Main Menu

King's Quest VII: What would you change?

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

Previous topic - Next topic

KatieHal

We did say it was inevitable. :)

KQ7 isn't perfect. It's got some serious flaws of pacing, gameplay, characters and storyline. What would you change?

Now, so we don't simply get 'scrap the whole thing!', let's do this assuming certain things need to stay as they are: the many lands of Eldritch are under threat by Malicia, Titania & Oberon are the rulers of Eldritch, Edgar is involved, and you're playing as both Valanice and Rosella.

My first suggestions:
- Get rid of that one-icon sparkly wand interface
- Redo the entire first chapter (for that matter, I'd vote to make the first chapter a Rosella one, and not a Valanice one). No desert, or greatly redo the desert.
- Have Edgar show up before the last 15 minutes of the game
- Don't make Eldritch a different universe/dimension, just a far-flung region of the existing world of Daventry
- Fix the glaring problem of how Rosella and Valanice SHOULD have crossed paths somewhere in Chapter 4 or 5 but didn't. Either they meet up, or there's a clear reason they don't meet up.

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

Lambonius

Remove the Edgar as fairy prince of Eldrich crap entirely.  It'd involve reworking the story a bit to make him a key player against Malicia (or for her--maybe after his mother's death, he was seduced by the call of yet another evil female sorceress) but without the whole contrived prince-kidnapped-at-birth crap.  Does EVERY prince in the KQ series need to have been kidnapped at birth and held captive by an evil sorcerer/ess?  They really couldn't come up with something more original than recycling the same plotline as Alexander?

KatieHal

Yeah...it was just jammed in there so awkwardly (that's what she said). I'd even say him simply being Lolotte's son and she was related to Titania or Malicia and that's how he gets pulled in--maybe he's decided to dedicate himself to undoing the evils of his extended family and spends the game being a mysterious masked benefactor a la Sheik in Ocarina or something.

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

Blackthorne

Yeah, I agree - Edgar's lineage shouldn't be messed on in a deus-ex-machina way at all.


I mean, I would re-do the graphics entirely.  I know they were going to a Disney kind of look to it - but, I don't know - it doesn't work for me.  I don't like the art-direction...  also, the singing.  No.  No, no.  No.  No.


Bt
"You've got to keep one eye looking over your shoulder
you know it's going to get harder and harder as you
get older - but in the end you'll pack up, fly down south, hide your head in the sand.  Just another sad old man, all alone and dying of cancer." - Dogs, Pink Floyd.

Lambonius

I'm not a fan of the art direction either.  It lacks the soul that most Disney movies have when it comes to art direction, and it honestly just makes the series feel overly cartoonish and whimsical--there's a LOT more silliness in KQ7 as a result.  So much so that it often seems like a parody of the earlier KQ games.

I think though, that if you changed the art direction entirely, you'd also have to rework certain elements of the game that wouldn't fit the more realistic art direction of say KQ5 or 6.  Like Falderal for example.  That said, I would not miss Falderal AT ALL.

Blackthorne

You could totally re-do Falderal - it would just take some elbow grease, some design work.... but I think it'd actually work better in a more realistic "KQ" style.... might make it even more interesting.


Bt
"You've got to keep one eye looking over your shoulder
you know it's going to get harder and harder as you
get older - but in the end you'll pack up, fly down south, hide your head in the sand.  Just another sad old man, all alone and dying of cancer." - Dogs, Pink Floyd.

KatieHal

I don't mind the graphics, but making them better cell-animations would've been great. If the characters had as much detail and care in them as the backgrounds, for example--some of those scenes were really beautiful. But the sprites weren't nearly as good, and some animations looked sloppy.

Falderal could do without the Archduke. Ferdinand the Bull, the Snake Oil Salesman, and the Faux Shop I enjoyed enough. The Archduke and the guards, though...ugh.

Mocking Bird was pretty fun :)

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

KatieHal

Actually, this DA gallery makes me think that KQ7 in *Classic* Disney animation style could be pretty cool: http://wooleymammoth.deviantart.com/gallery/

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

Datadog

 All of the crying. Valanice, Rosella, those troll women, Archduke Fifi LeYipyap, Fernando, Chicken Little, the Jackalope, Lady Tsepish (actually - in context, she's fine just because she's so freaky.) As a kid, I had to turn down the volume on these parts just because people would walk in asking why they keep hearing crying coming from my room. "It's from my game." "Your game is CRYING?" "...yes." "You should stop playing it then."

The first chapter did do something I really liked - multiple puzzle solutions. I only saw this happen a couple other times in the game, but the first chapter really built itself on the multiple solution route. Would've been nice to see them expand on this idea.

