Favorite King's Quest game and why? (And yes, I will even...

[Gamepro]

Interesting read here.

My favourite would have to be King's Quest VII.

I like the single cursor solution! I always felt it was cumbersome to switch between walk/touch/smell/hear/talk/whatever (well of course both are VASTLY superior to text, but yeah). Seeing the wand light up at a point of interest was also very helpful, as well as eliminating dead end paths. The puzzles for the most part also weren't as obscure, and didn't require the use of a manual or pen and paper like past games sometimes did as far as I remember. It wasn't dumbing it down, it was natural progression I feel.

As for cons of the game, if only you could more easily SPEED THEIR SLOW BUTTS UP. I know you can tap "+" multiple times to speed up their walking, but often they would just revert back to slug speed for no reason and you'd have to do it again. Plus the animations are very slow as well and as far as I know you can't speed those up.

Overall I don't really get the hate. A fine adventure game.

[MusicallyInspired]

It absolutely was dumbing it down when you're used to multiple interactions. It still bugs me to this day how drastic of a shift it was from KQ6.

[Gamepro]

Removing dead-end paths could easily be seen as "dumbing it down" as well, I see it as an improvement. I just find multiple interactions time consuming and annoying.

[MusicallyInspired]

I don't think removal of dead-end paths are dumbing it down (few LA games ever had dead end situations after all, definitely not the later games). Removing multiple interactions makes the game less intuitive and seem smaller in scale. It's probably easier (to play as well as to develop) but it just feels like it loses something. Like my intelligence has been lowered by switching from many interactions to one. It bothers me.

[DeadPoolX]

As I see it, dead-end paths are the result of careless design. It's one thing to make the game difficult or require some backtracking; however, it's something else entirely when the player has reached a point where they can't continue simply for missing some relatively obscure item early on.

I like the ability to save and load (or if you prefer "restore") without the game choosing for me. In some cases, an auto-load function -- such as it was used in KQ7 -- has merit, especially if you're developing a game for a younger audience. The KQ games, with the exception of the eighth title, were based around fairy tales and as such, considered games for younger players. I don't entirely agree that fairy tales are for children (the original versions certainly weren't), but that's the general consensus ever since Disney made them more "family-friendly."

I don't see a problem with incorporating both a manual and automatic save/load function. BioShock allows for this. Yes, FPS is a much different genre, but the concept is the same. BioShock automatically loads the player at the nearest regeneration station if death occurs. If the player feels like loading their last saved game themselves, they can do that as well.

As far as the debate between a single cursor interface and one that uses multiple cursors, I'd say it really depends on the game in question. For all intents and purposes, most of Sierra's titles could have worked just fine with a single cursor. I don't think it's as much fun that way (especially since cursors were really funny -- like the unzip and taste cursors in LSL), but there's something to be said for simplicity.

Sometimes I still prefer the old text-parser interface. It was clunky and sometimes quite user-unfriendly, but allowed for a great deal of humor when typing in crazy and perverted commands.

In my personal opinion, I think KQ7 was too dumbed down. I can't accurately comment on the storyline (I returned the game shortly after purchasing it), but the visuals reminded me of a Don Bluth film. The cartoony graphics utterly repulsed me and as I previously said, I prefer multi-cursor interface.

Oh... and my favorite KQ game was the original King's Quest. The story is simplistic to the point of near non-existence, but I have fond memories of it. I remember playing KQ1 (when it was brand new) on my AppleIIc. To be honest, I didn't "play" it so much as I helped my Dad play. And by "help" I mean I managed to drown and/or walk Graham off a cliff at every available opportunity.

[Collector]

I don't mind dead ends, as long as you never have to backtrack too far, but mostly I think that they were rarely intentional.

I don't see a problem with incorporating both a manual and automatic save/load function. BioShock allows for this. Yes, FPS is a much different genre, but the concept is the same. BioShock automatically loads the player at the nearest regeneration station if death occurs. If the player feels like loading their last saved game themselves, they can do that as well.

QfG4 also had both. I really like being able to having multiple saves for any point of a game. It is nice to be able to revisit certain scenes without having to play all the way through to it.

I prefer something in between in terms of cursor complexity. GK1 had the extra actions that sometimes got to be a little annoying. I tend to change the cursor by a right click and this cumbersome if there are too many actions. KQ7 was too simplistic. It didn't allow you to explore things. KQ5-6 had about the right amount of actions. It was nice to flesh out the story by being able look around at your surroundings or to feel the warmth or texture of things around you. But I will concede to you that what is exactly right is largely dependent on the game in question.

[Tawmis]

While KQ7 wasn't a favorite of mine, I did enjoy it, whether simplistic or not.

I think KQ7 was the next step of evolution for the games. It, like TORIN'S PASSAGE, brought the games into a DISNEY like animation style - and basically allowed you to move through it and become a part of the cartoon.

Simplistic, perhaps. But I think the idea was for it to be a family game, something King's Quest has always boasted it was. And as much as I love King's Quest VI, there is no doubt that I think it's harder than King's Quest V - and may have stepped outside of being so much a family game, since a younger audience may have had difficulty with some of the puzzles, and following the (admittedly awesome) storyline.

[Goldenfoxx]

Well, KQ2 was the first game I played on my (then) brand new Tandy 1000 back in '85, so the game will always have a special place in my heart. And there was a personal quest when my copy of KQ1 became corrupted, and my dad went around to various Radio Shacks to try and get the problem corrected, which always sticks out in my mind (that, and the original answer to the Rumplestiltskin puzzle still makes me laugh - HOW was anyone supposed to figure that out?).

Even so, I first played KQ3 back in the 6th grade, and I remember I had the flu at the time - so I just stayed at it for a week with a 104-degree fever. That's probably my fondest memory of the KQ series, so KQ3 is my definitive answer to the question. However, I agree with many of you that KQ6 was one of the best - easily my second favorite. If I had to rank them from my favorite to least:

KQ3, KQ6, KQ4, KQ2, KQ7, KQ1, KQ5, KQ8.

-- Foxx

[DeadPoolX]

... count Mask of the Betrayer as a King's Quest game!

I didn't notice this earlier (and it seems no one else did either), but Mask of the Betrayer is an expansion for Neverwinter Nights 2. I think Tawm meant to write Mask of Eternity.