King's Quest Chapter 1: A Knight to Remember

 PC
Metascore
82

Generally favorable reviews - based on 23 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 19 out of 23
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 23
  3. Negative: 0 out of 23
  1. Gamestyle
    Aug 20, 2015
    100
    A wonderful experience from beginning to end.
  2. The Jimquisition
    Aug 12, 2015
    95
    A fantastic start to what I hope will be an amazing series. Though it’s not the King’s Quest fans will remember, it’s an enthusiastic and striking fresh take that’s both witty and exciting.
  3. Gaming Age
    Aug 4, 2015
    91
    The first episode shows a whole lot of promise, and I’m very curious to see how this adventure ends up.
  5. RPG Fan
    Aug 23, 2015
    90
    A warm and nostalgic reboot that isn't afraid to build its own identity.
  6. ActionTrip
    Aug 4, 2015
    90
    Any fan of point-and-click adventure games will enjoy diving into Daventry, and any King’s Quest fan will love jumping back into Graham’s realm.
  7. GamingTrend
    Aug 4, 2015
    90
    With an eye towards fan service and a nod to incredible storytelling of old, King’s Quest resurrects the genre with style. The first chapter is expertly written, and the hand-crafted nature makes it feel unique in the genre.
  8. Pelit (Finland)
    Sep 9, 2015
    88
    This ain't an adventure game in a traditional sense, but altogether the first episode of the new King's Quest is a pleasant surprise. It's an action-adventure, but with a high emphasis on a story. Puzzles are easy and sudden deaths won't sneak up on you anymore, but at its core, King's Quest is a new adaptation of Sierra's thesis of bringing faery tales to bits. This is something, that the game achieves with flying colors. Well done, sirs. [Sept 2015]
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  9. InsideGamer.nl
    Aug 10, 2015
    85
    This games makes us feel nostalgic about the genre and fairy tales in general. Even if we do not let the nostalgia get to us, this first episode is a very strong game. It has the vibe of big, forgotten adventures and we cannot wait for the second episode to release.
  10. CD-Action
    Oct 17, 2015
    80
    King’s Quest might look quite modern, but it hasn’t forgotten its glorious heritage. [10/2015, p.58]
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  11. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Sep 15, 2015
    80
    The return of the classical game was a success and the magical world of Daventry in its cartoon reincarnation will literally charm you by the great events and a nicely written story. [Issue#255]
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  12. Games.cz
    Aug 25, 2015
    80
    Unexpectedly successful beginning of the adventure mini-series asks for your attention vehemently. You will forgive its unconvincing start quickly because of a great adventure and great storytelling.
  13. The Digital Fix
    Aug 20, 2015
    80
    One of the first adventure releases in a while that successfully blends the old and the new.
  14. PC Games
    Aug 4, 2015
    80
    The return of king Graham offers a mixture of classic adventure-puzzles, lots of humor and many action-sequences. The flashback-storytelling is quite entertaining, the voice acting is great and the cartoon-graphics turns the adventure into a fairytale-experience.
  15. Arcade Sushi
    Aug 3, 2015
    80
    Acting as both sequel and remake through the use of Grandpa Graham's reminiscing, "A Knight to Remember" offers a fresh take on a classic franchise with some profound production quality. Unfortunately, King's Quest's gameplay isn't as spot-on as it should be, especially when compared to its contemporaries in the adventure game format.
  16. CGMagazine
    Jul 30, 2015
    80
    A Knight to Remember manages to capture the spirit of its predecessors without ever feeling like an empty exercise in nostalgia.
  17. The Escapist
    Jul 29, 2015
    80
    King's Quest: A Knight to Remember is a very promising start to a worthy revival of the classic adventure franchise.
  18. IGN
    Jul 29, 2015
    80
    This tale is funny, beautiful, and challenging enough to make up for a few plodding quests and frequent load screens, and it maintains its personality from start to finish, sprinkling the first episode of its story with happy highs and tragic lows.
  19. GameSpot
    Jul 28, 2015
    80
    Like the old saying goes--the king is dead, long live the king. Even though A Knight to Remember is not the King’s Quest of yesterday, this first episode in a new franchise ensures that the heart of the original series will live on for the current generation of adventure gamers. Bring on the new exploits of King Graham.
  20. Game World Navigator Magazine
    Aug 21, 2015
    75
    AKtR avoids usual crutches of episodic adventures: it doesn’t drop endless QTEs on player nor does it pretend you’re making a difficult moral choice every step of the way. Instead, developers fell back to trusty inventory puzzles. [Sept 2015, p.73]
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  21. Kill Screen
    Aug 12, 2015
    72
    For the moment, King’s Quest remains caught in a particularly strange-yet-familiar space, halfway hearkening back to an older era but seemingly aware that it was a time that needed improvement.
  22. PC Gamer
    Jul 31, 2015
    71
    A comfortable adventure on a noble path, but wearing spurs of a squire instead of the crown of a king.
  23. Slant Magazine
    Aug 7, 2015
    70
    Great presentation coupled with shallow gameplay means it works better as a film than a video game.
  24. GamesVillage.it
    Jul 28, 2015
    65
    Sometimes you are moved. Sometimes you laugh. For the most part, though, you get bored. The first episode of The King's Quest reboot has tremendous production values, with its over-the-top voice over and the extraordinary artistic direction, but the game relies too much on backtracking and tedious quests, and too little on the (clever and well-thought) puzzles. We can only hope for a drastic change of pace for the second episode.
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In Progress & Unscored

