King's Quest 2015
Developer Controversy: The developers of the new remake have received a lot of heat from the public. They failed to deliver on a Homestuck kickstarter and left a questionable response to their involvement. They further released their first episode of King's Quest (2015) for free in less than a year. This part didn't bother me because before Telltale Games redesigned their website, I was able to obtain Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, Tales of Monkey Island, and Back to the Future: The Game first episode for free after about the same timespan. Another problem is the news of selling a season pass. Not only did it not include the epilogue but it had issues with Steam's system where it meant technically rebuying the first episode (not to mention it was now considered free).
King's Quest Episode 1 "A Knight to Remember (5 hours)
With
all the news surrounding the developer, I was pretty skeptical of the
game. There were a lot of games I've tried out that came out with
episodes that fared between slightly alright to simply entertaining. For
some reason the character reminded me a lot of the slick design of the
recent Monkey Island remake. Boy was I wrong to judge so soon. The game
rehashes the best scene in the very first King's Quest in a 3D
environment that works very well for setting up the story. The narrative
choices and alternative pathways one could take made the game feel like
it had a lot to offer to the user. There was plenty of humor and gags
that made me chuckle. I very much appreciated the lack of dead-ends and
ultra-hard challenges that would turn off the modern gamer. The voice
work is excellent and the additional running jokes not found in the
original King's Quest series made this game worth it. One could argue
that the game has no originality for a ton of the story references
movies like Princess Bride or borrowed scenes from the old games. I
didn't see a problem with that. There was enough there to make anyone
want to play the game.
King's Quest Episode 2 "Rubble Without a Cause" (3 hours)
I
heard a lot of commotion about how horrible this episode is. I liked
it, but it definitely was a step back from the first episode. They put
you through a more desperate setting. This mirrors how the original
games were notoroious for making you figure out the whole game through
the means of trial-and-error (for example: if you used an item too soon,
the game was unwinnable). This modern take sort of does the reverse. If
you are too late, you will come out with a less favorable outcome.
Granted, someone would have to go through a lot of trouble to make it
"unwinnable." Modern gamers don't want to feel cheated. This episode
does exactly that, even if you manage to do everything right. Another
problem is the lack of story. The game sort of turns into this giant
mega-puzzle with barely a change of scenery. I can't say whether someone should play this episode or not.
King's Quest Episode 3 "Once Upon a Climb" (4 hours)
Episode
3 returns to the light-hearted adventure of Episode 1. Returning to the
roots of King's Quest 2: Romancing the Throne, the king searches for a
companion and... well I won't spoil it. The characters are lovable and
the system is very nice. There are minor references to your actions in
the previous episodes. Like episode 1, your choices matter. Boy this is
hard without spoiling it. It's a great episode. What more do you want?
(The other two episodes were not available at the time of this post)
6-20-2016