What do you LIKE about KQ8?

[Sir Perceval of Daventry]

We all know well the common complaints and things that are DISLIKED about KQ8, but what are some things that you liked, that you enjoyed, when you played it?

Myself, I liked:
-The deeper, more Tolkien-esque storyline
-The use of actual medieval myths and symbols and creatures like Slyphs. The use of Elemental stuff.
-The combat. I actually enjoyed it
-The thematic approach to each world
-3D Daventry.
-The monsters

[GrahamRocks!]

Me? Well, I need to delve deeper into KQ8 (translation; I either need to get going on Rudy's Seirra Chest walkthrough or I need to play it myself) before I can really give my thoughts on it.

Two things I noticed right away though:

1. The music is quite nice.

2. The voice acting isn't half bad. I especially like Connor.

[Numbers]

Yep, the music was very well composed. The main theme is pretty rocking. Some of the music in the game is thoroughly creepy and unpleasant to listen to (that eerie music that plays when you're in the Swamp Witch's castle, for instance), but the calm ones work extremely well if you're trying to fall asleep. I have the soundtrack on my computer, and during the night when I'm trying to fall asleep, I just play the track that you hear when you're talking to the Oracle of the Tree on repeat. I'm usually asleep within a few minutes.

As for the voice acting, well...I don't mean to be a jerk, but there isn't a single King's Quest game, be it official or fanmade, where I actually liked the voice acting. Not one. Whenever I play, I always, without question, turn the voices off. The only games where I kind of like the voices are the ones where there's a sort of narm charm to them--KQ5 and MoE. The voice acting in KQ5 is just so utterly inept that I can't dislike it. The same goes for MoE, which tries so hard to be serious, Old English-style acting and fails completely.

If you're wondering why I don't like KQ6's voice acting, it's a combination of the actors being dramatic and gung-ho and the very flowery dialogue they end up saying. That "we are all beasts without the redeeming human quality of love" line is probably the stupidest one in the game, but there are others that stick out as well. Probably the only actor I liked was Tony Jay as Saladin, and even then, only as Saladin. Hearing his voice--which still sounds exactly like Saladin's--for like five other characters was very distracting. (That, and Alexander sounds like a massive wussy whenever he opens his mouth.) And I don't really feel the need to explain why I don't like KQ7's voice acting.

Anyway, MoE did give us quite a few unintentionally hilarious gems in the dialogue. (Some of these I couldn't remember the exact quote, so I had to paraphrase them.)

Sara (her second line in the game): Hark! A sudden wind!

Connor: 'Tis beyond my REACH!

Connor (upon killing the first enemy in the game): Whence came these foul creatures? This is madness!

Connor (speaking to the mutated beast by the pond): Hark, pathetic beast! Why so sad?
Beast: A pox on thee! I am not a pathetic beast, I am a beautiful unicorn!

Lucreto: Go run to thy mother, stripling!

Any of the skeletons from the DoD: Your life, mortal. Give it up! *cue them running at you, brandishing their maces like an athlete brandishes the Olympic torch*

Tower Skeleton: Come forward, mortal. I crave your soul.
Connor (after knocking him off the tower): My soul is not yours for the taking.
Tower Skeleton: NOOOOOOOOOO!

Connor (triumphantly): I have fetched some green mold!

Connor (reading off of a stone tablet in the DoD): Truth did not come into the world naked, but it came in images. One must pass through the image into the truth.

Connor (after startling the Whispering Weeds): Ho there! Come back, good creatures, I mean you no harm!

Connor (dropping his Hearing Horn immediately after using it): Oh, drat...

Swamp Witch: Die, toad!
Connor: Not me, witch...YOU!

Connor (looking at a goblin sacrificed on an altar): What a foul creature... *note that he has already killed at least half a dozen of these things just a few hours ago, so he already knows what they look like*

Wierdling Storekeeper: Daventry, huh?...pray tell, where is that?
Connor: O'er yon mountains, I believe, but alas, my directions are assuredly confounded.

Snow Nymph (appraising Connor like a serial killer appraises his latest catch): Ooh, a big, STRONG man!

First Gryph in the Frozen Reaches level: Arr, a man! DEATH TO HUMANS!

Connor (failing to defeat the Two-Headed Dragon): Alack! The heads do not die!

Thork: Prepare to die, mortal!
Connor: Not me...YOU, Thork!

Connor (tripping over a gap under a large door): 'Tis a bad place for such a wide gap!

Connor (using a lever made out of ice): The lever works! I hope 'twill not break... *lever shatters immediately*

Any Lucreto henchman's famous last words: YER DEAD MEAT!

Level 2 Temple Door: How gainest thou the light?
Connor: A mind enlightened gains the light of life!

Connor (making his ultimate objective clear): I have no intention of dying, Lucreto!

I'm sure there are others I missed, but hearing that gloriously awful dialogue never fails to cheer me up.

[Icerose]

Everythings. the Stories, the Characters  the atmosphere in this games that gave you the feeling your playing  an old myth, it has its own magic and that makes it special.
I like the looks from the Kings Quest games a lot and also their voices they fit perfectly to the characters.
But somehow it would be nice to have more characters at your side like cedric the owl at kq5 i liked his fearful yet funny very much in that game.
There is nothing i wouldnt like about the Kings Quest game.

