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Ken,
Obviously the success that the King’s Quest series had made it attractive for other systems but what is the story behind king’s quest v on the nintendo entertainment system? Did you approach Konami about distribution and also who did the translation? And finally if you compared the of the nes game how would they stack up against EGA graphics on a PC of the same era.
Kings Quest V Box -
(re: King’s Quest V for NES) Jared, that’s really cool, but hard to read. Did you scan that yourself? If so, would you be able to rescan it at 300 DPI and save it as JPG quality 12 for the archives on this site? Is there a front cover? Do you have the cartridge and could you scan that too? I’m not sure if Ken’s code still resizes pictures, so you could place the pictures into a zip to prevent it from doing that.
I too would like to know more details about how KQ5 for the NES came about. Also, I didn’t realize it was for the NES, I thought it was for the SNES – am I just wrong, or are there two versions out there then? -
(re: King’s Quest V for NES)
> As fortold by ancient warlords, Kings Quest V has finally arrived to weed out the weak and immortalize the brave.
?? ancient warlords?
It’s interesting to me how the language on the back of this box is different from the blurbs you’d read on the PC versions… they worked very hard to make it sound Zelda-like. (Like the talk about magical items to supplement your mortal strength.) I wonder how well this sold?
Great line about the wise owl, too. Fortunate, my arse.
Can anyone identify the screens on the box? The top one looks like Mordack’s lab (but I wouldn’t have guessed it without his dialogue picture there). What about the other screesn? What’s that spider one?
-emily
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(re: King’s Quest V for NES) I think you’re right about them all.
The third one is the side of Mordack’s castle, where the grate is. That’s what’s on the floor, and around are the ocean, rocks, and sky. Cedric is saying “Come on, Graham! This place gives me the shivers!”
Interesting how many pictures are used from Mordack’s castle! -
(re: re: King’s Quest V for NES) Very interesting! This brings up memories (I recently finished the regular old VGA PC version you all know, but the game regularly crashed while the ending movie played – but that is a different story.)
I think screenshot #4 isn’t the lower (organ) hallway connecting the kitchen and the dining room but the upper hallway, the one leading from the bed chambers and study (#2) to the laboratory with the wand machine (#1)
It’s really cool to see what looks like a real box scan with loads of screenshots.
I tried to find screenshots for the NES version of KQV but couldn’t find any. I thought by some time that it was fake and there had never been a KQV for the NES. It was hard to believe for me anyway, since KQV was Sierra’s VGA prototype and that didn’t seem to go along well with the NES’s limited graphics support. I’d heard, however, that Sierra had always been negotiating about video game console conversions.
I wonder how this game sold (or KQ1 for the Master System.) I know there was also a NES version of Lucasfilm Games’ very first graphic adventure “Maniac Mansion”, but there were obviously no more conversions, so by the time classical adventure games had finally made it to the console market they were obviously not “state of the art” enough anymore.
Ken, do you know how the market for adventure game console conversions was`or do you remember what negotiating with Sega and Nintendo was like?
I also remember another story connected with the console conversions or rather a rumour. It said that in Leisure Suit Larry 1, the parts that were covered by “censored”-bars used to be un-censored (I’d always taken it as a joke, that it had been supposed to be as it is right away.)
Due to plans to convert the first Larry game to the Master System / NES, however, that had somehow been rejected by both companies (Sega and Nintendo) because of being too mature for the intended audience, the game was eventually censored.
Sega and Nintendo still wouldn’t want to buy the game, but from then on it was censored.
Is that correct or is it just another wild rumour? Might Al Lowe know anything about this? -
(re: re: re: King’s Quest V for NES)
Wow I totally forgot about King’s quest for the master system. I thought they did an ok job reworking the King’s Quest I graphics and would consider it a decent port. I’m sorry I stole that box scan from Martin Nielson and Nesworld and so I don’t have the original box but I did have the cartridge. Unfortunately I don’t have a scanner so I’ll try to find some more pics on the internet.
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(re: King’s Quest V for NES)
I have definitely seen some screenshots floating around on the internet (but i’m not sure if what I saw was KQ5 for the SNES or for Sega?) I’ve seen the gypsy camp and the town, compared to the VGA graphics. I’ll try to find them.
It is interesting that Mordack’s castle is featured so prominently on the box… again, I wonder if it was because the audience was used to seeing dark castles in their games?
-emily
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(re: King’s Quest V for NES)
I got some in-game screenshots of both the Sega KQ1 and Nintendo KQ5 games on my King’s Quest website. Links below.
Despite being terribly inferior to the original games, I think it’s fun that they made it to the consoles. And I would also love to know more about how these conversions came to be.
