2:57 - That's the goat dude from Zack Snyder's 300. 2:58 - That's the snake robot boss from Mega Man 3. 2:59 - And that's White Vision from WandaVision.... in a wizard's cloak.
Terrible Adaptation, however one of the most impressive push of the NES's hardware limitations. Keep in mind, the ENTIRE game, is 500k. That's the graphics, music, animations, dialog, and code. The THUMBNAIL for this video is 800k. Think about that.
Limitations? I beg to differ. The problem is just they used a mapper (MMC3) which is like a deathwish, especially for programmers who barely made anything to this system. An MMC5 chip could have solved the issue, not to mention it has more external RAM and nametable mirroring features. If you look at NES / FC titles such as Metal Slader Glory, Laser Invasion or Just Breed (then again these were made by japanese developers) you can see that the NES was much more capable.
A strong contender for the all-time "Yeah, okay, I acknowledge that you ported this" award. Also in the running: Resident Evil for Gameboy, and Doom for graphing calculators.
I wouldn't really count RE on the Gameboy though since it was never completed nor released -- unless you're talking about Gaiden, which wasn't a port of any prior game.
Yeah, can confirm. I had the NES version as well and it was quite solid. Having never played the PC version until much later, I actually prefer the NES. Although it did change quite a bit of dialogue due to Nintendo's standards. OTOH, it was the subject of a rather infamous recall because initial pressings of the game included the ability to microwave the hamster. Nintendo was very not happy about this.
I have been playing the computer version of Maniac Mansion and the changes are pretty minor. My biggest peeve about it is the pointless censoring in the NES version. But at least the NES version is better looking and sounding then the Famicom version.
It's important to note, the Nintendo policy of removing religious references was generally only something held by Nintendo of America. Nintendo in Japan generally didn't do this, and even allowed more themes relating to death.
King's Quest V for NES allowed for more than two save slots, it just didn't visualize more than two banks until you created two save games. I don't know how many it save slots it allows but I played through this recently and made 3 save games.
I am interested why they made this game for the NES, though, as the SNES came out in the exact same month this was released. I know they were really pushing KQ5 as a game for the whole family, so it makes sense they would want a console port. Maybe they couldn't get a hold of SNES developer hardware soon enough.
I wish Sierra would make a modern graphic and sound enhanced quality of life upgraded collection of the first 7 games and slap that puppy on the switch!
"ridiculous puzzle logic" I'll always remember vividly being stuck in the haunted forest for years, eventually giving in and looking it up to find out you have to walk to a random corner of the forest.. squeeze the honeycomb onto the floor and throw priceless emeralds into it. If my life depended on it I never would've figured this out lol
I still don't get why they didn't wait to make this port for SNES. Was it a 'Gene Deitch's The Hobbit' situation where they only had the license for so long and if they didn't make anything by a certain date then it would expire?
Yeah, I'm not sure what it is, but it seems games like Deja Vu, Maniac Mansion, and Nightshade were done highly better on the NES than with King's Quest V. I think the main point is that they have a lot of charm for one.
Thank you for mentioning the music as a positive, if only a little bit. There are something like 41 songs that had to be translated and programmed into this. That's pretty impressive, and quite a few of them are pretty beautiful in 8-bit. Okay, fan defending over.... I think. There is still 2 minutes left lol
Growing up, this was the only version of KQV that I had and I absolutely adored it. I think the first time I saw the PC version, I had a hard time believing it was the same game. I played through the NES game again a few weeks ago and I loved every moment, except the labyrinth which I definitely repressed somewhere. I don't think I'll ever play the PC version at this point, but I do love it on NES.
I'm sure the NES was profitable for them and that's why they did it… But yeah in terms of a pleasurable gaming experience it would have been nice if they had waited a year for the SNES with its 16-bit graphics
Have you ever played the AGD remakes of King's Quest 1, 2, and 3? They are phenomenal fan remakes that remake the games in King's Quest 5's graphic style and point-and-click gameplay.
I had played the first game on my uncle's computer, but never owned a PC til many, many years later, so I had no idea what KQ5 was supposed to be like, ha ha!
Same here! After I played this one, I moved on to KQ 6 on the PC. I actually really enjoyed KQ 5 despite it's graphical "flaws" and limited color palette. Thinking back on it, I thought all point-and-click adventures were supposed to be like this, with unfair deaths and unwinnable conditions/situations, so it prepared me for games I would eventually play in the future. I agree that the controls were a bit clunky and would've benefited greatly from a mouse, but oh well. 8.5/10 back then :D.