[Matthew1987]

Less than 2 hours ago, I finished playing through KQ8.  It was the first time I'd played the game through in more than 14 years.  The last time was when I first played it in early to mid 1999, when I was 11 years old.  Here are some things I liked:



* That it can be played in stereoscopic 3D with my modified version of OpenGlide.  Some of you may recall how in early 2012 I modified OpenGlide (an open-source Glide wrapper) so that it can play Glide 2 games, including KQ8, in stereoscopic 3D.  I've hugely improved it since then, and KQ8 is now fully playable with it.  I was playing KQ8 in stereoscopic 3D on my 3D monitor, and have now played the entire game through that way.  I'll tell you more about that soon, but know this much: It transforms the game into a deep, immersive virtual reality experience.

* The visuals.  Although the engine is terrible, the visuals themselves were very elaborate for a game of it's time.  This is in part why KQ8 is extremely slow and unplayable with most Glide wrappers; most Glide wrappers are not optimized to render large batches of polygons.  My modified version of OpenGlide is (this improves the framerate from a fraction of a frame per second to around 10 frames per second), and also does resolution overriding (so you can play in any 4:3 resolution, for example 1440x1080) and overrides the color depth to 32-bit RGBA, which improves the quality of KQ8's graphics a LOT.  I'll upload some screenshots soon.

* The music.

* The sound effects.

* That it's worlds are open and non-linear.  KQ8 was the first video game I know of that allows for unbounded exploration of an open, non-linear full polygon 3D world.  3D games of the time generally took place in enclosed environments and/or restricted the player to a particular path.

* That cutscenes are sometimes different depending on how you play it through.  Here's one example: If you go down from the roof of the mausoleum in the graveyard in Daventry and kill the Spriggan with the crossbow that way, it will be a different cutscene depending on which, if any, hand weapon you have at that time.  There are 4 possible cutscenes: Fists, dagger, axe, and lake sword.  If you have a different hand weapon, the game will lock up.

* That you can go outside the normal areas of the regions and go off the map.

* That many of the regions have interesting things off the map.

* That some enemies weapons can damage other enemies.  For example, in the Barren region, you can stand between a Pyro Demon and a Fire Ant and dodge the lava chunk the Pyro Demon throws so it hits the Fire Ant instead.

* That Connor rescues Queen Freesa in the Barren region.  In the years since I first played the game, I had completely forgotten that you encounter her in the Barren region.  I had thought you rescued her in the Frozen Reaches.

* That Connor gets a hug from Queen Freesa when he rescues her.

* That Connor can do the above when naked.

[Numbers]

I did that Mausoleum Spriggan stealth-kill while using my fists with the nude cheat activated once. I don't know why, but something about naked Connor dramatically front-flipping off a building and onto a bewildered monster's shoulders had me laughing for like ten minutes.

[Neonivek]

Ok I have two

1) I like the idea of the game: Honestly Kings Quest has had such a rich history and mythology that a action adventure game that takes place. There are so many locations they could have drawn from with monsters from dragons, to hags, to harpies. Now it turns out they didn't draw from any... of the previous games... and even retconned HUGE sections of the previous game... but it is the thought that counts.

2) I like the basic elements of the plot: Honestly a mask destroyed turning everyone you know or ever love into stone is not only a great idea... but it is also a good way to get rid of the Royal Family for the game. It actually seemed sufficiently epic especially since you had no way of knowing how wide spread it is or even if the entire world was turned to stone. How could you fight something so immense and how could you do it without anyone to help you? You were truly alone against the entire world.

[Sir Perceval of Daventry]

Ok I have two

1) I like the idea of the game: Honestly Kings Quest has had such a rich history and mythology that a action adventure game that takes place. There are so many locations they could have drawn from with monsters from dragons, to hags, to harpies. Now it turns out they didn't draw from any... of the previous games... and even retconned HUGE sections of the previous game... but it is the thought that counts.

2) I like the basic elements of the plot: Honestly a mask destroyed turning everyone you know or ever love into stone is not only a great idea... but it is also a good way to get rid of the Royal Family for the game. It actually seemed sufficiently epic especially since you had no way of knowing how wide spread it is or even if the entire world was turned to stone. How could you fight something so immense and how could you do it without anyone to help you? You were truly alone against the entire world.

To the first point, when was any previous land, outside of Daventry, revisited in any previous KQ game? Part of the charm of KQ is being thrust into totally new a d unfamiliar worlds. Also, KQ8 has a dragon (a two headed one actually) and a hag, the Swamp Witch. And in previous KQ games, the only fantasy races or creatures that were revisited were elves, dragons, trolls, gnomes, and dwarves. KQ8 has a dragon and a whole land of gnomes.

[Numbers]

MoE also has orcs. Orcs that live in freezing mountain peaks and (sometimes) melt into snow when they die.

[Neonivek]

To the first point, when was any previous land, outside of Daventry, revisited in any previous KQ game?

That is what would have made KQ8 so good, HAD it tried.

[Bludshot]

Myself, I liked:
-The deeper, more Tolkien-esque storyline

Err...

[Numbers]

Why so hesitant, Bludshot? What about MoE doesn't scream "Tolkien" to you? I mean, we have epic fight choreography, vast, sweeping vistas that are pleasing to the eyes, a deep, intricate storyline that challenges our very beliefs, an instantly likable and relatable protagonist, and a tragic villain with an extensive backstory.

Oh, wait, it has none of that. Well...at least it has good music.