King's Quest: Chapter 1 - A Knight to Remember (PlayStation 4) Review

The opening moments of King's Quest are a little confusing, but on the whole do a fantastic job of hooking the player. It's not immediately clear who the character being controlled is or what he's doing, but then the narration comes in, and things unfold from there: Graham is the king of Daventry, but he wasn't always. He was once a clumsy, bumbling but mostly intelligent goofball. Graham in the present day is an old man narrating the story of how he became king to his granddaughter, Gwendolyn. The younger Graham players control is exploring a cave he's visited before for reasons that soon become apparent. After this, there is a series of exploration and puzzles culminating in an on-rails arrow-shooting mini-game. It's a fast-paced sequence and serves to highlight the game's gorgeous graphics: lighting and water look cartoon-like, animations are fluid, Graham is lanky and goofy and brings a lot of slapstick charm.

Unfortunately, the rest of A Knight to Remember doesn't keep pace with its opening. While the graphics and the overall charm remain intact (and both are commendable, especially the latter), the gameplay slows to a crawl. Graham doesn't walk quickly, and cutscenes can't be skipped, meaning a 30-second bit of dialogue that plays if Graham doesn't have the right item to progress the quest will play every single time players attempt to solve the issue at hand until it's solved. These add up quickly, especially with so many guess-and-check puzzles. Much of the game involves wandering the same few hallway-like paths, and while the needed item is almost always readily apparent, it's usually locked away by something—ropes, squirrels, whatever—leading to a Resident Evil-like "get this item to get this other item to get this other item" series of slowly wandering the kingdom of Daventry.

Most of the quick time events are impossible to fail, and certain events switch to a first-person view so players can either search an area or shoot an arrow. If Graham needs to shoot an arrow with a rope into a tree branch, for example, it will immediately centre the cursor on the branch, so players need only press a button, something the developers call "one-button context". In theory it works, but in practice it falls on its face; the camera is almost always centred immediately on the goal in question. What's worse is the zone for looking around is usually quite small anyway, which is a shame. The developers have created a vivid, beautiful world, but they seem intent on not letting anyone actually see it.

Pacing issues aside, there's a lot to love about King's Quest. The characters are enjoyable, and most are brought to life by incredibly talented voice actors like Christopher Lloyd, Tom Kenny, and Wallace Shawn. Character designs are memorable and tend to relate to characters' personalities, and the world design in general feels visually similar to some of today's finest animated films (How to Train Your Dragon comes to mind). For all its off-the-wall comedy, there are also sentimental, touching moments, and players will be put through the same emotional rollercoaster as Graham on his quest to become King of Daventry.