Favorite TSL/KQ memory?

[Rock Knight]

This forum seems kinda dead as of late, and to be honest, I miss a lot of the people who were here. Lady Deloria, Mango Mercury, there were so many people, and this place was so abuzz at one time - it was the coolest place to be if you were a Sierra/KQ fan. I miss those old days...So let's take a walk down memory lane.

What are some of your favorite - happiest - memories related to TSL?

For me, it was when we had one of the first big chats - Does anyone else remember those really big, laggy chats we'd have on TSL's anniversaries? - It was May 2005, before the first C&D, before the name change to TSL - when we were all just happy kids, some of us in high school, some of us in middle school and a few in college, who missed KQ. And during that chat, we got the first TSL trailer, this one:

#Invalid YouTube Link#

I remember when I saw this, I went nuts, in a good way. "King's Quest is back!" I thought. I showed this trailer to practically everyone I knew, and it reminded me so much of Kingdom Hearts (which I was obsessed with then). I preached and pushed TSL to as many people as I could, and I remember talking to all of you who were here then about it - it was such an amazing time. I remember awaiting (a little earlier - back in 2003) each new screenshot and bit of info with baited breath.

2002 - 2007 or so was truly the greatest time to be a Sierra fan community fan. We had this wonderful, tight knit atmosphere - we were a niche group of gaming outcasts who all banded together, signed petitions, supported equally all the fan projects. POS was just a small group of volunteers, the adventure genre was still a secret club with a small number of followers. In some ways, it was a dark age, but in others, an amazing time that probably can't be recaptured.

I remember those first screenshots of TSL. When Graham wore jeans, and the graphics were totally unrefined. Remember?





And even then, it looked better, to me, than KQ8 had. It looked like KQ.

I remember when KQ2+ came out, and again, I was like, "Wow." This was KQ6 Pt. II, in a sense - it was amazing.

And now we're on the cusp of something that would've seemed impossible ten years ago, back during that May 2005 chat - a new KQ game is in the works and it's actually a pure adventure game, not an action/adventure or a killing game, no Connor, no beasties - Just Graham and his cap. Ten years ago, that would've seemed impossible - Ten years ago we would've gotten from Sierra a KQ game akin to the horrid LSL sequels. Besides the new KQ, we're living in a truly great time for adventures otherwise. The adventure game genre is back, baby. It's aliiive, to quote Dr. Frankenstein - in 2005, it seemed to be, if not dead, then in a deep, permanent coma. So, in some ways, we've come so far from 2005.

But there's a small part of me which wishes we could go back - back to that simpler time when we were kids and the adventure/Sierra fan community was much closer and more of a cool underground fan club. When fans ruled the world. I miss that time, and I miss a lot of you.

[GrahamRocks!]

*hugs you until you make a squeaky toy sound*

I miss everybody too...

I've actually never seen those pictures before! Though funnily enough, I did think that Graham was wearing jeans when I first played, until a friend told me that they're tights. I felt dumb.

[Numbers]

I'll go with my least and most favorite King's Quest memories in order:

KQ1 AGI
Least favorite: The gnome puzzle
Most favorite: Actually solving the gnome puzzle for the first time

KQ1 SCI
Least favorite: The introduction of the crouching hotkey when you literally only need it to avoid the witch on one screen you never have to enter
Most favorite: Flight of the condor

KQ1 AGDI
Least favorite: Did little to change the overall game besides adding in not-so-good voice acting
Most favorite: Eating the carrot next to the goat on the cliff behind the carrot garden to trigger a hidden easter egg

KQ2 AGI
Least favorite: Throwing the bridle on the snake...nuff said
Most favorite: Becoming a full-blown murderer and killing Dracula in his sleep

KQ2 AGDI
Least favorite: Possum's voice acting
Most favorite: Two--Hagatha becoming more important and the vampire/werewolf switcheroo, with the Sharkee kingdom as an honorable mention

KQ3 AGI
Least favorite: Making magical objects while listening to that godawful 8-bit music track
Most favorite: Leaving Llewdor for the first time

KQ3 IA
Least favorite: Changed almost nothing from the base game other than making spell-casting easier and adding in bad voice acting
Most favorite: The Manannan/Mordack easter egg

KQ3 AGDI
Least favorite: Alexander's monotonous voice acting
Most favorite: Two--the big payoff with the untalented poet becoming an untalented minstrel, and the end credits, with the three-headed dragon's death as an honorable mention

KQ4
Least favorite: The whale tongue, followed by the pelican flying off too quickly if you don't know what to do, as well as the easily-missed bridle
Most favorite: The troll cave, the single most unnerving location in the entire series

KQ5
Least favorite: Making it mandatory that you be captured at least once by that blue thing at the end of the game
Most favorite: The voice acting...yeah, I know what I said. It's just so hilarious.

