So, the review you all haven't been waiting for is here. The Numbers take on KQ 2015.
Perhaps I should go back a bit before starting to talk about the game itself. I've always viewed King's Quest as more of a guilty pleasure, rather than an actual high-quality series. In my opinion, Space Quest and Quest for Glory were significantly better, based on their use of humor and replay value, respectively. I've seen people question why KQ gets so much bile, and other people who race to defend the games as an art form (Paw Dugan comes to mind), and my reaction is: "You
liked these games? You thought they were
good?"
Now, don't get me wrong. I still like KQ. It was the series that taught me how to read and write, when most of the other games I played during my childhood were primitive platformers. The first two Duke Nukems, Commander Keen, Bio Menace, Xargon, Dangerous Dave, those kinds of games. What they taught me in reflexes, they failed to teach me in terms of actual education. There were exceptions, sure. I collected all the letters in Duke Nukem's name in the correct order to get the highest points, Commander Keen's alien alphabet helped me to translate all those weird signs I kept seeing throughout the games, and Xargon is where I first found out how to spell the word "congratulations."
But KQ is where I learned to spell everything else. I'd never used the word "examine" until KQ4 came out, and I "examined" that suspicious-looking wall in the mansion that opened up to the tower. I read all of the tombstones carefully, trying to absorb what they said. I read the grave that said "Thorpe's corpse" and didn't know the meaning until I found out who Thorpe was (an athlete), and that the word "corpse" is a synonym for "dead body." I watched the intro to KQ4 many many times until I understood it.
For me, KQ4 is the best non-point-and-click game in the series, and probably the best game, period. But on your first few playthroughs, it's still insanely, unrelentingly, frustratingly, unfairly difficult. And the only way you could find out what to do back then was to call up a hotline that gave you vague, unhelpful hints and cost you more money the more times you called. And even then, when I was at a young age and had little knowledge of computer games, I remember thinking to myself, "That's really stupid." It was at that point that I realized the concept of the cash grab, and my steady disillusionment with series grew from there.
KQ6 came out, and although I have issues with it, it seemed like a logical progression for KQ, and taking the series in a more mature direction, with such subjects as political intrigue, cultist rituals, and the matter of what happens to one after death. I disliked the copy protection on the Isle of the Sacred Mountain, I could've done without the Isle of Wonder in its entirety, and back then, I liked Rosella as a protagonist more than Alexander, who I found to be a bit of a pansy. But overall KQ6 was a step in the right direction.
Then KQ7 came out. You all know how I feel about that one. It was, and still is, the worst gaming experience of my life. Sure, I've played objectively worse games (F*ck Quest comes to mind), but I went into them knowing that they were bad, and only played them for the sheer mesmerizing fascination that one gets when watching a plane crash. I never liked Leisure Suit Larry, so when Box Office Bust came out and killed the franchise, my reaction was, in a nutshell, "Good riddance." I didn't jump on board the hype train for Duke Nukem Forever, so when it got released and critically panned, I was indifferent to it, since I wasn't interested anyway. Same idea for Sonic 2006, because I was never a Sonic fan, and my knowledge of Sonic 06 and every subsequent game makes me glad I'm not.
Nothing could've prepared me for KQ7. It was the first time I'd truly felt betrayed. It was immature, childish, with a generic plot that was a massive step backwards from KQ6, and devoid of any real tension. It reminded me of one of Don Bluth's later movies, like A Troll in Central Park. (Get it? They both have cutesy trolls?...it's funny?) But what ruined it for me most of all was Rosella's portrayal. In KQ4, Rosella was a blank slate who nonetheless performed some very brave actions, which for me speak louder than words. When Rosella cries in KQ4, it's because she just barely escaped being killed by a dragon at the hands of her long-lost brother, only to see her father collapse from a fatal heart attack. Here...she bursts into tears when a complete stranger calls her a usurper to the troll throne when she's been there less than five minutes. Yes, it's possible to commit character assassination on someone who had very little character to begin with. And she only got more aggravating from there.
MoE, for whatever reason, I could take. It had so little to do with anything that I saw it for what it was, an action-platformer with the King's Quest name slapped on it to earn big bucks, which it did, but because it didn't unrealistically topple world records upon its release, they ended KQ there. From what I saw of the then-planned KQ9, it would've been similar to a Zelda game, with even more platforming and combat and fewer puzzles. Who knows, if that game had ever come out, people might look back more fondly on MoE, because at least it wasn't KQ9: Skyward Graham.
So why do I like King's Quest, in spite of all the apparent problems in it? Mostly, because of the fans. I play TSL and the AGDI remakes of KQ1-3 much more often than the actual canon games, because, to put it simply, they're better. They're prettier to look at, the puzzles don't fall into moon logic territory as often, and it feels like a lot of effort and attention to detail was put into them. True, the AGDI games are mostly just retelling stories we already know, and TSL has moments of superb cheesiness, but all in all, you could tell that these fans were earnest about their work.
