King's Quest VIII: The Mask of Eternity (1998)

I really, truly wonder, is this game still playable? I liked it, despite the fact that it was a big departure from the earlier games in the series. But would I still like it, or is it best left to the winds of time in that weird period during which 3D still had its training wheels on?

And yes, this "random" thought was prompted by @SIGINT's recent post about King's Quest VII.

This game is not like any of the other King's Quest games prior in the series. It is a dark, violent combat game that has some interesting puzzles interspersed throughout.

I could see how if you were a KQ fan in the 90's waiting for the next installment to get your adventure game fix, you might be a little disappointed that the game ended up being something similar to a 3rd person Diablo. But after playing 7 point and click adventures back to back this pandemic, I was pleasantly surprised to get a break in the usual formula. I'm a little adventure gamed out at the moment to be honest. A hack and slash RPG with some light puzzles is exactly what I needed.

I'll mention that I've been playing through this series with my children and this is a stark contrast to the previous game which looks like a Disney cartoon. It seems like Sierra was more than making up for the childish appearances of KG7 because within about 30 seconds of playing I knew I wouldn't be able to play through with my children. The first area is very dark, people are turned into scary looking statues, and when you fight monsters their heads explode in blood or their arms are amputated, etc.

Most of the fun for me came from exploring the dungeons and I have to give the game major props for providing an auto filled in mini map. Each area feels pretty unique and has just the right amount of NPC's with dialog to make the game feel like an RPG but also a lonely dungeon crawler. You'll be given quests, need to gather ingredients for magic spells, solve cryptic riddles, and fight LOTS of monsters. The combat isn't really that tough or interesting though. You just walk up to monsters and whack them until they die by clicking on them, but it's simple enough that it's not frustrating and since the enemies don't respawn it feels a little cathartic to clear them out. I recommend putting it on the easiest combat difficulty because you're probably playing this for the KQ experience rather than for the combat.

I do have a few gripes. There is some tedious backtracking involved in the game. You'll have to run from one end of the level, fetch something, run back, etc pretty frequently. Luckily there is fast travel to each individual level. And there is some terribly awkward platforming in a few places. I'm not exaggerating that one jump took me about 25 reloads to finally get. I am glad to have not needed to play this on an older PC and wait for the load times.

Finally the GOG version doesn't run out of the box unfortunately. The most difficult puzzle of the game was getting it to run on Windows 10. Here's what I had to do... First move the game folder to your root C:\ because the GOG's default folder has too long a pathname for it to run. Next google "King's Quest 8 shim" and follow the instructions there. Next google "king's quest 8 indio video codec" and grab and install the IV5setup in order to watch the cutscenes. Finally change the draw method in the graphics settings to one of the options that doesn't crash for you. Phew! Worth the effort though.

This is a fun game! The bad reviews are most likely from people that wanted another point and click adventure. Good luck!