KQ6
Least favorite: Overload of copy protection-related puzzles on the Isle of the Sacred Mountain, along with the voice acting of pretty much every character on the Isle of Wonder
Most favorite: The underworld, post-dancing skeleton scene

KQ7
Least favorite: Everything
Most favorite: Nothing
...oh, okay, fine.
Least favorite: Rosella singing in the opening cutscene...in fact, just the opening cutscene in general
Most favorite: The music track that plays as you ascend the Mountain of Winds

MoE
Least favorite: The obligatory poison swamp level that shows up in every other game these days
Most favorite: Cheating to make Connor run around naked in the ice level, then having one of the snow nymphs observe him, saying "Ooh, a big STRONG man!"

TSL
Least favorite: That damn hedge maze, with Pandora's Box--on either difficulty--being a close second. Also, any of the voice acting that sounds like the actor is trying too hard, like Rosella's massive gasp when she first sees Shadrack in episode 4's intro cutscene.
Most favorite: The entirety of the Valanice nightmare sequence in episode 3, with a runner-up being the closing cutscene of episode 4. Also, a shout-out goes to that move you can pull on Shadrack during the boss battle wherein you literally drop a boulder on his head. And finally, Shadrack himself. Best voice acting in the entire KQ series. The actor's just having so much fun with his role.

[DreamFan]

KQ1
Least favorite: Climbing the beanstalk (How could this not be anyone's least favorite part of the game?)
Favorite: Probably the goat

KQ2
Least favorite: Not sure although it was sort of a shame to leave Hagatha without dealing with her
Favorite: The pretty-looking water after entering the door

KQ3
Least favorite: Waiting for the bandit to fall asleep
Favorite: Sneaking around Manannan's house

KQ3 Redux (This is the only KQ fan game I've played so far other than TSL.)
Least favorite: I don't recall if waiting for the bandit was as bad. If it wasn't, then I guess going down the mountain maybe?
Favorite: The blue frog creature (I don't think I ever saw it in the original game)

KQ4
Least favorite: Not being able to escape the troll, climbing the whale tongue and falling off stairs so easily were pains; waiting so long in the ogres's closet was sort of a drag, too
Favorite: Genesta's island

KQ5
Least favorite: The unclear solutions for the cat attacking the mouse, the gnomes in the forest, and the wolf attack in the ice palace, waiting for Mordack to go to bed, and I think it's stupid how the Ice Queen said her heart melted a little since I would expect something like that to be harmful to a creature of ice
Favorite: Exploring Serenia?

KQ6
Least favorite: The stone archer, the catacombs, maybe climbing the Sacred Mountains
Favorite: Isle of Wonder, the treasury, the hidden passage, the music that plays when Alexander first enters Castle of the Crown (the same music for the Vizier's bedroom)

KQ7
Least favorite: The dog's barking and waiting for it to stop
Favorite: Etheria, especially its music (finding a picture of Graham in Etheria in TSL on a web search was what got me interested in TSL in the first place -- was that scene cut?)

MoE
Least favorite: The controls (it could have just been the laptop on which I played it)
Favorite: Rescuing Queen Freesa maybe?

TSL
Least favorite: Episode 3 crashing at the end lol I don't really recall everything that happened since I haven't played any of the episodes for awhile (I'm planning to replay them all once the fifth episode is released).
Favorite: The City of the Winged Ones, Philia (or whichever was the comedy muse), the Arch Druid, the fourth wall breakage with the narrator and Graham, Graham's portrayal

I guess it isn't really fair to pick favorites in TSL before finishing the entire game...