KQ1 remake screenshots on bottom of page
KQ5 remake screenshots on bottom of page -
(re: re: King’s Quest V for NES) I never knew about King’s Quest 1 for the master system…
I did however play King’s Quest 5 back when the NES was around. I remember renting it after seeing the PC version. The game is ok, but it just isn’t as goood as the PC version. I still have the rom on my IMBNES cd. The one thing that kills it the most is the password/temp save thing. -
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(re: King’s Quest V for NES) That would be great for you to do that. I don’t know if it’s possible, but could a video file be made as well? I think this would be something for Brad to be able to capture and put on the DVD… he said he could do old Sierra demos, so I’m sure he could do this.
Anyway, screenshots would be great, and if you’d post them in the King’s Quest Museum area I think would be most appropriate. -
(re: re: King’s Quest V for NES)
Will do. I’ve been bored lately anyway so this will keep me busy. The movie idea…..I can make NES type movies but they will only play thru specific emulators. I think there are some which can produce avi movies though. One thing….what type of movie would you want? A gameplay movie all the way through? That would be very large wouldn’t it?
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(re: King’s Quest V for NES)
An AVI movie would be good – and like Emily said, a movie of some of the little cutscenes would be cool to see – no, not the whole game! You’re right, that would be large. And also as I said, something like this would be great for Brad to incorporate into the DVD project. But firstly, just having a good number of screenshots spread throughout the game would be great.
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(re: King’s Quest V for NES)
Actually, this game is still available off Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004SVR8/103-6841041-0975867 I’ve also attached a front cover shot.
Front cover of KQ5/NES -
(re: re: King’s Quest V for NES)
Yeah, very expensive though for a box and manual included in good condition. I’d like to see big scans of the box / manual – so I am always watching out for cheaper prices on eBay. By the way I found someone typed in the manual for a website, I forget the link now, but I can find it again (or someone else can with Google), and post the link here.
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(re: re: re: King’s Quest V for NES)
Here’s a good website that shows tons of stuff on the sega master system version. I wonder why the didn’t do the same for kqv for the nes.
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(re: re: King’s Quest V for NES)
Brandon,
This would be something definitely that we could add to the DVD Video Archive. Once we get the ball rolling on the Video Archive we will orgranize a list of everything that we want to put on the DVD and look at the project as a whole.
If we decide to put cut scenes from the games I will set up a computer / NES / SMS / etc up and route it to one of the video decks – shouldn’t be a problem. The time consuming part will be loading the games and getting to the appropriate scenes – especially if we want to capture stuff that is in the “middle” of the game – I can’t think of any of those right now, but if there are – we might need to get people involved to play up to that point, and send in their saved games that we can load.
Way back in the day on my PCjr I recorded myself playing Gold Rush to a VHS tape – the PCjr had RCA ports built on to the box.. was pretty cool. I wonder if that tape is still around??
-Brad
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(re: re: re: re: King’s Quest V for NES)
When I was referring to the cut-scenes I was thinking beyond KQV for the NES, and just famous cut-scenes from the games in general.
I just wanted to let everyone know that it would be possible to take scenes/action from the games, and put it on DVD as well…. so let the ideas roll.
-Brad
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(re: King’s Quest V for NES)
Interesting… I didn’t know there were no cutscenes on an NES.
How are the opening and closing movies presented? (The only other cutscene-like thing I can think of is the part when Graham talks to the fortune teller and sees his family in the crystal ball… oh, I guess that’s what you mean by ‘like Mordack holding Alexander”…)
-emily
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(re: re: re: re: re: King’s Quest V for NES) If videos are to be made I suggest that the intro/extro sequences of SQ3 and SQ4 should definitely be among them! Especially the SQ3 Sierra and SQ4 Magmetheus scenes – also, comparing the Beatrice Wankmeister we know from the SQ4 extro hologram to the real one Roger meets in SQ5 would be interesting (I always thought that the real one didn’t hold a candle to the hologram. It’s probably always that way… :o)
The KQV extro scene would be greatly appreciated by me because my computer always crashed lately when I was going to watch that… :o(i.e., if it’s even good… ;o) -
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I think I’ve already answered this…
I really never took it more seriously than thinking of it as “extra income”. Licensing video game rights was similar to licensing t-shirt rights or lunchbox rights. I let them use my copyrights to do a game, and we were paid (well) for the priviledge.
Overall, I didn’t like doing this, because the games always turned out horribly. We enjoyed cashing the checks, but that’s about it. The problem was that this was in “the old days” and games were on cartridges, not CDs. Cramming a CD-based computer game onto a little cartridge doesn’t work.
Today’s game machines are more powerful than most computers — so, it’s a completely different world.
-Ken W
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Sorry if I missed your reply. Thanks for the insight, I was just curious to see how involved you were. I thought that Konami actually didn’t a decent job based on the hardware they had to work with.
Ken, you’re right about the medium. If CD based video game systems would have taken off 5 years earlier I bet Sierra would have licensed a lot more games.
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