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  1. Rock, Paper, Shotgun
    Jan 19, 2016
    Good performances, some very nice animation (albeit embarrassingly similar to Telltale’s look), and a couple of passable puzzles, just aren’t enough to compete with some astonishingly dreadful design decisions, the monstrously slow pace, agonising traipsing, unskippable repeated dialogue and laborious cutscenes, violently pisspoor platforming and action sequences, complete lack of introduction or explanation of who anyone is for people new to the long-dead series, ghastly controls, cheap and tacky on-screen prompts, obviously designed for tablet interaction, and god-awful instant deaths.

Awards & Rankings

42
#42 Best PC Game of 2015
65
#65 Most Shared PC Game of 2015

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
7.4

Mixed or average reviews- based on 103 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 72 out of 103
  2. Mixed: 13 out of 103
  3. Negative: 18 out of 103
  1. Zer0TheHer0
    Aug 6, 2015
    1
    Keyboard controls aren't redefinable.If you don't use wasd you're screwed.Don't buy this.Developers should learn to add such a simple,basicKeyboard controls aren't redefinable.If you don't use wasd you're screwed.Don't buy this.Developers should learn to add such a simple,basic and absolutely necessary feature,in 2015
    not the onlu problem though... also,unskippable dialogues,unskippable cutscenes,slow walking and slow transition between an area and the next(and there are quite a lot) sop getting from one place to another takes quite a lot of pointless walking,bad controls overall(they should have kept the point and click interface),pointless jumping "puzzles",bad qtes.the old graham voiceover is quite bad and annoying too
    on the plus side,the graphics are very good,the tone and humor are good too...but that's it    … Full Review »
  2. Jozo
    Aug 3, 2015
    1
    This is a very disappointing game. A new King's Quest title could and should have revolutionized the adventure game as we know it. But insteadThis is a very disappointing game. A new King's Quest title could and should have revolutionized the adventure game as we know it. But instead it's turned out to be derivative, generic, formulaic and represents everything that's mediocre about the genre from the year 2000 onward. Firstly, the game has been shoehorned primarily onto consoles and it's scattered with Quick Time Events. Some people say "Oh, but they are easy QTEs", and to that, I counter "So why include them at all, when a cutscene movie would suffice?" Seriously, whoever thought taking a retro game that's only ever been PC based and had PC fans, and heavily consolizing it needs to be fired. Clunky 3rd-person controls will never win over a point and click interface that creates many more opportunities to explore the game world. Stop trying to cater to every gamer out there and focus on the target PC fans that this franchise is intended for. It's a niche game!

