Weirdnesses in King's Quest

[jtrippy]

I think it's probably best not to view any of the KQs as a persistent world or look for strong continuity -- it's simply not there. Most of the continuity, even from game to game, exists entirely in our heads. The bottom line is that these games are a series of brain-teasers and puzzles set amid a colorful context. Asking for anything more from them is a little silly -- these aren't epic Tolkienesque works, they're puzzle-oriented fairy tales. I think the only thing pushing for overall cohesion between the games is the forthcoming TSL...

[Boogeyman]

There seems to be pretty good continuity - this is King's Quest, not Legend of Zelda.

[dark-daventry]

There really is continuity between the games. King's Quest 4 starts exactly where King's Quest 3 ends. In King's Quest 2, Graham is already king of Daventry, which occurred in KQ1, and he is now looking for a wife, which he found in the magic mirror, which he found in the previous game. KQ3 skips 20 years into the future, which is a reasonable time frame to consider Graham and Valanice having twins, who are on the verge of turning 18. The main character in KQ3, who at first appears to have no relation to the royal family, turns out to be the long lost son of Graham and Valanice. At the end of KQ3, graham is taken ill. In KQ4, Rosella goes to find a cure for his illness. KQ5 is where it may start to get a bit blurry, but it does take place sometime after KQ4. KQ6 is a direct continuation of KQ5 in the sense that Cassima, a slave that Mordack had working for him, was sent back home, and Alexander fell in love with. In the opening scene of KQ6, he is distraught by not seeing her. He is madly in love with her, and goes so far as to travel to The Land of the Green Isles to see her. Once there, he discovers that her parents have been murdered and that she is locked in her tower. KQ7 is a bit sketchy on the timeline too, but it features an older Rosella, so we know it takes place after KQ6, as she was a bit younger then. Now MoE is the game that really screws up the timeline. It is assumed that it takes place after KQ7, but no plot points from the previous games were incorporated into it, so it's hard to tell exactly where it takes place. Now, if you play the KQ2 remake by AGD Interactive, you'd see a slightly different continuity. They added in a vision of the future that directly shows MoE, concretely placing it in the timeline, and explaining a little about it. TSL is intended to tie up all the loose-ends that exist in the series, and there are quite a few. For example, in KQ6 they introduced the Black Cloak Society, which we haven't seen since. TSL focuses around that very plot point, and we even revisit many popular locations from previous games, and even new locations. For example, we can finally visit Chessboard Land. I know everyone has been dying to see what it looks like on the inside. We get to revisit Beast, who's turned back into one for some reason. The ferry that was drydocked in KQ6 is now operational again, what with Alexander becoming king of the Land of The Green Isles. So, there is quite a lot of continuity within the King's Quest series, and I'm sure that I missed quite a lot of points of here.

[Rosella]

You can't forget that the events of KQ5 were directly caused by the events of KQ3.

[dark-daventry]

Ah, yes, I forgot about that. Thank you for pointing that out, Rosella. I knew I forgot something in that ridiculously long post...

[Deloria]

Hrmm... the beanstalk is a pain to climb... but you get more points for it... so in the end you have to ask yourself: what kind of ruler does Daventry want? The practical one that took the stairs? Or the guy who has to act out some Jack and the Beanstalk fantasy from childhood? (Though, I suppose, given that they'll have the magic chest (inflation) and the magic shield (peace and tranquility through not being able to lose a war), in the end, it doesn't really matter )...

Fixed it for you.

[Delling]

Well, that's true except for 2 things that may be misconceptions on my part: the treasure chest produces an infinite supply of actual gold and it does this only upon some type of input/request.

Gold unlike paper money has value because it is incredibly useful and incredibly rare. Managed better than *cough* certain countries' *cough* decisions to print money, this could maintain economic stabilty especially in trading with other countries.

[PirateKingChris]

Gold unlike paper money has value because it is incredibly useful and incredibly rare. Managed better than *cough* certain countries' *cough* decisions to print money, this could maintain economic stabilty especially in trading with other countries.

Ugh. Tell me about it.

[Haids1987]

Yeah, I think we're all feeling the crash and burn of the current economic situation.

[jtrippy]

In response to the people responding to me about continuity --

Yes, I've played the KQ games just like you all have, of course I realize there is SOME continuity between the games. Really most of the continuity is just a context for a new and unique story

@darkdaventry, there is really no need to explain the plot of each King's Quest game to me, I've been playing them for 15 years now.

[MangoMercury]

I still find it weird that in an entire troll kingdom, Otar didn't consider training anyone else on using the volcano controls.

I loved seeing the little bits of continuity and references in the later games; specifically the Pawn Shop in KQ6 - there's the obvious part where Alexander pawns his ring and tells the shopkeeper "I didn't always have a family, you know", which obviously references KQ3...  But then you can look at the items in the shop and a lot of the background items you can examine are either from, or reference, the previous games, such as a bridge-building kit (KQ2) and a shovel (KQ4).

(Yay, 1900 posts)

[Jafar]

Speaking of the Pawn Shop, I wonder what they'd have for sale that'd help you in KQ6 and KQ7. (Well, besides the stuff you can actually buy. )

X-ray glasses to see through the catacomb walls?
Artificial Styx Flavoring for the paint spell?
The Cheese Hook 5000, for getting bigger hunks of cheese out of the water?

