King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder!

The Good
King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder (1990) was a fabulous entry into the already groundbreaking point n' click graphic adventuring franchise. Not only did it feature a long and detailed fantasy themed quest, with plenty of new puzzles, personalities and locations, but it also dazzled us with incredible graphics and sound, which had not been seen before on a personal computer.

The NES version of King's Quest V (1992) offer most of the elements that made the computer game successful; i.e. the same fantasy themed locations, items, puzzles, personalities, etc.

It was rare for a graphic adventure computer games to make the jump onto a home console system and it is nice to be able to play a classic adventure game, without having to master DOS or own an upscale (circa 1990) personal computer.

The Bad
The 8-bit NES simply could not recreate the same high quality animation, graphics, music and sound effects created on the personal computer. What was groundbreaking for the computer, was simply not possible for the NES.

For the NES, the game's animation and graphics are all very impressive, although some items are difficult to see and the quality of background and character detail does very greatly. Yet, it is nowhere near the same experience as playing King's Quest V on the computer.

The music and sound effects are a bit of a disappointment; both in comparison to the computer and even the abilities of the 8-bit Nintendo. When they do exist, the music and sound effects are generally best left on mute.

While the later PC CD-ROM edition of King's Quest added voice talents to read the script, such a feature was simply not possible on the Nintendo, which means that you need to be ready to read lots and lots of on-screen text and [to save your progress] write down very long passwords.

Reading the instruction manual will be a requirement because there is no mouse option. You will need to learn how to cycle between the various icon commands and then use the keypad to move the on-screen arrow to the item or person in question.

The Bottom Line
King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder (1992) offers a long and, generally, enjoyable fantasy-themed, point n' click, graphic adventure game for the 8-bit NES. The original storyline is intact, along with the original computer game's characters, locations, puzzles and item inventory.

Gamers who played the game on the personal computer when it originally came out or even the re-release on CD-ROM, may be unable to get past the hardware limitations of the 8-bit Nintendo.

However, not many point 'n click, graphic adventure games were made for the 8-bit Nintendo and this is certainly an ambition game. Fans of the adventuring gaming genre, who can look past the hardware limitations, should give this game a try.

The Good
This game has excellent graphics, great music, and a wonderful interface. I've always been firmly on the side of a graphical parser, especially in Sierra's case, where they were pretty weak as far as the text flexibility went.

The Bad
Some of the worst written puzzles on the planet. Did you accidentally throw the stick instead of the boot? Well, now you're stuck! Did you feed the eagle the wrong food? Sorry, hope you saved. So, you have those inventory catch-ems, and then you have one thing that cheapens any adventure game in my eyes, which would be mazes. There are mazes in this game, which is more or less a really lazy way to pad out the game (which is relatively short in comparison to some other games). In addition, an annoying talking owl character that provides annoying commentary on everywhere you go AND some of the worst voice acting the gaming world has seen, this game just isn't worth it.

The Bottom Line
This game isn't good. It was pretty neat whiz-bang technology at the time, but Sierra did far better games (see Kings Quest 6).

The Good
It's a Roberta Williams title

The Bad
Everything else: murky colors, difficult control system, cheap graphical shortcuts

The Bottom Line
A continuation of the King's Quest franchise, KQ5 was just as good as its predecessors... until it was added to the NES lineup. Working with the obvious space limitations of a cartridge-based game, Konami's port of KQ5 for the NES had to do away with Cedric's annoying voice, but it also meant having to do away with the rich VGA colors of the PC classic. Had Konami sat on the title until the SNES, we might have had a welcome addition to the adventure game catalog. As it was hastily thrown onto the 8-bit Nintendo, I had to prevent myself -- forcefully -- from ripping the Video Master rental out of my deck and smashing it.