King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella

The Good
King's Quest IV was a truly breakthrough game for the IBM PC and compatibles. Before this game, people had absolutely no reason to upgrade from the already dated CGA graphics card and the PC Speaker. This was among the first games that convinced people to buy a fancy EGA graphics card and an Adlib sound card, the latter being especially untried on PCs.

This game laid the second foundation that Sierra was able to bring state of the art graphics to PC Games. The graphics in this game were drawn in the new 16 color 320x200 resolution, as opposed to the old 4 color 320x200 resolution. The increase in detail from their older, blocky games, was stunning at the time. The background screens are very fairy-tale like, the Disney influence is obvious. One of the unique features to this particular Quest game is that the designers have implemented a sense of scale. In outdoor screens, people are very small sprites on the screen. Indoors, they become proportionately larger. Also, the game takes place during the day and at night, and there is separate artwork for each outdoors screen.

The music in this game was a true step up from the PC Speaker or Tandy sound. Before this game, music in computer games generally was limited to a short opening theme and little ditties throughout. While there is less music than in later games, what is there is quite rousing and fits in well with the whimsical fantasy setting. They actually got a real musician to write the game's intro and his services were well worth it.

The story is basic fantasy, but it does have a nice twist or two in the plot. Some sequences, like the ogre's house, the witches' cave and the troll's cave are suspenseful. Lolotte makes for a second in a memorable series of King's Quest villains.

The Bad
This is a Sierra adventure game, and all the usual caveats apply. It is very easy to die in this game, fall off a cliff or down the stairs, swim too far, get killed by a random monster, etc. Sierra games let you wander willy-nilly, so if you forget to do something or get something before you enter an area that does not allow you to return, hope you have a good save ready. Maniac Mansion, a contemporary of this game, did not punish the player with instant death at the slip of a keystroke.

In the older games, random monsters would inhabit screens you could avoid, but in this game a random monster haunts an area you have to go through, twice. If you played the game you know the part I mean. Some parts of the game are timed, so if you don't figure out how to proceed, you will die or can't continue. Finally, a crucial item has a limited number of uses, so if you use it in the wrong place, you cannot win.

While the graphics were improved in detail over the older Quest-engine, some objects were difficult to clearly identify. Also, as this is a text parser game, many times you have to guess what the programmer wants you to type in order to proceed. Character interaction is one-sided and limited.

This game was the last game in which Sierra would support 16-color composite graphics or the Apple IIe/IIc series of computers. Unfortunately, both use the older engine and thus were hard to find back in the day, never mind today.

The Bottom Line
A very historically-important PC game, technologically, but very little new in terms of gameplay.

The Good
The fourth installment of the King's Quest series is much better than the previous three games when it comes to, well, everything. Roberta Williams wanted KQ4 to be special, and fans were impressed at what they saw. In the last game, Alexander escaped the hands of the wizard Manannan and freed her sister Rosella from the three-headed dragon. KQ4 begins where it left off.

The introduction to the game is something, since it runs for about ten minutes, a first for a KQ game. It tells how King Graham becomes ill and Rosella traveling to Tamir to find the magic fruit that will save her father. She must also recover the talisman that was stolen by Lolotte, an evil fairy that resides in a castle high up in the mountains. It's easy to get emotional while watching the intro, since the player finds out that Genesta, the fairy who brought Rosella to Tamir, will die in twenty-four hours if her talisman is not returned. There are quite a few dialog boxes in it, but you can't press a key to bypass them unless you want to go straight into the game.

It's easy to notice that the graphics are improved quite a bit, and that's because the game uses Sierra's new SCI0 interpreter which offers a resolution of 320x200 and crisper character sprites, and the text parser at the bottom of the screen is gone. Instead, you press a key and a box appears with a prompt inside. I love this technique, mainly because it pauses the action as you type, and I can think of a few situations where something bad is going to happen to you and you need to type a command quickly without worrying what is happening on screen. A smaller version of KQ4 was released, containing the old AGI version and the same chunky graphics, but this version didn't last long.

Another plus is the improved sound. No longer do you have to play through PC Speaker, you can choose the Adlib or the Roland MT-32 as your sound card. The tunes are excellent, especially coming from the MT-32 since the device is capable of producing music using real instruments. My favorites were the introduction and the scene where you are flown to Lolotte's castle. Anyone who watched Fame back in the day will be pleased to know that the soundtrack was composed by no other than William Goldstein.

