So here we are again with a change in the season, which means a new chapter of the King’s Quest saga has been released. Even though the gap between releases has gotten a bit shorter, it still takes a while to remember what’s happened before, what’s going on now and how the game works. It’s very nice to come back to the kingdom of Graham, but for the first time the world in the first hour started to grate a bit, feeling stale and tired. But things as always get better and the story pushes forward with some lovely touches. So let’s put on a feathered adventure hat, grab our inventory cloak and carry on questing in this penultimate episode.
The last story was all about love, finding your perfect partner to live with and ruling the kingdom. I loved it and gave it top marks for its original gameplay, new locations and warming story; a highlight of the series. This story starts with our newly married King and Queen with two newborn twins of their own. While trying to get them to sleep, an old villain appears and things take a turn for the dark as something terrible happens that rips the family apart. Cut to 18 years later and after some soul searching years, King Graham is an older king with a beard. Then the family is suddenly reunited, so to celebrate they decide to take a family vacation to a beach resort. When they arrive at the resort they find that the resort is covered in ice and they are thrown into a mass of puzzle games by a mysterious sphinx creature. King Graham now has to fight for his life and the lives of his family. Phew!
The gameplay for those who don’t know, or haven’t played the other three episodes, is basically a modern day adventure game. You explore the environment, click on items to activate things, collect said items and use them on other items. There are dialogue trees and there are mini games galore to experience and enjoy. In this episode though it’s all about puzzle solving and creative thought processes. The mini games you experience at the beginning are basic, but a lot of fun. There’s one where you have to sing your newborn baby to sleep, but you have to keep moving while avoiding toys on the floor. There’s a staring competition to be had, and a game where you remember the items people are taking with them on holiday, but then it gets tricky. When you get to the puzzle arenas, the difficulty level spikes hard and sharp. Puzzles are a mixture of “move the tiles” around the board, “What am I” questions and Escape room type riddles and tricks. Some of these are very hard to complete, and I promise you’re going to be there for a while, scratching your head and searching on the internet for answers. Now, the series has got to be given a lot of credit for making each episode in the series different, with new and innovative gameplay elements arriving all the time. For me, this current episode was too focused on the puzzle rooms, especially the dreaded ‘move the tiles” puzzle – one I just can’t comprehend in my tiny little mind.
The story in this episode does a tricky thing, whereby it suddenly shifts the time forward by eighteen years. The Graham we have grown to love has either been young or an older version telling the story. Now we have a middle aged one with a slightly gravely voice and it takes a while to get used to. When you play all the episodes in one sitting it might be easy to view the story arc as a whole, but with these episodes so far apart, it can jar a lot. The first hour of story is full of the usual traits of the game, full of puns and Disney type humour and wit. There is a mixture of darkness and light that works well here, but there are some pacing issues that saw things delivered better in the other episodes. There are some nice gags, but the relationship between the father and son becomes a trifle annoying, rather than endearing and a bit on the nose. Also, don’t reveal the fate of a character in the future half way through, because it takes away the tension about what might happen to the character you’re playing as in the past.
I’ve waxed lyrical about how I’ve enjoyed the look of King’s Quest in the past three reviews. Nothing has changed here; it still looks like an animation movie from Disney. The characters are brilliantly drawn and there are some nice new ideas displayed here, especially the ice servants in the palace you visit. Sound wise it’s still great as well, with superb voice acting and a fun score that pops and whizzes around within the action.
I still enjoyed playing through this recent episode of Kings Quest, and it’s still very entertaining and lovely to look at. This isn’t one of the best episodes though and can be very hard with some of the puzzles later on. I am however interested to see where the story is finally going to end up with one more episode to go. I just hope we won’t have to wait too long to fulfil this final quest.
