1984, that's the year King's Quest 1 was originally released and here it is, still being sold over 20-years later.
For its time King's Quest was quite an innovative game, as it had animated, 16 colored graphics, multiple rooms and you could even move the character around so, that a tree or a house would hide it from the view. That all was in a word, revolutionary, when you add the level of interactivity the game has, which ain't that much in todays standards.
Let it be made fully clear: I like these games because I was a kid, when I played them the first time and they made an impact on me. There's a lot of nostalgia present, there's no denying that. The first 2 games are very slim with plot and they basically are more of a random item searching games than coherent narratives. 3rd game has the best plot of the bunch.
King's Quest 1 (*** / *****)
The story is simple enough: old king is dying and he wants Sir Graham to find three lost objects, which could bring wealth back to the kingdom of Daventry. These items are magical mirror, which can foresee the future, a chest full of gold and magical shield, that protects who ever fields it.
To fully complete the game, it actually helps, if you are familiar whit fairy tales.
There actually is an official Sierra remake of KQ1, which is basically the same game, but with better graphics. It still has the parser interface, but the difficulty level is toned down a bit.
King's Quest 2 (** / *****)
Easily the weakest of the first three. The plot involves now king Graham to travel in the country of Kolyma, which is a pretty empty place, if not counting dracula, church an antique store and red riding hoods granny's house. You mainly spend time walking, collecting things and then you get through the portal to the enchanted island to save the girl. There really isn't even as much of a narrative there's in the first game.
King's Quest 3(**** / *****)
To Heir is Human is story wise the best of the first three. You start the game as a slave to an evil wizard, of whose grasp you need to escape. The game has a lot of timed tasks and you are on the clock, when trying to locate the ingredients to make the spells you need to get rid of the wizard. The game also has a nice magic map, that helps you move around a bit faster. The item hunt has a lot more meaning this time.
General thoughts of all three
So, when you go out and star adventuring, you'll notice, you rummage through every hole and crevice in order to find the stuff you need in order to advance the game. This goes to all three. You can also miss an important item and end up stuck somewhere, where you can get out by only loading a saved game. You also die a lot, be that by a gaze of medusa, maddened mage or just by drowning in the river.
You give the commands with a text parser, so in many cases you'll spent more time in figuring the right commands (like ”take dagger” or ”cut rope with dagger”) and reading the notice, that the game doesn't understand you. I can't say anymore, if the commands are hard to figure, as I know the game almost by heart, but considering people, who are accustomed on modern mouse driven interfaces, this kind of verb hunting might cause gray hairs.
I've never thought that highly of the graphics in the first 3 King's Quest games. They look okay, a bit crude if you compare them to todays games, but I've never thought them as off putting. There also isn't that much of music or sound effects in the games, so it not an audiovisual feast.
But all in all, King's Quest 1 to 3 are a nice, nostalgic trip for those, who have first played them back in the 80's. To younger they might shed some light about the history of gaming. ”3D” adventures were, after all, a big hit after solely text based Interplay Zork games.
As a side note, you can find a fan made VGA remakes of all three games . Remakes of 1 and 3 are very accurate, but remake of KQ2 adds much plot and surroundings to the game.
