It's been some time since we last had a good King's Quest and the wait is finally over as we have the next installment to the franchise. This time the developer role has moved over to The Odd Gentlemen and the game is no longer a point-and-click adventure but Sierra Entertainment has kept their eyes closely upon it to try and keep it in the same vein as fans would want and expect. As the first episode for King's Quest, A Knight To Remember, has been released the time is now and the time is here for a review of the first episode to the franchise's reboot; of sorts. I was able to get intimate with the game and here is my review of King's Quest: A Knight To Remember to help guide you on your gaming choices.

Story

Every wonder how King Graham became king in the world of King's Quest? Well he'll tell anyone willing, or unwilling, to sit down and listen to his tale. In the case of A Knight To Remember it is being relived with his granddaughter Gwendolyn and luck for us we get to play out the experiences too in King's Quest. The first tale opens with how Graham became a knight and moved up the social ladder in the lands of Daventry. Let's be honest here too it was his Dragon Slaying skills and not always his puns that made him the king he is today and this is just the start of the story…

Hated

While King's Quest isn't a point-and-click adventure as in the past it does hold one of the core puzzle solving elements where players have to collect items, sometimes odd, to solve specific puzzles or move things along. While I fully understand delaying when a player can use some items in the game as they are not useful in certain situations; when the only item I have is a lever to a crank that I have to turn, why do I have to go through the inventory and specifically state use this item? I don't know how many times I walked up to something I had to use something on and then was caught up in a whole lot of dialog about having to find/use an item I had on this thing. Why not have them just fire off in King's Quest when it is the only item and not part of a grander puzzle? Or for that matter having to cycle through a long list of inventory to pull out a horn I and the character knows to work every time I want to use it? So very annoying and it felt like it was there to slow down the pace instead of add to the fun.

Speaking of the dialog in King's Quest, while I enjoyed all of it the first time I certainly didn't want to have to listen to it ten more times because I forgot about the need to go into my inventory. I'm not saying that The Odd Gentlemen needed to remove it but after hearing something once in King's Quest it should be skip-able so I don't have to waste hours of time listening to the king say "I needed to use another horn" over and over when I had the horn in my inventory. If the dialog was that short it would have been fine but some of the quips in King's Quest here are pretty long. This goes to basic conversation with the town's residents as well. I'm fine being forced the first time but I should be able to skip little bits if I so want so I don't have to keep hearing it over and over again in King's Quest.

Building off of that as well, if there is a puzzle that is so very blatant in King's Quest and it only requires me to answer a bit of dialog, why can I not just answer and move on? I understand that King's Quest is a puzzle game but when answers are so easy to see for specific things why can't I just give the answer and move right along? This was also missing in A Knight To Remember and it would have made my experience greater if I could just skip a long drawn out thing in King's Quest because my brain was able to figure something out that was supposed to be puzzle in the game. At least give us the option and then penalize those who try to guess and get it wrong. Don't penalize all of us for being perceptive.

Loved

Be it the stories, the voice acting, and the puns, King's Quest: A Knight To Remember had an amazing and hilarious start to the things. In fact I was ready for a drab and basic kind of thing here but The Odd Gentlemen and Sierra Entertainment knocked it out of the park with just this short bit of story. It has a grander scheme to it for sure but when I wrapped up A Knight To Remember it had its own nice ending as a story should be. Not every episodic game needs to have a huge cliffhanger to force us to comeback for the next episode and King's Quest is already showing that it can do that and do that well. Even if you don't want to find out what is going on in the grander scale you feel accomplished by the end of the episode and only want to move on to the next.

Moving back to the puns and voice acting here for King's Quest, and building off of the above, while I wished I could have skipped them after hearing them the first time none of the dialog was a letdown at all. Be it the witty nature of the jokes and puns used or how well the voice cast was able to bring King's Quest alive with just that in the game, I can't seem to put my finger on it. It was all superb and brought me back to play the episode multiple times during my experience with King's Quest. If they can keep even a small ounce of this in future episode then I'll be completely hooked into King's Quest and jumping for joy as each new episode gets announced for release. Also hoping nothing happens to the cast they hired as that would be a great loss.

Finally, King's Quest seems to have brought in a great new aesthetic to the video game world. Other titles have tried and succeeded with the "cartoon" or "painted" video game and other have tried and failed. The Odd Gentlemen have fully succeeded thus far with King's Quest as there were multiple scenes that felt like I was watching a professional cartoon in the mix of actually playing a game. This brought back the wonder and enjoyment I remember from being a kid and seeing the first 8-bit graphics only this time King's Quest is on an engine that can make Batman look real. None the less the inner child in me was dancing around with joy just based on the look of King's Quest in this age that is a huge feat to do. Hence why this is in the loved section of this King's Quest review.

Overall

Plain and simple King's Quest: A Knight To Remember is completely worth the time and money for what we get. Yes the dialog branches could use a skip option to make sure you are always getting what you want in King's Quest but unless you are a complete doof about it, or choose to listen multiple times, it is something that you can overlook and move past in multiple play throughs of King's Quest's first episode. You know what? Even if you don't enjoy King's Quest: A Knight To Remember given all the love I have given at least you can know you are not going to get a broken story and won't need to keep looking for the next episode to get a good experience. In fact King's Quest: A Knight To Remember is longer than most of those cliffhanger episodic titles out there so if you are willing to drop the funds there than you should know it is more than worth it here.

King's Quest: A Knight To Remember was developed by The Odd Gentlemen and published by Sierra Entertainment for the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PC on July 28^th 2015. A PS4 copy of the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes.