KQ7: Where did it go wrong?

[Rock Knight]

So, if we had to list (without being totally negative) where KQ7, where would you say it did?

My opinion is that KQ7 is in concept (plot, etc) a good game. But that it changed too much way too soon and also had some genuinely stupid elements.

For example--

Making death a non-issue. Not only was death of no consequence, but, the game removed most of the goriness that came with Sierra deaths and a lot of the humor as well.

Allowing players to skip to any chapter. Why? Just...Why? That has to be the stupidest design decision in the history of gaming. It doesn't even make sense. It takes any incentive out to really delve into the game.

Not allowing you to save. In the original release of KQ7, you couldn't save your game. The game automatically saved for you when you quit. This meant if your computer shut off while playing, even if you'd gotten really far into the game, you'd have lost all your progress. This was addressed in the second release of the game, but still....

No interaction with the environment. There was no interaction with the environment outside of what the smart cursor dictated, and even then you were held by the hand in terms of examining the object.

Those are just some of my beefs with the game.

[GrahamRocks!]

*Is just awaiting Numbers's reply*

Off the top of my head? Only thing coming to my mind is the cursor. I'm sure there's more, but I honestly can't remember at the moment.

[Numbers]

Well, I've already said my bit on Rosella's characterization being changed from a female character whose actions speak louder than words into a valley girl type, and Edgar's backstory getting retconned, so some other things...

You're right about death being a non-issue. When Paw Dugan reviewed KQ7, he used an analogy to describe this: "Think Bioshock and those goofy vita-chambers they have. They're handy, sure, but it removes any kind of feeling of danger or caution. You can just go derping into any situation without fear because your decision of walking straight into the maw of a giant Gila monster will go largely unpunished."

The animation is slower and choppier than it should be, and that's already been addressed. Next...

One thing I've neglected to mention is the sound design. Almost all of the sound effects have been taken from the public domain, so everything you hear has already been used in a million other games and movies out there. The animal sound effects in the Were-woods is a good example. Another thing is that the sound effects, in addition to being overused, are just plain annoying. If you trap the scorpion in the desert temple, I hope you don't mind listening to its ear-splitting roaring non-stop in the background. I always just shrink it whenever I do a playthrough so I don't have to listen to it.

Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I don't like characters with screechy, cartoonish, or exaggerated voices, and the game is full of these. The Chicken Little expy in Falderal is just one example. Archduke Fifi le Yipyap may be even more grating, due to his thick accent. The Mockingbird has way too many insults to throw your way, and only a few of them are even that funny. The Snake Oil Salesman, while having a better voice than most characters, is still too exaggerated for my tastes. I can't stand the ghoul kids in Ooga Booga, of course. The Vulcanix trolls have New Yorker accents, for some reason. And lastly, the crying. Rosella cries, Valanice cries, the Archduke cries, the female trolls cry, the bull in the china shop cries. I'm crying too, but for the wrong reasons.

Whenever Rosella or Valanice are faced with something hazardous, they emit a high-pitched scream, which I have a hard time believing, especially in Rosella's case. Come on, Rosella, you personally killed Lolotte, one of the nastier bad guys in the series, I don't think that random jack-in-the-box is going to be that scary by comparison.

Perhaps the thing about Edgar's backstory being retconned that annoys me is that it makes him a plot device instead of a character. Genesta transforming him into his true self in KQ4 was supposed to be a beautiful moment that rewarded Edgar's nobility in spite of his appearance. Here, though, he's the son of two fairies who got kidnapped by Lolotte very early on, and when he returns home, he doesn't last a day before getting kidnapped again by a different evil fairy. It just makes him look like an incompetent dumb-ass in distress, as the Nostalgia Critic would put it: someone who has the capabilities to avoid getting in trouble, yet they're so stupid that they always get stuck in bad situations over and over. This point is further driven home during his magic duel with Malicia, wherein he turns his back on her for literally no reason and gets blasted to the ground for his trouble.

