SHP Forums

The Best/Worse Part Of This Game Was...

Well - the idea here is - every game (or series, where there was more than one) had some GREAT moments, but there were some, no matter how great the rest of the game was - that had some stinkers. (For example, GK3 over all was an amazing game; but ask anyone about the mustache puzzle of the game, and they will probably all groan).

So I want to see what everyone's Best/Worse moments were for a game... and if there's a series - name Best and Worse for each one, if you're so inclined.

Camelot
Best: The music is sooo nice....
Worst: The joust can be a pain sometimes. Not too bad, though. It's also frustrating when you get to the catacombs in Jerusalem and realize you've forgotten the lodestone in Camelot. Alllll that progress lost.

Longbow
Best: The music is sooo nice....
Worst: I can't really recall anything I didn't like, though I don't consider it better than Camelot.

MusicallyInspired wrote: ↑Thu Jun 07, 2018 2:02 pmIt's also frustrating when you get to the catacomb in Jarusalem and realize you'd forgotten the lodestone in Camelot. Alllll that progress lost.

Back on the topic of fixing dead ends...

Collector wrote: ↑Thu Jun 07, 2018 2:07 pm

MusicallyInspired wrote: ↑Thu Jun 07, 2018 2:02 pmIt's also frustrating when you get to the catacomb in Jarusalem and realize you'd forgotten the lodestone in Camelot. Alllll that progress lost.

Back on the topic of fixing dead ends...

Let the man finish KQ5 first.

MusicallyInspired wrote: ↑Thu Jun 07, 2018 2:02 pm Camelot
Best: The music is sooo nice....
Worst: The joust can be a pain sometimes. Not too bad, though. It's also frustrating when you get to the catacombs in Jerusalem and realize you've forgotten the lodestone in Camelot. Alllll that progress lost.

Longbow
Best: The music is sooo nice....
Worst: I can't really recall anything I didn't like, though I don't consider it better than Camelot.

I can't wait till I get around to eventually replaying these... I know I played them a few times when they first came out... and kept getting different amount of points... but I can't remember most of the puzzles (today) in these games... I just remember really enjoying them.

Having recently completed Conquests of Camelot...

The worst was that damnable desert. May as well have called the game, "Conquests of Camelot: The Search for Jerusalem."

All I can figure is that it was meant to generate hint-line/book fees, given the:

• Single, misleading directional clue.
• Ability to endlessly wander the desert (or at least 100+ screens worth in a single direction, which is as far as my patience would take me).
• Lack of adjoining directional entry. That is, the "entry points" for the relevant scenes have to be entered from a specific direction, after following a specific route. Drawing a map illustrates how completely inane this is.

Fantastic game otherwise. Wish I'd played it years ago. Conquests of Camelot is something of a rarity, similar to the parser-based Quest for Glory titles, in that it gives back as much as you put into the experience. From talking-to/asking Merlin about nearly everything, to the ability to "listen-to" and "smell" most immediate environments, to the use of the mouse-click "look" function to get descriptions that are otherwise unavailable via the parser, you can tell that a lot of heart and soul went into this game.

The desert is super easy when you know where to go. It's something like just sticking to the bottom, going to the far right, then straight up. You'll come to the well almost immediately, and then Jerusalem is just north of that. I couldn't believe how easy it was. The desert "maze" is a huge red herring.

Red herrings are generally fine, but whether by accident or design, this one takes things too far - the valley of cobras, the nearby screen that very-much suggests being a starting point to desert travels, the ability to survive indefinitely on lizard blood. Arriving at Jerusalem after the expense of those trials and logical efforts would have felt like quite an accomplishment. Instead, you're either supposed to somehow realize that you'd travelled the entire northern leg of the "north-east" trek to Jerusalem upon arriving at the Gaza overlook, or accidentally try some non-obvious path behind some obstructive boulders (where you'd already tried exiting the scene in the same direction by walking into and through the water itself). It's cheap and insulting.

This really dampened the enthusiasm for the game that I'd had prior to that point, and after some 2 - 3 hours of wasted effort spread across several days, I eventually gave up. This became the third time I've ever had to resort to a hint for a Sierra game, where the other two were just as insulting and dumb.

I'm not angry or anything...

Yeah it's pretty trash. Jerusalem is literally 3 screens away from the skeleton and the poison water. Right one, up two. Boom you're there. When I discovered that I wondered if it was an inside programmer's cheat because nothing alludes to this at all. And the very presence and need for a "guide" to get you there makes you think it's going to be a huge journey. The whole desert is just totally unnecessary. It's not even a trek!

I never managed to beat either of those games. In CoC, I never beat the Black Knight at jousting - and in CotL, I never managed to beat the monk at that board game (grumble).

Maybe I should give them a try again.

As for the voyage through the desert - yep, it's not very far. In fact, you could say it's not a ... far trek.