#but some of the original puzzles are just not super intuitive or require backtracking

[gwydionae]

King's Quest Fan Remakes

After talking about them a bit recently, I felt compelled to play through the old KQ fan remakes (1-3 from AGDI and 3 from IA), and I wanted to share my more in depth thoughts for anyone interested in these love letters to the original games.

King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown Remake from AGD Interactive

A lovely update to the original! While clearly the least polished of AGDI's offerings, it's nice to be able to play KQ1 with KQ5-style graphics and voice acting (the original voice of Graham, Josh Mandel, voices him in all four of the games in this post, ftr). There is an option to turn off any chance of softlocking yourself before you even start the game, which is a welcome feature. Puzzle-wise, this one stays the most faithful to the original out of the three from AGDI with a few updates here and there (like that stupid name puzzle! lol). The vocal performances and sound effects can be a bit fuzzy, but I found them enjoyable nonetheless.

Overall a solid fan remake with limited extra bells and whistles!

King's Quest II: Romancing the Stones from AGDI

Easily the most ambitious of the three from AGDI. Pretty much all of the core elements from KQ1 are further polished here - artwork, acting, music, and sound effects. The story and puzzles, however, have been changed enough that the end product is sizably different from the original. In some cases, this is fun and interesting (more lore and character interactions! new and unique puzzles!), but not everyone will enjoy all the changes. I, for example, find the underwater section kind of fun, but the new content around the count... not so much (for reasons I'll avoid due to spoilers, but know they're more mechanical than anything). There's less freedom in when you can do things, the added story making the game far more linear than it originally was. But then I'm sure many would agree that if any KQ game could do with extra content, it'd be 2, so I can't fault them swinging for the fences, even if not every hit was a home run.

All in all, this version of KQ2 doesn't really work if you're simply looking to experience the original game with updated graphics, but it's a fun playthrough nonetheless, and newcomers might enjoy the added lore/story bits. Just be aware that I could probably sum up the original game's story in about two sentences while this one would take far longer. XD

King's Quest III: To Heir is Human Redux from AGDI

If KQ1 wasn't fully polished and KQ2 was a little overworked, then KQ3 is juuuuuust right! (For anyone who knows the game, yes, this is a purposeful pun. XD) The graphics, sounds, music, vocal performances - all are the best yet (though still with some minor hiccups as any fan game is wont to have - the music was sadly cutting out during the climactic sequence for me). It even has a neat little feature where the timer changes color depending on how close you are to being zapped into oblivion that is not only useful but adds a sense of urgency in it's own way (especially if you forgot the item that makes travel a lot easier for like 2 meals I mean what lol). While it does carry over some of the story threads from AGDI's second entry, this game still works well enough on it's own, with the majority of the new content being added in naturally rather than supplanting whole sections of the original. In fact, personally speaking, I think the added content only enhances the game, your encounters with Medusa and the yeti especially getting a nice boost. And the extra lore only helps you feel for the protagonists plight all the more. The ending is a bit drawn out, perhaps, and I may not agree with the order you're supposed to choose the four items in to get the treasure (insert rant here XD), but those are minor nitpicks at best.

This is easily the best of the three, AGDI having perfected their KQ formula at this point. It works as a remake of the original while still adding in a bit of new content that doesn't feel unwelcome. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in giving the King's Quest series a try.

King's Quest III: To Heir is Human Remake from Infamous Adventures

Look. I know that it's not as impressive as AGDI's version. The time limit is laughably long, the spells are impossible to mess up, and some of the clickable areas can be a bit wonky. But I really like this version, ok?? I like the design and voice of Gwydion, I like the storybook quality that the cutscene art has, I like that it feels lonely when it should. And as much as some of the changes in AGDI's version were really nice, I like that it's basically just the original game without extra stuff added in.

This is like AGDI's KQ1 - a really solid remake of a game that gives you the feel of the original but with an updated interface and graphics. It's not as impressive as the one above, but it doesn't have to be. The original KQ3 is an awesome game, so an update of just that can't be bad. It can easily be played as a standalone game, and I will continue recommending this version 'til I die, lol.

[s-tier]

Metroid: Samus Returns

tl;dr it’s good. really good. pls buy it

mild gameplay spoilers and fat ass wall of text below

GOOD

Some of the best visuals the 3DS can offer. Detailed and lifelike background scenery, boss fight cutscenes and counterattack animations are intense and make Samus look like the badass she is, and the kind of environmental storytelling Metroid fans know and love Returns

As expected from a remake, the plot is just about the same as the original. Ending’s a little different and unexpected, but I liked it

Free-Aim Mode is a godsend and much welcomed addition. At the cost of being able to run and crouch momentarily, Samus can aim in all 360 degrees. This mechanic gave me Gamecube Metroid Prime vibes

