Long Live the King
King's Quest: A Knight to Remember is a beautiful experiment in resurrecting the conventions of gaming’s past and dressing them up in the lush graphics available today. For the most part, it works, with this, the first of five episodes, telling a lighthearted fantasy story around simple action and rewarding puzzles about knights and dragons. The middle of its roughly six hours can drag a bit as you hunt down the items you need to progress, but even those are full of detailed art and enthusiastic performances.
As with the classic King’s Quest game from 1984, a Knight to Remember is the story of the likeable but overly excitable Graham, who's working his way toward being a knight (and eventually king). But this new version is a quality reboot that tells an all-new story of Graham’s attempts to outwit four other candidates for an open knight position, and it’s told capably enough that it should be appealing to newcomers as well as veterans. The caveat to that is that there’s no tutorial or even a quest list to introduce new players to the conventions of this old-school-style adventure and guide you through it, which means you’ll have to be comfortable figuring things out on your own. [...]
The Verdict
Old-school adventure game mechanics make a great return to form in King's Quest: A Knight to Remember. This tale is funny, beautiful, and challenging enough to make up for a few plodding quests and frequent load screens, and it maintains its personality from start to finish, sprinkling the first episode of its story with happy highs and tragic lows.
Final Score: 8/10 Great
Full of humor, heart, and beauty, King's Quest is a admirable revival of classic adventure games.
+ Beautiful artwork
+ Excellent voice acting
+ Simple, rewarding puzzles
– Midgame drags a bit
– Unskippable cutscenes
