King's Quest VIII - Mask of Eternity: A Fair and Balanced Retrospective 

Yeah, that was a pretty awesome.

It's not like that weird mishmash of 3D adventure/RPG/combat couldn't have been successful. I mean, look at Morrowind! Not only is that essentially a 3D adventure RPG with combat not unlike Quest for Glory, but with its menu system it CAN be used like a 3D point-and-click and several mods for that one works like a point-and-click 3D adventure. I swear, the main thing that killed KQ8 (besides how different it is from its predecessors) instead of launching it into Morrowind territory is that it's clunky, buggy, and hard to enjoy when you're fighting the camera and the engine. Also, it got the same kind of time crunch that turned the promise of KQ7 into some sad reaminated vestige of itself missing pretty much all its limbs and internal organs. Good games take TIME to make, I mean Ocarina of Time took SIX YEARS (according to Nintendo's long-defunct official english Ocarina of Time website) from its conceptualization to the final product, and we only got to hear about it about two years before the final release with Spaceworld demos and IGN previews-- and there's obvious traces that it was built over a Link To The Past 3D remake, going by the earliest pre-release shots and cut features. But marketing execs and company investors are greedy shits and want games fast and cheap to milk the fans NOW instead of investing in, y'know. Not killing their franchise with shoving half-baked unstable alpha builds out.

@@neoqwerty I would agree with this. I also think that the culture at Sierra towards the end of things really helped stifle creativity as opposed to helping it. After Sierra went public you had as you mentioned this time crunch to get games out to meet quarterly goals, like I remember reading that KQ7 HAD to come out for Holiday 1994 - no ifs, ands, or buts! These sorts of decisions, this sort of decision making process, that was driven by quarterly results, really handicapped a lot of Sierra’s later efforts.

Wonderful comment. Nostalgia glasses aren't always about defending games that others think are awful. It's about being lucky enough to be at the right age and right time that you didn't notice all the stuff we now take for granted. Being young and excited enough that you were just happy to soak up the atmosphere and world that all the bugs and issues weren't noticeable. People say Ocarina of Time is the greatest game ever made but I didn't play it as a kid and for me; when I did play it. Whilst I saw all the brilliance it had to offer I also saw all the issues that it had on release. I envied the people who played it as kids because to them, none of that mattered. 20fps? Lackluster camera control? Graphics so smeared you'd think your TV was coated in butter? None of that mattered to them because they were young and free to roam a new world. I have the same experience with Tomb Raider. I see people today say the controls were terrible but to me as a kid I didn't notice. I just saw it as part of the game (I also grew up on Flashback on the Amiga). The world was so atmospheric and filled with adventure that I didn't care. It's hard to return to that state of mind unfortunately.

King's Quest 8 is the first game I played in the series, so naturally it didn't seem to me to be a illegitimate part of it. I think I was 11 or 12 when I played it back then. I thought it was quite scary and moody. It certainly has its issues. My biggest gripe though remains the underwhelming finale in those generic corridors. I doubt it's the worst entry in the series, but I haven't been back to it, so... ;)

People nowadays make it worse than it was back in the day.

Thank you so much. Glad you liked them! 😊 I'm slowly working my way through the Police Quest games now. We'll see if I like those better.

You could start one hell of an argument over whether KQ8 or U9 was the bigger flaming garbage pile. That was not a good couple years for classic game fans. At least Quest For Glory V was playable and reasonably enjoyable, if still definitely a step down from its predecessors.

@@jasonblalock4429 Ultima 9 was worse then this.

I don't play RPGs so I wouldn't know from personal experience, but I've watched Spoony's Ultima retrospective many times and... yeah, it's definitely a toss-up. I'd say Mask is the worse, though, 'cos Ultima 9 just looks like a RPG with absurdly broken mechanics. Mask tried to be three games at once and failed at all of them.

Very much. Mental health is important.