Then comes Rosella's deus ex machina, a little device with no instruction from the game on how you're supposed to use it. It just turns Malicia into a baby, and Titania decides to raise Malicia as a good person. Uh, you might want to start by giving Malicia a different, less evil-sounding name. Edgar asks Rosella to court him, and even though I have no idea what she sees in him, she accepts.

And from what we've seen of KQ2015, Rosella and Edgar's son...is a bad guy. Well that marriage did little good.

[JDHJANUS]

Several of King's Quest VII's detractions are things that were specifically introduced in the game to make it more easy and interactive for newcomers.

For example: the removal of death and save scumming. This was a huge deal. Sierra in the mid 90's had gotten SOO much flack for the high number of "unfair" deaths in its games, and Sierra was trying to move in the direction of LucasArts in not having any "no-win" scenarios. They couldn't get rid of death completely (as it was just too ingrained in the Sierra philosophy, but I actually like how games like KQVII, Vohaul Strikes Back, and what sounds like the new King's Quest game include: Death is still a part of the story, but it's not a game-breaker that means you have to save every five minutes or before you do anything just to make sure the game doesn't kill you in some random way. It seems to be a very dividing factor amongst the adventure game fandom, with some people praising the games that have no deaths or no-win scenarios, while others are convinced that death and dead ends are required parts of adventuring.

The simplified cursor was again another innovation that Sierra was experimenting with in the mid-90's. They were (correctly) realizing that the adventure game genre was slowly changing and evolving, and games like Myst and the first-person puzzle games that it inspired had very simple interfaces, and yet were insanely successful. I think Sierra was just trying to stay with the curve and try to re-interpret the gameplay to make it easier.

The narrative problems do provide little consistency, and one of my biggest regrets in the game is that Edgar's story was so poorly treated. The fact that something like between a quarter and half of the game got cut in order to make a publication deadline did not help KQVII's fate. I think if the game had not been rushed, a lot of the plot might have been more fleshed out.

As far as characterization goes, Valanice had very little development, and that left only Rosella. It's definitely challenging to tell just what Rosella's character is supposed to be like in King's Quest IV, but I do agree that even in the way that she briefly appears in King's Quest V and VI makes it seem very different from her appearance in IV. I don't know. I'm playing through the games again in order, so we'll see how things go as far as that's concerned.

Talk to you later!

JDHJANUS
Josh

[GrahamRocks!]

I was never under the impression that Gart was a bad guy. Sure, probably VERY dickish and haughty to his cousin, but you can't exactly blame the parents for that. I bet you anything, that Gwen will put him in his place somehow, one way or another.

[Numbers]

Rosella's characterization in KQ4 is basically that of Samus Aran in the old Metroid games: a mostly silent protagonist who does very dangerous deeds, as controlled by the player, with no personality to speak of. Most of what she's feeling is implied, and you don't really know if she's fearless in her quest, or more likely, afraid of what's happening around her and pushing forward regardless.

Rosella in KQ7 is similar to Samus Aran in Metroid: Other M. In both games, a female protagonist whose actions spoke more loudly than words were given character development and personalities that unfortunately didn't make either the characters or the writing team look good. In KQ7, Rosella is carefree and reckless, which doesn't mesh with her actions in KQ4, wherein she was forced into a horrible situation by Lolotte, and, over the course of one night, undoes all of the deeds she carried out in Lolotte's name, sealing Pandora's Box away, returning Genesta's hen, and setting the unicorn free after personally killing Lolotte herself. It's a lot more impressive--and edgy--than KQ7, which started out not with a family member dying and Rosella making a desperate decision to save them, but rather with jumping impulsively into a pond with an image of a castle in it, simply because she thought the castle looked neat.

With regards to Gart, he may not be a villain, but he certainly sounds like an antagonist.

Also, since when are fencing tournaments held between children? It sounds kind of dangerous.

[GrahamRocks!]

