AGDInteractive - Sierra Adventure Game Remakes Forum

It's too late to change anything for the remake, but I've always been curious what everyone thought about the original. If you had one thing you could change, what would it be? On the flip side, if there was one thing you would want to remain untouched, what is it?

I personally disliked the pirate ship area. There really wasn't much to do to keep the player entertained. I always felt like the game should advance based on the player's actions, and because the game didn't actually advance until a set time had elasped, I always felt like I was missing something.

I loved and hated the spell creation at the same time. It wasn't forgiving at all, and that made it frustrating. But it also added to the tension. All in all, I think a stressful spell creation process was a key element to the atmosphere of the game.

I loved the plot to the game. It was the first in the series that really had a decent story to it. As has been said elsewhere, this is the main reason we didn't mess with the underlying story very much.

So what are your most favorite and least favorite parts of the original game? It will be fun to see what all we've addressed!

I agree that the plot was great and i liked making the spells. And i agree didn't like the Pirate ship timing system.
But another thing i hated was waiting for that stupid eagle. I know there was only certain screens that the eagle would show up on but it took forever. And sometimes when it did show up it would just fly off the screen without dropping the feather.
Hopefully this is fixed in this remake.

Back in those days, I really hate the result of spell creation gone wrong. It was quite frightful, even have nightmares about it.
Traversing through the mountain was as scary as the spell creation too.

The only joy I had was killing the 3-headed dragon and the following endings, I really like the accompanying BGM on that.

Huh? Wait a sec! Did we even remember to add the eagle in Redux Navy??

Just kidding.
.

We might have to get an animator to get us an animation for him.

Seriously though, these are good points! It's too early to let you know if we've done anything about them though!

I actually kinda like the eagle, it felt mightier than it looks.

A yeah, the eagle. Sometimes he dropped his feather the first time you saw him and sometimes it extended your game time by an additional 15 minutes before he started molting. I also remember that eagle in the original also had the nasty tendency of occasionally dropping his feather behind a piece of scenery like a tree or rock, so it was nearly impossible to pick up.

I also remember hating that big rock in the middle of the mountain path. Navigating that path was already a doozy when you can actually see your character.

The eagle was annoying, yes. Mainly because it was random. There were a lot of random things in the game though, and they could all get equally annoying. I was never sure if they were timer based or randomly generated when you entered a screen. I'd usually walk on and off certain screens repeatedly until the character/item/whatever was there. Of course, this only works if you knew that the item would spawn there. If it was your first time though, things could be even more frustrating!

really? I find the eagle to be quite frequent for dropping the feathers. Especially love it when used for killing the giant spider.

Although... I'm quite agree with that big rock. It was an obscure and confusing matter. Only for much later on did I find that it was actually has quite large space behind it.

The first time I played the game, I feed Manannan the Porridge as the very first meal, then discovered that I had to use the porridge for other purposes.

I also recall that I couldn't beat the game because I had to parse "Read page II" or something, to get the rest of the recipe, and didn't know about it. Let's hope this game has no parser.

I loved the little Seaside town. I mean, it was simple, with a store and a bar, but I thought it was pretty neat when I first played it - along with the pier you could walk on.


Bt

Erpy wrote:
I also remember hating that big rock in the middle of the mountain path. Navigating that path was already a doozy when you can actually see your character.

My vote for most hated thing about KQ3 was that path!

Years later, my dexterity was much more improved, so traversing the path wasn't quite so difficult, but it is still annoying!

When I replayed KQ3 back in the mid-90s, I was amazed at the fine touches that I hadn't noticed when I was a kid in the 80s playing the game for the first time. It is fun to be surprised by something new in a game you've played many times before. I've been replaying KQ2 and was surprised to see Count Dracula wandering around the castle, which surprised me -- normally because I would have killed him by that point, but I was experimenting.

Huh... never encountered that. Though, I usually speed-up playing within the castle. It's creepy.
The other day I played this at my Palm Treo 650 using the latest ScummVM and it's still creepy as heck, with no lights on.

I never played KQ3 all the way through (the time limit scared me too much), but my favorite part of the game that I know of is... *ahem* the plot twist. I loved what Roberta Williams did with the story, where at first you are angry that the game has nothing to do with King Graham or Daventry, finally get into Gwydion's plight, then you get completely sucker-punched.

