Fables & Fiends: The Legend of Kyrandia - Book One

The Good
The player controls Brandon, a young prince who is sent on a quest to deal with Malcolm, an evil jester who escaped from prison and turned Kallak, his grandfather who put him there, into stone. To make matters worse, he plans on using the stolen Kyragem to take over the land, killing off the native vegetation in the process.

The game's interface is laid out nicely, with the blue options button to the left of the ten inventory slots, and the amulet on the right side of that. The amulet is used for spells that you need to cast throughout the game, to help you on your quest. I like what effect they have on you. One spell allows you to cure wounded animals, while another lets you float in mid-air. Somewhere in the game, you have to make different potions to further help you, and I found it interesting to see what I come up with.

What I noticed the most about Kyrandia is the beautiful environments. You start off exploring forests, but eventually move onto caverns, homes, beaches, and castles. When you walk far left or right as you can in the forest, you come across the cliff with breathtaking views of the ocean. There were some amazing scenes within the labyrinth as well. The individual inventory objects look good as well.

The music is well composed and it goes well with the environment that you are in. Of course, the CD-ROM version contains full speech, and I was lucky to get hold of this. Out of all the characters in the game, I enjoyed Malcolm the most, as I can always remember his infamous laugh. Other than that, I liked clicking on Brandon himself and having him saying these random quotes. As for the sound effects, the only ones that I like were those when picking up and placing objects in an inventory slot, and also when potions were mixed together.

The Bad
Kyrandia has some insane puzzles. Early in the game, you are supposed to put four gems in a marble altar in order to receive something from it. You are not told what these gems are or where you get them. Instead, you have to do some trial-and-error to see what gems do or do not work. Most of the gems are scattered around the forest, but whatever gem that you see might already be the ones that you tried. Another illogical puzzle is getting through the maddening labyrinth without getting killed. You are required to light up each room, and you have to know where to put the lights.

Your amulet can only hold up to four spells, as mentioned above, which appear as colored jewels. What is bad about this is there is no text on or below the jewel to indicate what the spell does. You have to try the spell out to see what it does. I know that someone tells you what the spell is before it is even given to you, but some people have short memories.

The Bottom Line
The Legend of Kyrandia is an adventure game that the whole family will enjoy. The game contains no violence or bad language. The interface looks neat; with the control panel, inventory, and amulet laid out in that order. The game features some amazing environments, and the graphics are great. The music goes well with what you are doing, and users with the CD version of the game can enjoy full speech, with a well-thought out script. If you are looking for an alternative to the King's Quest series, why not start with the Kyrandia series?

The Good
A thing I have to say - because it has much influence on my opinions about this game - is that I played it AFTER I played the sequel. And I mean much later: I discovered "Hand of Fate" in the 90s, when it was about two years old, but I first played "Legend of Kyrandia 1" in 2004. So I can't help comparing these two games - and while clearly being connected, they are very different.
First, this game is much harder than its successor. Which is, of course, not a bad thing if you're looking for challenges. If you don't know you're supposed to find five stones, a coin and a key in the (in)famous cave labyrinth and you're not using some external help - a walkthrough, let's say ;) - you could spend hours just trying to solve this single part. Fortunately, it's probably THE most difficult part of the whole game.
However, apart from the caves, this game generally does have something maze-like. There are a few types of "Dark Forest" screens repeating themselves - they are beautiful anyway, but still give you the feeling it's something that could have been done better - but they also have an advantage: they make finding your way harder. In "Hand of Fate" no screens repeat themselves, even on the most monotonous Volcania "level", it's always quite easy to know where you're going. In "Legend of Kyrandia 1" it's easy to lose a sense of direction.
The mood is also different: much darker and more mysterious. Which is not to say the game doesn't have elements of humor (check out the dialog between Brandon, Darm the Royal Mystic and his pet dragon Brandywine, especially the fragment about why Brandywine eats cats and not knights), but the game is not as witty. I enjoyed this - I hate true horror films/games/stories, but I like that kind of fairytale spookiness you can see in this game.
"Legend of Kyrandia" is also an interesting example of an extremely simple and yet completely functional interface. You just use the cursor for everything: looking, moving, using objects - and it works! What Sierra games accomplished with the usual "walk/talk/look/use" interface, this game does with just a cursor. It if, of course, possible thanks to making the inventory visible all the time, but the most important thing is that it works perfectly well and is very intuitive, unlike all the commands in some very sophisticated adventure games. Clicking on a person will always initiate a conversation, clicking on the ground makes Brandon go to that spot, clicking on an item outside the inventory makes Brandon pick it up, clicking an item in the inventory and then in the place where it is used... well, just makes Brandon use the item, and clicks on everything else may provoke a comment.