Compare the NES version of King's Quest V to the NES version of Maniac Mansion. While NES KQV is abysmal, Maniac Mansion's NES port is actually really good, both in sound, graphics and the UI even controlled fine enough. Not only that, but there's also Deja Vu, Shadowgate, and Uninvited. Some even consider them the best versions of those games. So, good point and clicks can be done on NES.
Probably because it was developed by companies who had more experience with NES coding. :P The developer Novotrade International only made 5 games for the NES (this was their 4th one) and it shows.
I know a lot of people riff on KQ5, and for good reason, but I still really love it. I don't even mind Cedric. All in all, it's one of my favorite games, along with most of the KQ games. Thank you for covering this port! I've been really interested in it, but I have little interest in playing it, at least all the way through, for rather obvious reasons.
This was how I first played KQ V. It helped me gain an interest in adventure games and in the storyline of this series. It was a truly deep and impressive experience for the NES.
This was actually how I first played King's Quest V. Yay for old video stores closing down and having a fire sale on their rental games. As for decent ports, the Ultima games were actually translated very well to NES. Well...Ultima Exodus and Ultima Quest of the Avatar were, Warriors of Destiny is kind of bad.
So, you actually get 20 save slots, not 2. When you use your two, another row will appear giving you two more, and this will happen 10 times for a total of 20 slots. However, Konami didn't include a battery to make sure those saves survive a reset, so there's that. I actually just finished a romhack that fixes this limitation. Not that it matters when emulators have save states, but it seemed like a fun and challenging project to work on.
I have fond memories of KQV on the NES. It was the first point and click adventure game I played. Though as a little boy it was insanely difficult to figure out those challenges... I got stuck on that stupid yeti for so long...
KQV on PC was the first game I saw VGA graphics in. It literally blew my mind, although I only had a monochrome monitor and a PC-speaker for sound. Funny enought, I got stuck in the desert because I could not see the water in front of the temple. I felt really stupid after I got a color monitor. Anyway, even in 2021 this game still looks really beautiful. One ofthe best hand painted sceneries ever.
01:12 Now that's a weird way to pronounce a hungarian name. :D I actually now that guy in person, and he had quite some interesting stroies behind Novotrade. I also know a guy called Zsolt Prievara, who worked there after they namechange (Appaloosa Interactive).
It's very much a dancing bear. You aren't impressed because it dances well, you are impressed it dances at all. Then it eats your face, because, bear. Another NES port that was both technically impressive AND pretty good, was the port of Elite. Now, Elite is a very early 3D wireframe game, a space shooter and trading sim with a great deal of procedurally generated elements. Now, the NES graphics are tile based, all of them. They basically made a bunch of little sprites and had the game line them up so they form 3D (albeit wireframe) graphics . . . in an NES game. I don't know about you, but I find that very impressive indeed.
We had KQV for NES as a kid. I remember being super interested in playing it because of the pretty artwork on the cover, but I could never figure out how to play it.
I actually didn't have a PC until my mid teens so my first exposure to the series was this version on the NES. I loved it very much and played it a whole lot. I always wondered where were parts 1 through 4. My games often ended with me playing tiddly-winks in the desert ruins.
its funny you mentioned the Nintendo power issue featuring KQV, I found out about the very existence of the NES KQV release by going through my friends older brother's issues in like 2001 or '02
Totally rented this as a kid even though I had a copy for Win 3.1 on CD. That was not my best rental decision, but reaffirmed that it was weird and different.
Lol, yeah, Nintendo was rather oddly inconsistent with their censorship of games. The most striking one to me is how Gannon in the original Zelda game literally disintigrates into a bloody pile with the Triforce sticking out. Guess they assumed that if you got that far into the game it didn't matter.
They probably didn't care in any way that didn't threaten their business. The changes were probably just a response to one million moms types who would get all worked up and blast games for corrupting the youth and such. I think all the drama is what ended up forming the ERSB, and similar ratings boards for other countries, which is probably a good thing really.
There is one reason to do this: so that kids who didn't have access to or couldn't afford a pc at the time could play it. For that reason, it deserves some respect. Though a point and click adventure game on the NES is...difficult to pull off to say the least.
I got to see the PC version and play it a little at my neighbor's house, but the first time I got to really finish it was the NES version, which I rented from the grocery store up town. I got pretty far on my first try! And then I discovered that the two "Save" slots are actually more like saved states... and were wiped when you stopped playing. Since I never wrote down the passwords, I had to start over. It's okay though, I did manage to beat it, and despite its ugliness, there's some fond memories for me.
