KQVGA: A Review

[Interference]

Not sure where exactly reviews should go but I have the urge to vent my proverbial.

A nice lengthy (ish) review of Kings Quest VGA for you. So, grab a cup of warm, leaf-infused liquid and read. Then post back and complain or something.

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Let me set things straight first, before I warp things beyond recognition: I know a good thing when I see it. A game that is released to the general public for free, made by a team of dedicated artists, coders and writers is a good thing. So, in fact, was this girl I once loved. She was smart, she was funny, she was beautiful. She was an utter bastard.

Um, sorry? What was that?

She was a complete git. For all her good qualities, she managed to completely defy convention and still be a bad person. I almost feel terrible being able to label her as such. For months I tried to force myself to accept her at face value - as the intelligent, wonderful person she was - but there was just one facet of her personality that tainted the rest, poisoning her very being.

To cut a long allegory short, King's Quest VGA is Verity King.

The graphics are a sight to behold. The music is lovingly crafted. The dialogue is well voice acted. Yet - and a part of myself is still trying to force me not to say this - the gameplay is so bad I can only loathe, hate and despise it.

There. I said it. I hate this game. This game is so bad, were I to throw it into the abyss of my own despair, the abyss would throw it back.

At times, gameplay reaches such a level I doubled up, laughing at how glaringly bad it is. Within the first six seconds of play after the introductory sequence I was dead. I was utterly astonished. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. Established gaming theory states to go easy on the player early on and increment the difficulty as the game progresses. You're not supposed to just *die*. There at least has to be a good reason. Maybe even a warning, perhaps? Nope. The game then goes on to effectively ridicules your apparent stupidity.

It doesn't stop there either. Attempts at exploration are also rudely interrupted with the ever-present onset of death, be it at the hands of a gingerbread-loving witch, falling off overgrown plantlife or being flattened by a rock for absolutely no justifiable reason whatsoever. What can the player possibly gain from dying so often and so pointlessly?

It almost makes it hard to believe how much of a breath of fresh air games like Monkey Island were to this. I can't say I was around to play KQ in it's original incarnation, but perhaps that's a good thing. I am, to an extent, free of the shackles of nostalgia. Free to scrutinise the game for what it is, rather than what its status as a groundbreaking title has lead us to believe it to be. As a piece of nostalgia KQVGA succeeds. As a game it fails.
This is a valient attempt to fuse the gameplay of a prehistoric adventure with the graphical prowess of games made many years later, producing something that just doesn't work. Gaming as a form of entertainment and expression has long since outgrown the misconceptions of enjoyment this game shapes its foundations from.  Some people, however, just can't let go. And they should.

In closing, KQVGA is like wallpapering Chernobyl: it looks better, but its still Chernobyl.

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[SSH]

I know  EXACTLY what you mean. If I wanted to die so often, I'd play Counterstrike.

[remixor]

Uh oh, keep this thread away from Vel.


EDIT: Oh, and to be fair, the Tierra team DID steer away from that die-all-the-time attitude in their KQ2 remake.  I completely agree with you about KQ1 (I certainly didn't bother completing it) but to say "It's time to leave this behind!" hardly makes sense any more, since the very people you are criticizing DID leave it behind some time ago.  This isn't really your fault since I assume you haven't played the second game yet, but I'm just letting you know.

[Vel]

King's Quest is the first adventure game with graphics, animation and sound. It set a new era. I do not think that you should judge it like that. Tierra's remake is wonderfully made, keeping the original feeling and adding new graphics, sound and music.
EDIT: too late remixor

[GarageGothic]

Obviously you haven't played a single Sierra game, it's not a flaw, it's a feature Actually, when I played all the old quests, I used to do obviously wrong things all the time, just to see the cool death animations and read the Restart/Restore/Quit messages.

But I do agree, the original KQ1 design was horrible, and Tierra didn't even try to fix it. Why anyone would want to remake KQ1 in the first place, without improvements, I don't know. Especially as it's a remake of a remake (though the old remake was EGA). I think other games, like Gold Rush, are much more deserving of a remake.

[LucasFan]

In closing, KQVGA is like wallpapering Chernobyl: it looks better, but its still Chernobyl.

