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King's Quest VI was my very first experience with a Point and Click adventure.  And no, I'm not referring to the new-age version of point and click games such as Telltale's The Walking Dead to where you're basically playing an interactive novel.  Back in the days of Dos, Point and Click games were vastly different.  In the old PaC games, while there was definitely very rich story and lore involved in the games, it wasn't as up front and close.  Sprites were a little further away, and sets would switch out whenever the character moved to the next screen (IE games such as the original Legend of Zelda and Link to the Past).


Image of the VGA remake of Sierra's Space Quest I

  Like the more modern games today, you had options to walk, or talk to/touch/see any and every object/person including yourself, and you had a bag for your inventory.  The PaC name came from the fact that everything, even walking was controlled by placing your mouse at a designated area, and clicking.  Some games took the concept further and made it to where every action they wanted to take place would require clicking, such as pushing/pulling, and opening/closing.


Image of Lucasarts "Monkey Island"

In the early games, text was how they handled dialogue.  Some games such as King's Quest, Monkey Island, and Quest for Glory were pretty dialogue and lore heavy, so reading was a pretty essential tool if you wanted to beat the games without issue.  However, during the time that King's Quest V and other titles were released, they began to introduce voice dialogue.  They also began moving to CDs as opposed to Floppy, so on the former you'd start to see much more high quality (in those days) when it came to both the graphics and the audio.  To give an example, here's a character portrait from the basic King's Quest VI:



And this is the same character portrait in the Deluxe King's Quest VI that was released on the CD:



As you can see, there's more detail on a completely different level.  The most notable thing is when it comes to the dialogue itself.  One thing games nowadays are praised for is when the words coming out from a character's mouth match the mouth movements exactly.  But people forget that back in the 90s, point and click games were doing that already.  Sure, it wasn't full character movement and interaction, but whenever those character portraits appeared, you'd see completely synced voice-to-lip-movement, expression, and movement because of how those bits were recorded.

To give an example:

Skip to about 3:40.  The movements are a bit fast, but you can see that they're pretty on point with the words, even the tongue movements with certain words.

The exception to this rule comes from the the more up-close/full character scenes (IE scenes where they're up close for the more cinematic scenes).  While the timing is accurate with opening for and closing for each word, it's not as precise as the character portrait dialogue.  And even then, if you're viewing the more basic graphics, they're not as precise either. 

Either way, Point and Click games were quite an experience, and now that I've gotten into that little detour, let's get back to reviewing the game that sparked my interest in the PaC genre.
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So I've mentioned quite a few things, but I'm going to step back and go into this game's story, to start things off formally.

Story
This story is about Alexander of Daventry, first introduced in King's Quest 3 and son of the protagonist from King's Quest 1, 2, and 5.  He's sitting at home, remembering his time with Cassima, the Princess that he had met when they both were captured by the evil wizard known as Mordack in the previous title.  As if sensing his longing to see her, his family's magic mirror shows a reflection of her sitting in a tower, longing for him as well.  After seeing this, he sails off to Cassima's home in the Land of the Green Isles, only to be wrapped up in an adventure of daring thanks to an evil vizier, with Cassima being forced to marry him.

So...yes, at a glance it's a very simple damsel in distress kind of story.  But if you've ever played a King's Quest title, you'll know that it's not about the overall plot, but every detail in between.  It's a series that plays on, throws shots at, or outright parodies popular fables and fairy tales, and throws in all sorts of entertaining detours and sidetracks that pads out the game pretty nicely.

King's Quest VI is absolutely no exception to this tradition.  Throughout the game, there are blatant references to fables such as Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast (in fact, those two are even combined), Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (minus Snow White), the Greek myth surrounding the Minotaur, the Underworld, and other such fables.  While some fables such as the first two mentioned and the Minotaur are taken more seriously, the game throws a little fun into areas such as the Isle of Wonder (where the guards are the 5 dwarves whom you have to trick with different objects) and into some of the characters themselves (the genie being one of my favorites).

Overall, it's definitely a basic story, but the side areas, dialogue of the characters (the bookworm, genie, and Jollo being my favorites) make it into a story that is both charming and entertaining.
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Gameplay
So as I mentioned, it's a point and click title.  When you move, you click the area you want to move to.  When you want to interact with a character/object, you choose the way you want to interact with them and then click them.

During the game you'll find various objects that will open up more options/progression, and you'll move further.  Overall, it's a pretty basic PaC game on that front.  There are, however, some puzzles that you'll find throughout the game...though mostly on the Isle of the Mountain, where you'll NEED the manual or some form of it to be able to progress.