[Rosella]

That cheese hook 5000 would have REALLY helped me.

The only puzzle in KQ7 that took me more than an hour to figure out..

[Haids1987]

I loved the references in later games to the earlier ones, especially the shelves in the background of the pawn shop.

I always thought those huge wings in the shop would be cool to fly up the Cliffs of Logic. I mean, they're there in plain sight, why can't you use them?

[dark-daventry]

You know, I didn't even know that the pawn shop had things on the shelves... I guess I never used the eye icon on them... Hence I missed all of these things... Time for another playthrough!

[MangoMercury]

If you want to make sure that you don't miss anything, I highly recommend watching the KQ playthroughs by ShadyParadox on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/shadyparadox#p/c/78472401CE575C47

[dark-daventry]

Thank you for the link. I shall make sure that I watch those. I've played KQ6 like 20 times and yet there are still secrets in it for me...

[Haids1987]

Ah, one of the marks of a fantastic game.

[dark-daventry]

Ah, one of the marks of a fantastic game.

What, that there are boundless secrets in it? I agree. A truly great game has an almost inexhaustible amount of secrets in it...

[crayauchtin]

The problem I have with most playthroughs is the talking. Yes, you're making a video and some narration is good but I feel like most just...talk. I want to watch the game, thanks. I really don't need/care to know about your opinions of whatever's going on. Shut the eff up!

I'd really like to see a KQ Let's Play like the QfG Let's Play on www.lparchive.org. Screenshot Let's Play's work so much better because the people who make them don't feel the need to fill it with useless chatter. I think, though, people avoid making them for the KQ series because the dialogue is all already there.

My rant there aside, ShadyParadox is pretty fantastic! I wish he'd done more of the series! (Did anyone else catch the KQ5 reference: "Alexander has no taste for saltwater." )

Anyways, as for the oddities ya'll have mentioned...

-Where did the little girl (Spike, the one who wanted a battle axe) come from in the troll kingdom?  And where does she go when she storms off?  It's not like the area is very big...
-For that matter, where does Opie vanish to once you give him the jewel?  He goes behind the pillar and just disappears!
-Though I have often wondered in KQ6 where the seven dwarf people came from. They march off down the forest, but when we go after them, there's no where they could have gone. They wouldn't have been allowed into Chessboard land I don't think, so it baffles me where they went.

I think it can be assumed there is more to every region in the KQ series than what we see -- and that goes for all of the islands in KQ6 and KQ7. it *is* odd that Opie vanished behind a pillar though, maybe there's a door hidden behind it?
(I'm just gonna leave the five/seven gnomes/dwarves thing alone. )

-Still in the troll kingdom...anyone else think it's weird that King Otar's throne is just hanging out in the middle of everything?

Yes, but it's possible that's like the "castle of Vulcanix" or something, as was already said.

-There are three graves beside the elevator in Oooga Booga Land when you first arrive that you can't read!  What is up with that?

Lack of creativity?

-Lady Tsepish has cried her eyes out at least twice, as Doctor Cadaver tells Rosella.  Do you think that her eyes are restored once she is reunited with Count Tsepish?'

It seems like the whole Tsepish clan is restored by the undoing of Tsepish's death. The question is what happened to the eyes Dr. Cadaver gave her?

-Lord Attis won't leave Lady Ceres' side when you're Valanice, but as Rosella he's not there.  Where the heck is he that he'd stray from his "lady love?"

I'm gonna second the "saving Valanice" story here. I thought, however, there were some unused sound files of a conversation between Attis and Rosella so perhaps he was originally meant to be there?

Where are Oberon, Titania, and Malicia's wings?  They ARE fairies, right?

The only fairies with wings are from the world of Daventry -- none of the fairies in KQ7 have wings and neither does Lolotte so it stands to reason that Etherian fairies don't have wings.

When Malicia is given her second chance, will she grow up and remember everything that she did, or are her memories wiped clean?  (It'd be sweet if she was in TSL!)

I doubt she'll remember it, how many of you remember what you did in your infancy? Her brain isn't developed enough yet (now) to remember what she had done as an archvillainess. Then again, I don't really know how that magic works. I will, however, agree that if Malicia doesn't need a babysitter there ain't nobody who does!

or other weirdnessess, how about in KQ6 when with the dangling participle. How did it get all the way over to the isle of the beast without a magic map. Perhaps it used the ferry, but that still seems unlikely to me for some reason...

Uhhhhhhhhh.......... maybe.... maybe he's a really good swimmer!! No, I got nothing. But the ferry isn't an option considering how long the ferry's been inoperational and it seems to me like the Dangling Participle isn't starving or anything.

OH I GOT ONE! How about when the Genie eats the mints in the pawn shop? How does that get one seemingly drunk?

Mints are his kryptonite -- that's why Alhazred gets so infuriated with him for having one.

Here's an oddity though -- when Alexander talks to the guard dogs outside the Castle of the Crown, Gruff tells him that there's been no foreigners since Alhazred arrived. So, uhm, what did they call it when Mordack came to visit and left with Cassima?
In the same scene, getting Captain Saladin is super fast and he already knows who the prince is when he comes out -- is he just like chilling behind the door listening in?
(Can you guess which video of that's Let's Play I just watched? )