Nostalgia Trip! King’s Quest VII: The Princeless Bride

July 26, 2011 Strangeness Abounds Gaming, Reviews, Video Games 2

King’s Quest VII: The Princeless Bride (1994) by Sierra

Series: King’s Quest

Genre(s): Fantasy/Action/Adventure/Romance

Publisher: Sierra On-Line (defunct as of 2008)

Available Formats: CD-ROM

Description by Amazon.com: In the magical kingdom of Daventry, Queen Valanice is concern about the lack of interest by Princess Rosella in pursuing marriage. As they stroll along the Daventry countryside discussing the princess’ future, Rosella is distracted by a reflection she sees in a pond. When a strange creature pops out of the water and then back in, Rosella is intrigued and dives into the magical pond to follow. The startled Valanice immediately plunges in to save Rosella, but a whirlpool has whisked each to a different part of a magical realm called Eldritch. While searching for each other, they both learn that this wondrous world is haunted by an evil enchantress named Malicia. Traveling between the Desert, the Vulcanix Underground, the town of Falderal, the land of Ooga Booga, and Etheria among others, each meets many interesting characters including the Three Fates, the Headless Horseman, and the Troll King. You must help Queen Valanice and Princess Rosella to defeat the evil Malicia who plans to destroy Eldritch. Only then will Princess Rosella find her true love and long-lasting romance.

This review is based on a copy I bought myself (or, rather, my Dad bought it)

StrangenessAbounds’s Review:

Okay, how many people remember this game?

This was my first PC game, and my Dad bought it simultaneously with a Windows 95 computer, so this game and I go waaaay back. ^.^

I remember how this was a pretty scary game for me. In spite of the Disney-esque graphics, there are several violent death scenes throughout the game that, clearly, would leave an impression on a 7-year-old. But NO death scene was ever so memorable as the scenes in which the Boogeyman in Ooga Booga land came out to eat Valanice and/or Rosella.

King’s Quest VII – Ways to Lose (Go to 0:40 to see the Boogeyman)

I can’t express how many weeks of nightmares I had with that Boogeyman. But listen to what Rosella says as the “moral of the story” following her death – have you ever heard anything about one’s death that was converted into a pun like that?! Maybe it’s because I tend to be serially monogamous when it comes to video games, but that’s more than a little morbid. XD

Does King’s Quest VII: The Princeless Bride stand up well to the passage of time? I say, “Yes!” It’s unfortunate that the game doesn’t work well with modern PCs or with Macs at all, but if you can somehow make a compatibility patch for your computer, I’d actually recommend getting this game. Part of the reason it ages so well is because it puts a mother and a daughter in the center of the plot. A leading man does not come in until much later in the game, and Rosella and Valanice end up saving him, not the other way around. The fact that this game had two women (three, if you count the evil sorceress, Malicia) as the playable characters was (and is) something quite different from the way games were and are made now.

The story is plenty fun – much of the time, Rosella and Valanice just barely miss each other as they search for the other. They meet the same non-playable characters (NPC), but they never find each other until Malicia is ready to kill them both.

I loved how the voice actors gave the NPCs such life with just a twist of a foreign accent and dollop of kitsch.

When I was seven, I could only work through the first two chapters because this game relies heavily on puzzles. There are no boss or mini-boss battles, there are no roaming enemies in fields at which to hack away. The entire game runs on solving puzzles, and only when one “chapter” (one world with one playable character) was solved could the gamer move on. For some gamers, this would drive them up a while, but this game kept my Dad and I up for hours into the night. He and I love puzzles to death, and we don’t mind sitting down for an hour or two trying to think of ways to solve one puzzle.

If I could somehow make King’s Quest VII: The Princeless Bride run on my Mac, I would totally run out and buy another copy (my old copy won’t work on any machine I try). I think a lot of nostalgia is factored into this particular game for me, and it’s fun to go back and see how much my kid mind missed. You know a game is good when it’s still fun to play almost two decades later.