On other fronts, it's pretty fantastic.  For starters, there's multiple ways to both play and beat the game.  There's items you can get/miss which will change how a character interacts with you, different methods to get into the final area which can in itself change how difficult that area is, characters you can completely miss talking to that would help you in certain situations, and the like.

Oh, you didn't talk to Jollo the Clown at any point?  Well, just don't approach his room in the castle later on, because he'll call the guards.  Oh, you did talk to him? Well good, now you both can talk about the plan that'll help you save the princess.  Oh, you chose the wrong lamp from the lamp salesman at the beginning or middle of the game? Well, I hope you look forward to losing the final fight.

Basically, there are various ways to progress in the game, and different ways the game can end.  Missing interacting with certain characters means that interactions with other characters can happen quite differently, and the ending can be affected differently.  Forgetting certain items can end the game right there, though most just halt progression until you find the item in question.

However, the best part of the game is the amount of ways you can die.

Seriously, there are many, MANY different ways of dying.  From being washed away at sea from walking out too far, to falling off a cliff because you decided to step off, to getting killed by a Black Widow because you decided to listen to it saying it wouldn't hurt you (despite the narrator's many protests), and the many, many other ways your character can bite the dust...it just really made the game that much more entertaining.

That, and the Labyrinth is still a particular favorite area of mine.  The labyrinth changes the style to a typical dungeon crawler game, and it just FEELS like one.  You never know if the Minotaur is going to get to you when you make a wrong turn, and it's very much easy to lose if you're missing any, ANY item that would give you an edge.  Be it a torch, or even a simple Hole in the Wall, it can very much be one of the most difficult but best areas of the game.  And beating it has an even bigger payoff to reaching the best ending of the game, and helps lead to my second favorite area...the Underworld.
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Graphics and Audio

It's a colorful, detailed, and overall lovely game to look at.  It was great to look at back in 92 when it was released, and I still enjoy looking at it today as well.  Sure, it can always use a bit of polish that games such as Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle have gotten in their HD remasters, but overall I still think it looks nice.  The areas are all nice, beautiful, and varied in look and concept, the character portraits in the basic version are nice, and in the deluxe version are still exceptional given that it was released in 1993.






Likewise, the audio was pretty exceptional as well.  The music from the basic version is definitely dated since it's clearly a MIDI soundtrack, but the audio revamp in the deluxe edition still sounds pretty good.  It's still definitely MIDI, but it's a more...enhanced version that just sounds better.

The voices are also well done.  I actually have a big issue with a lot of the voice work for older games, especially with when there's a narrator involved.  But this hasn't been an issue with this game.  The person they cast as the narrator actually sounds perfectly alright in the role, and despite Graham sounding slightly off in his speaking moment, I still thought his voice actor was a fine fit for him.

And of course, it has one of my favorite older video game songs, Girl in the Tower (which the composer gives out for free on his website, now).
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Replayability:

If anything, this game definitely has replay value to it.  Whether it be beating the game for the different ways to progress/end it or going through moments differently in general, it's something that has to really be experienced multiple times.

Also, you know, the many ways to die.  That's another reason.
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Overall:

Overall, it's a great game.  It's charming, funny at points, and exceptionally entertaining to play.  Sure, it might seem dated in the style and sound, and it's definitely one I'd love to see updated.  But I think it's still well worth experiencing at least twice, or more if you really want to get the full feel of this game.

That was a good read.

Speaking of point-and-click adventures, Ahoy did a rather interesting video/documentary on the topic recently that I'd highly recommend watching:

I don't have any experience with VI, but King's Quest V was the first computer game I was ever given. The whole series is pretty obscure now, despite efforts to revive it in the last few years, but at the time it was revolutionary, especially in terms of design, graphics, and sound. But as other kinds of games came into fashion, I think point-and-click games went out of style because they could be so frustrating, especially when you got stuck and didn't know what to do. I know that in KQV, you might not suffer the consequences for something you didn't do until much later in the game, making it even more frustrating to figure out.

I think that's also why the new generation of point-and-click games are more like visual novels with some decision points, so that you don't get stuck or repeatedly die trying to figure out what to do. Most people just don't have the patience now to do that and consider it fun.

There's another game like that...Legend of Kyrandia.  Fantastic game, but if you missed an item early on that was required later, there was automatically no chance of winning.

Thankfully in KQ6 that isn't entirely the case.  You can still die in many ways, but they're mainly because you chose to let it happen, because you touched an item that killed your character despite warnings, or because you got a puzzle/action wrong.

Not obtaining an item pretty much just puts everything on hold until you get said item, depending on how you choose to play the game.  There's only one or two scenarios I recall where the lack of an item led to death...but those items were only required one of the game's branches, whereas the other saw you not even traversing those areas