If you’re a fan of the King’s Quest series and you haven’t heard of Anonymous Game Developers Interactive, check them out. The developer recently released their King’s Quest III: Redux (they’d previously released remakes of KQ 1 and 2), which got me stoked about the idea of revisiting these classic titles. But I also found myself wary of the powerful siren known as video game nostalgia. She, my friends, is no joke.
She’s a fickle lady who teases you into a memory lane littered with both strangely placed rewards and frustratingly easy deaths. At her giving best, she opens a door to moments of happiness from years gone by. And at her worst, she holds only disappointment that ends with your inner child demanding that you back away, reminding you that some games belong in the past.
Alright, I might be exaggerating a little bit. But, that moment where you decide that the layer of rust on one of your old favorites is too thick to crack can be a huge buzzkill. When it comes to AGDI’s line of King’s Quest remakes, don’t let this possibility scare you off.
Each game has been carefully and lovingly recreated, and even pleasantly improved. The gameplay you remember is still intact, the music and voiceovers have the same MIDI twang (they even got original Sir Graham voice actor Josh Mandel to come back to reprise his role), and the visuals will invoke that classic fantasy feel that made the originals so memorable. Enhanced colors, graphics, and cut scenes refresh the experience, as do other improvements, like the option to play without game-stalling dead ends.
After all, the real appeal of King’s Quest was always in the charm of the experience, and not necessarily the “wow factor” of the graphics or gameplay. At their core, these are point and click games that satisfy with a simple recipe: larger-than-life characters, immersive epic adventures, and cheesy one-liners.
For these reasons and more, these games hold up very well, and I can easily say that hardcore and casual fans of the series will enjoy this chance to revisit the kingdom of Daventry. But, if this series wasn’t your thing before, or if you simply never came across the games, the payoff of playing now could be pretty limited.
If you’re a hardcore RPG fan thinking this might be for you, you might want to think twice. You could be put off by the scarce action (if you like a lot of battling, you’ll be disappointed), and rudimentary character system (don’t expect a lot of leveling or customizing; Graham is what he is).
In the end, these games are a carefully crafted gift to a generation of King’s Quest veterans, and it’s pretty cool to think that the collective nostalgia of the developers and legions of loyal fans made these remakes possible. Big props should be given to AGDI for making sure that this particular stretch of memory lane is still safe and secure. If that was the quest, they can consider themselves successful. It’s too bad that this is their last scheduled remake of Sierra’s classic KQ games.
Community Post by: Kevin
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