It’s been twenty one years since the release of the original King’s Quest, an adventure game that paved the way for titles such as Grim Fandango and Syberia. Being a fan of the original King’s Quest, the main concern was how the game would transition to this action-title-heavy console era, but thanks to games like The Walking Dead and Life is Strange, it slots in very nicely to the genre it once helped pave. Instead of releasing a fully-fledged title, Sierra Entertainment has opted to go down the episodic root. Consequently, King’s Quest: A Knight to Remember is the first of five chapters.
A Knight to Remember tells the story of Graham, a young man’s journey to become a knight and eventual King of Daventry. The story is presented from the perspective of an elderly Graham telling stories of his adventures to his granddaughter Gwendolyn. Naturally the first tale begins with Graham heading to Daventry to become a knight. In order to become a knight he must prove himself in a tournament against four other knights. Although the tale itself is simple, it’s the presentation that makes A Knight to Remember so memorable. The writing in this first chapter is exceptional. Every character that Graham encounters is instantly enduring. The townsfolk, for example, that aid Graham and provide side quests to the knights that he competes against have a great and distinct personality that reminds me of old Looney Toons or Disney cartoons. My favorite character is"Whisper", a knight who is full of himself, constantly flexing his muscles and boasting, and is one of the many characters that you’ll fall in love with on this grand adventure.
As with other adventure games A Knight to Remember is all about puzzles and what items to use in a given situation. Like classic adventure games of old, A Knight to Remember doesn’t hold your hand. The game doesn’t give you any hints or tips on solving puzzles or getting passed a certain situation. The puzzles are all well thought out. One of my favorites is tying a Crochet yarn around posts trying to trip one of the knights in one of the story challenges as he tears the posts out and follows your footsteps, gathering up the yarn. These type of quick thinking puzzles may leave some frustrated, but they’re not too difficult to solve, and if all else fails trial-and-error will get the job done. Unfortunately, that leads to my biggest issue with the game: you can’t fail. If you fail any of the puzzles or any of the events in the tournament, elderly Graham will narrate and say something along the lines of "I didn’t pull the wrong switch, my old age must be getting to me" before setting you back to the start of the puzzle.
Graham collects plenty of items, the catch is figuring out where and when to use them. As the game doesn’t tell you where to go or where to use items, I found puzzle solving quite entertaining as I had to flex my brain a little to figure things out. If you can’t figure some things out it’s okay because there is always another way. Most of these items are used to help out the villagers who ask you to bring them ingredients in exchange for key items to help you win the tournament, or as I like to say, "cheat" to win, but again some of them are not crucial for completing certain tasks.
Solving puzzles and collecting items aren’t the only objectives in A Knight to Remember. Throughout the story you sneak around a sleeping dragon, get chased by a dragon, race on a giant bunny, and have a dance off with a troll. As fun as all these moments are, most of them are reduced to quick-time events. The quick-time events aren’t bad per say, but I felt like the developer missed an opportunity by not turning these into something more substantial, like small mini-games.
Although the story is linear, how you get there is not. Like so many games these days, key dialogue gives you the option to answer however you wish. Even though the outcome is always the same, it’s unclear at this point whether the decisions you make changes the outcome of the story until the next chapter is released.
A Knight to Remember is probably the best cel-shaded game I have ever played. Character models look like they were ripped right out of a Disney cartoon and each character is animated masterfully. The environments see just as much detail with lush colors used throughout along with a hint of water color used in the backgrounds. What really steals the show though is the voice-acting. Christopher Lloyd provides the voice of the older Graham with Josh Keaton portraying the younger version. Each voice actor gives a great performance, even the NPC characters like the town guard sound great. The soundtrack is also commendable. If music were playing while reading a fairytale book, then this is probably what it would sound like.
As much as I enjoyed A Knight to Remember it isn’t without its faults. About halfway through the game it starts to drag on a bit due to the constant backtracking. There are moments in the game where I would go from one area to get an item only to have to return to my starting position to use the new item I just aquired. This wouldn’t be so bad if Graham didn’t run so slow – it’s not actually a run but more of a strut. The game allows you to skip some areas you have already navigated – like a dark cave filled with wolves – but why couldn’t I use a fast travel like this in other locations that take a lot longer to get through then that cave? I also encountered some framerate drop when moving from area to area, but it’s not so bad that it detracts from the overall enjoyment of the game.
King’s Quest: A Knight to Remember is a great start to this reboot of a classic franchise. Although the slow pace may turn some gamers off, the excellent puzzle design, great voice work, animated movie quality visuals, and some of the best writing I have experienced in a long time, are more then enough to look past its shortcomings. The hardest part now is waiting for the second chapter.