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

aka: KQ5, King's Quest V
Moby ID: 130
DOS Specs
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Description official descriptions

On a beautiful sunny day, King Graham of Daventry decides to take a stroll in the woods surrounding his castle. When he returns, he discovers with horror that his home, Daventry Castle, has completely disappeared! Graham is at a loss, and wonders how this could have happened, when a talking owl named Cedric appears. He tells him that he saw the whole thing, and that an evil wizard named Mordack whisked the entire castle away, along with Graham's family in it. Cedric offers to take him to his homeland, Serenia, where his master, the wizard Crispin resides. Surely Crispin will be able to help King Graham rescue his family from Mordack's clutches.

King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder is an adventure game, and the first from Sierra to use a point-and-click mouse interface. Rather than typing commands on a keyboard to interact with the game world and use the arrow keys to walk around, King's Quest V instead simplifies all actions down to base commands. To access the different cursors, the player can move the mouse to the top of the screen, revealing a hidden menu with each of the different actions, as well as game options and the inventory bag. By clicking the "Walk" cursor on the screen, Graham will walk as close as he can to the appropriate area. Clicking the "Eye" cursor on items will provide a description, the same as typing "Look at". The "Hand" cursor is a multipurpose cursor that can be used to push, pull, interact with and pick up objects. The "Head" cursor is used to talk to people (and in the strange world of King's Quest, often objects and animals, too). Players can also right-click to cycle through the different available cursors. Inventory that Graham picks up now gets placed into a bag. By clicking on the bag, this opens up a sub-window that displays all the inventory that Graham currently has. In here, players can look at or interact with objects, combine them with other objects, or pick them up to use them in the game environment as another cursor.

As with most Sierra games, it is quite possible to die. Bumping into witches, poisonous scorpions, falling off edges of cliffs, dying of thirst in the desert, and many other objects, locations and characters will send Graham to an untimely demise. The player must be cautious as they explore Serenia - frequent game saving across multiple files is usually the best course of action to make sure that you don't get stuck or have to start right from the game's very beginning.

The NES port of King's Quest V retains the icon-based interface and most of the locations, puzzles, and dialogue from the earlier release. Graphics had to be re-drawn with fewer colors and less detail to fit within the restrictions of the hardware, and the artwork in many areas is different.

This version removes most alternate solutions to puzzles and does not allow many actions that would render the game unwinnable. It also shortens and eliminates several scenes; for example, it is impossible to revisit the wizard in the first house. A few locations (such as the desert) are smaller. Some death sequences have been removed or modified not to include words related to death. Finally, some text descriptions were altered.

Spellings

  • キングズ・クエストV - Japanese spelling
  • 國王密使 V - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 78% (based on 26 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 134 ratings with 12 reviews)

Doesn't deserve half the good press it gets

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).

DOS · by Benjamin Vigeant (7) · 2005

The King & I

The Good
Gamers may have to be of a certain age in order to fully appreciate the technical wonder that is King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Younder!.

Early adventure games -- Sierra has a major player in the genre -- were initially text-only quests. Much like the days of classic radio dramas, these early computer games required the player to use his imagination (and typing skills) in order to advance in a world that only existed through on-screen text.

Gradually, adventure games began to feature CGA and EGA-style graphics to create the characters, items, puzzles and locations that the player had to interact with.

It would be wrong to dismiss CGA/EGA graphics outright as hopefully archaic.

However, it was not really into the jump to VGA graphics that computer games -- especially adventure games -- could really create a environment that look more like an epic cartoon or painting, as opposed to something that (for lack of a better word) "looked" like a computer game.

King's Quest V was the first game in the series to make the jump to the superior VGA graphics. The result is a an epic adventure game set in a lush and beautiful game environment.

VGA graphics may not impress younger generations of gamers, but (in 1990) it was simply incredible to play an adventure game with VGA graphics and marvel at the game's artwork and character design.

King's Quest V also shinned in the audio department, and (while other gamers may disagree) I enjoyed the transition into more point and click, icon-based game play mechanics.

Sierra did not skimp on the storyline in King's Quest V. King Graham is about to return to his castle (after talking a lovely walk), only to see his castle (and all his family members) whisked away by an evil wizard.