[Numbers]

I consider the beanstalk to be a more trial-and-error thing that you can easily cheese by with save scumming; the reason I hated the gnome puzzle so much was that it was literally almost impossible to figure out without a walkthrough. I greatly preferred the SCI remake giving you a little leeway and allowing you to just say Rumpelstiltskin's name backwards instead. The goat killing the troll is pretty satisfying no matter which version of KQ1 you have. My reasoning for liking the flight of the condor is the music track that plays during it; unfortunately, you have to slow the game speed all the way down to hear the whole thing.

KQ3 Redux didn't have any tricky mountain paths. They were all extremely easy to traverse. You might be thinking of IA's KQ3, which preserved the pathways, and they were annoying even with the use of the mouse. I also have no idea what you're referring to with that "blue frog creature" comment.

I forgot about waiting in the ogre's closet. Genesta's island was nice because it was the only location in the game where you felt safe.

As for KQ5...yeah, stupid puzzle solutions. I know. The thing about getting caught by the blue monster at the end is that I hate when a game requires you to screw up in order to continue. It doesn't matter which game it is; if it's mandatory that you fail a mission or take damage to continue, it pisses me off. There are very few exceptions (Super Metroid's ending is one of the only ones I can think of).

The Isle of the Beast is probably my least favorite location in the game, aesthetically speaking; it just doesn't look as memorable as the other islands' layouts and you don't see very much of it. That said, Isle of the Sacred Mountain in general has the worst puzzles, as you said. Mazes are rarely fun in video games. I intensely dislike Wolfenstein 3D for that--not that it wasn't a groundbreaking game--but every level in it was just one ugly maze after another, with no map to help you get your bearings. Duke Nukem 3D also had convoluted level layouts, but they were all so creatively designed that it was hard to dislike any of them. Sorry TSL, but finding the right spot to dig in that hedge maze was more annoying than it was fun.

The controls for MoE are...pretty bad. I instantly remapped the control scheme when I started the game.

TSL crashing at the end of episode 3 is pretty frustrating. I wish someone would just post that ending cutscene on YouTube without talking over it. It's a great scene, one of my favorites in the game. Except for some of the dialogue, but that's a problem with TSL having to be shortened and rewritten in general.

Spoiler (mouse over to reveal):

"Let's live the life the society took from us!"
Valanice, nobody talks like that.

I guess it isn't really fair to pick favorites in TSL before finishing the entire game...

But DreamFan, we have played the whole game. Episode 4 is as far as we're going to get. Beernutts said so.

[GrahamRocks!]

I consider the beanstalk to be a more trial-and-error thing that you can easily cheese by with save scumming; the reason I hated the gnome puzzle so much was that it was literally almost impossible to figure out without a walkthrough. I greatly preferred the SCI remake giving you a little leeway and allowing you to just say Rumpelstiltskin's name backwards instead.

I think in the VGA remake of 1, either name works. Thought that was interesting. Yeah, with how much KQ2+ changed things to make an okay game into something awesome... I SERIOUSLY wish that they'd done more with it. Y'know, expand the story and characters. So much potential lost.

As for KQ5...yeah, stupid puzzle solutions.

Indeed. I don't really get why people give the solution for killing the Yeti such flack though. Firstly, it's a custard pie! What do most people think those are used for?! Secondly, King's Quest has pretty much ALWAYS had slapstick moments and this is no different.

Then again, I was planning on having it be different slightly in my fic. It was going to be an action scene and Graham would have been using the hammer to fight it, cracking away part of the cliff but as the Yeti falls, it's smart enough to grab onto Graham's legs and try to take him down with it. Graham would grab and hang onto the cliff and use the pie then, as a last resort to get it to let go and fall.

I know. I'm hypocritical.

Sorry TSL, but finding the right spot to dig in that hedge maze was more annoying than it was fun.

Thank you, Numbers! I hate that bit too. It's the one part I HAVE to always look up, because I never QUITE remember where they are, and the instructions on the scroll oddly don't help me much. Though I could just be misreading them and going in completely the wrong way.

TSL crashing at the end of episode 3 is pretty frustrating. I wish someone would just post that ending cutscene on YouTube without talking over it. It's a great scene, one of my favorites in the game. Except for some of the dialogue, but that's a problem with TSL having to be shortened and rewritten in general.

