Is it a fully rotatable camera or is it fixed-angle like Telltale?

     

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