Now that I've wasted several minutes of your time explaining my "this is why I'm evil" backstory that all villains have to have these days, let's get onto the actual review of KQ 2015.
It reminds me of KQ7. There you go, my big problem with the game, my Freudian excuse if you will, spelled out in only one sentence. Like KQ7, only with easier puzzles, and even easier arcade sections.
It started off on a sour note--absolutely no introductory cutscene--and followed up with one such arcade section that combined quick-time events with first-person shooters, that let me know I was going to be in for a world of hurt.
Then we see Graham in the present day. He's old. Extremely old. As in, "we'll be lucky if he survives all five chapters" old. He talks to his granddaughter Gwendolyn, who is, in my opinion, the most irritating KQ character since Cedric. The fact that she sounds almost exactly like Rainbow Dash doesn't help. She's every other young whippersnapper in every other fantasy plot you've ever seen. Then Gart makes his entrance, and boy, is it bad. Why is he British when Gwen is American? Was that half-hearted roar he made really the best take they went with? Why does he say that lots of people will be attending his fencing tournament when at the end of the game, pretty much nobody is watching?
Why is he British? And wait, Gwen got to Daventry "as fast as she could?" TOG does know that Alexander has a genie at his beck and call who can teleport people, right?
Then we flash back to young Graham who engages in the most embarrassing slapstick since Tom and Jerry, before we see our bizarrely-proportioned knight characters whose faces are conveniently obscured by their helmets so the animators don't have to do more work. (This is actually a good thing; has anyone noticed how off the lip-syncing in this game in general is?) This doesn't just refer to the four knights hopeful, this refers to every other knight in the game, all of whom are completely interchangeable, except for two knights giving each other piggyback rides, one of whom sounds like Groundskeeper Willie.
Anyway, the Merchant of Miracles makes his entrance by stepping on Graham's foot, causing Graham to awkwardly and unfunnily hobble around for the next minute or so. He also starts off a sentence with the modern word "welp," taking me out of the game immediately. It's at this point that I really start to despise the character design in this game. Everyone looks so...ugly. There's no subtlety at all. TSL is more subtle than this, with a vastly outdated engine, to boot. The knights are all completely exaggerated, old Graham looks like a hairy raisin, Gwen and Gart are inexpressive, young Graham looks like a pretty boy, the Merchant of Miracles
also looks like a raisin...ugh.
Moving on, the town square is the next big location in the game, though it's mostly reminiscent of TSL's town square. Time to do branching paths stuff. As long as you leave a tip, that is. Eventually, you make it to the knights hopeful and participate in a prank that involves bees. My God.
After a moment that evokes the now-infamous scene from the Nicolas Cage Wicker Man movie, the knights all beat you to the other side of the river, all of which use a technique known as foreshadowing. Achaka's good with bows and arrows, Acorn's good at pushing things over, etc. Then the little guy, Manny, who is definitely not a bad guy, forms a secret pact with Graham to beat the opposition. It's okay, because Manny is just as trustworthy as the other short character in the game, the Merchant of Miracles. He's obviously not going to turn on us at the end of the game. He's an okay guy.
You probably get my point by now.
You then meet the owners of the three town square shops. One of them is a baker who relies on pies to solve all of his problems. Yes, TOG, we remember that pie scene from KQ5, and we would do better if we were to forget it. Unfortunately, it's possible for the baker to get attacked by bees too.
However, that's got nothing on Amaya, who is forced to shoo out wolves and as it turns out, lose her bed somehow. While she was sleeping in it. I'm not questioning anything at this point, and neither should you. It's better if you don't think about it. We've also got two old creepy people running a potion shop, so...standard fantasy fare. If the potion shop owner in your story isn't creepy, you're probably either doing it wrong or are some kind of potion shop owner revolutionist.
And now for the eye of the hideous beast...multiple ways to do it, but let's talk about the most important part of it.
It's time to go back to the well in order to find Achaka, aka the only new character I liked. Lots of shenanigans ensue, none of which are all that fun and mostly rely on trial-and-error, up until the dragon attacks; at this point the game goes into arcade overdrive and it's one death-defying section after another. Arguably the best part of the game then goes out like a wet fart when Achaka dies saving you...whee, goodbye, one character that I liked...and then Graham lets out a pitiful big "No!" (come on, Graham, put your heart into it), and then he gets cheered up by Manny. Who is definitely not lying about Achaka's background. You know that saying, "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer"? Manny is your friend, not your enemy. Anyone that's voiced by Wallace Shawn is automatically a good guy. This is compounded by the next scene being those goofy knights presenting their eyes, and then
that is followed by a narmy scene featuring Gwen interacting with her evil doll, Mr. Springbottom. And then SPRINGBOTTOM COMES TO LIFE AND ATTACKS GWEN OH MY GOD
Nah, that doesn't happen. But wouldn't that be great? It would mix things up a bit.
