Roberta Williams' King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride

The Good
It has the King's Quest name and it cost me less than 20 dollars.

The Bad
First, the graphics are pretty bad. The "Motion picture quality animation" (I'm quoting the box here) is kind of choppy and seems like it's missing several frames when anything moves quickly. Second, the music really gets on your nerves. Next, instead of the look, pick up, talk, and walk buttons, they now just have a "magic wand" for a cursor. Just put it over something, if it sparkles, click. Speaking of the interface, the bottom part of the screen is the inventory menu instead of the full screen action you get in the other King's Quest games. Also, often, when you click on an item that "light's up" the magic wand, you character (who is very slow, even in version 2.0) will stroll over and say, get ready for the deep, profound statement, "amazing!" she will exclaim. Nothing else. Just that. Why they had that item light up the wand in the first place is a mystery. Also, gone is the simple save screen. instead, you have to enter your name, then you "bookmark" a chapter. (more on chapters later) No simple save button. You have to go through a boring menu to save. The game is divided into chapters. You can play any chapter at any time. This eliminates the sense of progression. Why not just skip to the end. ALso, the begining cutscene, unlike in previous King's Quest games, isn't interesting to watch. 50 percent of it is watching a poorly animated Rosella singing some lame song. Then 45 percent is Rosella and her mom talking about how Rosella must be married. WOW! That's original! Then, at the end, she dives into a pool?? and is caught by an arm that pulls her into another dimension as her mom falls downward. No explanation. no reason why she jumped in the pool. She just, did. Then, the puzzles are lame. They fall into three categories.

1. Ridiculously easy
2. Stupidly obscure
3. Ridiculously difficult

No more experimenting with items. Instead, if you put an item over the other, and it doesn't light up, then it won't even let you try. The whole game holds your hand the whole time as if four year olds are playing this game. The talking is boring. There is no lip sync, and practically no body language or expression in their voice.

The Bottom Line
If you are a fan of King's Quest, don't get it. You'll feel bad afterwards.