Prince Alexander sure has.
This tale begins with our hero, the soft-spoken Prince Alexander of Daventry, lost in thought in his chambers. He is pining for the love of his life (whom he has previously interacted with for no more than exactly one minute), Princess Cassima of the Land of the Green Isles.
When the poor prince is about as down bad as can be, a vision of none other than Cassima herself appears in the Official King's Quest Magic Mirror, who unbeknownst to him feels the same way. She sits sadly sequestered in her tower, half a world away, yearning for his eloquent loins.
Alexander takes this as a sign stronger than any other, and sets out on a three month long (!) voyage to find the mysterious Land of the Green Isles. A storm causes his ship to capsize, but he makes it inland unscathed, and while he reaches the castle he is told by the sinister royal vizier Alhazred, that Cassima shall marry him soon, so that he might rule over the land, with her as his bride and queen.
Alexander doesn't let the threats of this knave stop him, and sets out on a king's quest of his own (his second, in fact!) to thwart the wicked Alhazred, free princess Cassima, and bring peace back to the Land of the Green Isles.
The 'One Thousand and One Nights' inspired milieu of the Isle of the Crown effortlessly conveys the idea that Alexander is a stranger in a strange land.
'King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow' is the sixth installment in the classic point-and-click adventure game series, and is arguably the point where Sierra nailed just about every single detail, from game design to narrative. You journey throughout the beautiful, pixelated, hand-painted VGA environs of the Land of the Green Isles, using the classic Sierra interface to interact with the world around you. Just about every conceivable thing has a response to any of the main commands (Look, Interact, Speak) and the ever-witty and attentive narrator guides you along the way, or teases you for trying out silly solutions.
These games are famous (or rather, infamous) for letting you reach points where you are completely stuck with no other option than to reload the game. During my time with King's Quest VI, I only encountered one of these instances, but it was very easily rectified, as I could simply reload a save that was a few minutes earlier and trek back to a corner I had forgotten to explore to pick up a cleverly hidden item. Thinking back on it, there aren't many instances where these softlocks would feel too unfair or punishing, provided you save. All. The. Time. The little introduction tutorial really hammers this in too, so it becomes second nature before long.
You'd better have your wits about you if you want to challenge the sense gnomes of the Isle of Wonder!
The overall difficulty of the puzzles are varying. They never felt too obtuse for me, though I have to admit that I needed to check a guide twice, only to realize that I had the solution right in front of me both times, I just hadn't resorted to madly trying to combine every single item in my inventory with each other. The beginning part is arguably the most difficult section, since you're not as familiar with the various locales as you'd want to (and because the coin you need is WAY too well-hidden for such an early item!!), but the Land of the Green Isles is full of wonder and whimsy, so if you're familiar with classical fairy-tale tropes, most of the trials and tribulations you face will feel intuitive and clever (ever tried to bull-fight a minotaur with a piece of red cloth before?).
The quaint, fairy-tale like setting doesn't rob the game of genuinely exciting and stressful encounters.
One particular puzzle, the infamous Cliffs of Logic, has in this modern age been reduced to a quaint example of old-school copy protection. Without owning the official manual that came with the game, you’d never know that the secret glyphs required to climb the cliffs are infact part of the manual itself. But thanks to the magic of the internet, this puzzle is still solveable, and it doesn’t exactly feel like cheating because all you do is look something up outside the game, which was still the required task.
Speaking of voices, I'd be a fool not to mention the absolutely stellar voice-work throughout the entire game. Every single character comes to life by the large animated portraits paired with some truly excellent, top-shelf voice acting, especially for its time. No matter if it's in the more silly parts, or the parts where the game takes itself incredibly seriously, it never feels weird or out of place, because the immersion covers the entire game, and you, and your mug of tea like a cozy blanket and doesn't let go until you decide to hang up your adventurer's cap for the evening.
King's Quest VI is a masterclass in old-school adventure games, and a timeless classic fairy-tale about the things you'd do for true love. With your help, Alexander sails to the edge of the world, defies logic, wonder, prophecies, beasts, copy protection, and even death itself, to set the love of his life free, so that they may live together, happily ever after.
And at the end of the day, that's a quest worth kinging for, right?
Pros
- + Extremely well paced
- + Clever puzzles and solutions
- + Beautiful artwork and music
- + Top-notch voice acting
Cons
- - Potential to become softlocked is still a bummer
- - Certain puzzles are slightly too obtuse rather than creative
- - Some crafty worldplay might be lost on non-native English speakers
- - Lots of back-and-forth meandering in the middle portion of the game
9
out of 10
Overall
Sierra was at the top of their game when they developed King's Quest 6. It's an incredibly tight point-and-click adventure game with just about perfect pacing that's never afraid of giving you tricky nuts to crack, and whisks you along for an incredibly sincere and well-written adventure.
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