Well, in medieval times, knights start from a very young age. Better fencing than jousting.

[Numbers]

That being said, I doubt most fencing tournaments were male vs. female. Daventry must be a very progressive nation.

[GrahamRocks!]

That's not a bad thing.

Besides, there are lady knights. And there's nothing that says a woman cannot be king.

[Numbers]

Lady kings, sometimes known as queens.

[KatieHal]

I just feel bad for him being named Gart. I'd probably have some misplaced anger and jealousy of my cousin with a much better name (Gwendolyn) is my parents named me Gart, too.

[Numbers]

It kind of reminds me of this:

[Jack Stryker]

In the Game Informer article, they said Alexander named his daughter Gwendolyn, after his own slave name of Gwidion.  The reason being that getting through that whole slave ordeal was a moment of pride for him.

That's not a bad thing.

Besides, there are lady knights.

Yeah, especially in World of Warcraft.  Night elf warriors in particular mainly consist of women.

[GrahamRocks!]

As much as I don't mind most making Alexander a darker character and having him haunted by his past, it still is refreshing to see someone take the name Gwydion and put a positive spin on it for once.

[Numbers]

I say we should all refer to Gart as "Gartbage" in the wake of that Lion King picture.

That's not a bad thing.

Besides, there are lady knights.

Yeah, especially in World of Warcraft.  Night elf warriors in particular mainly consist of women.

Yeah, because WoW is so grounded in reality.

[Jack Stryker]

Yeah, because WoW is so grounded in reality.

And you can't say the same for King's Quest?  With its magic mirrors, fairies, dragons, and oh yeah... talking animals?

[Matthew1987]

I played King's Quest VII in the mid 1990s.  I haven't played it in almost 20 years.  I've only looked at a few videos of it since.

Because it's been so long, I don't remember much of it in any detail.  I do remember generally what it was like, though.  I remember I wasn't a fan of the "Disney" feel, even though I was a little kid.

If you trap the scorpion in the desert temple, I hope you don't mind listening to its ear-splitting roaring non-stop in the background. I always just shrink it whenever I do a playthrough so I don't have to listen to it.

I remember the scorpion very well, but didn't know that you could trap it instead of using the bug-reducing powder.

I think it would be amusing hearing that roaring.



The game is very dumbed down compared to the previous KQ games.  It cannot be made impossible to beat.  If you die, it has an option to automatically restore to just before you died.  And it has only a single cursor that highlights whenever it is over something that can be clicked on.

With King's Quest VII, Sierra made a radical change.  And with King's Quest: Mask of Eternity, they made another radical change, in the opposite direction.

King's Quest: Mask of Eternity certainly isn't lacking in deaths.  Or gore.

[Numbers]

Yeah, because WoW is so grounded in reality.

And you can't say the same for King's Quest?  With its magic mirrors, fairies, dragons, and oh yeah... talking animals?

I'm not saying King's Quest is realistic either. I'm just saying that making female characters into fighters is something that was unlikely to happen in the dark ages (not that it didn't happen at all), and it just feels like pandering to people who complain about women being useless in combat situations. KQ4 Rosella proved she could kick ass without being a fighter. I'm of the opinion that when writing a strong female character you shouldn't resort to making her act exactly like a male character in order to prove her worth. It may be that Gwen in KQ2015 can strike a good balance between the two. I at least hope she isn't whiny, which happens way too often with kid characters in works of fiction.

[GrahamRocks!]

Fair enough. I hope so as well!

[Numbers]

That "whiny" remark was also a little jab at KQ7 Rosella, who spent the first five minutes of chapter 2 whining incessantly.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M A TROLL!"

There's a difference between complaining about unfortunate circumstances and whining like a child about it. It makes KQ7 serve as an even starker contrast to the follow-up MoE, whose protagonist is unrealistically optimistic about everything. "My girlfriend has been petrified! What could have--oh look, a goblin! I'm going to go beat him to death with my bare hands!"