Summary
Another Sierra remake, but not what I expected.
The Good
In 1990,
Sierra celebrated their 10th anniversary as a game company, and they thought what not to do but to remake their old games using their new scripting engines. Their first one to be remade was
King's Quest, and in the years to come, they decided to repeat this with other games, including
Space Quest,
Leisure Suit Larry, and
Police Quest. And in the remakes, the elements remained the same – story, characters, events, etc., only the locations are slightly different.
For those of you who haven't played the original, you play Sir Graham who is given the task of collecting three magic treasures and bring them back to Daventry Castle, but getting these will be a hard task as Graham faces many obstacles and characters that give him a hard time. If he brings these treasures back, King Edward the Benevolent will hand over the crown. What I like is that
King's Quest has a simple storyline to it, other than storylines in most games that are hard to follow.
The KQ remake uses the newer SCI0 remake, and as a result, the environments which you walk around in are a lot more colorful than that of the original. Although the structure of Daventry is slightly different to the original, with more lakes added and objects in different places, it is nice to walk through the environment, knowing that you are likely to die if someone or something gets in your way, like the sorcerer who turns you into ice or the dwarf that swipes most of your possessions. What I enjoyed was watching the dwarf take away all my shit while I was in ice and could not move.
Also with the SCI0 interface, users were given the option of using sound cards like the Adlib and Roland MT-32 if they are sick and tired of the PC Speaker already. Although there is no
Greensleeves to listen to, they can enjoy the excellent soundtrack that the KQ remake has to offer. Although you can't get anywhere in the game without entering commands using the keyboard, the mouse is only used to make Graham walk around.
Like the original, you can die by doing something out of the ordinary. When you do, you do not hear Sierra making fun of the
Death March while the death dialog box is displayed. Instead, you hear up to three different death tunes. I believe that this was not present in almost all of Sierra games.
Sierra removed a couple of design flaws that were present in the original KQ. Gone are the arch-shaped bridges that made you fall into the moat whenever you start to cross it. This is replaced by a straight bridge with barriers on either side so that you don't accidentally fall into the moat. The gnome puzzle is far more easier and consistent with the clue that you could find earlier in the game.
The Bad
Like all the other remakes, the KQ remake wasn't well received by fans, mainly because it was not close to the original. True, the structure has changed, there are more paths to choose from, and the dialogue is different. Having played the original first, and then the remake, I sometimes question why Sierra did not give the KQ remake the same treatment that they gave all their other remakes, where all the graphics are 256 colors, and the interface is point-and-click rather than text parser. Having realized that the remake was a dud,
Tierra Entertainment (now AGD Interactive) did a wonderful 256-color version, together with a point-and-click interface and an excellent soundtrack. The storyline and the elements are all there. There is even a voice pack and music enhancement available for download at their site.
Even though most of the design flaws have been removed, Sierra failed to fix the beanstalk problem, where it is very easy to fall off if you make a wrong move. To make matters worse, you are forced to wait until Graham makes a hole in the ground and the death message appears. In the original, if you are falling down, you can immediately bring up the restore dialog box, but not this time.
The Bottom Line
If you played the remake without playing the original first, you won't even care whether it is close to the original. But if you have played the original first, then this game is worth a try, even if it is a little bit bad. You have almost the same elements, and the structure is a little bit different from that of the original. You still need to know your fairy tales in order to solve some parts.