I was in 4th grade when I got this game (which I love and still own, and actually prefer over the PC version. That's right, internet. FIGHT me!). I was obsessed since I owned 1-3 on Macintosh Plus, and this was something new and beautiful by NES standards. The "terrible" art reminded me of the book I was reading in school at the time, Little House in the Woods. It was all rough pencil drawn winter sketches of cottages and woods and 1800's-y stuff. So, when I reached the snow section and the frozen waterfall for the first time, my imagination related the styles and made me love both for what they are.... Also, this game flows better than the PC version once you get the timing of the menu controls down, and realize that Select brings you directly to the inventory. Just discovered your channel. Love it. Happy Gaming :)
I actually don’t mind this version to be honest. To be real, I toss this one on much more than I do the pc version. I like moving graham around with the d-pad. I had doubles of castlevania and traded one of them for this cart years and years ago. I had played the pc version years beforehand and had no idea that an nes port was out there. I grabbed it up because I was so surprised and figured it must be rare. I’m still happy with the trade
I was a huge Nintendo fan but also huge King's Quest fan on the PC's. I got the PC version that was both sizes of discs for Christmas 1991. I loved it and have never played the NES version because I already knew it was going to be garbage in comparison. The King's Quest series never gets the love it deserves. The only games I haven't beat yet are VII & VIII and I have yet to play the new remake on the Xbox 360.
These are much newer, but I'm slightly fascinated by later console games that also made it to previous generation hardware, eg: the Xbox 360 versions of Rise of the Tomb Raider, The Evil Within and Wolfenstien the New Order, which had 4 discs. I know a lot of these were developed alongside the PS4/Xbox One versions, but seeing these titles run on 10 year old hardware is still pretty impressive. Also the Wii U version of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which barely had any advertising compared to the Switch version.
I sought out the GC version as I couldn't get on with things like the fishing on Wii. It's funny how it was intended as a GC game first and then got a Wii version, then years later a similar thing happened with BOTW, which was going to be just a Wii U game before a Switch version came about.
I don't hate him completely; for me it's more of an in jest heckling. He's annoying but he's a part of the game for me since I grew up with the talkie version.
I really don't mind him, personally. He can get a bit annoying since he always says the same lines when you go certain places, but I feel he definitely has a charm to him.
I don't hate him, but I didn't grow up with the CD ROM version. I always gave myself a laugh reading his dialog with a really deep voice like Isaac Hayes.
I wonder if you've done, or are planning to do, the NES version of Maniac Mansion? That seemed like a pretty good conversion. I suspect this could have been beter if they had re-done the graphics rather than try and squeeze the PC graphics into the NES.
Hey roses. Have you ever played sierras Manhunter New York or its sequel? I'd love to see a review. Such a creepy disturbing game. I loved it as a kid. It seems like it'd be right up your alley
This was my introduction to King's Quest and I absolutely loved it as a kid. My sister and I had to constantly check out a KQ strategy guide from the library to get anywhere playing it (though the NES desert is laid out differently, so that was still a mess, lol), but it is probably in my top 10 NES games. Probably due to nostalgia, but the heart wants what it wants. ;) Going from this to playing KQ6 on my computer was an insane difference, I'll admit! You may consider NES KQ5 a hot mess, but thank you for making a video on it anyway!
In 2017 with all the options we have available, I can't imagine playing this version. But...give this to me in the 90s, I might have thought it was a decent port.
I have mixed feeling on this little title. Mostly because I agree with the whole "is impressive in what they tried to do but failed in many places" thing. The graphics are actually quite detailed for the NES, but tried too hard to mimic the original. The old NES just couldn't cut what KQ5 had to offer. Ya I know you went over the graphics but it's always bothered me about this game. For what it can do, the NES can do some cool things. Maybe it would have worked it they build the graphics from the scratch. Trying to copy what a computer could do at the time on the counsel was foolhardy. One I often think about that worked is a good old game called "Ultima: Quest of the Avatar" based off Ultima IV. Where King's Quest 5 tried to mimic and failed, Ultima managed to improve some aspects. Granted some things were changed game play wise, but they worked with the system. This created a rather unique game compared to other ports, and yet faithful to the source material. Ultima for NES is hard to summarize in a short comment but I suggest it to anyone who likes old RPGs for the 8-bit systems! Anyways, realize I'm just rambling, so just want to say awesome video and all that jazz! Awe the memories of a different time! ^_^
Nintendo Power was always full of solutions. For some big games they would literally just dedicate a whole issue to be a strategy guide for a game walking you through everything
A friend of mine in elementary school had this (I had the CD-ROM version), and I remember the controls being just as miserable as you describe. For whatever reason, I was really worried about getting out of the desert temple in time. Visually, it actually looks better than I remember and is pretty impressive for the NES.