It had a fantastic atmosphere and the game overall was great. This guy is just another King's Quest fanboy who can only view things through a perspective with the other installments to the franchise in mind. He has no idea that this makes the rest of the games look absolutely goofy and outdated by comparison.

thats the reboot. he is talking about the kq 1,2 and 3 remakes. both the offical vga remake and the 3 fan remakes.

Yeah, the actual reboot was actually pretty good. But yeah, in line with the other comment in this thread - there's at least like 5 fan-made remakes of the old AGI / SCI titles. (KQ1, KQ2+, KQ3, KQ3+, and KQ4) There's also The Silver Lining, which was supposed to be a fan-made King's Quest 9, and it was just awful.

To each their own. 😊

That version wasn't 2D, it was gonna be full first person 3D ala Doom. Second draft Connor was the son of a dead fisherman, whose grave we could visit.

Josh is a really good sport. 😊

He should make that some sort of super stretch goal on his Patreon. He'll stream Dark Souls if someone ponies up a thousand bucks or something like that.

@@jasonblalock4429 It'd be entertaining! Deprived start, obviously.

Thank you. I'm actually surprised I have this many subs. 😅

Thank you - glad to hear you liked the Police Quest video! The "unnecessarily harsh"-ness of the King's Quest videos comes from the stereotype that I "hate King's Quest," which has been following me around for many years (although, to be fair, I have, to a certain extent, fed into and cultivated that stereotype myself). In these videos I'm very much playing up to that stereotype of myself - examining the games as if I've already made up my mind that I'm going to hate every minute of them. The truth lies somewhere in between. I don’t outright hate these games but I'm not particularly fond of them, either. I've never been into fantasy fiction (swords, magic, nobility, chivalry, damsels in distress, etc.). That's just me, though. The truth is I wouldn't mind playing any of these games again... with the exception being Mask of Eternity because *fuck* this game.

@@spacequesthistorian Oh damn! I didn't expect you to reply! I completely understood the entire point of the gag. Like it's not that I didn't hear the fact Medieval Fantasy wasn't your think I think just as a artist myself, calling the Animation Magic team talentless bluntly just rubbed me the wrong way since from what I heard the animation quality was because of budget issues not because they didn't know what they were doing. (And I'm a avid YTP fan so that's also a thing) Since other than that I could vibe with basically everything else since these games can be downright stupid at times. Though for stuff like Mask of Eternity I am quite fond of it's aesthetic oddly enough. Either way I did have a lot of fun listening/watching the videos and I highly anticipate you covering more Sierra or other titles in this style.

@@Kyezoar Surprise, another reply. 😊 Well, Animation Magic certainly did up their game when they did the abandoned Warcraft point-and-click game. But, regardless of budget, you have to admit their track record (the Zelda CD-i games, I.M. Meen) isn't terribly good. Even with a low budget, the constant limb-stretching and face-mugging and weird hand gestures speaks to a team of animators that were, if we're being charitable, inexperienced. As for their work on King's Quest VII, I spoke to one of the in-house animators at Sierra (who, in this context, prefers to remain anonymous), and he told me how they had to spend ages cleaning up the piss-poor animation that came back from the overseas studios (he singled out Animation Magic in particular). So, while, in fairness, I probably shouldn't have called them outright talentless (IIRC the phrase was "fiercely untalented"), there is some truth to their... shall we say, low quality standards.

5 minutes is a bit long. What a tragic end to the game series.

It be me.

I've said numerous times that I'll gladly replay any game in this series... except for this one.

I doubt he'd have much trouble with QFG, aside from maybe QFGV. It's really just a classic adventure with some RPG mechanics bolted on. And it uses a common-sense "you get better at things you do" leveling system, which requires no real stat management.

I'll bet it still wasn't easy. 😅

@@spacequesthistorian It took following a guide from PCGaming Wiki, even then the pre-rendered cutscenes don't work. (So when I get around to playing it proper after making my way through the rest of the series, I'll need to use youtube to actually view them.)

You're absolutely right, they don't. And they were really on to something with KQ6, in my opinion. I'm not a stick in the mud or anything but this feels like one of those times where they should have just stuck to what they knew.

