These items are almost never used for puzzles, which here involve the jumping or block-pushing variety. Your inventory consists entirely of weapons, potions, and other restoratives, along with a grappling hook. There are occasionally people to talk to, but interactions with them are fairly sparse. The land is divided up into seven different territories, with the goal simply being to explore them completely, hack some enemies to gain some levels, and move onward. Nearly all of the traditional adventure elements are gone. All actions are handled with the mouse cursor, including fighting – accomplished merely by clicking rapidly – and picking stuff up. The character movements are controlled with the keyboard, using the Resident Evil-style tank controls, with up moving forward, down moving backward, and left and right turning side to side. But far more offensive is the drastically limited draw distance, which puts even the most fog-ridden Nintendo 64 games to total shame. The blocky character models have aged terribly, although they’re animated fairly well for the era. King’s Quest has fully moved into 3D with this installment, with only limited success. It has cursed all of its inhabitants and turned them all to stone except one – a young tanner named Connor Maclyrr, who finds a piece of the mask and is tasked with finding the others. The eponymous Mask of Eternity, held in the Realm of the Sun and watched over by magical beings called Archons, has shattered and brought ruin to Daventry. The lack of a roman numeral suggests that this eighth and final installment was meant to be spinoff rather than a true sequel, but it is known as King’s Quest VIII in some European territories, negating that particular excuse. The result is a game that’s almost entirely unfamiliar. With the shift in the computer gaming marketplace targeting faster paced action games, Sierra decided to completely revamp King’s Quest, ditch nearly all of the adventure elements, and turn it into an action-RPG. King’s Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrowīy 1998, adventure gaming was dead, or so everyone seemed to be saying.King’s Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder!.

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