The revival of the glorious Sierra days of point and click adventures of the games of my past.
It certainly has the puns, the feel, and the vibe of King’s Quest games. The art is very beautiful with gorgeous painted back drops and a water colored feel that is reminiscent of the recent Tell Tale episodic games (Wolf among us, Walking Dead, etc). I am honestly surprised that this game was created using Unreal engine because it pulls off a look that is nothing like what I mentally think of unreal engine games.
The voice acting is excellent and the adventure feels good for a first episode of a 5 episode adventure. I am unsure if it has the TellTale typical choices events, but at least it does not have the typical anything that bad that can happen will happen as well as it is a happier game.
The puzzles and gameplay though I would honestly describe as too easy. The old King’s Quests were hard until you figured them out, but these felt largely simple. There was wandering around to figure out my options for sure, but putting them together was too simple. I blame that on the newer game environment we are in and easy being to common. However I will admit that since this is an episodic game there is a chance for them to scale up in difficulty and I will wait for that opportunity. While there are a few pieces of inventory that will hold over to the next episode, the episodic nature feels so much shorter.
Probably the biggest complaint about the game is that there simply was not enough comical deaths as you flail around trying to combine the various items and puzzles. The King’s Quests of old were comical with their myriad ways to die horribly in new and unexpected manners. I died a few times, but it was immediately obvious how to correct that. The nostalgia in me honestly wished the difficulty resulted in more gory deaths.
Episode 1: Completed 8/1/15
4 out of 5
