King's Quest VII

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King's Quest VII:
The Princeless Bride
King's Quest VII - The Princeless Bride Coverart.jpg
Cover art
Developer(s) Sierra On-Line
Publisher(s) Sierra On-Line
Director(s) Andy Hoyos
Lorelei Shannon
Roberta Williams
Producer(s) Mark Seibert
Designer(s) Roberta Williams
Lorelei Shannon
Programmer(s) Oliver Brelsford
Tom DeSalvo
Artist(s) Andy Hoyos
Writer(s) Lorelei Shannon
Composer(s) Neal Grandstaff
Dan Kehler
Mark Seibert
Series King's Quest
Engine SCI2
Platforms MS-DOS, Windows, Apple Macintosh
Release date(s) November 23, 1994
Genre(s) Adventure game
Mode(s) Single-player

King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride is a graphic adventure game released in 1994 by Sierra On-Line. It features high-resolution graphics in a style reminiscent of Disney animated films. It is also the only King's Quest (KQ) game with multiple protagonists, and the only one to divide the story into chapters.

In King's Quest VII, the protagonists Queen Valanice and Princess Rosella are spirited away to the land of Eldritch and Rosella is transformed into a troll. They must find a way to return Rosella to normal and find her true love, save Eldritch from the threat of the evil sorceress Malicia, and get back to their kingdom of Daventry.

King's Quest VII features a non-linear storyline, while some puzzles do have multiple solutions, and there are two possible endings.

Gameplay

King's Quest VII is different from other King's Quest games in terms of structure. The action is separated into six chapters, each set primarily in a different region of the realm of Eldritch. The player alternates between two heroines, Valanice and Rosella, with each chapter. The two heroines travel through some of the same places during the course of the game, finally meeting up again in the end.

Aside from the multi-chapter layout, the most significant change in game structure is the introduction of the smart pointer which lights up when passed over an object that can be interacted with; according to the object's nature or role in the story, the characters either examine, use or take an object, or talk to a character, without requiring the player to define a specific action. This resulted to a simplification compared to previous games where the player selected an action icon before interacting with the environment.

One of the game's highlights wss the elaborate and colorful SVGA graphics, consisting of painted backgrounds and cartoonish animations made as traditional animation techniques. Also included are certain areas that pan from one side to the other, rather than going from screen to screen. Despite the gameplay simplicity and family friendly scenario, the game has several violent death scenes.

Plot

The name of this entry, The Princeless Bride, is a pun on the title of the novel and film The Princess Bride by William Goldman. Like most KQ titles, it is also a reference to the plot: Princess Rosella is soon to be a bride, but ends up in another world shortly before her marriage. It is the only entry in the series to feature Queen Valanice in a major role, and also the only one in which King Graham is not shown at all (with only one minor reference in a death scene, that was removed in version 2.0); however, he is listed in the voice credits, and fans have discovered a sound file attributed to Graham, suggesting that he may have been originally intended to appear in the game (the final game was much shortened from an earlier concept in order to fit the game on a single CD-ROM).

Story

As the game opens, Queen Valanice is lecturing her daughter, Princess Rosella about the importance of marriage. Rosella is somewhat rebellious, and dreams of adventure rather than marriage. She catches a glimpse of a seahorse-like creature momentarily jumping out of and into a pond, leaving behind an image of a castle in clouds. Rosella dives in and Valanice follows, and they find themselves caught inside a gigantic magical whirlpool-like vortex. Rosella and Valanice desperately try to reach each other while being sucked down, but suddenly, a troll-like arm sticks in from the side of the whirlpool, grabs Rosella, and snatches her away. Valanice is left staring helplessly in horror as the introduction sequence ends.

When the actual game begins, Valanice lands in a desert in the land of Eldritch, while Rosella finds herself transformed into a troll and engaged to be married to the king of the trolls. As the two characters attempt to find each other, they eventually discover that all of Eldritch is in danger as the vengenful evil enchantress Malicia has imprisoned the leaders of its kingdoms and plots to destroy this world.

The game offers two different endings after the final confrontation with Malicia. The good ending is triggered when the extra life is used to revive Rosella's love interest Prince Edgar (introduced in King's Quest IV) at the very end of the game, which results in a grand wedding ceremony. The bad ending occurs if nothing is done or is triggered when the flower is used.