Samus’s new Aeion abilities are also useful, except for maybe Phase Shift which slows down time, and it’s only useful for puzzles and dodging specific obstacles. Scan Pulse removes the need to bomb/missile every tile in the game to find upgrades; if it feels like cheating or un-Metroid-like, then don’t use it. Lightning Armor sponges touch damage, environmental hazards, and other kinds of attacks by depleting the Aeion meter instead of Samus’s energy/health. It also improves her melee counter which is great for swatting away those swarming bugs until you find the Plasma Beam or Screw Attack. Beam Burst lets Samus shoot more powerful shots continuously (reminds me of Hyper Mode from the Prime games) which makes certain bosses a lot easier but isn’t super useful outside of that

Retains the ledge grab mechanic from Fusion/Zero Mission. No upgrade required

The map system does its job well. Points of interest such as save points, doors (color-coded depending on what weapon is needed to open it), Ammo/Energy/Aeion refills, warp points, etc. are all marked automatically. That also includes upgrades which are marked as an open circle, but becomes a dot once collected. The map can be marked for backtracking purposes, but you’re limited to picking from 5 colors (red, green, yellow, blue, and light blue) and a total of 10 markers per area (9 total areas in the game)

Warp points help ease the pain of backtracking and makes 100% completion a lot less daunting when paired with the ability to mark the map

Puzzles are mostly fair but still require a good grasp of the game’s mechanics and rewards the player with upgrades. They don’t punish mistakes too hard, usually sending the player back to the beginning of the puzzle or having them take some damage. Game makes it clear if the player has the correct upgrades needed, except for a very small number of them that can cause futile attempts at guessing and brute-forcing

Like most Metroid titles, you feel like a fucking god near the endgame; both in terms of Samus’s many upgrades and a stronger understanding of the game

BAD

Although the Speed Booster (and by extension ShineSpark) isn’t in Samus Returns, the game adds a new advanced technique that works similarly to ShineSparking. Some call it SpiderSparking or Power Bomb Jump. If Samus drops a Power Bomb and activates Spider Ball while on top of the bomb, she’ll fly perpendicular to the surface she was on when the bomb explodes. The problem is the game does not try to teach it even though a handful of upgrades require Spider Sparking to collect. You’d have to find it by accident like I did. ShineSparking in Super Metroid wasn’t very intuitive either, but at least the friendly animals on Zebes demonstrated how it’s done and figuring it out was required to leave that area

Ice Beam doesn’t stack with any of Samus’s beam upgrades, is significantly weaker than her Power Beam, and is useless for most of the game especially if you know how to Bomb Jump and Wall Jump

I mentioned this in another post, but one of the bosses really annoyed me. Without spoiling the fight, the boss does a lot of damage (one attack in particular does a whole 300 damage), attack animations are slow and can be annoying to avoid, takes a long time to create an opening and take damage, said openings are out for a short period of time and messing up results in a big damage and more waiting, one of the phases require having to deal with awkward controls/timing to deal damage, and the frame rate throughout the fight seems lower compared to normal gameplay

No customizable control layouts in 2017 LUL LuL

Hand cramps; although, it’s mostly fault on the 3DS’s design. Who knows, maybe a uhh I don’t know, Custom Button Layout, could help

NEUTRAL

Samus has a huge arsenal. In order to have access to most of her tools at any given moment, the control scheme needs to be complex, which may intimidate new players. Errors can lead to taking lots of unnecessary damage, wasting ammo, and accidentally activating an Aeion ability

The game’s music was fine imo. Very ambient and atmospheric, tries not to stand out. However, some areas play a remix of Lower Brinstar, and every single high-temperature room in the game was blasting the Lower Norfair theme. I love these iconic songs, but their contrast from the rest of the soundtrack was a little jarring

The melee counterattack was a nice way to add some visual flare to the game, especially in boss fights, and makes combat a bit easier. However as a result of including this mechanic, most enemies in the game will aggressively rush at Samus as soon as she enters striking distance which can result in newer players getting attacked before the camera can even pan over to where the enemies are. Because of how aggressive enemies are, players might become overly-reliant on the melee attack which can slow down the pace of the game. The mechanic starts to feel a little repetitive too since the move hardly changes throughout the game, and enemies don’t have interesting strategies to counter it aside from invincibility and slightly altering their attack timings, both of which only Metroids do. Not using it at all isn’t a good idea either since one boss requires a melee counter in order to beat it, and it’s a difficult fight you wouldn’t want to constantly die and redo. Forgot to mention you can switch between beams, missiles, and super missiles during boss counter animations which is handy for ammo management

Even on Normal difficulty, this game is tough and very punishing at times. Understandably so considering the context, but I’m afraid it might turn potential fans away from the rest of the series

40 Metroids making up most of the game’s boss fights can get repetitive as you’d expect playing an individual committing genocide (btw happy belated birthday to Undertale). Samus Returns attempts to remedy this by setting the battles in different environments: underwater, surrounded by hazards, over a pit of lava, and so on. There’s also several different types of Metroids that have different hitboxes, attack patterns, and counterattack timings

Apparently amiibo can unlock an art gallery, sound test, and Fusion Suit mode (harder than Hard mode). Unfortunately amiibo functionality requires owning amiibo

“But is it better than AM2R???”

Who cares? They’re both fun, well-made games. Play them both