As is the case with the previous King's Quest entries, the game manages to put a creative spin on familiar fantasy elements, and quests often require you to help out other creatures (large and small).

Story elements from previous King's Quest games are smoothly brought into the part V and (interestingly enough) certain events in part 5 are further developed in King's Quest VI.

Overall, it is hard to find too many odious faults with King's Quest V. Hard, but not impossible.

The Bad
The groundbreaking nature of King's Quest V's graphics and music can easily be lost on younger gamers.

In the 1990s, VGA was superceded by SVGA. Computer disks were superceded by CD-ROM technology.

As popular as King's Quest V was in 1990, it didn't have as much of a long-lasting impact on the adventure gaming genre as did say, Alone in the Dark (1992).

Alone in the Dark (1992) was released a few years after King's Quest V, and it represented a significant shift in the look and design of adventure games.

Where as King's Quest V represented the advances in classic adventure gaming, games like Alone in the Dark (1992), "Tomb Raider" (1996) and "Resident Evil" (1996) represented a successful mutation or spinoff within the adventuring gaming genre.

Younger gamers are probably more familiar with the spinoff and its tropes. These spinoff adventure game environments were "3D" with pre-rendered (if not polygon) graphics. Success required action-packed blistered thumbs (often within the real of survival horror) as well as solving item-based puzzles.

I am not suggesting that the "new" style of adventuring gaming is better or worse then the more traditional style.

Rather, the fact that King's Quest V is a great classic adventure game, may make it harder for some gamers to appreciate the game fully.

Younger games have some different expectations about what makes a great adventure game, in comparison to people that played King's Quest V (when it was first released) while in middle or high school.

The Bottom Line
King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Younder! is a great, classic adventure game, as well as a great entry in the King's Quest gaming franchise. Gamers of every generation who can appreciate the classics, should be able to love this game.

DOS · by Edward TJ Brown (118) · 2015

Defeat an evil wizard that kidnapped your family - with help from an idiot

The Good
Sierra's next King's Quest adventure after KQ4 is not a bad game, but it is not good either in certain areas, but I'll talk about that in a minute. KQ5 centers around King Graham who notices his castle missing from its usual place. An owl named Cedric tells him that it was the evil wizard Mordack who did it, and he offers Graham hep from his good friend and employer Crispin, who happened to also have a bad run-in with Mordack in the past.

In the early stages of the game, Graham learns why Mordack vanished his castle into thin air: as revenge for Alexander turning his brother Manannan into a cat, and Alexander must turn him back into a wizard or his entire family will be fed to the cat. Fearing that Alexander is running out of time, Graham (with the help of Cedric) travels through woods, mountains, beaches, and finally to Mordack's Island.

KQ5 is technologically superior than the previous KQs. You see, this is Sierra's first game to use the newer SCI1 engine in which the game delivers 256-color VGA graphics as well as a point-and-click interface. The graphics in this game are beautiful, especially at the start of the game as you walk around Serenia. However, the highlight of this game for me is looking at the breathtaking view of the mountains. They remind me of my holiday in Switzerland.

As for the point-and-click interface, I already miss typing random commands in to generate a funny response, but Sierra was trying to get with the times. Moving the mouse cursor to the top of the screen will bring up a series of icon in which you use to interact with the environment. In the disk version of the game, there were too many of these icons since the game used the engine's initial version (0.000.051) [You had two Walk icons, a Disk icon, and a Stop sign.] The icon interface was simplified in the CD version, to match that of the later versions of the engine.

Some of the music and sound effects are good, especially if played through the Roland MT-32, so I heard the music the way Sierra intended. My favorite piece has to be while navigating the labyrinth underneath Mordack's castle. When I was first introduced to IBM-PCs, I had no idea that the MT-32 actually existed. The quality of the music makes me regret that I owned a Sound Blaster in the first place.

I have played both the disk and CD-ROM versions, but it is the CD-ROM version that has its advantage. Not only does it contain full speech and no copy protection, you also have the stereo soundtrack that accompanies the game's introduction, and ambient sound effects can be heard throughout the game, not just in the intro. For instance, I could hear the sound of real water flowing through a stream in Serenia, and the sound of the waterfall near the beach, along with the little bits like doors opening and closing, and animals making real noises. There are even a couple of songs, one of which I remember quite well.