Or…

"You can put wings ona pig, but you don't make it an eagle."
Bill Clinton

[PureGhostGR]

I think other games, like Gold Rush, are much more deserving of a remake.

Yeap, Gold rush is a masterpiece.. I can not believe people haven't discovered its beauty. The boat section must be one of my dearest adventuring memories. *sigh*

Oh well, I would love to be on the re-make team if anyone "ever" decides to make one.

[Andail]

I agree with Vel.

And since this debate has been running as long as I've been post puberty, I refuse to say more.

[Interference]

Obviously you haven't played a single Sierra game, it's not a flaw, it's a feature Actually, when I played all the old quests, I used to do obviously wrong things all the time, just to see the cool death animations and read the Restart/Restore/Quit messages.

I can almost understand that. What I don't understand is why something so clearly irritating that many still grumble about it to this day was ever made into a feature. How do you mistake a feature for a flaw?

"Intuitive stealth-based gameplay!", "Stunning graphics!" "Die pointlessly, many times over!". Which of those - if you were a game developer - would you rather stick on the back of your game box?

And on the subject of it's gaming importance, I agree that it was revolutionary but it went about it the wrong way: graphics and sound are nice but without gameplay they gained nothing. It took many skilled, intelligent people years of work to take those basic ingriedients and bake something tasty with them. Doom was revolutionary, but it was also fun to play.

Oh, and KQ2VGA might be worth a shot, and its certainly nice to see that the first is not an indication of the second's quality.

[juncmodule]

Doom was revolutionary, but it was also fun to play.

If there were a "statement of the month" on these forums...that would be it.

I actually...oh, god...it's painful......AGREE with Vel.

You just can't judge Sierra games that way. King's Quest I WAS fun when it came out! Did you play it when it came out? I did.

Just remember hindsight is 20/20

You have the privelage of seeing constant death scenes as a bad thing. When us "old folks" played the Sierra games before LucasArts we thought it was just the only way.

I think you may find that most people that played Sierra games in the 80's are not as familiar with LucasArts games. At least I have.

Now, today, looking back and having played Monkey Island for the first time only a few months ago, I can agree...constant deaths suck. I do not enjoy playing Sierra games as much as LucasArts game now. But, that is now.

Tierra's attempt was to remake the game just the same, and they did a damn fine job. If there had been no death scenes some people would have said "yay", some would have said "boo". My guess is there would have been a lot of 80's-Sierra-playing people saying "boo". It has BECOME a feature, a "staple" of Sierra games, just like not dieing is a staple of LucasArts games.

EDIT: Oh yeah, one thing I forgot. The whole "let it go" "end nostalgia" thing doesn't really work with a community dedicated to bringing back games from ten and fifteen years ago...

I do think it was a good review though. I think this kind of review is good for Tierra to read. I also think it is that kind of review that led to a much better sequel.

later,
-junc

[Pessi]

I like the review, Interference. I completely agree with you on the dying part. That's one of the reasons I enjoy Lucasarts' games a lot more. However, I don't really think it means the feature (or flaw for that matter) is bad. I think it means that it doesn't really entertain everybody. On the other hand, that kind of an issue should have been taken into account when making a game for a big audience. Then again, perhaps it didn't even need to be perfect because it was something NEW.

However, I must criticize the review on one thing: bulk of the review is about the gameplay even though it's the fault of the original game, not really the remake's. I think a bit different methods should be used when reviewing an original game, and a remake. Nonetheless, I suppose they could have changed the gameplay but I'm sure they would have got negative comments tenfold if they had. People often expect the same gameplay from remakes, even though the word 'remake' doesn't really imply that.

Vel, I think you slightly misunderstood Interference's point. I think he means that King's Quest 1 should be appreciated, as you said, as the first game with graphics, animations, etc. Nevertheless, it perhaps shouldn't be as appreciated as an adventure game among the others. It is logical after all, for it to have poor qualities because of the fact that it was the first in the genre.

Anyway, personally I really like what Tierra did with the game. If I was to play King's Quest 1, I would play the remake.

[remixor]

I'd like to point out one more, perhaps minor, thing.  I think it's a reasonable statement to say that Tierra was aiming this remake at people who were nostalgic of the Sierra days of old, or new players who had a desire to discover those days themselves.  Taking this into account, Tierra had something of a duty to preserving the spirit and methods of the original game.  Now, KQ2+ from the beginning was marketed as a total overhaul--not just in terms of gameplay, but in terms of everything, from story to characters to graphics to puzzles.  Criticizing KQ1 for following a particular school of game design is like criticizing a specific Real-Time Strategy game for dealing with resource management.

