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King's Quest VII: What would you change?

Started by KatieHal, January 23, 2012, 08:51:53 AM

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Jafar

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DawsonJ

#41
Quote from: Scorpio82 on January 27, 2012, 10:47:11 PM
Quote from: Damar on January 27, 2012, 06:45:47 PMAnd it's not like Disney animation was a brand new thing that the kids were going crazy for

Partially true. Before the early 90's, Disney hadn't had a REALLY successful movie in almost 30 years. With "The Little Mermaid", "Beauty and the Beast", and "Aladdin" taking the world by storm, it was easy to see how Roberta Williams could get caught up in the excitement and create KQ7 in the same style. Kids WERE going crazy for anything Disney at the time. Heck, we even settled for the Disney knock-offs.

Ok. Fine. Disney imitation... Firstly, Family Guy did an AMAZING job copying Disney's style; Sierra didn't. But what kind of a Bipolar or Drug-induced situation was Roberta in to make KQ7 and PHANTASMAGORIA at the same time?!?!

This interview mentions that strange time period in 1995.

I would change that miserable Harp puzzle in Etheria, and do some MAJOR Quality Control, because that game had volume issues and timing issues galore. That's why I appreciate the Retry option - especially with the Firecrackers. But, it was the beginning of the end for stable KQ games; 5 waited until the very end to crash, 6 was stable, 7 was iffy, 8 was wretched.

I do like 7, but primarily due to its simplicity and reminiscing value.

Datadog

Quote from: DawsonJ on January 30, 2012, 12:05:23 AMBut what kind of a Bipolar or Drug-induced situation was Roberta in to make KQ7 and PHANTASMAGORIA at the same time?!?!

She's always done horror/mystery and fantasy games back-to-back. "Mystery House" and "The Wizard and the Princess" for example. I've recently heard this referred to as a "tonal schism" where a developer wants to explore two very different subject matters at once (sort of a yin/yang balancing act for the brain). I'd imagine she just wanted to challenge herself.

It's not much different from Pheonix Online is working on "The Silver Lining" and "Cognition" at the same time either. One's a colorful fairy tale, the other's a screaming face looking at me from the left side of the screen.

DawsonJ

True, Scorpio82, but Phoenix Online's take on the world of King's Quest is much more of an in-depth drama than canonical KQ games, so it's not a huge difference, like the positive Disney to NCIS that Roberta was doing simultaneously.