*nods* Which is why I was so disappointed to see that Rudy hasn't yet done TSL episodes 3-4 yet, because he NEVER talks, he just plays. Though to be fair to Toegoff (the LP I watched initially when I first got into TSL and have used as a mental walkthrough ever since), at least, he talks but does so very minimally during it and relatively quietly.

[Numbers]

To Toegoff's credit, he's not obnoxious when playing TSL, is mostly quiet during the cutscenes, and constantly praises the game's plot twists and puzzle solutions. The only time he seemed really irritated was the Pandora's Box scene...well, that's what you get when you choose the hardest difficulty setting without knowing what you're getting into. It's like trying to beat a Halo game on legendary/mythic when you've never played it before and then getting mad when you inevitably get one-shotted by snipers over and over again. That's what the easier difficulty settings are for, people.

[DreamFan]

Fun fact: I started playing through all the KQ games last year (I had never finished many of them, or even played some of them much before then) using DosBox to play my King's Quest Collection cd. I originally had to play KQ1 without being able to save, so that beanstalk forced me to start over several times until I finally figured out how to save games on DosBox.

When I first played all the way through KQ 2 (last year), I was afraid of using up all my wishes at the wrong time, so I killed the snake with the sword the first time.

I definitely wasn't thinking of IA's KQ3 since I have yet to play it; I must have been thinking of the original game. It has been over a year since I played KQ3 Redux. The blue frog appears randomly in the area with the waterfall (I think it's west of the cave with the spider web), so it's very possible to miss completely (it's nothing essential to completing the game, just a visual gag I guess).

The thing about getting caught by the blue monster at the end is that I hate when a game requires you to screw up in order to continue. It doesn't matter which game it is; if it's mandatory that you fail a mission or take damage to continue, it pisses me off. There are very few exceptions (Super Metroid's ending is one of the only ones I can think of).

Does that mean you also hated how getting tied up and locked in that room once was also mandatory?

I introduced a friend to Wolfenstein relatively recently. He got turned around easily on the first level.

I may have thought of some candidates for my least favorite parts of TSL.

Spoiler (mouse over to reveal):

It sort of sucked how it was necessary to get those poor, innocent dog guards in trouble 

I guess getting passed that female druid is like the wolf attack in KQV where the cursor is unobviously free while Graham is in impending danger.

[GrahamRocks!]

That was the Morrigan in the form of a banshee, not a druid. But yeah, Controllable Helplessness is never fun.

I agree about Toegoff, btw Numbers! Probably couldn't have picked a better LPer to go through that game. Though I'm awaiting an LPer who does a playthrough of TSL that's NOT blind. I would do it myself, but I don't have the equipment nor any knowledge of how to edit things like that. I'd be knowledgable, but aside from my love of puns, I'm not sure I'd be all that funny, which that's part of my standards for good Let's Players- make me laugh and preferably know your games.

But DreamFan, we have played the whole game. Episode 4 is as far as we're going to get. Beernutts said so.

BAHAHAHAHAHA!!! 

[Numbers]

Fun fact: I started playing through all the KQ games last year (I had never finished many of them, or even played some of them much before then) using DosBox to play my King's Quest Collection cd. I originally had to play KQ1 without being able to save, so that beanstalk forced me to start over several times until I finally figured out how to save games on DosBox.

I remember somebody on this forum reminiscing on the days when they were forced to play KQ2 without saving. They never knew about that poison-curing sugar cube because they never threw the bridle on the snake, and they tried endlessly to make it through the castle path lined with the poisoned barbs without it. Poor bastards.

"Graham, watch out! A POIsonous path!"

Does that mean you also hated how getting tied up and locked in that room once was also mandatory?

Yeah, I hated that too. It's just so unintuitive.

I introduced a friend to Wolfenstein relatively recently. He got turned around easily on the first level.

Yeah, Wolfenstein's level design is not the best. For reference, here's the layout of level 1:



A bit strange, but not overly large or confusing. Meanwhile, in a later level:



...what the f*ck is this? A Rorschach test? And that level's not the only one of its kind, oh no, there's a bunch that look and play just like it.

Controllable Helplessness is never fun.

On a related note, the most recent Wolfenstein games, The New Order and The Old Blood, both have moments like this. Places in the game where your character is required to get stabbed and lose significant amounts of health, and there's nothing you can do about it. At least the game developers were nice enough to let you heal up afterwards.