FWIW I did realize both of those things. If you check my gameplay footage you'll see a lot of bubble-slaying going on. You're missing the point, though. My point about leveling up is that it's pointless because there are a finite number of enemies in the dungeons and Connor has no party members to share them with, so he will ever only be as bad-ass as the game has predetermined. The level-up system might as well have been in-game scripted events. As for the bubbles, I realized very quickly you can kill them (and have to, in fact), and I also realized that they were actually small tentacle monsters (little bits of calamari stick up when they die), but that's also not the point. The point is it's a stupid fucking idea for an enemy.

Thanks for asking! I answered this on Discord, but in case other people are wondering: I never thought anyone would be interested in watching the silent playthroughs I did, but if anyone is, I'm uploading the VODs as unlisted and will be sharing the links on my Discord, Twitter, etc.

No. :)

Ultima 9 got off light. It also has an badly voiced blockhead protagonist and terrible plot that takes a massive dump all over its legacy, but at least its dumbed down action-adventure gameplay actually works most of the time.

You may have heard his name in a OneShortEye video. He speedruns a lot of adventure games.

@@spacequesthistorian That will be it!

Hey, thanks for the comment! This is actually running natively in Windows 10 (no retro hardware, no VM), but it did take a fair bit of work. Basically, I got an ISO of the original game disc (this is a REQUIRED step -- you CANNOT get this to work with a digital Steam or GOG version!) and then followed these instructions: www.speedrun.com/kings_quest_mask_of_eternity/guide/ok53a

@@spacequesthistorian Thank you. I'll try this and let you know. Wish me luck

@@spacequesthistorian Hey there. I feel like I'm closer than I've ever been on this 10 year journey to play this game. The intro video plays fine. But the screen is black before and after. I hear music playing and the icons sounding when I hit enter. The only thing I can come up with is dgVoodoo. 1920x1080 didn't show up as an option so the next highest 1600x900. Do you have any recommendations?

@@spacequesthistorian Nvm It worked like a charm! I can hardly believe it. I almost don't wanna turn off my computer until I finish the game! Thank you So MUCH you can't know how much this means to me.

@@kevdiat I'm glad it worked for you and that you're looking forward to playing it! I wouldn't have had any idea how to fix the black screen problem -- I'm just lucky it worked for me. Happy playing!

Why... Yes! 😊

Someone has to.

@@spacequesthistorian Literally everyone who played it liked it except for King Quest fanboys. It was obviously a new direction for the series and it made the rest of the series look absolutely bonkers.

@@StudioMod Citation needed.

@@spacequesthistorian A citation for people liking it? That's not how citations work. Read the comments on videos of playthroughs of the game. There is a glacial amount of people, like me, who never played the rest of the series and found the game to be absolutely haunting and invigorating. It fit in perfectly with the PC gaming scene. There is literally nothing wrong with it. The jank and voice acting are no worse than any other game from that time. I mean, look at Resident Evil. Look at Ecstatica 2 (does that game even have voice acting?!). Look at Dark Earth. Look at Hype: The Time Quest. Mask Of Eternity fits in perfectly. It has nothing to do with point-and-click adventure games nor should it be logically associated with them. They tried to move the series into a modern scene. If they had stuck with it, they'd likely still be a relevant franchise. But they chickened out and "listened to their fans"... and now nobody cares or talks about the franchise. Womp womp.

@@StudioMod When you make broad, sweeping generalizations like "everyone who played it liked it," that needs a citation. Did you do a poll? Was there a study somewhere that I missed? Also, if you watched my other King's Quest videos you'd know I'd hardly be considered a fanboy.

I can't recall, but I don't think I was that clever. I think it was just a turn of phrase. 😅

I’m still very upset about that

I already did, kind of, and I was terrible at it. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-74mYjZ0UjVE.html

Gonna have to "um ahctually" you on that one. Roberta DID have something to do with it. If you watched my video all the way through, you'd know that she was first thrown out of the project, then came back to try to salvage what was left of it. Mark Seibert was the one who pushed for the game to incorporate RPG elements and combat, but it wasn't without Roberta's knowledge or approval.

