Difference between revisions of "The Legend of Kyrandia: Book One"

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[[Category: 1992 Video Games|Legend of Kyrandia: Book One, The]]
 
[[Category: 1992 Video Games|Legend of Kyrandia: Book One, The]]
 
[[Category: Video Game Prime Order - Adventure, Strategy, Action|Legend of Kyrandia: Book One, The]]
 
[[Category: Video Game Prime Order - Adventure, Strategy, Action|Legend of Kyrandia: Book One, The]]
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[[Category: Video Game Genre - Adventure|Legend of Kyrandia: Book One, The]]
 
[[Category: Video Game Genre - Graphic Adventure|Legend of Kyrandia: Book One, The]]
 
[[Category: Video Game Genre - Graphic Adventure|Legend of Kyrandia: Book One, The]]
 
[[Category: Video Game Genre - Puzzle|Legend of Kyrandia: Book One, The]]
 
[[Category: Video Game Genre - Puzzle|Legend of Kyrandia: Book One, The]]

Revision as of 11:05, 17 June 2020

North American MS-DOS cover.

The Legend of Kyrandia: Book One is a graphic adventure puzzle game developed by Westwood Studios and published by Virgin Games in August 1992 for Amiga and MS-DOS, and later ported to FM Towns, Macintosh, PC-98, and Windows. A CD-ROM version was released which has full speech for all of the game's dialogue. This is the first game in the The Legend of Kyrandia series. Westwood created a new category of games with this title called "Fables & Fiends," but they only used it for the Kyrandia series, despite it fitting with the Lands of Lore series as well.

In the game, an evil jester named Malcolm has escaped from his prison and, armed with the powerful magic Kyragem, is seeking revenge from those who imprisoned him. You play Brandon, the grandson of the wizard Kallek who has been turned into stone by Malcolm, who must not only find a way to return his grandfather to flesh, but must also stop Malcolm before he destroys your homeland.

Personal

My high school girlfriend owned the CD-ROM version of this game and I played it with her in the late 1990s. We got to the Serpent Grotto maze before ending our session. Later, she told me that she had beat the game without me, which made me a bit disappointed (although, after playing the game again much later, I assume she meant she solved the cave, because the game itself is quite difficult). Years later, I got a copy of the game myself and even brought with me when I met Frank Klepacki in 2019 to have him sign it. I didn't restart playing the game until 2020. I got about half way in before I started needing to consult a walk through for some of the more unfair puzzles, and beat the game on 2020-06-14.

Status

I own the CD-ROM Windows port and have it signed by Frank Klepacki. I am currently playing it.

Review

Video Game Review Icon - Enjoyment.png Video Game Review Icon - Control.png Video Game Review Icon - Appearance.png Video Game Review Icon - Sound.png Video Game Review Icon - Replayability.png
5 4 9 4 3

Best Version: Windows CD-ROM

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

  • The graphics are utterly amazing for this era. The background art is highly detailed, the character animation is fluid, and the pixel art of the sprites are fantastic. Ordinarily, vibrantly colored palettes make games feel artificial, but, in the magical land of Kyrandia, it helps maintain an air of mysticism.
  • Although the voice acting isn't fantastic, the fact that there is speech for the entire game's dialog was still impressive in 1992.

Bad

  • Many of the forest backgrounds are reused throughout the game to pad the size of the map. This wasn't too uncommon of a practice at the time, but it still looks bad.
  • There is very little to do in most of the rooms and there is very little to click on to get better descriptions. While this speeds up the game play because you can only interact with things that are relevant, it also makes the game a lot less interesting.
  • Some of the puzzles don't let you try obvious items. For example, at one point in the game you need to douse a fire and you may have a flask of water, but you can't use it! There is also a locked door, but you can't use the iron key you're holding. Even if they didn't want to animate the items not working, they could have at least given a message explaining why it wouldn't work.
  • None of the music really impressed me.
  • One of the rocks is hidden unnecessarily well in the serpent grotto.
  • The well fills with water... that's not how wells work!
  • I prefer games of this type to have alternate solutions to various puzzles in order to increase replay value and reward more clever thinking. The only optional puzzle I can think of is the one which results in you getting the silver statuette, but you never do anything with it.
  • The yellow spell isn't very consistent. In one part of the game, it cures poison, in another it puts someone to sleep.

Ugly

  • The limited inventory really slows down the game. Since there is no way to tell when an item is no longer necessary, and dozens more items than you can fit in your inventory, you're often forced to drop items and come back for them later, even if that means having to navigate a huge maze to get back to them. This is a good examples of where realism works against enjoyment.
  • There are a lot of puzzles that have no hints to them, or hints that are very obscure. For example, the only clue given about needing to dump two same-colored items into the cauldron to make a potion is Brandon saying the potion looks "half-finished." Where and how you use the orange potion seems to only be hinted at Brandon saying it tastes like alfalfa, but all of the potions say something odd like that. The bell puzzle has no hints at all, you just have to brute force all 24 combinations. The book puzzle has no hints, you just have to try spelling all sorts of different words with them until one works. An anagram program shows 260 different words, and that's without multi-word solutions! (PORNGAME is possible, but, sadly, does nothing). The royal item puzzle has no hints, but, mercifully, there are only 6 possible combinations.
  • There is a pretty serious way to put the game into an unwinnable state. You need to have four specific items in your inventory before you reach the final island where you become trapped. You won't know which items are necessary, and you will have dozens to choose from by the time you reach this point in the game.

Media

Box Art

Documentation

Maps

Fan Art

Videos

Demo trailer.
Longplay - DOS.

Titles

Language Native Transliteration Translation
Chinese 超级马力欧兄弟 Chāojí Mǎlìōu Xiōngdì The Legend of Kailandia
English The Legend of Kyrandia: Book One
Hebrew דברי ימי קירנדיה The Chronidia Chronicles
Japanese
Korean 키란디아의 전설 Kilandiaui Jeonseol Kirlandia's Legend

Links

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