[|Alky|]

Obviously you haven't played a single Sierra game, it's not a flaw, it's a feature  Actually, when I played all the old quests, I used to do obviously wrong things all the time, just to see the cool death animations and read the Restart/Restore/Quit messages.

I disagree. KQ didn't really handle it very well at all - not only were the deaths pretty random, but they also needed to be pre-empted if you didn't want a lot of frustration. Something like 'KGB', for example, let you die, but this was almost always for a purpose

Spoiler

except when you left the Leningrad hotel, which was just annoying, until you got it and thought 'of course' ^_^

[close]

. KQ does not couple this feature with great linearity, or even storytelling. Therefore, I am inclined to agree with Interference. You could remake a 'Brain Yo-Yo' to be better than this..

[Pumaman]

I agree that KQ1 is very lacking story-wise and also because of all the random deaths. I mean, deaths are ok when they are caused by doing something stupid - but in KQ1, if you are standing on the wrong side of the rock when you push it, it squashes you and kills you... what?

However, because it was the first ever graphical adventure game, it was probably more of an experiment than anything else, and the deaths were probably put in to extend the play time of the game.

Of course, since then lessons have been learnt and none of the later Sierra games had as many pointless deaths as KQ1.

Tierra wanted to remake KQ1 as a 1:1 remake, and this they have achieved very well.

[MrColossal]

i'm confused, kq1 wasn't the first graphical adventure game, maybe the first to appear in the style of "3rd person player character on "3d" landscape"

with sierra games i always saw them as a different breed all together of adventure games, not games for smart people as roberta williams would suggest but games where you have to accept the fact that you WILL die and it will be MANY times. I agree this hinders exploration a great deal [i hate having to save before i leave a scene or try and complete a puzzle, afraid that the next room has a monster that just kills me or the puzzle is actually a trap or i'm standing on the wrong side of the boulder] but it's just something you either have to accept of the game or not and edit it with AGI Studio so you can't die... what. huh?!

[Dave Gilbert]

To be honest, I never finished KQ1VGA either.  I just couldn't keep myself interested.  

And to say dying without warning in the original KQ1 was the "norm," one need only look further back to one of the very first adventure games: Zork I.  True, you could die in the game, but you usually got plenty of warning.  If an enemy was beating you badly, you could leave the room and come back later.  If you lit a match in a gas-filled room, you could only blame your own stupidity.  

[LucasFan]

i'm confused, kq1 wasn't the first graphical adventure game

Absolutely true.

1975 "Adventure" - first text adventure
1980 "Mystery House" - first text adventure that featured graphics
1980 "The Wizard and the Princess" -  first text adventure that featured graphics in color
1984 "King's Quest I" first text adventure that featured on-screen walking characters
1987 "Maniac Mansion" first point 'n click graphic adventure

[Pumaman]

Well ok yes, first graphical "3d" animated adventure

[Las Naranjas]

It was the first, but The Jazz Singer was the first Talkie film.

And it sucked.


The Final Fantasy Film was the first CGI film to deal completely with human characters, thus bypassing actors.


And it sucked.


Lassi Quest was the first AGS game.

And it sucked.

The Origins Of The Second World War was the first major piece of revision challenging the comic book history of the intentionalist school.


And I won't say it sucked because it's so extraordinarily well written, but it was heavily flawed.


I'll recognise the importance of a game or other piece of work for it's historical significance, but the first will always be racked with mistakes and clashing elements. Later generations of games can learn from those mistakes, but we don't have to look at it through rose coloured glasses because of it's foundation status.

If were to turn the Jazz Singer into 3d colour cgi ultrasurround vision, all the flaws would still be there.


That's why KQ2VGA worked much better, since with the benefit of two decades Tierra could eliminate the errors that made the original unplayable these days beyong nostaligia value.

[Gilbert]

Well ok yes, first graphical "3d" animated adventure

Hehe according to magazines I read back in the 80's it was called a GRAPHICAL 3D ACTION ADVENTURE.