Fans of old-school computer games have no doubt heard of the King's Quest series, a pioneering leader and thanks to the many sequels an ongoing power-house presence in the point-and-click adventure genre (though maybe not so much these days).  These games are brilliant not only for themselves but also for blazing a trail and making future entries into the genre possible.  It's hard to say whether classic series like the Gabriel Knight series or even much more recent genre outings such as the amazing Walking Dead iOS & Xbox 360 title would exist had the King's Quest series not been such a smashing success, inspiring others to imitate and refine the point-and-click gameplay approach. 

While the PC game library overflowed with point-and-click titles, console gamers had a vastly reduced number of choices from the genre.  Maniac Mansion (while censored) arrived on the NES (but not its sequel), Nightshade borrowed from the genre, there was the Scooby Doo genesis game... apart from King's Quest 1 showing up on the Sega Master System, the only other King's Quest on consoles was King's Quest 5 on the Nintendo Entertainment system.  This port of course does not have the full speech of the computer game version, the graphics are remade in the inferior-to-computers Nintendo-style (less colors, less zoomed-in, hand-drawn cutscenes) and yet, perhaps because scarcity drives up value, there is something incredibly welcome about this port.  It gave players who exclusively played console games an opportunity to know what they were missing.  It gave them a chance to fall in love with the point-and-click adventure game genre.  And in the process it told a pretty nifty story of King Graham traveling all over, collecting items, making animal friends and solving puzzles often in really obscure and tricky ways.  You're welcome, Nintendo fans!

For those who don't know, a point-and-click adventure game emphasizes exploring and interacting with the environment to progress.  Various icons give you options to probe and poke everything you come across, including the eyeball icon (to get a description of whatever you're looking at), the hand icon to pick stuff up and take action on it, the mouth icon to chat peeps up, the walk icon to move around, and you can also use the various items you've collected.  While to be fair to the genre some adventure games (like Monkey Island) embrace the idea that the gamer can explore free of roadblocks, King's Quest seems to take great pleasure in murdering the gamer, most often unfairly and without warning.  Thus, saving often is a necessity since victory is most often a trial-and-error (with lots of errors) process.  Since this nintendo port uses a password system and cannot save any other way, it is kind of an annoying, time-wasting design flaw of epic proportions.  Oh well.  (UPDATE:  My mistake, you CAN save!  sorry about that.  So NES and PC gamers are on equal footing). For instance, in the desert, you have a limited number of screens you are able to walk before you die of thirst, but the only way to find this out is by dying and keeping track of how many screens you've traveled through the desert, but then how does the gamer find the scattered oases?  There may be a way to do it strategically to minimize the risk of death, but PC gamers have the unfair advantage of quick saving and loading, having to write out and then enter passwords make dying infinitely more inconvenient and harsh.  Also, (plot spoiler), there is no way to know that simply opening the door to the inn guarantees your demise unless you have the forethought to befriend a rat by traveling the desert and finding an old shoe that you can use if you return to town and throw it at the cat.  Darn you necessary passwords!!

Graphics = 7

The graphics are pretty ugly in this game, and the cutscenes from the pc version are omitted, but I awarded them the generous 7 score because there are a wide variety of original, individually-drawn locations, objects, characters and animations.  It's not like Zelda (no offense) where you have tile sets and every tree looks the same, the time-intensive creation of the PC version creating everything from scratch resulting in a richly rendered world carries over quantity if not always quality-wise.  For the Nintendo the graphics do an amazing job inviting the gamer to explore a diverse and interesting world. 

Sound = 6

The music in this game is pretty fun, but it's not ported over particularly artfully and some magic is lost in the transfer.  Couple that with the fact that a lot of the game takes place in silence, and the sound effects are not at all memorable or uplifting, and the end result is pretty underwhelming. 

Addictiveness = 8 Depth = 10 Difficulty = 8

For a NES game, the depth of this game is amazing.  Not only is there stuff to examine and ponder on most every screen you encounter, but the possibility of overcoming the various challenges with such a diverse array of approaches will fascinate the gamer and appeal to the problem solver in everybody.  Will the baker not give you the pie?  Try throwing a shoe at his face!!!  Okay nothing happens but the idea that it MIGHT work is enough to enthrall the gamer and invite him to try.  For the hugely annoying password system described in depth earlier, the addictiveness score is penalized downlward to an 8.  And the difficulty is raised to an 8 lol.  While some of the game's puzzles require obscure, unintuitive solutions that you might never think of without a hint-book or Nintendo Power subscription or something, for the most part the explore everything do everthing till something works isn't THAT tough, many of the puzzles are pretty simple to solve (e.g. plot spoiler--throw the stick for the dog!!) 

Story = 10

While the graphical cutscenes may be omitted, the dialogue is not, and thus the epic adventure is preserved in its entirety including a pretty epic opening movie.  The cast of characters is diverse and interesting, and King's Quest 5 introduces the twist that the main character has the power to talk to animals, so there is that much more of an opportunity to chat up the natural world that you encounter (although frustratingly some animals wont talk with you!!!  lame!). 

If you are up for checking out this adventure game, go ahead!  Also, if you think of any other console adventure game titles or your favorite adventure games available on vizzed, you can let people know in the comments it would probably help people find more entries in this fun and rewarding genre.

PS  Let me see how many I can list...  I already mentioned Scooby Doo on Genesis, Nightshade on Nes, Maniac Mansion on NES... there's Scooby Doo on Gameboy Color, Dune on Sega CD, Broken Sword shadow of the Templars on Gameboy Advance, Shadowgate, Dejavu 1 and 2 and Uninvited on NES, Snatcher on Sega CD, Clocktower on SNES, Nancy Drew on Gameboy advance...  Can't think of any more just this second!