The Bad
Again, compared to "Hand of Fate": something I loved about that game were the usually funny comments Zanthia made when you click on her - two per screen. Unfortunately, it's not the case in "Legend of Kyrandia 1": Brandon also makes some comments to himself, but they repeat themselves in various places - it seems that there are about 5 pairs of comments in the whole game.
In "Hand of Fate", if you can read a dialogue line quicker than it changes by itself, you can speed up the dialogue by clicking. Again, this small technical detail is unfortunately absent in its predecessor - you have to wait until the line changes, which may be helpful for people who don't speak English well, but is really tiresome for quick readers. On the other hand, if you enjoy munching on some sweets while playing, you even have a free hand for a cup of tea while reading what the characters have to say. ;)
I have already mentioned the cave labyrinth. Well, it gets simple for "cheaters" who use a walkthrough, but for someone who doesn't want to, or for early players of this game - before any walkthroughs were published, or when the internet was much less developed than today and not so many people had access anyway, so finding a walkthrough was more difficult - it must have been an extremely frustrating part. The rules of walking the caves work like this: Brandon will be killed by monsters if he enters a dark cave without a light source. In some rooms there are fireberry bushes and he can pick as many fireberries as he wants. Fireberries only last a certain time, but it's measured not in real time, but in "interscreen movement" - a fireberry gets dimmer after moving to the next screen and will fully burn out before entering the fourth screen from the one where it was picked, but a dropped fireberry will keep lighting up a dark cave indefinitely. And Brandon has no map, is not even offered any explanation outside of Darm warning him that "terrible beasts live there". Every death sequence will take several seconds because frightened Brandon will keep saying something before the monsters approach him and, as mentioned, there's no possibility of speeding up the dialogue. So navigating the labyrinth without a map could easily take over an hour - try all possible caves, draw your own map, check where the fireberry bushes are... And some places (generally the southeastern part) are only accessible after Brandon gets another, more permanent light source... I wanted to write "enough with that, because that would be a spoiler"... but in fact it can be found even in the screenshots. But I won't tell you how to get the item necessary for that. ;)
It's not even the only maze in the game. In some places (particularly the woods near Zanthia's place) it's possible to get lost, or at least to keep walking and walking, searching for some places such as the little waterfall with blueberry bushes. And the castle dungeons (Brandon needs to find an item there) are another real maze. It isn't dangerous like the caves, but it's dark, still has a very uneasy mood and it's even easier to get lost there. In the cave labyrinth there were some caves with a light source other than the fireberry bushes, which looked completely different - for example the river of lava, the emerald cavern... And dropped fireberries were also a very convenient reminder: "I have already been here!" (still, it's not advisable to play this sequence without either having a map or drawing a map, so a prudent player will probably have another way of knowing where (s)he has already been). In the dungeons all screens look almost the same... well, not entirely, they have passages in different directions, in some of them walls are decorated with a shield... but in principle, identical screens repeat themselves several times. You can't even see the exit - the bottom of that screen will look just like in every other screen in the dungeons (in the caves you could see by the stalagmites at the bottom of the screen whether there is a passage to the south, in the dungeons the southern wall is never visible, the only difference is an arrow or a red crossed circle showing whether there is a passage or not). The dungeons are entered by a rotating wall with a gargoyle on both sides, but the gargoyle is only visible when outside the dungeons.
Any player should also remember that the game has one point of no return. Just like its successor, it feels clearly divided into stages: the forest around Brandon's home, Timbermist Woods, the caves, another forest around Zanthia's home and the castle island. However, unlike in "Hand of Fate", you can keep returning to previously visited places if you want/need to - with one exception. Once Brandon drinks the Pegasus potion and flies off to castle island, there is no going back. So it's possible to get stuck by not taking all required items before this irreversible move...

The Bottom Line
"Legend of Kyrandia" is a beautiful game which deserves to be considered a classic. The graphics are amazing (and I personally simply prefer early-90s-styled hand-painted graphics over further "developments" such as 3D, which I actively dislike), visited places are diverse enough, the story is interesting... However, the game also has some serious downsides. It may be a little too scary for younger players - however, it's a downside minor enough to ignore, also because the game would simply be too difficult for a seven-year-old, for example. However, the mazes and maze-like parts are more serious - very frustrating and just too hard. I still like this game very much, but it feels for me like these sequences are a little unfair on the player - literally unfair, done by game developers who know what they have planned, but then meant to be solved by a player who often receives next to no clues...