I like how KQ4 is the first – and last – game to operate in real-time. You can go in this haunted house and check the time on the grandfather clock in the foyer. Time plays a crucial role in this game, as day shifts to night at some point in the game, and you can only do certain things at night. In fact, there is only one thing that you must do at night-time before dawn breaks. Everything looks good at night just like they do during the day. Every house that you can visit is lit up, adding to the atmosphere.

People probably don't know this, but there are actually two endings. You can carry out your objective properly, or you can be selfish and eat it, meaning that you have no hope of saving Graham. There are the many references to folklore. You have to deal with the minstrel, cupid, the unicorn, and even the ogre and his wife. Finally, KQ4 may have attracted female players as it is the first to allow you to control a female protagonist.

The Bad
There are many death traps in this game, and this usually take the form of stairs that are uneven. More often than not, you can fall down and die if you don't follow a specific path. Even smaller steps can be fatal.

The Bottom Line
King's Quest IV is a massive game compared to the previous three games. It runs on Sierra's new SCI engine, meaning that it has superior graphics and sound. It also has many features that make it stand out including a ten-minute introduction, a day/night cycle, and a girl as the main protagonist. Sierra thought that due to its complexity, not many people would be able to run the game, so they also made a version that used the old AGI engine and required less memory. If you have played any games in the KQ series other than number four, now would be a perfect time to get acquainted with Rosella.

The Good
Remember when you where a child, tucked up all cosy in your bed, and your mother / father would read you a bed-time fairy-tale story? Well, this game brings the atmosphere of all those cosy fairy tales to life.
Seven dwarfs, an ogre’s house, a hen that lays golden eggs, witches… it’s all there.

From the rather plain original, the series had really evolved, and in this instalment things really start to come alive and find their stride.
Each of the King’s Quest games were traditionally bigger than it’s predecessor, but KQ4 is much, MUCH bigger than any of the previous games, by far the largest and most complex game in the series up to this point.

The thing that really stands out with this adventure is purely the great atmosphere it has to it, really sucking the player in, and having a lot of good ideas and various areas to explore.
It’s also much more intelligent than the first couple of games, with the magical land of Tamir feeling much more like a “living” world.

One of the notable things about this game was it’s having a female lead, Princess Rosella. Not only a first for the King’s Quest series, but one of the firsts for PC gaming in general. (There are a couple of sections where this is used dubiously, though. For example, at one stage, to you have to wash and tidy the seven dwarfs house!!)

One of the best elements of the game - and once again, a first for the series - is that it has a day/night-time cycle, with night-time arriving after you’ve completed certain puzzles and mini-quests.
The night has a great effect as it makes everything look creepy, and it revolves mostly around a run-down haunted house, where you have to help some restless ghosts by retrieving various things from their grave, avoiding zombies in the cemetery along the way. It’s much spookier than anything previously seen in any of the previous KQ games, and quite probably stands out as my personal favourite sequence of play within any of the King’s Quest games.

It is the last game in the KQ series to have EGA graphics, and undoubtedly contains some of the best EGA graphics ever seen in a game, in my opinion. Far sharper and better looking than anything seen in any of the previous KQs (or for any other Sierra game of the time, for that matter), the game looks stunning considering it’s EGA limitations.

It’s also the first game in the series to support sound cards. Originally when I played it, I only had the standard PC speaker – and even on that it sounded good, but when I re-played the adventure recently, I heard the sound card-driven effects for the first time, and, considering their age, they sound great.

Also, the last KQ entry to have text interface – I’m one of those who feel the series really lost some of it’s involvement when it was replaced by point-and-click.

This was actually the first King’s Quest game I played (though I dutifully filled in playing the previous instalments afterwards), as it stands as one of my favourite Sierra adventures.

**The Bad**
There's little I didn’t like about this one; a few nit-picky points at most.

It uses Sierra’s (then) new updated text interface. On the whole it’s good, and the way it pauses the action as you type is handy, not meaning you don't have to frantically finish typing before something fatal happens as in previous adventures. But the way it automatically pops up a window in the centre of the screen is a little distracting – bottom of the screen (as in some other adventures to use the engine) would have been better.
But more annoying is that, is how it stops dead any sound as soon as you enter a single letter, spoiling any background tunes that are playing at the time.

