Top 5 Most Frustrating Moments in King's Quest 5

Well, it had to come eventually.  I love lists.  I love making things in list form.  So I figured it was time to make a Top 5 list.  Plus I haven’t really been playing games lately but still want to talk about them in some way.  Well, since I’ve been mentioning the Sierra games quite a bit in my posts, it seems only fitting: 

Top 5 Most Frustrating Moments in King’s Quest 5:


There are 2 things you need to be prepared to do if you’re playing a Sierra game: 1. Combine every conceivable inventory item and 2. die…a lot.  There is absolutely no avoiding it sometimes.  In fact, sometimes you have to die just to figure out the correct way to do something, because the game sure isn’t going to help you out with that.  I’ve played a few Sierra games in my time, but none are more frustrating than King’s Quest 5, which just seems to go out of its way to give you a stroke.

I originally played this game with a friend, and lord knows how we beat it in an age before internet walkthroughs…oh wait…we totally cheated.  Occasionally I’ll get somewhat nostalgic for this game but it only takes about 10 minutes of gameplay to remember just how ridiculous some of the puzzles were.  There is so much backtracking in this game from some random item you might have forgotten to pick up you probably add another 2 hours of gameplay.  The game is rife with them, but there are a few key moments that I only need to mention to people to know if they’ve played the game or not.

5.  Cedric…just….Cedric:  You know, there’s a fine line a sidekick has to walk.  He/she has to provide a lot of the witty commentary without being too annoying or having a “schtick”.  At the same time, they also have to be somewhat useful.  Cedric fits none of these things.  He’s a cowardly monocle wearing owl who’s basically thrust on you right at the beginning of the game for no other reason than to make unwanted comments about how dangerous things are.  And rather than help you, the useless thing simply decides not to follow you into the more dangerous situations where oh, you know, you MIGHT need some help?  It also doesn’t help that his voice sounds like a shrill old man, if such a thing is possible.  Cedric is quite possibly one of the most hated sidekicks of game history.   I mean, jesus, just listen to him:

In fact, so despised and hated is Cedric that in the fan remake of King’s Quest 2 you can actually get the opportunity to FINALLY have your revenge.  It was one of the most satisfying moments in my gaming experiences:

4.  So you're in a desert.  And it's practically impossible to navigate.  If you're not dying of thirst after two friggin' screens of walking, you're getting bitten by rogue scorpians, being run through with swords by bandits, or getting locked in a secret cave you found your way into (a whole other rant in itself).  You want to get out of there and get out fast.  So you grit your teeth, kill you some bandits, steal some booty, drink from an oasis or two and then run gleefully off mooning the desert in revenge as you go.  But wait...did you pick up that boot?

What boot, you may ask?  Well, there is a random screen with a skeleton and an old worn out boot.  It isn't necessary to finish the desert level so it's very easy to miss in your eagerness to get the hell out of there.  But how important could it be?  Well as it turns out, you need that boot to throw at a cat...fun times.  In order to save some rat being chased by a cat you have about 3 seconds to think fast and dig into your inventory and find what you need.  No boot?  Well...the rat bites it.  And the worst part is, you have no idea what that might mean for you...it might mean something...but you don't know what.  Then at some random moment in the future you suddenly find youself tied up in the basement of a seedy bar (yes, you read that right) wondering how you'll get out of this one when what should appear...but the rat you saved earlier...like a couple of hours of gameplay earlier....that is, if you managed to rescue the rat...if not...you die...simple as that.  All because of a friggin' boot on a random screen that you may or may not have noticed.

3.  The cliffs of insanity!:  You know what's worse than dying because of stupid puzzles solutions?  Dying because you're one pixel too far to the left.  At any moment, Graham could go plunging to his death.  You can fall of anything...ANYTHING.  And it's accompanied by a blood curdling screamm that gets old very very fast.  Nothing is worse though than the end level, when you're finally approaching Mordac's castle, start to ascend the stairs and then slip and fall about two feet...and die...you don't even get a full scream out.  You just die.  From two...FREAKING...FEET.  Any sequence involving heights always had me clawing at the screen in frustration, but this one in particular just topped it off for me....oh hell, here it is again if you'd like to get an idea:

2. The Power of Cheese: So you’ve finally reached the end.  You’ve endured the singing ants, random sea monsters, copy protection BS, and probably about a thousand deaths along the way.  But you’re finally at the final level and you’ve gotten to the great evil laboratory of your nemesis and you are finally ready to kick his ass with the useless wand you’ve been hauling around for the entire game.  But being a useless wand, you need to power it up with a daunting looking magic transformy machine thing (and yes spell check, transformy is a word, do not auto correct me!).  But awww, it looks like the magic machine needs to be powered up too.  So what on earth do you power it with?  Is it that odd crystal you found?  Is it in that book of spells you picked up?  After going through every single inventory item you finally out of desperation try out…cheese.

A moldy…piece…of cheese…a cheese powered magic machine…I’ll give it to the evil wizard, he certainly knows how to make his evil inventions difficult to infiltrate, but really, CHEESE?!  And like your useless wand, you’ve been dragging this thing around for a lot of the game, trying it in every conceivable situation only to have it be the pivotal item you need to win the game.  And yeah, there is a chance that you might not even pick it up, though that chance is slim.  But if you don’t have that cheese?  Prepare for the BACKTRACK OF YOUR LIFE.  Cheese!  I just…I can’t…apparently cheese has more magical properties than I originally thought.  This has to be one of the biggest bitch slaps of the game.  The solution to this puzzle doesn’t require brain power, or dexterity, or even outside of the box thinking…it just requires you to cycle through your inventory until something works.  BAH!  But this, as aggravating as it is, isn’t nearly as annoying as one other moment.

1. The Yetti and the Pie (with a capital P):  There is no moment, no single moment in this game that sticks in people's minds, than that of the yetti in the pie.  There you are, high in the mountains, standing before a cave when suddenly a yetti comes rumbling out and rushes towards you in a rabiestastic frenzy.  And you'd think it would be the most logical solution, as you have a hammer in your inventory at the time.  So you try everything and end up on...the pie.  A pie.  A pie defeats a yetti.  And it was literally the last thing I tried, and all we could do was just stare at the screen in disbelief...a pie... a pie completely takes down a yetti.  Out of all the things you could possibly do, you end up turning the game into a Three Stooges cartoon.  You know, a lot of people will go with the cheese in the magic machine, but for me...that yetti will forever haunt my memory....gah...I need to play Myst for a while now...