#kqv

Time to! Sink... This is a little bullshit. There's a hole in the boat but zero indication of such even if you look at it. At least Cedric got away.

Back on shore after that reload now with the knowledge there is a hole in the boat, it's time to put that bees wax to use to repair it. Then set sail again.

Mmm munch munch.

I got eaten by these sea monsters multiple times before I found an island. It's not Mordack's island, but must explore everywhere for clues and items.

Unfortunately as soon as we landed, harpies swooped down to attack and snatched Graham. I was brought to a different part of the island where the harpies started arguing over and generally being catty at each other.

There was a small area to walk around in, but if you try to get away they grab you and you die, and if you take too long they'll grab you and you die. This happened a couple times netting me the narrator's remark: "Hate to harp on the subject, but Graham was no match for the harpies." There was a fish hook lying on the ground I was able to grab safely.

So, it was just me and my inventory. I wasn't sure what to do and tried the harp thinking I was just playing around but that was the solution. One of the harpies wants the harp for herself and snatches it. The others chase after leaving Graham. Harp...harpies...

Free to go back down the path to find my way back to the shore, I found poor wounded Cedric lying in the grass. You can actually leave him there, which would be a terribly cruel thing to do and will result in you not being able to finish the game.

I scooped him up, but now we still need to find Mordack's castle and need to get Cedric taken care of.

On the beach where I landed I found a conch shell and then took my boat back out to sea.

I got eaten some more before I gave up and started mapping the ocean. I didn't fill in ever tile but it seems to be a case of an area of freedom surrounded by sea serpents as a way to keep you from sailing too far out. Who needs invisible walls when you can use sea monsters!

I did find my way to more shoreline where a home had been made from the bow of an old ship. I probably could have found that sooner if I'd just gone south right away at the start, but there wouldn't have been much I could do yet, so it worked out. There was a bell to ring--obviously I did so--and an old man comes out.

He's hard of hearing and you can't really talk to him effectively until you give him the conch shell. Then Graham tells him Cedric needs help and that they're trying to find a way to Mordack's castle.

The old man lets them in and has some stuff to help Cedric--gifts of the sea. It works fast!

Up you pop, Cedric.

Cedric's feeling much and the old man is able to help us with a way to Mordack's castle. He knows a mermaid named Pearl and calls her. She is able to guide us.

Time to go again!

Pearl guides them and so we come to Mordack's island castle...

Not ominous at all.

Of course we ship wrecked. Stuck here now!

Graham and Cedric are both okay. That's a dead fish there and what else is there to do but pick it up too? Graham: "Ugh, a dead fish… Weeell, maybe I can use it." A true adventurer indeed.

And so at last it's time to go to Mordack's castle, find Graham's family and face the wizard himself.

--

Points: 186/260

Deaths: 54

There are a couple places to get through before getting into the interior.

Some totally-not-dangerous statues here. Yeah, they blast you if you try to pass. I died once to them and then used that crystal from Icebella's crystal cave to reflect the blast back to them.

Then I fell down a pit.

See, beyond that area is more of this bridge but a section that I thought looked like an upraised area, but I guess it was a pit, oops. This was the only time I haven't been able to make out what was going on in the environment.

There were stairs off to the side I missed first go, so I followed them this time and found another area with a grate. With the iron bar I pulled it up. Cedric, who's been protesting being here each time I talked to him, refused to come down with me, so Graham kindly told him he could keep watch out here.

The grate landed me into, oh boy oh boy, a confusing maze. I didn't attempt mapping because of how the perspective switches when you take a path and it would have been confusing. It was confusing anyway but I fumbled my way through to finding a being called Dink.

I got too close.

Death by hugs. I'm sure he didn't meant to...

Once again, like the harpies, I solved the puzzle by simply thinking it'd be fun to play an instrument. I used the tambourine on him and he takes it and plays it, having a grand old time.

Once he finished he took a hair pin out of his top knot thingy and, leaving the room, left the pin for me.

I fumbled around lost some more. I consulted a walkthrough, but Dink apparently shows up in different rooms, so the directions didn't work from where I was. I fumbled around some more and did finally find my way to a locked door on my own. Yay! Of course the door is unlocked with the pin. Thaaank you, Dink.