    In A Knight to Remember, I felt that the game mechanics represented the worst of the two extremes commonly seen in bad adventure game design: Either the puzzles are overly simple because they're handed to you on account of all the important hotspot being the only ones you can interact with OR you're stuck wandering around aimlessly, through the confusing game world, trying to figure out what to do next. The graphics are awfully outdated and belong in the PS2 era. Another great shame, as KQ (except the 7th entry) has always been renown for it's pseudo-realistic, fairly tale look. The art style in the new game is cartoony and just doesn't look right. When you can clearly count the number of polygonal lines edges on a "circular" pie tray that an NPC holds up, you know that the graphics could have been SO much better. I really didn't care for the art style at all. I also despise the developer's attempts to redefine Graham's personality and character into a slapstick abomination. The tone and humor is really far off the mark and the writing also very average. I can't help but feel deeply dismayed and let down that this is what we got as the next KQ game, after a 17-year wait. Even those fan KQ remakes were infinitely more faithful to the series' tone, characterizations, and puzzles, the very things that this series is know for. Sadly, this new KQ game strays so far from the established conventions, that it strips away any semblance of what made Sierra's adventure games unique. What we're left with is a product that looks vaguely like KQ on the surface, and only because it uses the character likenesses, names, locations etc. But under the hood it plays and handles like a watered-down LucasArts title and anything uniquely "Sierra" is long gone or has been trashed. It's almost as if the devs are giving a big "Screw you" to Sierra's established mechanics... even the ones that worked and would have translated well into a modern adventure game. The whole thing just feels completely and utterly wrong. This game could have been so much more. It could have forged a new path and been revolutionary in the genre, like nothing before it, and like KQ games of old. Activision certainly has the money to fund this. But instead, A Knight to Remember tries to play it safe and the adventure genre as a whole, and particularly long-time Sierra fans, are worse off as a result.

    It seems to be that people are rating this game highly because they know Activision hold all the Sierra IPs ransom, and unless they kiss Activision's ass and **** around the negatives, they'll never see any more Sierra games made. But if they turn out anything like this one, then I would suggest maybe that's for the best. People also seem to be lauding this game because it does things slightly better than a Telltale game. Well, let me just sau that if this is the new benchmark for what makes a good "modern" adventure title, then I can only facepalm, and say that we clearly have a long, long way to go. Well, the gloves are off. We need to hold Activision to a far, FAR higher standard than this. A barely passable game is not good enough, and if they want to dabble in the Sierra IPs, they'll need to do so much better than this.

    If you're a long-time King's Quest fan, skip this. Just stick to the originals, lest you enjoy having your childhood memroies insulted.    … Full Review »
  3. N05tradamus
    Aug 24, 2015
    0
    The Bad: This game is an abomination. I would rather play "Mask of eternity", which was just a bit better than this 3D spectacle. As IThe Bad: This game is an abomination. I would rather play "Mask of eternity", which was just a bit better than this 3D spectacle. As I approached the half way mark the chilling reality set in - the final nail has been blasted into Sierra's coffin. It's a tough pill to swallow but I think, in a way, I had already come to accept this when the rights passed on to a clueless company such as activision. The game appears to have been made for three year olds - I found peppers adventures in time more mentally stimulating. From Kings Quest 7 we saw that Disney like graphics and characters can work in a kings quest game, but only when the story, narrative and artistry are closely monitored to keep the heart and themes of the series in tact. Unfortunately this disgrace does not come close to capturing the great, redefining Sierra adventure games of old. RIP Sierra - our only hope now is to turn to the fans for crowd funded remakes.

    The good: The initial splash screen and main menu. It might also appeal to newcomers that don't have a clue about the original series.    … Full Review »
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