“There’s a lady who’s
sure all that glitters is gold/
And she’s buying a stairway to heaven”
–Stairway
to Heaven by Led Zeppelin

I believe it was
Jimmy Page who crooned, “And it makes me wonder …” (actually,
I know it was Led Zeppelin who wrote Stairway to Heaven; “I believe”
just sounds more high-class than “I know.” and we all know how sophistomicated
I am). My question to you is this: Was Jimmy wondering why that lady was buying
that stairway to heaven, or was he wondering how the Kings Quest series
managed to spawn another game (abysmal as it may have been) after the release
of Kings Quest VII: The Princeless Bride?

As
you may have figured out by now, this is not so much an essay about Led Zeppelin
as it is a review about the seventh game in the Kings Quest series, quite
appropriately entitled Kings Quest VII (not pronounced “Kings Quest
Vii” but “Kings Quest Seven”) and subtitled The Princeless Bride
(hmm … Princess Bride, anyone?). It is also an experiment about how
many parentheses I can fit into a review without Randy’s (he’s the editor, for
the uninformed) demanding me to stop. So let’s get the pig out of the barrel (not
that I keep pigs in barrels or anything): I didn’t like Kings Quest VII. It
was boring, had a horrible interface, was laughably easy, had sort of cheesy voice
acting, and it turned a strong-willed female character (Rosella from Kings
Quest IV) into a ditz that acted like she belonged in Clueless. All
an especially hard blow after the wonderful Kings Quest VI, which is definitely
the best of the series, if not one of the best adventure games ever released.
But don’t believe this opening paragraph (well, more of a second paragraph). Read
on, young man and/or woman, read on!

Kings Quest VII takes place
after the events in Kings Quest VI (doi!). Alexander has settled down as
king of the Green Islands, and now it’s time for King Graham and Queen Valanice
to find a nice husband for their daughter Rosella (who, being an unmarried princess,
is currently “princeless”). Anyhoo, the game opens with a song from
Rosella about how much she wants to explore the world, see new places, and join
the navy (it also is sung in an animation sequence that finally lets you know
what Disney movies would look like if their animators took hallucinogens). Then
Rosella and Valanice go for a little stroll in the woods. Rosella sees a castle
in a tiny pond, and she jumps right in. A worried Valanice follows her. Rosella
ends up being turned into a troll in the troll kingdom, where she learns about
an evil sorceress lady. Valanice ends up as her human self in a desert. And so
their paths are set. Throughout various chapters that alternate main characters,
Rosella goes about stopping the sorceress lady (whose name is Malicia; it’s really
sad how parents doom their children to evil futures by giving them names that
sound like synonyms of evil words), and Valanice goes about finding Rosella. After
the excellent story in Kings Quest VI and even in V, IV, and III
(basically every Kings Quest except the first two), the plot of Kings
Quest VII is sort of dull in comparison.

If there’s one point where
Kings Quest VII really shows its dirty, ravenous, rabid, evil, pungent,
and yellow side, it’s in the gameplay interface. The first four Kings Quests
had text parser interfaces. V and VI had the standard SCI interface.
Well, VII kills the user-friendly SCI interface for an even more “user-friendly”
way to control the characters, and trust me, it sucks. A la Myst, there’s
only one icon now. All you can do is click on hotspots. It may give a description,
you may walk there, you may even pick up an inventory object. But it’s a far cry
from the complex and detailed SCI engine. In order to view an inventory object
more closely, you drag to an eye icon, which will show you a nice 3D graphic of
the item. The puzzles in Kings Quest VII are one thing Roberta Williams
can be proud about. The game veers away from Kings Quests’ mainly inventory-based
past (though there are oodles of inventory puzzles) to provide more Myst-like
logical endeavors. All in all, the puzzles are about the only nice thing in Kings
Quest VII.

Graphics are just plain bad. Call me crazy, but seeing as
how Kings Quest VII was released several years after V and VI,
the graphics should be better, right? Well, they ain’t. The artists
were obviously going for the Disney animated look, and they failed miserably.
Backgrounds are underdetailed messes of colors, and sprites are poorly animated.
And don’t even get me started on the cutscenes! I almost had nightmares after
seeing Rosella’s face in the opening scene.

Voice acting isn’t much better.
Alexander in Kings Quest VI is possibly the best example of voice acting
I can think of. I expected the sequel to keep up this high standard. Nuh uh. Rosella
sounds like she belongs in the California valley (and acts it too, which is doubly
disappointing for previous Kings Quest fans). Valanice sounds like she
should be acting in cheap CBS miniseries. The trolls sound like they need cough
drops and acting lessons. And the list goes on. The music, fortunately, is better.
Though it is all MIDI, music generally fits the scene. From deep In the Hall
of the Mountain King-ish music in the troll kingdom to Halloween-like music
in Ooga Booga Land (yes, you read correctly, it’s called Ooga Booga Land; feel
free to roll your eyes), music is generally of high(er) caliber.

Kings
Quest VII is a bad enough game without the fact that it followed one of the
best games in adventuring history. If you want Myst-like puzzles in a Sierra
interface, buy Torrin’s Passage. Don’t get this unless you are a real diehard
Kings Quest fan. And for the record, Jimmy Page was wondering why the lady
was buying a stairway to heaven.

Final Grade: D

If you liked
Kings Quest VII:
Watch: The Princess Bride or any Disney
movie
Read: The Princess Bride
Play: Kings Quest
VI

“And she’s buying a stairway to heaven …”
–Stairway
to Heaven by Led Zeppelin

System Requirements:

DOS/Windows:
486/25
or better with 8 MB RAM
DOS 5.0 or newer, or Windows 3.1 or newer
SVGA 256-color
graphics
Sound card with DAC
2X CD ROM drive
5 MB hard disk space

Mac:
Any
68040 Macintosh with 8 MB RAM
System 7.1 or newer
Minimum 13-inch color
monitor
CD-ROM drive