The door leads up into the castle interior proper. There was some sort of pantry area right away and I found a bag of dried peas. I quickly ended up in a kitchen where I found an enslaved scullery girl. She was afraid of Graham at first but it turns out the gold locket is hers with the picture inside being one of her parents, so giving it to her calms her down and she's willing to talk.

She explains she's Princess Cassima of the Land of the Green Isles. The Vizier there earned her father's trust but is wicked. The Vizier had befriended Mordack and Mordack on seeing Cassima fell for her. He wanted to marry her, but she refused and her father agreed with her. Mordack took her and during the trip she'd lost that locket. He put her to work as his scullery girl and won't release her until she agrees to marry him. He's a real charmer all right.

Graham explains his reasons for being here and that he'll see her rescued as well once he saves his family. Cassima did see the glass jar containing the family and promises both not to give him away and try to help in any way she can.

I kept exploring and found a pipe organ that plays itself when you try using it. It does nothing but summon Mordack who then kills you.

Reloading, I went back to exploring but this time when I tried to pass through that hall, a blue creature appeared and grabbed Graham, taking him through a portal into a cell.

A rat or mouse can be seen running into a hole in the wall and then I was free to move again. Looking in the hole reveals a piece of mouldy cheese which I was able to fetch with the fish hook. Yum!

"The mouldy cheese is not fit for eating." Yes, I did try. Okay, I didn't think to try then. While I was writing this I reloaded a save and made the attempt. I had to know!

After waiting around a bit a block is pushed out of the wall and Cassima appears! She'd once found this secret path while wandering the maze. She goes down there sometimes to visit Dink (the stone creature) and Sam (no idea who or what that is). I need to know more about these visits and unlikely friendships. Please, I need more Dink and Cassima.

I followed her out and she guides you through the maze, except I misclicked or something and lost her. I did not want to try to find my way again so I reloaded, but it from before I got caught so I had to wander. Of course this time the creature was slow in showing up...

I ended up finding Mordack's room and Manannan!

Manannan was quite cranky to see me and after some grumpy remarks ran off to find to Mordack. Very quickly after that Mordack showed up and killed me. Again.

I went back to the search and wandering looking for the blue critter because you do need to get caught once. Thankfully this time he showed up pretty quickly.

Off we go!

I got my cheese and got out of the cell again. I went back to exploration and the critter showed up pretty quickly again but this time I was ready.

So the yeti fell to a custard pie. This critter is defeated by the peas. The old throw round things on the floor and watch the victim slip and stumble and down he goes. Unconscious. It was as silly as it sounds.

I was also ready for Manannan this time too. Distract him with that dead fish (yummy!) then throw the now-empty pea bag over him. Manannan's bad day.

There's another room that branches off Mordack's room. His library. His library full of books that I couldn't look at beyond a general description! There was only one that was already open that showed some symbols for spells. Graham memorizes them and there's nothing else to be found in there. However, you have to wait around for Mordack to show up and go take a nap. Ah more waiting.

"Mordack lies asleep on his huge, horrendous bed." - narrator. Evil people get nasty beds.

And now we steal his wand!

From there I went back to find another route that leads to Mordack's lab.

The glass jar has Graham's family and castle! He gets very emotional seeing it but can't do anything for them yet.

And look at those stairs I don't have to manually climb! Point and click and up he goes. Of course they have a railing so it wouldn't have been so bad anyway.

There's not much to do on this lower level so up the stairs to that contraption up there.

This is one of those 'how does one even figure this out' moments. There's no indication I could find anywhere of what this contraption is or does. There's the plates on each side so two spots and two wands one of which is powerful and one of which is more or less power drained. That's about the only clue I can think of or find if you'd even think of that parallel. You place a wand on each side, but then what? The contraption won't do anything until you power it up.

You power it up with the mouldy cheese. Why? Because cheese. I can only think at this point it would come down to just trying everything on it. You also only get one chance to get that cheese because if you get caught again the way out of is sealed once more and Cassima doesn't come back. So you need an item that makes no sense I can think of that you might miss entirely!

Anyway, Crispin's wand gets powered up and Mordack's wand gets drained. Right after taking the wand back, Mordack shows up and it's time for the final showdown.

Mordack summons his wand back and starts to blast Graham, but Cedric comes flying in with some kind of message from Crispin and takes the shot. Mordack is shocked by his weakened wand. Graham... says nothing. Cedric is down! Seeming dead! And there's barely a reaction!

