The 2015 re-imagining of the King’s Quest franchise nears its end with Chapter IV – Snow Place Like Home. After several episodes showing the developers taking criticism into account and continuing to improve upon their title, most of the technical issues have been ironed out, leaving them to focus on gameplay and story.
Snow Place Like Home begins with a charming introduction sequence, as Graham struggles to calm not a dragon, but a pair of crying twins. Players will have to avoid stepping on painful toys strewn across the floor as they care for the children. Things quickly take one of the darkest turns of the series so far, and it’s clear that The Odd Gentleman have hit their stride in the story department. Even characters with no possible facial expressions evoke emotion, and one can only hope the writers behind this game have a long career ahead of them.
The environments are mostly familiar, being frozen-over or aged-up versions of older ones, and the puzzles are about the same as ever. In the end, there isn’t much new here as far as gameplay goes, which is something the whole game so far has struggled with; choices still don’t seem to affect much other than the occasional line of dialogue or presence of a particular character. The real value in King’s Quest lies in its impeccable storytelling and flawlessly-voiced characters, who tend to have strong, human motivations and behaviour.