The Good
It was one of the first games I've ever got to see in VGA mode and also the first game I heard using an Adlib sound card. Visually, this was one of the most stunning work during that time it was released, the story was unique and everything seemed to jump out of the screen, cool characters and interesting villains. The environment was so much alive and so visually appealing to the eyes, even the gloomy parts of the environment seems perfect.

The music was beautiful that I wanted to get a music soundtrack for this game. I really consider this as one of Frank Klapecki's finer works even today. The tune is so memorable and something I look forward to hear everyday. I never get bored listening to his tunes.

The Bad
The game is rather too short if you try to finish it the second time around. The only thing making this game so long is the cave. You can finish it within a day if you can memorize everything that you have to do there, but normally, it's tiring.

The Bottom Line
This game has a great story, interesting characters, great visual style, great music. I don't regret playing this game and I even look forward for a remake if there will be one.

The Good
The graphics in this game are really wonderful as is evident from most of the earlier adventure games developed by Westwood studios. The voice acting is good and suits each character well (only in the CDROM version). The CD version is definitely worth having (if you can still find it) because of the poster that came in the box with it. The music in this game is brilliant, perhaps the best in any fantasy adventure game ever (IMHO). Thanks to the incredible genius of Mr. Frank Klepacki. The story is very interesting, typical of a mystical, fantasy adventure game. Best of all the game has memorable characters especially Malcolm, the evil jester.

The Bad
The game has a few terrible and rather tedious puzzles like the maze in the caves, the gems puzzle (gems have to be placed in a specific order without any use of logic) is especially difficult, since the sequence to place the gems is random each time the game is played.

The Bottom Line
It's a point n' click adventure game made in the days when Westwood studios was creating some wonderful games at par with Lucasarts and Sierra. The plot keeps one interested, as you help Brandon to solve puzzles on his quests while he learns about his true identity as the rightful heir to the throne. A nice adventure game for the whole family, highly recommended!! I sincerely hope Westwood decides to create Kyrandia 4. I sincerely hope Mr. Brett W. Sperry is reading this!!

The Good
Graphically speaking The Legend of Kyrandia is an impressive looking adventure game for an early 90's release. The scenes are richly detailed and despite the low resolution of the era everything looks crisp and clear.

The Bad
Sadly enough the gameplay itself leaves a lot to be desired. Most of the puzzles are based on collecting miscellaneous junk, like gems and ingredients from all around. Then these items are used at some point, but most of the time the puzzle solving is frustrating trial and error, not logic. What makes this even worse is the badly designed inventory system, which makes sure, that you need to run around lot, as it holds only 10 items at a time.

The game world itself is designed as a maze, some of which are also sadistic instead of just being boring. The worst design choice of the game is the fire berry cave, which will either make you pull your hair out or look for a walkthrough.

The Bottom Line
The Legend of Kyrandia is one of those old games that suffer a lot from bad game design. The premises of the story is interesting, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. And that is a shame, really.

The Good
Westwood has struck gold again; this game became one of the classic adventure games of all time and spawned a sequel (maybe two?). The graphics are as good as they get - amazingly drawn landscapes and detailed characters, the music is excellent as well, and the storyline is wonderful.

The Bad
It's challenging, damn challenging (or maybe I'm just dumb?). The controls aren't very intuitive, but reasonable.

The Bottom Line
A classic adevnture game with everything that makes an adventure game classic.

The Good
Beautiful imagery, good dialogue, excellent music and feelings of nostalgia...

Also combine this with wit and a perfect fairy tale story and you're onto a winner, no problems there at all. Very playable even today 23 years later - I'd know, I played this 23 years ago when I was a very young child, and I played it earlier tonight!

The Bad
It's so, so, so hard! There is a particular sequence which involves a cave which, with one mistake, will set you back around 30 minutes or even kill you - and yes, this game will let you die with great ease and without a second thought. It's incredibly difficult and I've never actually been able to finish it!

The Bottom Line
Give it go - if nothing else, very nostalgic and something different. I personally prefer games like the Monkey Island series where it's all a bit more tongue-in-cheek and you're not going to die, but this game is a challenge which can be enjoyed, even if you find yourself dead many times during the process.