King's Quest 4+5+6

King's Quest 6 has the original artist portraits from the original Windows version vs the DOS! I read many comments stating otherwise. Nostalgia has been hitting me hard lately. Enjoy!

First, full disclosure: I've not played the version provided by GOG. My review is based on my C.D. ROMS I still have sitting around. For all the love that King's Quest VI gets as the pinnacle of the series, my own belief is the King's Quest V is the best game I have ever played. It is definitely the most influential game in my life. It's the game that made me decide to be a software developer by profession. I can't say how much I love this game. So, with that having been said, let's break out the individual reviews. KQIV: This one was a little before my time. I wasn't familiar with 80's adventure games, so I can't give it a fair review on its own merits. It's a bit dated for my taste, and doesn't exactly make me excited to replay it. I've worked my way through it with a walk through a couple times, and it made for an all right story, but nothing too exciting for the modern player. KQV: As I said, greatest game I've ever played. I've literally played this game through at least 30 times. My friends and I used to have time trials to see who could beat it the fastest. I just love it. This game gets endless amount of flack because you can get stuck halfway through the game if you ate your pie. I say to you adventurer, why are you destroying an inventory item without any benefit and then saving your game? That's not the game's fault. The game has amazing graphics for a 1990 release. I remember playing in 1995 and still thinking they were impressive. The entire world is immersive-- the backgrounds, the music, the storytelling-- it just takes you to another world. The in-house voice acting often gets ribbed, but I found it endearing and added to the atmosphere of the game. I could go on... its great. Cons are the odd slowmotion of cutscenes (Hurray 1990), and a couple moonlogic puzzles that can mostly be summarized as elves and bedrooms. KQVI: Everything has already been said about this game. It was the last great King's Quest. A must-play.

Of the King's Quest collections, I'd recommend this one the most. 4 is still a bit rough, and the hit detection seems a bit off, not to mention that it's still possible to softlock yourself out of the ending not all that long before it happens. If you're used to such frustrations, you'll be just fine, since 5 and 6 are even better. 5 is the first game in the series that truly is a Point-and-Click Adventure, since the text parser is now gone. The voice acting is done in house, and it shows at times, but it's not terrible... except for your owl companion, who sounds like someone doing their best Miss Piggy impression. Still, 5 has an excellent villain's lair at the end, and is a worthy journey overall. The best of the bunch is easily 6, which has professional voice actors, many different lands to visit, and an unforgettable adventure that drew many fans into the series and the genre back in the day.

I can't speak to the appeal for younger audiences but if you played these in the 90s, it is wonderful to replay them. I didn't see these issues brought up in the other reviews I looked at, so here are things I think everyone playing the gog release of KQ4-6 to know about: Manuals are required This is not an issue really, but I wanted to state it here for anyone who doesn't know to expect this. The manuals are presented on gog as pdf scans of printed materials that were included with the games in their original release. There are actually a good number of puzzles that require you to look up information in those manuals, so make sure you download the manuals and look at them so you know when you see something in the game that corresponds to them. KQ6 has computer clocking issues Be aware that there is a moment when you are meant to capture a living Hole in a wall. Even if you entice it with the right item, capturing it is nearly impossible due to how the game's animation plays on a fast modern machine. It helped me to look at a youtube video so I could see the precise moment to click, but still took lots of tries. Still an amazing game! KQ5 voices are bad I actually played the disc version of KQ5, not the CD enhanced version with voiceovers. Please let me go back to the non-voiced version! The voices are bad! If you could click to skip them it wouldn't be so horrible, but--no. No you can't. It really slows the game down. The text-only version allowed you to click through text at your own pace, and I spent time digging for the non-voiced version, but never was able to find it in this package. That said, I still got through the whole game and loved it. KQ4 is hard This might just be a skill issue with me, but I have made almost no progress in this game, or I'd have more to say.

Great adventure games. If you've been introduced to the King's Quest series via the new XBox Games, you need to play these. The new series present King Graham as a bumbling buffoon in an almost Monkey Island Guybrush Threepwood way. In the original King's Quest, as in these games, you felt like a hero, not a bumbling buffoon. The new series wrecks the whole idea behind King's Quest. https://youtu.be/xyPz9A4NSGI https://youtu.be/ah4wSx2p_DA