REVIEW

King’s Quest Episode 1: A Knight To Remember Review

by Rob Pritchard, August 18th, 2015

When it comes to creating a new entry in a game franchise that has been dormant for over fifteen years, there will always be a danger that the source material is thrown out of the window and replaced with something that is entirely different. This was one of my concerns when I heard that King’s Quest, the point and click adventure series from Sierra, would be making a comeback under the reigns of a new development studio. Now that A Knight to Remember, the first episode of the five-part series has arrived, the question remains, have The Odd Gentlemen created an adventure fit for a king, or an expedition fit for a fool?

The first episode of the new King’s Quest is divided into two separate parts, and judging by how many episodic games are structured, this will stay true for the rest of the season. One of these is merely a framing device, in which an elderly King Graham is recalling stories of his life to his granddaughter Gwendolyn. The other is the bread and butter of the adventure, as you control a younger Graham throughout the story that his future self is currently narrating. For his first story, Graham recalls how he was inducted as a knight of Daventry, and how he interacted with the friends and enemies he made along the way.

King’s Quest stays true to its roots, and offers players very little help to determine what action should be taken to solve a puzzle. The majority of these puzzles rely on logic and can be solved within the same location, but some of them require a precise combination of items from your inventory to succeed and the solutions can be located on the other side of the map. This could be frustrating at certain moments, but for better or worse, it is a long standing part of the adventure genre and probably won’t be changed. The map isn’t as large as what we have previously found in King’s Quest, but you will definitely see every inch of the re-imagined Daventry as you travel in between various hotspots.

Taking a nod from the graphic adventures such as The Wolf Among Us and Life is Strange, Graham has the opportunity to shape his destiny in three distinct ways by relying on his courage, his compassion or his wits. The developer, The Odd Gentlemen have done well by making sure that each one has lasting consequences at the moment of the decision, and each major choice has the possibility to affect the narrative. One of the best examples, is when need to retrieve some flowers from a tree that has a beehive on a nearby branch. If you do not get rid of the bees from their hive after it falls onto the table below, one of the residents of the town will have several stings on their face. I won’t tell you how to get rid of the insects, but rest assured it is a creative solution that upon reflection will make you think twice about not treating animals with the respect they deserve.

Long-time fans will be pleased to learn that Graham is once again prone to shuffling from his mortal coil on more than one occasion, so you will need to watch the world around you closely and solve puzzles with care to avoid certain death. The consequences for accidentally causing your demise are less severe this time around. Instead of relying on a manually created save state, you are returned to the moment before you made the fatal choice. While this does take away what made the original King’s Quest games so difficult, a sigh of relief can be taken once you realise that being mauled by a group of angry squirrels is not the be or all end all that it once used to be.

The graphical style of A Knight to Remember is like nothing we have ever seen in the Kings Quest franchise before. Each element of the game has been hand painted, from the trees that populate the forests to the people that live in the town and beyond. Combined with the lighting and shadow effects generated using the Unreal Engine, the Daventry of both past and present is a beautiful sight. The frame rate stayed fairly solid, with only a few minor skips happening once in a blue moon.

A beautiful orchestral soundtrack has been created for Graham’s adventures this time around, with one of the stand out pieces being the fanfare that has started every King’s Quest game since the very beginning and the subtle chords that echo throughout Graham’s bedchamber in the present day. The voice cast is simply tremendous, with Back to the Future’s Christopher Lloyd proving an excellent choice as the narrator slash elderly monarch King Graham. Tom Kenny, known for his roles as Spyro and Spongebob is great as the swindling Merchant of Miracles and Legend of Korra’s Zelda Williams proves she can take the heat as the sassy blacksmith Amaya Blackstone.

Overall, A Knight to Remember is a wonderful beginning to a new chapter in the King’s Quest franchise. While some changes have been made to suit the latest generation of gamers, the spirit of the franchise is kept intact with a cast of weird and wonderful characters, a range of puzzles with varying difficulty and several nods to the previous games in the series. While the story is not as epic as I would have expected, it sets the stage for many exciting adventures within one of gaming’s most recognised worlds and offers a fresh perspective into the bargain.

A Knight to Remember combines adventure games both old and new, and welcomes us back King's Quest with open arms. While there are a few rough edges along the way, Sierra fans will not walk away disappointed.