I am hoping that the remake handles this part in a similar way; without revealing too much in a huge intro. (Not that I mind huge intros; the intro to KQ2+ is a favorite of mine.)

Another minor thing that I liked in the original was the little ditty that played whenever Mannanan appears. The way the IA remake recreated it with a huge organ version was awe-inspiring to me; it said, "This is a guy you DON'T want to mess with!" The original had a sinister quality, but that organ version in the IA remake, that was where it really hit home!

To me the worst part is the end after killing the dragon and you have do go down the stairs and Rosella gets in the way very frustrating. To me I like doing the spells but it was a huge pain. Especially for people who were old enough to have and play the game when it was new back in 1987 and you were doing the spells and the manual had typos in it.

I agree that the Pirate ship timing segment was annoying and a pain in the neck to just sit there and wait.

Playing this game as a child (10/11 years old) in the 80's, it was tough. We didn't understand about hiding the special items under your bed, so we had tons of saves, and we'd just hope Manannan wouldn't see us, but eventually, he would.

It took us forever, but we finally figured it out, and we made all the spells, but we didn't know what to do from there. One sleepy night, while playing the game with a friend, we were just hanging out in the house, and, luckily, Manannan appeared. We had guessed about feeding him the cookie, and we eventually put it in the porridge.

Man, what a feeling that was. I can still remember the excitement for FINALLY getting rid of Manannan after, MONTHS of not knowing what to do.

I also remember trying to give the gold to the pirates, and the damn parser wouldn't accept our sentences, until another friend came over and told us a phrase to try and it worked. That parser cause us kids some problems sometimes.

It's a joy thinking about these old memories, and I'm glad you've brought them back.

The pirate ship and spells were probably my favorite parts. The pirate ship created the illusion that you're in an actual world and on a long journey, which made it all the more exciting when you hear "land ho." And I liked how I could just fly off the ship and try to make it to the shore early. And I liked the spells, because they made me feel like I was actually creating a spell instead of just typing "create teleport spell" and being done with it. The only bad thing about making spells was that the font in the book was sometimes hard to read. The spells actually made the game a lot easier since you could fly or teleport to bypass some of the tricky paths.

And I remember really liking the little details they added in, like stepping in waist-high water. And I liked how you visit a variety of locations, from deserts, to forests, to tropical beaches, to snowy mountains. And I liked returning to Daventry and seeing how it had changed.

I can't really think of parts I didn't like, except for random bad luck that could happen, like running into the bandits, waking up the bandit, trying to get the eagle feather.

I'd say King's Quest III is the best in the series along with King's Quest VI.

Well, some of us may already know that when the time was up (Manannan returning), just make sure to put everything back to it's place and shove everything under the bed. And the process will be repeated like the first time, doing chores and occasionally get a little rebellious for some spanking.

Anyway, there's still one thing I haven't tried: purposely I didn't make Gwydion serve the enchanted food to Manannan and managed to get another 25 minutes for extra spelunking, and then immediately sail with the pirates to Daventry and manages even further to the 3-headed dragon. Does Manannan still catches with Gwydion? Is it possible to reach the ending under the extra 25 minutes quota without intervention from the wizard?

I didn't even think the pirate ship could come if Manannan was still alive.

In the original, the ship's appearance was triggered by visiting the oracle, so it was possible to get on there without having done any of the spells and without having disposed of the wizard. I don't think it was possible to make it all the way across the ocean without being zapped though.

Bobbin Threadbare wrote:
Anyway, there's still one thing I haven't tried: purposely I didn't make Gwydion serve the enchanted food to Manannan and managed to get another 25 minutes for extra spelunking, and then immediately sail with the pirates to Daventry and manages even further to the 3-headed dragon. Does Manannan still catches with Gwydion? Is it possible to reach the ending under the extra 25 minutes quota without intervention from the wizard?

I actually did try this while ago. If i remember right i went on the ship while Manannan was alive and the Wizard will find you and then kill you if you have any of the mark items or the wand is missing from the cabinet. Now if you are on the ship without holding any of the mark items and left the wand in the cabinet and was not punished to many times by Manannan he just sends you back to the house and you get punished for it.
But if i remember right not sure it's been a while. The problem with doing this is you would be stuck in Llewdor because of the ship would not be there anymore.