As with the previous KQ games, things are somewhat random driven at times – for example, at one stage, you need to deliberately get swallowed by a whale, but it’s appearance is very random, and as you look for it you’re just as likely to get eaten by a shark

It’s also easy to miss something important, leaving the game unfinishable as a result. For example, at one stage, you find yourself washed up on a small island. A bridal that you need to harness a unicorn elsewhere is actually on the island, but it is actually obscurely located in the ‘V’ of a ship-wreck, and the game gives you no hint that it’s there. You wouldn’t know if you missed it, and worse, it's impossible to return back to this island once you’ve left it.

And of course, as with just about all Sierra adventures of the era, there are several screens that that will see you plummeting to your death if you step one pixel out of place - and there’s plenty of them in this game. Twisty paths, dark caves (with a deep chasm that appears with warning from nowhere)…
And as with most Sierra games of the era, saving your game regularly is vital. Sierra obviously seemed to think such screens were “fun” to play; I guess no-one had the heart to tell them that they weren’t!

Oh, one more thing – the ending just seemed to stop dead. On the closing scene, after King Graham’s life has been saved, the animated picture and music just loop around and around, not having the usual closing credits as with most Sierra games.

**The Bottom Line**
One of the very best of the ‘King’s Quest’ games, and quite possibly my personal favourite of the series (King’s Quest V being it’s closest rival, though I’ve never managed to get hold of KQ6 to date).
Much bigger, there’s much more to explore than do than the previous entries, with the night-time section of game-play particularly standing out.
In my opinion, if you only ever play one King’s Quest game, this should be the one. It has a real nostalgic feel to it, being a reminder of both Sierra adventures and King’s Quest games in their heyday, at their very best.

The Good
The story centers on Rosella, daughter of King Graham, who must find a cure for her father as well as stop the evil witch Lolotte from ruling the land. As always a knowledge of fairy tales will help in solving the game's puzzles. The game was the first in Sierra's new SCI engine which was a significant improvement from the old AGI engine. The music finally supports sound cards so another big improvement there. This installment also has a day-night cycle, one of the first games to implement this. There are two possible endings to this adventure. All in all a huge step forward in adventure game design.

The Bad
There are still the Sierra gotcha! instant kills but they are not as bad as previous games. Walking on paths & climbing are still dangerous to you. one wrong move equals death. Good luck climbing that whale's tongue! Also there is a plot critical item that will not be found without a walkthrough (the bridle).

The Bottom Line
The cream of the crop for 80s Sierra games, girls really do get it done in adventure games.

The Good
This review can be like copy of my KQ3 review.

From good points, what stands out is that KQ4 is another notable step in technological execution. Moreover, step from KQ3 to KQ4 is way bigger than step from KQ2 to KQ3. New engine (SCI vs AGI), much sharper graphics (full 320x200, 16 colors), Adlib sound, big world, day and night cycle, etc..

The game has also very good writing, good story (compared to KQ1/2), admirable protagonist, very nice locations and generally playing KQ4 after first three installments is refreshing. Sierra made sure that you'll not have déja-vu feeling when playing this title.

The Bad
And similar as to KQ3, my main negative point is difficulty. Although, I must admit, it's a bit better than overly frustrating KQ3, it's still the game from hardcore-games times, when it was ok to play one adventure game for two-three months, talk about it with your friends, exchange experiences and ideas, move a little forward, then finally purchase some magazine with walkthrough in it, to finally beat the game. Apropos difficulty, I'm not talking just about adventure puzzles. Those adventure puzzles, even if some of them are really difficult, are still manageable. But game has action sequences, where one misstep cost you life. I remember passing through dark cave, even when double-checking against walkthrough that I made everything right, it took me maybe like 50-100 attempts to pass it. And "inside whale" screen is just atrocious taking into account today's standards. Literally pixel walking over invisible pixels. I thought that game is buggy, but nope, it was a feature. What game brought you with new fancy graphics and sound, it took you back with some frustrating parts.

But just to be clear, my review is solely from the point of view from new 'modern times' gamer who wants to play the game for the first time. Of course, people playing this game back in 80's and early 90's will probably disagree with me, because back then, it was totally different world. Nostalgia is a strong thing.