​@@spacequesthistorianyeah. I wrote this before watching the video. I did not know she went back to Sierra. I also thought she left on her own, not was forced out. Of course, I was also pulling this from memory from the 90s. I still think this game would have been better received if they had dropped the King's Quest title from it.

We don't get Sesame Street over here.

@spacequesthistorian Kevin Michael Richardson is probably the biggest voice actor in the cast. Hes flipping Shredder from Teenage Mutant Hero (Ninja) Turtles.

He's stoned.

@@spacequesthistorian …. Fair I mean after going on that accid trip to Kolyma would back fire on him someday

It certainly would explain a fair amount of KQ5, though.

@@spacequesthistorian you think taking a random editable from a old fart like Crispin would say something

To each their own. 😊 I unironically love some games that others consider truly awful, myself. And my honest opinion about this game is, as always, greatly exaggerated for comedic effect.

Hi there. Look, first of all, thank you for your comment. Believe it or not, I actually enjoy getting comments that call me out because I often feel like I do a bad job of explaining myself in my videos, and it gives me a chance to elaborate on some points. Let me just break it down here... "[...] not understanding what to do because you didn't take the time to read or think about anything, or because you didn't want to play it and were looking for things that are not optimal." I will admit, I am not the most perceptive of people. Things that are obvious to others are not immediately obvious to me. But I did put a lot of time into playing this game; moreso than any other King's Quest game I've played. I have hours and hours of footage from this, of me running in circles trying to work out what I was supposed to do next. I played every single minute of this game live on my Twitch channel, and even with the help of the people in the chat, I still found the layout of the levels obscure and needlessly cumbersome, and the hints to puzzles were cryptic and borderline nonsensical most of the time. That's my perspective; YMMV of course. "You didn't get along with the camera because you had to move it yourself?" The camera frequently gets stuck behind (or sometimes inside) Connor when you're too close to the wall. And the reason I had to move it myself is because it turns so slowly. These I feel are gameplay issues that could and should have been fixed. "The hints to riddles were not given to you after wandering around for 2 seconds?" The many, many hours of footage I have of this game will attest that I spent way more than 2 seconds wandering around. "There was no immediate feedback for a lever or a pressure plate, like a cut scene?" This is bad game design. If you do something, you expect some sort of feedback. I'll grant you I was being harsh on the prison-lever-puzzle just for the lulz, but the "pressure plates open the teleporters" puzzle made absolutely no sense, and there was no indication that what these plates did would affect something halfway across the map. That's BS. "The game didn't run unless you paid for it?" I can see where you're coming from with the other points of critique, but this one actually upsets me a bit. That was not what I said at all. I said you COULD buy the game legally from digital outlets, *but the game wouldn't work!* You would have to go and buy a PHYSICAL copy in order to get it running on modern machines. THAT'S what I had issue with. I DID, in fact, pay for a legal digital copy on GOG, which I did NOT return -- and I now also have two legal physical copies on CD-ROM -- so please get off that fucking high horse. I don't mind paying for games. I support game developers. I just think it's bullshit that you can't get this game to run with the perfectly legal copy you can buy from digital outlets like Steam and GOG. "Also why wouldn't you be able to kill fire ants and demons with a fire bow? It's not a magic bow that shoots arrows made of fire. The arrow is simply burning at the tip and is a normal arrow apart from that." Fine, but the arrow is still ON FIRE... so you would expect it to do LESS damage than, say, a FROZEN arrow. They don't. They deal the same amount of damage. The RPG elements here ("fire monsters + fire weapons = dumb idea") are all screwed up. "Also the enemy designs were neither boring nor thoughtless in my opinion." I've seen zombies coming out of the ground and walking skeletons a few too many times in cookie-cutter dungeon crawlers. It's okay if you disagree. Once again, thank you for the comment and for allowing me to clear up some details!

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sarcasm

I know, that's pretty impressive, right?

"Review." 😂😂😂