King's Quest: Mask of Eternity

aka: KQ8, King's Quest 8, King's Quest 8: Mascara de Eternidad, King's Quest 8: Maske der Ewigkeit, King's Quest Masque d'Éternité, King's Quest: La Maschera dell'Eternità, King's Quest: Máscara da Eternidade
Moby ID: 136
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Description official descriptions

The Realm of Sun is a magical world situated above the Kingdom of Daventry. Powerful beings known as Archons dwell there, guarding the Mask of Eternity, which preserves balance in the world. But on an ominous day, Lucreto, the leader of the Archons, turns evil and shatters the Mask into pieces. One of such pieces falls down, right under the feet of a simple peasant and fighter named Connor. As he picks up the fragment, he finds out that all the inhabitants of the land have been turned into stone. He must now search for the other pieces of the Mask, repair it, and face Lucreto in the Realm of Sun.

King's Quest: Mask of Eternity is the eighth installment in the King's Quest series, and the first one done completely in 3D. Gameplay-wise, it differs from its predecessors by introducing considerable action and role-playing elements. It doesn't entirely depart from its adventure roots, however, featuring commands for looking, talking to people, picking up objects, and using them to solve inventory-based puzzles.

Connor may encounter hostile creatures and can fight them using his melee weapons or bow. Some portions of the game also include environmental hazards the protagonist has to avoid, or jumping puzzles reminiscent of platform games. RPG elements are present in character development: Connor gains experience points from vanquishing enemies and completing tasks, and eventually levels up, increasing his hit points and combat parameters. Weapons and armor can be found or bought for money obtained from defeated foes.

Spellings

  • King's Quest: מסכת הנצח - Hebrew spelling
  • 國王密使 8:永恆面具 - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

91 People (86 developers, 5 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 78% (based on 30 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.3 out of 5 (based on 59 ratings with 8 reviews)

a dark day for adventure gamers

The Good
The buzz in the gaming industry at the time was all over Tomb Raider and Resident Evil. The buzz was that adventure games had to be more like these two games or else they would become extinct.

So, this entry into the King 's Quest saga tried to be an action-adventure game in the mold of Lara Croft or "survival horror". The graphics are Ok.

Switching over to the world of polygons and camera angles couldn't have been easy for the developers. The result looks Ok, but rarely inspires anything nearly as great as experiencing Tomb Raider or Resident Evil for the first time.

The story and overall tone try to be gritty/dark - another change from the King 's Quest series -and the result is just Ok. It does not help that the game has little to do with the previous games - storywise -and has the player going after pieces of a goofy looking Halloween mask.

Tomb Raider and Resident Evil - in contrast - had amazing graphics and the right balance of action and more traditional adventure gaming puzzles. They also had stories and character development that drew u into the game's world. Sadly, none of this can be found in KQ.

The Bad
You playable character has the standard sort of fantasy attack moves, but using then does not feel remotely as smooth as in Tomb Radier or Resident Evil. Instead the KQ attacks feel cumbersome, if not tedious.

The KQ bad mixture of hack n' slack action with cerebral puzzles is probably it most serious problem. The game never manages to find the right balance between the two, and that is it biggest downfall.

I can overlook the average graphics and silly storyline - which has little to do with the KQ I grew up with -, but the game isn't fun to play. Not as an action game and not as an adventure game.

The Bottom Line
The eighth and final KQ game attempted to find a new path for the franchise by looking at the success of Tomb Raider and Resident Evil. It put the KQ developers in a tricky situation, given the fact that KQ games had a different set of game play mechanics, then Tomb Raider. Judging from the results, the developers did not fully understand how to design a good, much less great, KQ game in the mold of Tomb Raider or survival horror.

Windows · by ETJB (428) · 2013

Let's get into action!

The Good
Great thrills - seeking & finding bad guys - before they find you. Hard puzzles - three levels of play (easy medium & hard).

The Bad
Some moves are hard to master, Although I killed everything & completed all missions in hard mode, I never got as high of a final rating as I would have expected. Reloading lands after saves is very tedious & slow.

The Bottom Line
The first of the really good role playing games! Some puzzles may require you to log on-line & find the best way to solve them Very good graphics.

Windows · by Pat White (4) · 2002

Attrocious, this should be hidden in the depths of gaming history.

The Good
Some references to past games?

The Bad
Everything. Gameplay and all the techinical stuff is awful. Worst of all is it signifies the death of adventure gaming at Sierra. It cannot be called an adventure game. IT is an action game and a poor one at that.

The Bottom Line
This was Sierra's flagship adventure game series. Sierra wishes to proclaim Adventure gaming is dead. That fact alone made this game depressing to play. Yes, this game wasn't aggravating or annoying, it was depressing.

Windows · by sultan12 (3) · 2001

[ View all 8 player reviews ]

Trivia

Protagonist

This is the first game in the King's Quest series to not feature a member of the Graham family as the hero.

Awards

  • Power Play
    • Issue 02/1999 – Best Adventure-RPG in 1998

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Andy Roark.

Additional contributors: Trixter, pslocum3, Rebound Boy, Jeanne, tbuteler, Sciere, Kohler 86, Crawly, Nico Bendlin, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger.

Game added May 25, 1999. Last modified January 28, 2024.