Has anyone ever heard of Kyrandia!!!

[ElementalWhite]

The Kyrandia series especially Kyrandia Hand of Fate is one of my favorites.
(P.S. Has anyone made a sequel???.)

[Domino]

I played the first one and it was a good game. I got stuck later on, and lost everything due to having to reformat my HD.

[Nikolas]

Of course. From Westwood Studios! (Who also made Eye of the Beholder).

Great graphics, great animation one of the most annoying puzzles (I don'teven know if it qualifies as a puzzle) of all adventure games though. Those who have played it, will know what I'm talking about.

And yes there are 2 other Kyrandia games. I just can't recall the names. Not exactly sequels though.

[Spitfire]

Kyrandia = Kings Quest Rip off.

[Redwall]

That's like calling every fantasy novel ever made a Lord of the Rings rip-off.

King's Quest itself is about the most unoriginal adventure game ever... so...

[TheYak]

Medieval=KQ Rip off?  I dug the Kyrandia games because they were a little more adult-geared.  When the storyline got into its darkest bits, it was rarely rivaled by KQ's climaxes.  The puzzles tended to be mostly of the fetch-and-carry sort, but the game had enough humor and visual beauty to keep it interesting. 

I liked the first one well enough, loved Hand of Fate and liked Malcom's Revenge (less for the over-bright pre-rendered everything and more for Malcolm).  That's not to say I'm downplaying KQ, but I liked KQ for different reasons. 

[Ubel]

I have played the first Kyrandia a bit. It has probably the most beautiful graphics I've ever seen in an adventure game of that time! Especially animations were great. But I never finished it cause I really didn't know what to do... maybe I should start over again.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Heh, I seem to remember this discussion from awhile back, but I think it was hijacking a thread at the time...

I seem to be the only one who was rather disappointed with the Kyrandia series. I disliked the puzzles, and walking deads never made me happy. Voice acting wasn't noteworthy in any game, but was downright bad in Hand of Fate. I rarely give up on game series, but I totally gave out on Kyrandia. Pet peeves include the maze and the castle of Kyrandia 1, the entire end of Kyrandia 2 (Tower of Hanoi? Please. Also, what the hell was the deal with that rainbow tree?), and the many possibilities in Kyrandia 3 that, right at the beginning, could lock you off. I mean, non-linearity is fine, but being able to lock yourself out of them all by doing too much leaves you constantly hunting for a walkthrough - not good. Also damn tedious, the "prison" scenes, especially when you THINK you know you have what it takes but you don't and have to do the same task umpteen times.

Yeah, the graphics were mighty pretty. The story was ok and the characters interesting. I still heavily dislike it.

[Spitfire]

I loved Kyrandia's graphics, really crisp and very beatifull. The puzzles were a bit iffy, and you're right Kings Quest is more childish (exept for KQ8). Kyrandia is more mature. 

[Helm]

Westwood had some of the best art back in the day, and I'm mainly thinking Lands of Lore here, but Kyrandia 2 is also top of the pile. The drop-anything-anywhere-oh-make-potions-also gui of the games and the puzzles never appealed to me but I finished the first two back when I was young and didn't know any better. Fireberry maze sucks boston penis, though. And Zanthia is really annoying. But, dude, huge sentient white mickey glove! Points!

[RocketGirl]

I absolutely loved the first two Kyrandia games. (Incidentally, does anyone know a way to make them run under XP? I still have the original discs but they won't run worth a damn...)
I thought the artwork and music were well above par, the humor was worthwhile, the voice acting was...video game voice acting; I'd heard worse. The atmosphere of the games was really great; they captured an epic-fairytale style that I've not seen done before or since (even compared to King's Quest, which was guilty of trying too hard, IMHO) with the possible exception of the recent Narnia movie. Sure, some of the puzzles were annoying, but that's every adventure game, IMHO. Some hits, some misses. Nothing ever really bugged me to the point of not playing the game anymore.

But Kyrandia 3 was horrible...IMHO. The puzzles were all annoying, I hated Malcolm, and the sudden departure from the art style that had so engrossed me before was unfortunate. It just didn't feel like Kyrandia anymore. It's like the difference between Star Control 2 and Star Control 3, of Master of Orion 2 and Master of Orion 3 (what is it with the third game in a series? Why do they always feel the need to "re-imagine" games on the third try?). It was almost as if the game had been given to a different team to make, and the team lead didn't really like the original material...

Anyway, yes, I've heard of 'em and loved the first two.

[Nikolas]

I'm not sure but DOS-BOX might be able to play them...

And yes, I ftotally forgot about the music. You know the tune with the harp i nthe begining in the forest, I had it recorded in a tape and hade it playing again and again...

[RocketGirl]

I'm not sure but DOS-BOX might be able to play them...

Google-ing... cool! Thanks!

[Anarcho]

I remember Kyrandia:

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=13028.msg156120#msg156120

I've only ever played the first one all the way through, and it's really fun.  The only thing that annoyed me was the gem puzzle.  I should break out the other two games, they're on my hard drive I've just never gotten around to playing them.

[InCreator]

I loved the graphics, but never made further than first 7-8 rooms.
Story and puzzles just sucked too much for me.

[magintz]

Kyrandia = Kings Quest Rip off.

Yea, but at least Kyrandia was enjoyable.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

When I first played Kyrandia I was GREATLY impressed by the visuals (and still am).  The backgrounds were so painstakingly detailed that I find it difficult that anyone could NOT appreciate them.  The character art was good, the gameplay amused me, although I agree that certain puzzles were there for the sake of giving the game artificial length (like the maze).  I guess I'm the only person that thought Hand of Fate was utter pants, though.  I find it difficult to like anything about that one, although I did enjoy Malcom's Revenge - even if they did turn Brandon into a sniveler and Kallak into some kind of mildly villainous fool.
FISHCREME SANDWICHES!

Rocketgirl- you might also consider vmware, which in some cases does a better job than Dosbox - particularly with the cd-rom versions of Star Trek 25th anniversary and Judgement Rites (which ran stuttery in dosbox even with cycle tweaking).

[Gilbert]

* Gilbot V7000a thinks he's the only person who thinks the maze in K1 was the best logic puzzle he's ever had...

Anyway, the Kyrandia games were all great, though I liked the first two games more, as the rendered graphics and the crappy FMVs in 3 lacked the clean and crystal-clear looks like in the former games, which utilized the 256 colour modes so well.

[TheYak]

I sort of enjoyed the maze.  It was an interesting twist on paper-mapping a puzzle given the limited duration of the light.  Considering the straight-forward mazes in many KQ/SQ games, it didn't feel too much like filler.  Though one of my favorite standard mazes was KQ6's catacombs.  QFG-I had an amusing maze-like bit, but too frustrating at times.

Part of what I liked about K3 was the character parodies - Brandon was a bit of a whiny wuss in the first so it was cool to see the developers pick up on that and play with it a bit. 

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

I think the problem with the maze was, it was too big. Sure, it made a good logic puzzle, I agree, but after the 6th room of the pattern - not to mention that you didn't KNOW which rooms had fireberries or not until you actually went in, which made a LOT of save-restore and meta-game mapping - things got rather boring...