I'd also probably either remove that "use rat on Malicia" puzzle, or expand on it for later. They put a lot of exposition into her fear of rats for the one puzzle, and it'd be nice if we could continue exploiting it throughout the game.

The same with the mole rat. You trade with him twice - and the second time is so out-of-the-way that it makes even less sense not to trade with him a third time in Chapter 5. Maybe trade something for the crystal? Because I know when it came to looking for a crystal shard, Malicia's lamp was not the first thing to come to mind - especially since it didn't become a hotspot until you needed it to be.

Maybe adding a better puzzle for escaping the volcano? Even using the shovel doesn't make sense from a "trying to dig through volcanic rock" perspective, let alone watching Rosella destroy that wall with her bare hands. Maybe she could have used the scepter to turn herself into a bug and escape through a crack in the wall?

Otherwise, from a design point, this game is pretty good. I'd complain about the opening song and the sloppy cel animation, but from what they were trying to do (along with the budget) it was decent enough. With more budget, they could have turned this into the first full-length musical adventure game (where Malicia gets her own villain song!)

(Throughout writing this, I kept staring at the face of terror on the left side of the screen and thinking... "Rosella?")

Cez

I don't mind the "Disney" style. Obviously, they were not going to be able to match Disney, but some of the stuff was cool. I guess Curse of MI, which came out 2 years later, did a much better job at the whole style, and I think that would have fit KQ better, but, for being one of the first ones to take a stab at the style, it wasn't THAT bad.

Man, a Malicia evil song would have been awesome.

I also hated the fact Edgar, only appeared in the last 15 mins, not to mention that I had not played KQ4 at the time, so I couldn't help feeling I had skipped 1 hour of the game and didn't notice. Everyone was talking about "EDGAR!" and all I could think of was "who the hell are you?"

As for my feelings on the interface.. I didn't really mind it at the time. I don't remember ever being shocked by it. The game still felt very challenging even with the overly simplified interface. I honestly think once games became "talkies", the narrations didn't really fit anymore. This is obviously a topic I've thought about a lot since the release of TSL.

But all in all, my second fav KQ. Of course, that's not entirely fair since I only played V, VI and VII on their time, all the others I played after they were dated, so that definitely helped me preferring the newer ones.


Cesar Bittar
CEO
Phoenix Online
cesar.bittar@postudios.com

drusain

Shoot, Chapter 1 probably would've been much more enjoyable the game had actually STARTED on Chapter 1. In Chapter 1 we know nothing about our situation, where we are, why we are, what the stakes are, and why the player should care about finishing the game. If there had been more NPCs around to interact with to tell me about Eldritch then I'd probably like the first Chapter. Instead I'm just solving puzzles carved on a wall so I can get through one (1) door.

Valanice should have had an actual goal aside from "find my daughter" in Chapter 1 and 3. Everything Rosella does in the game seems to drive toward a point that never wavers and concludes in Chapter 6 (return to normal and find Otar so he can stop the volcano). I always felt her story was much more interesting than Valanice's. By the end of Chapter 4, Rosella has escaped the main villain a few times and found the hiding place of the real king. At that point what has Valanice done? Talked to a guy in a forest who wants a tree restored. Nothing she does matters until Chapter 5 really matters and even then, if I remember correctly, Valanice can go through the entire game without the main antagonist even knowing she exists!

Give her something to do!

I think a lot of people can agree that Rosella was miscast in this game. I think in KQ3 she had actually offered herself as the dragon's sacrifice (to save the life of another) and of course there were all the events in KQ4. She seemed to be strong and independent character in those games. But in KQ7 she seemed to be cast as some sort of mischievous and immature little girl which didn't really fit what we expected from Rosella. Rosella and Valanice didn't need to be weak characters; I had grown up with the impression that Daventry folk were independent and had a cool head.

Some complain about the cursor but I don't. Especially with the "cartoony" graphics. Since EVERYTHING was so bright in that game it would've been frustrating trying to determine what things on the screen were important and which were not. There were still puzzles to figure out that did sometimes take a significant amount of time to work out despite the lack of "look/touch/talk" buttons. Part of this opinion is biased after playing the KQ3 fanmade game where there really are no puzzles if you really only need 1 button to cast the spells, the mountain path is easy to traverse, and important items were very bright. KQ7 puzzles seemed harder in comparison in my opinion.

Agree about Edgar. I really don't like when huge important characters show up at the very end of a game with no clues prior to the end that that was going to happen. "Surprise!" It's bad writing. A game like this should generally make mention of all of the main characters that are going to appear in the game by the halfway mark.