The Bad
There are a few problems with KQ5. For example, some of the puzzles are illogical, with the most obvious one being the situation where you are faced with a yeti in the mountains, and you have to throw a custard pie at it to defeat him. Also, throughout the game you have to deal with Cedric himself. He is sent to help you achieve your goal, but instead he acts like an idiot and refuses to go to certain places with Graham.

The game suffers from a poor script. Case in point: you have to give food to a poor eagle who is starving to death. After Graham offers some, the eagle says "You are a kind man to share your meager food with a poor bird, especially up here in these snowy mountains. To top it off, Sierra should have employed someone else to voice that eagle, not one who sounds like a Japanese cartoon character. Roberta Williams isn't a good writer.

The Bottom Line
KQ5 is a massive upgrade from the previous KQ's, due to its 256-color VGA graphics and point-and-click interface. It is a game that links itself back to KQ3. With help from Cedric, you must find and defeat Mordack, and restore Castle Daventry back to its original state. To accomplish this, he must do business with the townspeople and animals, as they might give him something if he does a good dead.

If you want to play KQ5, I suggest that you play KQ3 first, as this will tell you why Mordack messes with King Graham's family. I also recommend getting your hands on the CD version of KQ5, since there is a lot more to experience in this version, like the ambient sound effects and full speech. It is even useful if you do not want to be faced with copy protection.

DOS · by Katakis | カタキス (43092) · 2013

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Discussion

Subject By Date
Color number in the Amiga version Nowhere Girl (8680) Aug 15, 2014
Game freezing Nowhere Girl (8680) Jul 27, 2012

Trivia

A rare "king" game in the series

Despite the title of the series, there are only two installments where you actually play as a king (namely, King Graham): this one and King's Quest II.

CD version

The game was also released on CD-ROM. This CD version had full speech throughout the game.

Innovations

King's Quest V was the first adventure game to be released on CD-ROM in MPC (Multimedia PC) format, the first to have digitized voiceovers, the first to use digitized hand painted backgrounds, and the first title to cost over one million U.S. dollar to produce.

Installation

Installing the game on the PC was less intuitive than other Sierra releases due to the variety of options supported. An addendum to the manual was included which attempted to explain all of the installation options. The game could be played entirely from hard disk, half from hard drive and half on floppy, or entirely on floppy if two drives were present. If you were playing with one 3.5" drive and one 5.25" drive, installation began on either 5.25" disk #6 or 3.5" disk #10. All other combinations began installation on 5.25" disk #5 or 3.5" disk #9. (confused yet? King's Quest V may also be the only Sierra title where installation doesn't begin with either disk #1 or the Startup disk.) Probably in the interest of simplicity, media cost, and sanity most (if not all) of Sierra's later games shipped with just one set of disks per package eliminating the ability to play entirely from floppy but simplifying installation.

User interface

The first game in the King's Quest series (in fact, all classic Sierra adventures) to switch to icon control from the text parser system.

Versions

King's Quest V was the first Sierra game to be available in two separate versions: a 16 color version (supporting EGA, MCGA, VGA, and Tandy/PCjr graphics) and a 256 color version (supporting MCGA and VGA only). The 16 color version came with 10 3.5" DD disks and 6 5.25" HD disks. 5.25" DD (360k) disks could be ordered directly from Sierra. (A hard disk was required to use the 360k disks.)

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • March 1992 (Issue #92) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame
    • November 1991 (Issue #88) – Adventure Game of the Year
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #94 in the “150 Best Games of All Time”
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 12/1999 - #94 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking

Information also contributed by Adam Baratz, Mitch Kocen, PCGamer77, Roger Wilco, Sciere and Servo

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Andy Roark.

Amiga added by POMAH. NES added by totalgridlock. Windows 3.x added by ZZip. Macintosh, PC-98, FM Towns added by Terok Nor.

Additional contributors: Katakis | カタキス, Jeanne, Chentzilla, Xoleras, Игги Друге, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, Kayburt.

Game added May 23, 1999. Last modified February 13, 2024.