It's worth going back to the well
This might just be the most pleasantly surprising game we've played this year. We say that because when we heard that King's Quest was being revived by the behemoth that is Activision (through its Sierra subsidiary), the cynic in us was primed to expect a soulless take on the source material designed to capitalise on the nostalgia of King's Quest fans. When we heard that the season would be selling at near twice the price of other episodic titles like Life Is Strange and some of Telltale’s output, we further furrowed our brow at what looked like an attempt to capitalise on the popularity of episodic gaming at Activision prices.
We were wrong. A Knight To Remember, the first chapter of King's Quest introduces us to a delightful world full of heart. It can sometimes try a little too hard, straying into cringe territory, but there are also plenty of Python-esque moments that had us smiling. Even when the game is dishing out self-consciously terrible puns, it still manages to come off as endearing more than it does grating.
That's in no small part down the fantastic performances of its vocal talent. Christopher Lloyd and Josh Keaton do a great job as the elderly and young versions of protagonist Graham, as does Richard White with Whisper, but it is Gideon Emery as the anonymous Daventry Royal Guards who wins the most plaudits from us with a fantastic performance that is admittedly helped by the fact that he's got some of the best lines.
The quality of those vocal performances ties in with some fantastic animation work and a lovely painterly art style to create a world that’s a real pleasure to inhabit. It could be argued that some of the game's environments are visually sparse, but that's a minor complaint about a game that manages to evoke the kind of connection with a place and its inhabitants that we associate with the best titles from the adventure genre.
Indeed, there's perhaps no better praise that can be given to a reboot of a beloved adventure series than to say it feels familiar in a warm, fuzzy, nostalgic way. without feeling in any way old-fashioned and tired.
Take the puzzles that make up the majority of the game as an example. Unlike other adventure titles where puzzles are near non-existent, if they are there at all. King’s Quest maintains the structure you would expect from a classic point-and-click - there are items scattered throughout the world for you to find and use to solve puzzles that will lead you closer to completing a series of objectives (an adventure game with puzzles! Who would have thought?). That doesn't mean it is an anachronism, however. It follows the modern tendency to streamline, keeping its puzzles relatively simple (though still satisfying to solve) and presenting you with a pared-down Ul.
The game's got some clever ideas of its own when it comes to potential problems with puzzles, too. Some of the game's puzzles have multiple solutions, which means if you've missed an item, or overlooked a particular route to success, you can. thankfully, find an alternative solution instead of getting frustrated by being stuck.
We're also intrigued by the fact that there seems to be an ethical stance (or at least a method of approach) behind the path you choose to solving a puzzle that will affect things in future chapters - the game is structured as a tale being told by Graham to his granddaughter and it’s implied that your choices will affect how she approaches her future in some way. Whether that will be the case, we won't know until the next chapter - and by the way, this instalment is far longer than an episode from a Telltale game, so it’s not the poor value proposition we'd initially thought.
King's Quest misses a beat now and again - be it a poorly designed trial-and-error puzzle, a lack of clarity about the consequence of your actions, or a joke that misses the mark - but this first entry in a five-chapter series is a fun. charming introduction into a world full of great characters that's left us eager to see more of The Odd Gentleman's take on King's Quest. Paul Walker-Emig
An amusing adventure with a high-quality production value that feels like it’s being loyal to the genre, even as it adds some welcome modernising flourishes.