Still, the fight must go on. Mordack turns himself into some kind of flying monster and comes in for the attack.

So these are the symbols found in Mordack's library.

Each of these turn you into their respective thing and each thing will counter one of Mordack's forms.

Attack! They both come down to the first floor and Mordack turns into a dragon which started blasting fire that can be dodged by turning into a rabbit.

Boing boing!

Then he morphs into a snake which can be fought off by turning into a mongoose. Then at last he turns into fire and surrounds you.

So you douse him with the rain spell and he is defeated. What a way to go...

Cassima shows up and Graham reassures her Mordack is really gone. Unfortunately neither know how to free his family. Fortunately Crispin appears!

Crispin explains he went looking for information. He discovered what Mordack had done to Graham's family and how to fix it. He found out about Alexander having turned Manannan into a cat and that the nature of the spell meant only the caster could reverse it, so Mordack took the family hostage in revenge to get Alexander to reverse the spell. Stuff we saw in Mushka's crystal ball, but clarity on how the spell works was nice.

Crispin is able to free Graham's family.

Group hug!

Crispin sends the castle back and Graham calls over Cassima to introduce her to his family.

Graham introduces each including Alexander as "the one who started this whole mess." What the hell, Graham! Alexander was enslaved to Manannan. Manannan was going to kill him at 18 years old! You and Valanice were grieving him and never were the same contributing to Daventry falling into ruin and being terrorized by a dragon. THAT'S all you have to say about Alexander? Blame Manannan and Mordack geez. Cassima being here had nothing to do this with either! It doesn't even really feel like an in-character line for Graham.

SIGH.

He also explains how Cassima helped him get to this point.

Alexander is quite taken with Cassima and thanks her for her help. He'd like to visit her in the Land of the Green Isles one day to repay her for this debt.

Crispin interrupts, claiming it's time to send them all home. He sends Cassima back to her home first and then starts to send back the Daventry family when Graham interrupts him with a "Wait what about Cedric?"

Yeah, what about Cedric huh? He's just been lying there dead or grievously wounded. He took the blow! No one has acknowledged him up to this point.

After some 'comical' (I assume meant to be) attempts by Crispin to remember the spell to revive him, he finally does and poor Cedric wakes up. He's happy to see Crispin and Crispin is happy to see him despite seeming to forget about him and just leaving him there. Didn't even notice him...

But now all is well and happy and it's time go home.

The End and max points! To be honest, I'm not sure how you could miss points. I looked up a list after and it seemed like everything was stuff you had to do to finish the game... I dunno maybe some things can be missed somehow, but I'm not sure what.

And so King's Quest V is complete!

Final Points: 260/260

Deaths: 59

Time: 5:10

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Final Thoughts:

There's a lot I like about this game. It's a shift in a lot of ways. It looks beautiful. I kind of miss the text parser in some respects, but the point and click interface is generally smoother and certainly more familiar to me. I said it back in the first post, but coming to this game the first time when it came out must have been amazing.

There's some delightful and charming moments like the Willow Tree's song and the ant song (always popping randomly into my head since I first heard it.)

The voice acting is bad but there's a charm to it (although after seeing VI, Cassima's voice particularly drives me nuts). There were no professional voice actors here. It was all just Sierra employees. Was it a good idea for them to just go for it anyway? Maybe not, but I respect the drive and desire. Besides, it gave me 'bugalooo.' On the other hand no subtitles/text in this version... not very accessible.

No stairs! But still some ways to fall. There's gotta be some ways (I am serious; it's part of the experience), but so much more manageable than some of those stairs.

It's not all good. Some stuff is just plain obtuse. And there are so many ways to get soft-locked. I looked up a list and V has way more than the other games. That should probably bother me more than it does and might have done if I'd played blind. As was I was just enjoying myself.

There's some real awkwardness in that ending as I already complained about.

But overall, I had a good time! And I don't really find Cedric annoying like a lot of people do. He's totally useless up to the end but I don't know. He just doesn't bother me and I wouldn't want him gone. And his presence can lead to some entertaining moments and line reads.

And finally this game really starts connecting things. Of course KQ IV comes right off the end of III, but V goes both ways. Its plot relies on III and it then sets the stage for VI through Cassima.

Because yes, KQ VI will take us to the Land of the Green Isles. Graham got another adventure, but coming up is Alexander's turn again.