King's Quest - Chapter 1: A Knight to Remember Reviews
Great presentation coupled with shallow gameplay means it works better as a film than a video game.
A worthy successor to the King's Quest name and a worthy first episode for this ongoing series. If you are a fan of the classic adventure game, A Knight To Remember is one you won't forget.
Overall, however, King's Quest is a solid reinterpretation of a genre once buried in the annals of gaming history. If you like classic adventure games and have an affinity for a whimsical art style and classic storytelling, this is one quest you'll want to sign up for. Who knows? It just might make you feel like a kid again.
Just as "A Knight to Remember" tells us the tale of a young, plucky and foolhardy Graham on his way to becoming the hero and ruler that we know he'll become, King's Quest feels like an adventure game that is on its way to becoming a classic, but there are still quite a few more trials that I hope The Odd Gentlemen will be able to overcome going into its future episodes.
The fetch quests and backtracking grate, but A Knight to Remember is still a fairly strong start to King's Quest. Even though it's a self-contained story that leaves few loose threads, I'm keen to return and see Graham grow into the famous Knight he's meant to be. So much has changed in 21 years, but it's good to be back in Daventry.
King's Quest Chapter 1: A Knight to Remember is brilliant. The Odd Gentlemen have managed to modernize a classic, retaining much of what makes the originals so beloved, yet not making it feel outdated for modern gamers, even if we do have to deal with a bit of backtracking.
King's Quest: Chapter 1 - A Knight To Remember is a traditional adventure title through and through, presenting some of the positives and negatives that games of its ilk can provide.
A Knight to Remember might not have the emotive power and narrative sophistication of The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones, nor quite the wit and humour of Double Fine's Broken Age, but it's given me the most enjoyable time I've had playing an adventure game in years. If subsequent chapters can maintain this level of quality, this series could give the King's Quest name a whole new lease of life.
It can be argued that the actual "game" parts of King's Quest- Chapter 1: A Knight To Remember can be lackluster. Figuring out solutions to most of these don't bring forth a feeling of intelligence from the player, just one of "that part is done, on to the next. Despite this, the experience to be had here is absolutely enjoyable.
Despite having a few gripes with this Chapter, I most certainly feel it's worth the price of admission.
Daventry's changed a bit, but it's still got heart
King's Quest: A Knight to Remember for me was a very enjoyable game that truly harkens back to a simpler time of gaming and even though it may not be the most challenging title around, it succeeds at storytelling. Well presented on the XBox One with some exceptional graphics and perfect voice acting, King's Quest a Knight to Remember is ideal for gamers who want something a little left out of centre that pushes the simple rather than the difficult.
A Knight to Remember manages to capture the spirit of its predecessors without ever feeling like an empty exercise in nostalgia.
One of the first adventure releases in a while that successfully blends the old and the new.
I have a few quibbles . . . but in general this is a grand start to what I hope is a grand adventure. Long live the King.
Despite its charm, Sierra's episodic reboot isn't winning any tournaments.
King's Quest: A Knight to Remember is the first part of a five part re-imagining of the original King's Quest games, and boy what a fun re-imagining this first episode turned out to be. While not technically a classic point-and-click styled game like the original series, A Knight to Remember manages to keep that same feel of exploration and adventure like the original games before it, and Christopher Lloyd's narration and witty banter throughout the game is like icing on the cake. For fans of the series, I'd strongly recommend you pick this up, and for those unfamiliar this makes an excellent introductory game to the series.
As a result, A Knight To Remember has little identity of its own. If the goal of this first chapter is to act as a bridge between old and new, and the later chapters offer more original themes, storytelling, and puzzles, then we might be looking at a lesser piece of a greater whole. There's reason to believe this might be the case, as the most interesting part of the story, the development of Gwendolyn, takes center stage by the end of the chapter. But right now, this new take on King's Quest is hoping that a fondness for the fairy tales of yesterday will hide that it has nothing new to offer. It doesn't, but at least it has time to find its purpose.
At the end of the day, this reminded me a great deal of Telltale's Tales of Monkey Island series of recent years. It's a modern take on a classic genre, heavily capitalising on a famous name and rich in character and humour, but ultimately built on a straightforward foundation short on real innovation or beauty. Still, it's been a while since we've seen a lot of these adventures, and this is the first chapter of five. The main characters are endearing enough that after a couple of chapters they might be able to carry the games more or less on their own merits, but less in the way of un-skippable animations (some of which you'll need to sit through a lot) and mid-game ambling would go a long way toward warming me up when the subsequent chapters arrive.