But this.<\/p>\n
This is – effectively, the series swan song.\u00a0 And it does a lot of things so, so right.\u00a0 But then, you know, in typical Roberta Williams style, it tends to screw it all up on occasion.<\/p>\n
So let’s talk about the “grand finale” game of the King’s Quest series, King’s Quest 6.<\/p>\n Set about six months after King’s Quest 5, this new game sees Alexander moping in the throne room.\u00a0 He is – it turns out – besotted by his singular glimpse of Cassima from the fifth game.\u00a0 Her invitation – that he come and see the land of the Green Isles ringing around in his head.\u00a0 He’d love to, but…he can’t find mention of this particular place anywhere.\u00a0 And believe you me, given that he’s head-over-heels in love, he’s looked everywhere.<\/p>\n So the Magic Mirror – a Deus Ex Machina that’s existed in the series since the second game – comes to life and shows him a brief glimpse of her by starlight.\u00a0 And that’s how Alexander knows to find her.\u00a0 He will – as the clich\u00e9 goes – follow the stars to his love.<\/p>\n He takes a guide book to the Green Isles, [the other<\/em> part of the game manual – which is split into two this time] a trusty crew and some money and boards the S.S Sinkalot.\u00a0 I call it that because – without fail – at the end of the [for the time] beautifully rendered introduction it sinks.\u00a0 A lot.<\/p>\n Then the game does something that we haven’t seen since the first game.\u00a0 It just drops you off and says, in effect, “Hi, I’m Skyrim.\u00a0 Let’s go anywhere and do anything.” \u00a0And this, let me tell you, is GREAT<\/em>.<\/p>\n Sierra has never been very good about letting you off the very narrow rail of the adventure – very often, you need to do thing Y before you can tackle thing X and while that’s functionally true in this game, there’s a lot more player agency and freedom here that works to the game’s advantage.\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 It starts stripping this freedom away toward the beginning of the second act [and we’ll talk about that, because it’s incalculably stupid when it happens] but while it lasts, it is the most wonderful thing.\u00a0 Find objects.\u00a0 Puzzle over their use.\u00a0 If you can’t figure out what you’re doing here, go somewhere else.\u00a0 It presents a very non-linear quest format that helps immerse you in the game, give you lots to look at and mess with and generally keeps you well-occupied.<\/p>\n This does end, as I’ve noted from “Act 2” which starts with a maze.\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Really.\u00a0 A maze.\u00a0 The game also unceremoniously dumps you into the maze without warning you or without allowing you to fetch everything you might need to beat the maze.\u00a0 Which means that.\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Really.\u00a0 The maze is a death trap.<\/p>\n It’s also a one-way maze, meaning that if you don’t collect everything you need from the first floor and somehow navigate to the second floor, well…you’re going to die somewhere later down the line, because you didn’t properly explore.\u00a0 Or, you know, collect everything.<\/p>\n This trend only “speeds up” in “Act 3.”\u00a0 There’s a peddler selling lamps – old for new – who only ever lets you make one trade.\u00a0 Get it wrong?\u00a0 Game over.\u00a0 There’s a castle full of Guard Dogs [My favourite of which is undoubtedly Saladin] who will kill you on sight if you’re caught meandering the hallways.\u00a0 There’s no stealth gimmick and no way to avoid this.\u00a0 It just happens without much preamble other than “you hear guards approaching from the [insert cardinal direction here.]”<\/p>\n So, we have a very schizophrenic Sierra at work here.\u00a0 One side wants to make an open-world adventure with very careful puzzles that won’t screw you over.\u00a0 The other side?\u00a0 It’s OK with repeatedly throwing you to the wolves.\u00a0 And yes, there’s a Beast in this game.\u00a0 So that whole sentence stands as-is.<\/p>\n The graphics aren’t bad although – at this late date, they’re lagging behind what other studios are doing in the VGA realm.\u00a0 The hand-drawn backdrops are certainly nice – and in places we have pieces of art I’d love to frame, but everything seems kind of smeared and poured together when taken side-by-side with some of the other adventures of the day [like Westwood’s Legend of Kyrandia – which Westwood even tried to sell to Sierra] or AdventureSoft’s slightly more adult and beautiful Simon the Sorcerer.<\/p>\n The sound is – largely forgettable and while there’s a tune or two here you can hum, [years later, I still adore the Wallflower theme – a spritely little piece of music that suits the situation it’s in rather well] most of it just breezes by without sticking.\u00a0 Well.\u00a0 Except for Girl in the Tower.\u00a0 Instead of trying to describe that, I’ll just let you listen to it.\u00a0 It’s…at once beautiful and at once the most terrifying thing I’ve heard all at the same time.\u00a0 Hilariously:\u00a0 it managed to get played on radio, too.\u00a0 [Having said that, it’s absolutely beautiful and somewhat heart-rending in retrospect that Mark Seibert wrote the lyrics and his wife got to sing on this specific song]:<\/p>\n![\"Urgh.](\"http:\/\/greywolfe.co.za\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/kq6_alexander_moping.png\")
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