I thought Falderal was good. They did a lot of things that I don't think would have worked as well if they didn't use the cartoon graphics, like the bull-in-a-china-shop joke and the mockingbird joke (though of course, Rotten Tomato > Mockingbird ;) )

I loved the "three stooges" plant. It should get a spinoff game.

Increase walking speed please, I'm trying to stop an evil fairy, remember?  >:( Some of the tension in the game is lost when I'm in a spooky graveyard walking like I'm taking a stroll in the park.

Brian Zabell
Quality Assurance/Technical Editor
I write for Andrew Greyson on The Four Winds

Fallout 3 Graham is Best Graham

Damar

#11
Geez, what would I change?  Where do I start?  First off, I was not a fan of the animation.  The backgrounds were fine.  The actual sprites looked sloppy and the cartoony look of the characters was just not right for King's Quest.  And whoever gave the green light to give Rosella four fingers deserves to go sit in a time out and think long and hard about what they did.

The interface needs to go back to the icons.  I hate, hate, hate the single cursor interface.  It, in my opinion, dumbs the game down even more than having an in-game hint system.  It discourages exploration and spoon-feeds you every answer.  Likewise I'd do away with the chapter system.  You can keep the chapters as a narrative tool if you want, but the idea that I can jump to whatever chapter I want right from the start?  No.  Absolutely not.  Explain to me how that's a benefit.  And don't say it's so you can pick up the game from your favorite part.  That's what save games are for!  Chapters once again dumb down the game.  I'd also make the game have the ability to save games like in the past games.  And I'd do away with the retry button.  You'd played the games up until this point learning to save early and save often.  I've always loathed the retry button because, once again, it dumbs the game down.  If you don't like games that don't keep you nice and safe and give you the chance to redo because it's just not fair if they make you experience consequences for your actions, then you shouldn't play adventure games.  It really bothers me when games try to cater to everybody like that.  I don't like turn based games, leveling up, and all the other attributes of RPGs, but you don't see me whining that they don't make an RPG for me and my interests.  I just don't play RPGs!  Anyway, enough of that rant.

I'd change Rosella's voice actress.  She is not a valley girl.  The casting director gets a time out for that one as well.  Valanice's voice is ok.  I think her problem was more the writing.  I'd alter her dialogue so that she's less whiny and sobby.  Yes, you're daughter is kidnapped and that's horrible, but Valanice is a woman of action.  I don't think her dialogue properly showed that.  Likewise I'd prefer Malicia to be more evil and less goofy.  But if you need her to be a goofy villain, tone her down a bit.  She was way over the top.

As for the plot, really I'd bring it all back to the drawing board.  The plot itself is ok, but there are so many plot holes and unexplained things.  Like where did that cheese come from?  Why does Valanice care?  Why did that cloak that Rosella use conveniently appear out of thin air?  Yes, I know that a lot was cut from KQ7.  But when you cut things, you have to piece the plot back together.  I would try to show Malicia's evil influence throughout the game.  Too often the plot of the game seemed to drift from the actual danger and into side quests or "look at how funny Falderal is!"  I'd also have Troll Edgar kidnap Rosella because he specifically wants her to help, not because he wants to marry her.  She helped him once and he wants her help again.  Lack of boundaries?  Maybe.  But the guy is desperate and had never really had a normal life.  The fact that he kidnaps Rosella and tries to forcibly marry her again and then she actually dates him at the end just isn't right.  I'm not saying that Edgar has to reveal himself, he can be interrupted by Malicia before he can, but just a "Rosella, I need your help.  You're the only one I know who can kick evil fairy ass!" would do a bit more to make his character less of a stalker.  Likewise there needs to be a reason that Rosella became a troll.  Is it a side effect of the mirror?  Seriously, what was up with that in the game?

I'd also retool some of the puzzles in Ooga Booga so that not all roads lead to and from the Ghoul Kids.  Seriously, those kids solved every problem and had everything you needed.  It was really overly simplistic.  As for the other lands, I actually liked Falderal.  Rather, I liked the town.  The inhabitants could go die in a tire fire for all I cared, but the town itself was interesting.  Tone down the characters, keep the town.  Except Fifi Le Yip Yap.  And the bull.  They can die.  Don't even try to salvage them.  They're not worth it.  But again, some things need to be retooled, like why they're connected to Volcanix or why the town fountain prevents Valanice from bending at the waist.

Oh, and as for Eldritch not being it's own dimension, I'm fine with that.  Actually, I think that's how the game plays anyway.  Whenever people say it was it's own dimension I just roll my eyes.  Yes, I know there's that hidden line from Graham that was cut from the game saying that they hadn't been gone any time at all.  Yes, I know that Peter Spear's Companion says that it's a different dimension.  But it's never overtly stated in the game and I don't routinely do extra reading or hack my games to expand the universe's canon.  So in my mind Eldritch was always just another place in the real world (even though, yeah, I know it's not really supposed to be.)

