The Legend of Kyrandia (Book One)

The game itself is short, the endless labyrinths of forests and caves make it longer. But the worst thing is that it is very easy to lose the items needed to complete the game and you are at a dead end. The game is unbeatable. It is worth playing only for the background to the next parts.

Just to hear the fantastic music and the little 'blup' sound when you picked up an object makes this purchase worth every penny! The first Kyrandia game was the first (for me) adventure game with the emphasis on 'adventure'. A murdered royal couple, a young heir in hiding and a fantasy realm filled with colourfull characters and an evil jester. This gem is a must-play and there's no shame in getting a walkthrough for the infamous dark labyrinth.

The final two games in this series are rightfully classics, but this first outing is an exercise in frustration. The puzzles are either feeble or down to pure trial and error. The game is padded for time with mazes, backtracking, limited inventory space and items from the beginning used in later puzzles. The only reason I give this game even 2 stars is the wonderful atmosphere; the art is beautiful, the characters are magical and the music is great. Even the voice acting is passable at times! I would only recommend you play this for sentimentality (like I did) or to see where the other two games came from.

I pretty much died when I found out I could download this online without having to buy the CD online AND it was compatible with my Mac! I am so shocked. And so cheap! This was one of my first adventure games. Nostalgia all the way. Thank you for whoever made it possible for me and everyone else to enjoy this and so easily!!!!!!

The Kyrandia series was a wonderful series. Though it clearly was an attempt at Westwood to capture the incredible success of Sierra; these games managed to stand their on their own for their unique ways they did puzzles slightly different than what you saw in Sierra games. It was funny that Westwood was asked (forced?) to slap labels on the first game, explaining that it was not a King's Quest game. It does look VERY similar to how the King's Quest games looked, but the folks at Westwood took a fun twist to how they handled puzzles. Some of them are odd - and almost impossible to figure out (the gems!), and then there was the things like the Berry Maze (but the folks at Sierra did this too; for example in King's Quest IV and even in Space Quest - gem in the mouth anyone?) I loved these games when they came out and still love them now.