Characters

  • Queen Valanice - After her daughter disappears, Valanice ends up in the desert with nothing but Rosella's comb, which she picked up before going after her. Now the Queen of Daventry is on a quest to find her daughter, bring peace to Eldritch, and return to her kingdom.
  • Princess Rosella - Not wanting to be married, Rosella believes she saw a castle in the reflection of a lake and jumped in, appearing in the Vulcanix Underground. She now must save Eldritch, stop her marriage to the Troll King, and return home with her mother.
  • Malicia - The main villain of the game, Malicia is a vain and powerful enchantress that has been banished from Etheria, a fairy land in the clouds above Eldritch, after attempting to overthrow her good sister of Titania, the good queen of Etheria and mother of Edgar. Now Malicia wants to destroy both Eldritch and Etheria in revenge, using the power of the Volcanix Underground. She has kidnapped the troll king Otar Fenris III and transformed Edgar into King Otar's form, brainwashing him into doing her bidding. During the game, Malicia is thwarted by Rosella and Valanice and ultimately defeated inside a volcano. In King's Quest III Redux, she is said to be a former consort of Lolotte, an evil witch killed by Rosella in King's Quest IV. Her name is a play on the word "malicious", similar to Maleficent's name being based on a word for "evil".
  • Edgar - Not seen until Chapter 6, Edgar is the Prince of Etheria who had previously appeared in King's Quest IV. He has been corrupted by Malicia and turned into the troll king, taking the place of the real king as her puppet. Edgar plays an important role towards the end of the game; when he gets hit by Malicia's magic, Rosella has a few seconds to revive him. Depending on Rosella's actions and choices, Edgar either dies or lives, and his parents subsequently mourn his death or celebrate his return to Etheria.
  • The Boogeyman - He is a villain that tries to capture and kill Rosella and is regarded by fans as among the most fearsome creatures in the King's Quest series. If Valencia or Rosella stays in one place for too long, the Boogeyman appears out of the ground with and kills her.
  • Attis - Depicted as the "lord of the hunt" and turned into a stag by Malicia. His wife Ceres, depicted as a nature goddess, was also cursed and turned into a tree. This caused the Realm of Eldrich to corrupt. After Valanice saves them, Attis returns his thanks by saving Valanice from a monster.

Development

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"Just seeing how a character carries himself, acts, or walks ultimately determines the outcome of the music. We've trie to give each character [their] own 'mini-theme'. Each character is unique, so the music should be as well."

—Jay Usher (Composer)[1]

The developers aimed for the effect of traditional animation works by Walt Disney Pictures and Don Bluth. As such, the full game contained more than 500% animation than any other Sierra game of the time. Art Director Andy Hoyos specifically cited the intensity of the colors of Disney's Aladdin as an inspiration model.[1]

Backgrounds were hand-drawn and scanned in high resolution (for the time). The game sprites were pencil-drawn on paper and also scanned, and then edited and colored digitally, not unlike the traditional animation process in animated feature films of the era. Of the 70 characters that appear in the game, others are more realistic and human-like (like the protagonists) and others more cartoony.[1]

According to lead animator Marc Hudgins, it was the first time when the art department had to use outside (Russian and Croatian) animation houses. Part of the challenge ha to do with the fact that the animators had no experience of computer game animation.[1]

Release

Title Region Release date[2]
King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride US 1994
King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride EU 1994
King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride (Version 2.0) US 1995
King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride (Sierra Originals) EU 1998

The Version 2.0 release of King's Quest VII omits certain parts of the game, specifically death scenes, making the game easier. These include Rosella's death by the moving tail of the Crystal Dragon, Valanice continuously dying from carrying a lit firecracker with her (the game allows the user to continue where the character died), and it omits the volcano scene with Rosella in peril having the time limit removed (which would eventually have the volcano erupt).

Reception

Reception
Review scores
Publication Score
Adventure Gamers 3/5 stars[3]
AllGame 4.5/5 stars (Mac)[4]
3.5/5 stars (Win)[5]
CGW 4/5 stars[6]

Original reviews were mixed. Adventure Classic Gaming, for instance, awarded it only two out of five stars in 1997.[7]

Some critics and fans[who?] of the series criticized the use of Disney-style cartoon graphics and an overly-simplistic interface which required players to do little more than click on hotspots.

In a 2003 retro review, Adventure Gamers gave the game three-and-a-half stars out of five.[3] Allgame gave it four-and-a-half stars for the Macintosh version[4] and three-and-a-half stars for the Windows version.[5]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ http://www.adventureclassicgaming.com/index.php/site/reviews/14/

External links

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