Erpy wrote:In the original, the ship's appearance was triggered by visiting the oracle, so it was possible to get on there without having done any of the spells and without having disposed of the wizard. I don't think it was possible to make it all the way across the ocean without being zapped though.

Much as it pains me to say this, I believe you will need to have created at least the transform into an eagle / fly spell to get rid of the spider guarding the cave.

Oops, slipped my mind. You're absolutely right.

Have to admit, I've played KQ3 more than a couple of times!

I never knew I could get on the pirate ship while the wizard's still "human". So what, does he sink the whole ship, terrifying the pirates in a maelstrom of horror? Or, does he just kill you privately when none of the pirates are looking, which would disappoint me a bit because I love evil scared by other evil.

The mountain path was tricky, as was the climb down from the yeti's cave. I've since learned it very well, but at the time I had to set "speed" down to the lowest setting to navigate without killing myself. The rock hiding my character was the hardest part, but it did add a certain amount of tension I'll admit.

I absolutely loved putting together the spells. Yes I had to do everything exactly as the manual said, but of all the copyright mechanisms they could have picked, that was certainly the most fun. It really took away from it in IA's remake when I found that doing the spells was all just done automatically when you had everything.

Wandering around Llewdor and all it's environs was also one of the most fun moments in the game. I loved it all from the 3 bear's house to the little critters all over the place talking about you (the ridiculous nature of these woodland critters being privy to these sorts of rumors is a lot like the stationary ROCKS in Ocarina of Time (the gossip stones) that somehow are all aware of all sorts of rumors in that game) to that little port town where bandits and pirates come to visit all the time.

The most disappointing parts? Well, the desert really felt under utilized... There's this whole vast thing and the only stuff you need is right at the very start of it. Wandering west from there is nothing more than death. The fact that Medusa's just sitting right there waiting for someone to wander in was also a little odd. Is she like Davey Jones but in reverse, she can only walk on sand? I think actually having to find your way to her lair to kill her to gain not just a snake skin, but a snake skin in her lair from one of the snakes on her own head would have been more interesting.

I was also disappointed in Daventry. There's this huge build up to getting back to a land ravaged by a dragon and all you get are a couple of screens of the devastation, with all the focus just being on going back to the cloud land you went to in the first game. The epic battle against the dragon itself using thunderbolts to kill it was pretty awesome, but I would have liked to explore a bit more of the devastation, perhaps finding how how to get to the clouds myself rather than just being told 5 steps into the place.

The pirate ship... I enjoyed it as a kid, but in retrospect you're right. It was under utilized too. Just like everyone else, I think the insane wait time to "move the story along" at that part really could have been done better. Instead of doing, well, anything at all, the best thing to do at that part is literally just sit down there, wait for them to spot land, then put everyone to sleep.

I will say this. The trip down the mountain? That's not that big a deal when you only have to do it once after you get the magic map. I love that thing. That said, that's only a relief once you find out about the map and how to hide it between wizard trips.

One little note... As much as I love the visuals, I wish that the wizard was still wearing a black cloak instead of the new grey one. To me it just fits better, plus there's that whole business of the black cloak society. That said, if my guess is right I'll wait to see if he's actually wearing the black cloak in secret or something and just using the grey one for his day to day Llewdor business.

Oh! On a storytelling point, as much as the story of a slave to an evil wizard plotting escape was an interesting one, I have to admit I never did much buy that wizard's reasoning for using human slaves. The manual DOES state he "preferred slaves to conjured spirits" because apparently spirits are too much trouble (and admittedly, the conjured spirits Mordack uses kinda prove the point, being as incompetent as they are). However, what we're basically being told is that Mananan actually found it easier to raise a human being FROM INFANCY to an age where they could actually be useful for doing chores, training them to do the chores WELL instead of making a mess, and then having maybe a couple of years of actual useful slave work before killing the slave and starting all over again. It seems like he'd be spending more time raising and training his slaves than actually having slave work. At that point, is it really worth it? Maybe if there was some plot point about him abducting the slave, then sending the child off to some horrible camp to be trained and then going to fetch the slave when he was "ready" it would work, and heck he could kidnap them more often to offset the time without a slave if it worked that way, with one slave trained while another was still being raised at some anonymous location. Of course if there's some group raising slaves, then the question comes as to why the wizard would be doing the abducting instead of that slave trading group, but that's at least something a little easier to swallow. Any thoughts on this, or did I just think about this way too much?