The Bottom Line
It's a pity I can't give score 3.5/5 now in Moby review, so I'm resorting to same 3/5 as for KQ3, albeit I think KQ4 is a notch better. If you don't mind higher difficulty and resorting to walkthrough from time to time, I consider KQ4 better play for new-gamer than KQ3.

The Good
The release of this game was a big event of its time. The King's Quest series was really the flagship game series for IBM computers. At a time when the venerable Apple II & Commodore 64 and the up and coming Amiga & Atari ST were the dominate home platforms with a larger library of games. This game took full advantage of the new EGA graphics card and the new array of sound cards. Showed that the IBM could have games that looked and sounded just as good as those other systems.

The game was much larger than previous quest games. Not just in hard drive space but in the game world. There was a lot of ground to explore. And the improved graphics really added to the game play. I distinctly remember how creepy that run down house looked.

The game mixed in its regular brew of fairy tale references with its plot development. There were several mini quests that you had to solve that revolved around a certain area of the world. For example the above mentioned house had some ghosts that you had to deal with.

The Bad
While the game looked and sounded good. I felt that the way this game was planned out made for some frustrations in play.

Since the game world was large and mostly open you could wander about collecting items in your usual Sierra fashion without really advancing the story much. While this worked for me in Sierra's original Hero's Quest game, in KQ4 I found myself lost until I found some hints in a magazine to help me along. This being the days before the easy download of walkthrus on the Internet.

This ability to wander also meant that you could slip into night without being ready for it. There were certain puzzles that could only be solved at night. The real time advance of the clock was a nice touch for the game but only if you were ready for it. If you had not done the things to activate the night time quest you'd have to wait until it was nightfall again. This meant that I had to wander around the game world a lot waiting for night to come.

I also found the puzzles being a bit more obtuse that the previous games. Too often I wondered just how the heck I was ever going to use an object. But perhaps to some people they are obvious but not for me. I think that the puzzles in an adventure game while not being easy should have a logical flow to them and I did not feel this was the case here.

The Bottom Line
While I had some problems with how this game played out, I still found myself enjoying the game. Despite the frustrations I had with it, I would still recommend it to players.

The Good
First of all, the game weighed in about a whopping 3 megs and at the time it was one of the largest games ever produced (aside from games that are non-games like Dragon's Lair). With those 3 megs included some of the best sound and graphics ever developed at the time. Both of which helped bring to life this almost Alice In Wonderland meets Snow White kind of adventure game. The game is full of beautifully drawn backgrounds and interesting characters ranging from ordinary people to mythological creatures. The plot basically leaves you open to explore in a very non-linear path. There is a game clock within the game but only advances after certain events are triggered. I just loved the atmosphere Roberta Williams created... I remember my heart racing and was on the edge of my seat while peeping through the key lock in the ogre's house... This is my all-time favorite game ever created and no game stuck with me as strongly as this one.

The Bad
One thing I didn't like is some of the puzzles were too difficult to solve and some objects to difficult to find or know what to do with. It took me so long to know to drop the gold ball to lure the frog over. Other than that, the game is flawless in my opinion.

The Bottom Line
Was an instant classic and should be locked in a time capsule :) Its a wonderfully entertaining fantasy adventure game that set standards in adventure gaming for the years and years that followed. A must play!

The Good
If you waited to play this after some of the KQs that followed it, I can understand the comparisons. You should've played it when it was new! We KQ fans waited 2 long, agonizing years between King's Quest 3 and KQ4. The minute it was released, I rushed out to buy it. And I wasn't disappointed!

Of all the King's Quest games I've played (and I played them all), this is my favorite. Okay, I'm a girl and a blonde too, so I found it exciting that a blonde female played the lead role. Roberta Williams' story telling technique always thrilled me, no matter what game she made. I found the puzzles challenging, and especially liked the mythological Pegasus quest.

Basically, I loved everything about the game.

The Bad
A few game bugs resulted in Sierra's releasing a patch, although I don't remember what it fixed.

The Bottom Line
Even though I played this game a long ~ long ~ time ago, it is still very memorable for me. A must have for collectors of Sierra games and a great game for anyone wanting a great story with interesting situation and inventory oriented puzzles.