Those are the main changes I'd make.  I'm sure there are others, but I'll wait to see if other ideas come to me.  For now, I've talked long enough.

KatieHal

Damar, I am right there with you with that eye-rolling!

Also, while having the Dreamweaver, Mab, and the Fates can be fine, I wouldn't make them related to anyone--not Titania and Oberon and definitely not Edgar!

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

Numbers

Quote from: Scorpio82 on January 23, 2012, 12:41:22 PM
All of the crying. Valanice, Rosella, those troll women, Archduke Fifi LeYipyap, Fernando, Chicken Little, the Jackalope, Lady Tsepish...

THIS.  I have never seen so many emotionally unstable wretches crammed into one game.  Not to mention the voice acting was almost consistently irritating throughout.  We were listening to KQ5's voice actors in a time when that level of voice acting was no longer acceptable, although judging from how bizarre MoE's voices were, Sierra apparently didn't learn much in that department.

I'm still at a loss as to how they transitioned from "Yonderz da crystal cave.  Dere you will find da yeti." to "Love cannot truly be banished, even from this place...less still from my heart." to "Prince FROCKMORTON?!  But MUH-ther, he's so BORING!" to "Thou thinketh to defy me?  HA!  Go run to thy mother, stripling!"
I have no mouth, and I must scream.

Lambonius

Quote from: 929572 on January 24, 2012, 02:41:17 PM

I'm still at a loss as to how they transitioned from "Yonderz da crystal cave.  Dere you will find da yeti." to "Love cannot truly be banished, even from this place...less still from my heart." to "Prince FROCKMORTON?!  But MUH-ther, he's so BORING!" to "Thou thinketh to defy me?  HA!  Go run to thy mother, stripling!"

HA!  So true.

Cez

#15
The whole four fingers is an animation norm. Rich told me it's not uncommon for characters in 2D animation to only have 4 fingers since it's much less expensive to animate than with 5 fingers. I don't normally pay attention to those details but apparently it's a common thing to do.


Cesar Bittar
CEO
Phoenix Online
cesar.bittar@postudios.com

ATMachine

#16
Quote from: Cez on January 24, 2012, 06:07:11 PM
The whole four fingers is an animation norm. Rich told me it's not uncommon for characters in 2D animation to only have 4 fingers since it's much less expensive to animate than with 5 fingers. I don't normally pay attention to those details but apparently it's a common thing to do.
Curse of Monkey Island also gave Guybrush four fingers (but inconsistently; in some scenes he has more realistic hands with five fingers instead.) Of course this reverted back to the standard five fingers of previous games when the series went on to 3D... it really is a typical "cheat" of 2D animation.

KatieHal

Among other things, I would completely scrap the way in which you defeat Malicia. The whole device aspect in general I'd get rid of--it's a really lame way to end things. With a random and random-looking device, that for some reason NO ONE knows what it does, and it turns out it turns her into a baby? What? Huh? This is King's Quest, not Space Quest! Give me some magic duel, or another awesome bow and arrow coup de grace, like Rosella used to take out Lolotte!

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

snabbott

Quote from: KatieHal on January 25, 2012, 08:03:13 AM
With a random and random-looking device, that for some reason NO ONE knows what it does, and it turns out it turns her into a baby? What? Huh? This is King's Quest, not Space Quest!
Or Space Ace!


Steve Abbott | Beta Tester | The Silver Lining

Numbers

Quote from: KatieHal on January 25, 2012, 08:03:13 AM
Among other things, I would completely scrap the way in which you defeat Malicia. The whole device aspect in general I'd get rid of--it's a really lame way to end things. With a random and random-looking device, that for some reason NO ONE knows what it does, and it turns out it turns her into a baby? What? Huh? This is King's Quest, not Space Quest! Give me some magic duel, or another awesome bow and arrow coup de grace, like Rosella used to take out Lolotte!

That scene made me bulimic for two weeks.  Especially when Titania implies that she wants to "begin anew" with the crazy fairy that just made her--and everyone else's--lives a living hell for what appears to have been a fair amount of time.  I wish a text parser would appear, just for that scene, so I could "throw baby."

Hell, while they're introducing modern things like electric outlets into the King's Quest world, they could have had Otar give Rosella a bazooka to shoot Malicia with; it would've made a lot more sense--and it would've been damned funny to watch.

Of course, I'm not saying that's what should have happened, but I would've preferred it to the Deus ex McGuffin we ended up with.
I have no mouth, and I must scream.