King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder

"Time has not been kind to this classic"

Back in 1992, my parents got a brand new computer, complete with state-of-the-art 256-color VGA graphics, a Soundblaster 16 sound card, a two-button mouse, and a single-speed CD-ROM drive. Man, that thing was so SWEET, I almost wet myself just staring at the Navigator screen. Of course, then my folks picked up one of those game packages, and one of the titles was a little gem called "King's Quest V." Within seconds of watching the opening cutscene, I was hooked. I abandoned my NES for months while I tried to work my way through the many perils and puzzles that awaited poor King Graham. Then my ADD set in, my folks got a Blockbuster account, and I started renting games, leaving Graham dying in the desert.

Years later, when I was about 15, I found the long-forgotten CD, slid it into the tray, and immediately set out to finish something I had begun years before. To my horror, I began to realize that I had wasted much of my youth working through a game filled with more hurdles than a dog show, where one false step can render the entire thing unwinnable, and the once-beloved owl sidekick turned into something out of my worst nightmares. Yes, I realized this game, while enjoyable for the most part, was so seriously flawed that it was hardly worth the time it took to finish, especially with Quest for Glory 4 still awaiting my glorious character import.

So, with King's Quest Collection out on store shelves for dirt cheap, let's look back at one of the most frustrating adventures of all time, and see how it stacks up compared to the rest of the series.

-Graphics: 8-

For the time this was released, the graphics were beyond astounding, especially for a little boy used to Super Mario Bros. The backgrounds all look hand-painted, with exquisite attention to even the most minute of details. Being one of the first games to really exploit VGA graphics, King's Quest V doesn't exactly push the 256-color mark, but nonetheless manages to secure a niche in the medium through great art decoration.

The only major gripe with the graphics lies in the characters themselves. Much of the detail is lost in the character portraits, which often appear to be a huge mess of stray pixels at times. Other issues lie in the animation, or lack thereof. While some characters, including Graham, show a large number of frames when moving, many characters are only limited to a handful, making for some rather awkward scenes when anyone tries to do anything that demands too much physical mobility. Still, the game looks great considering its age.

-Sound: 5-

This is the ultimate mixed bag. First, the good. The music is absolutely stellar, with a fully orchestrated soundtrack that fits the game's mood perfectly. In particular, King Graham's theme music (which is played often) is so well done that I still find myself humming it at times. It appears a great deal of effort was placed on expanding on the audio capabilities of the CD format, which allowed for richer sound quality than floppies, and in this regard, Sierra delivered.

Unfortunately, this must also mean that we touch upon the OTHER part of sound: voice acting. To put it in the kindest terms possible, the voice acting in this game BLOWS. There is not a single sign of any talent to be found within any of these actors. In particular, Cedric the Owl has some of the most annoying lines in history, Graham is almost lifeless, several of the animal characters have such stereotyped accents that they are almost intelligible, and the tailor is shown in the most flamboyantly homosexual manner possible. I understand that this was in the early days of voice acting, but it's so bad here it almost causes physical pain. And to think I was FLOORED by this when it first came out...

-Story: 6-

King's Quest games have never been particularly big on story, but KQV makes somewhat of an attempt at telling a competent narrative. The story begins with the evil wizard, Mordack, using a spell to rip Castle Daventry right out of the ground and spirit it away in a whirlwind. Fortunately, King Graham was on a walk at the time, and thus wasn't captured along with his family. Unfortunately for the gaming population, the theft was also witnessed by the talking owl, Cedric, who has Graham follow him to Serenia. Once there, Cedric's master, Chrispen, gives Graham a means of talking to animals and a worn-out magic wand before kicking his whippersnapper butt out the door. And so, Graham must quickly find a means of reaching Mordack's secret castle and rescuing his castle and family before it is too late.

Or at least, that's how it set up. Despite having an artificial deadline in place later on, Graham and Cedric move at a snail's pace throughout the many different areas. Furthermore, the plight of Graham's family, with the exception of one cutscene about 1/5 through the game, is never touched upon. Graham never shows any real emotion besides "Let's go explore that dark forest," and seemingly doesn't even care that an evil wizard is holding everyone he (purportedly) holds dear hostage. There's a lot of potential with this story, possibly showing Graham's more human side as he is forced to cope with his loss and face the bitter chance of failing, but in the end nothing really matters outside of the sequence of puzzles and events.

Which leads us right into Cedric, quite possibly the most useless video game character ever devised. He's supposed to be Graham's helpful sidekick, offering sage advice while also accomplishing tasks Graham can't do. Instead, he shouts out obvious dangers (such as pointing out a bear that's about five feet from Graham's face) and gets kidnapped. A lot. In fact, no less than two whole sections of the game are devoted to saving Cedric from some sort of danger. He accomplishes something useful at the very end, but for the most part, all he does is hurt what little story the game has by constantly serving as a reminder of how half-baked many of this game's elements were.

-Gameplay: 4-

King's Quest V is, above all else, an adventure game. You guide Graham using a toolbar of possible actions, including walking, looking, interacting, talking, and using his inventory. The game is really easy to learn within a few seconds, with plenty of helpful tutorials to guide newbies in controlling Graham's general journey. That is, if they can get around the game's many issues.

First and foremost is the game's punishing difficulty. We'll start with the mazes. Mazes in any game are definite sources of potential anger, and this game has THREE of them! In fact, the last maze is an absolute mess, with the camera angle constantly changing so that you have little idea where Graham actually IS or what direction he is facing. And since all of these mazes have items hidden within that you need to grab to continue, the game devolves into rounds of mapping out various routes and trying to figure out what goes where and which is what and who knows what else.

Going hand-in-hand with the mazes is the way the developers try your patience, thanks to the horrendous puzzle design. KQV was made back in the day when "dead ends," or ways to make the game completely unwinnable, were still commonplace, and it certainly shows. It's ridiculously easy to miss important items, and not know it until much, much later. The game makes no effort to warn you when you're about to ruin yourself, and doesn't indicate when you skipped something necessary to defeat the evil wizard.

This is coupled with the seemingly random manner in which puzzles were constructed. Although a few of the game's puzzles operate on some logical level, many of them are so totally absurd that it seems the developers were dropping acid. Probably the most telling example is the Yeti fight. At first, this thing will keep grabbing and tearing poor Graham to pieces, with seemingly no means of stopping it. This, of course, leads to the player trying random solutions to the problem, before finally stumbling upon the solution: THROWING A PIE AT IT. I repeat, THROWING A PIE AT IT. And Heaven help you if you didn't buy the pie, or ate it when the game said you needed to eat, or fed it to the starving eagle, cause if you did, YOU'RE DEAD! And when you kill it, you don't immediately go back; you have to first go INSIDE the Yeti's cave, find a single crystal the game wants you to pick up (out of an entire room full of them), and take it out with you. If you skip that step, you'll find yourself on Mordack's Island with no way to get past the second screen.

All in all, playing this game is an exercise in frustration, through and through.

-Conclusion-

Although I have so many problems with this game, it's still somewhat fun to play through, if only for nostalgia's sake. However, this is far from the best in the series; that reward belongs to its direct descendant, King's Quest VI. Pick it up with the rest of the Collection, but otherwise leave it alone.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/18/07

Game Release: King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder (US, 1990)