This game was great. Not all of us were able to afford a PC back then. We only got to play this on the PC when we visited my cousin's house a few times a year. Once it came out on the NES we could rent it every weekend. Half the titles in the NES library have sucky control schemes. You just dealt with it back then.
This feels odd seeing an official demake of King's Quest V (a game with 16 bit graphics) on a console with 8-bit graphics, and not the most colorful 8-bit system too. Could have sworn this game was also on the Master System.
Maybe not the port type you were asking for, but I really like the Aladdin port from the SEGA Genesis to PC. Not sure if you've ever considered doing videos on that type of port, but I'd be interested in seeing them! (Aladdin is quite good, but if you like pain you can try out The Lion King... That game is way too hard for me and I can't beat it without level skip cheats.)
I actually played this around 15 years ago to see the ending, because my pile of crap pirated copy of the Disk Version was glitched and never loaded the ending cutscene. I also cheated, cause boy this was a pain in the ass to play. It was very...ambitious. I have to give credit for remaining as faithful as they probably could to the original game given space limitations and Nintendo policies, but I do wonder why NES was chosen as the system to port it to over something else. Cost? Licensing issues on the development side? Tight/rushed production schedule? Exploiting the popularity of the NES to intoduce the series to a wider audience? Could such a port have benefitted more from a different console that could make better use of cursor control? Why KQ5 and not an earlier game in the series (KQ4 was already out before the KQ1 Master system port, after all)? While KQ1 for the Master System was no masterpiece, it felt much more alive with its wide use of colors (even if the character sprite redesigns were a bit lacking). It stayed faithful to the journey, but understood its limitations with the UI, and I very much liked their solution to the parser system. Added bonus was you were never left wondering what something actually was and looking at your commands could easily give you hints on not only what to do, but what you COULD even do. Sure, some of the old frustration factor in Sierra games was part of their charm on some level, but back then, PC games and console games were different beasts with different styles of games, and KQ1 played to that. KQ5 didn't. KQ5 suceeded in the "can you cram this ground breaking game (mostly) faithfully into an NES cart". Yes, you could. It just probbaly wasn't a great idea to do so.
It’s weird when people talk about Nintendo’s censorship they fail to mention it was only Nintendo of America who censored games. Take Castlevania for example, the JP version has the Cross and Holy Water instead of the “Boomerang” and “Fire Bomb”.
Maybe, they could have made the cat shuffle-walk, like the bear, or otherwise slowed its speed. Point & click was bound to make for a strange adaptation, but they should have put more thoughts into the limitations of the port, instead of directly translating it. This bothered me about some of the PC versions of Sierra VGA edition games. Sometimes CD version of VGA games allowed you to play in different screen modes. However, they just somehow translated the colors. This sometimes meant that certain scenes lost detail, and you couldn't tell what was going on. Compared to EGA versions on disk, that were made made specifically for that mode, they looked far worse, though they represented the same game. Unfortunately, my EGA version of the SQ1 remake is long lost. One of the disk came with errors on it, and I only got it to install twice. It had ZZ Top as one of the bands at the bar. I am lucky that most of my first encounters with the Sierra games were the disk versions. I didn't even realize the full Cedric experience until much later.
The port of Prince of Persia 1 on SNES was a decent job, the PC version's controls are slightly more responsive but the SNES one is most definitely playable.
I remember when they remade kings quest 1 for pc with vga and a mouse interface and the pc gaming community lost their minds. I think there are still people who refuse to acknowledge this version.
or that time the DS Remake of the first Fire Emblem got thrown into the trash by the fanbase because of an optional feature that made your units retreat and live another day instead of die to death.
A good NES port is Maniac Mansion. I still prefer it over the dos version due to the music alone. Yeah it's censored but it's still the best version in my opinion.
I agree completely. The censorship is anoying but it doesn't detract from the enjoyability of the game, and it still gets away with quite a lot for a NES game. Plus as you said the soundtrack is so good that it alone almost makes this the best version. Personaly I also think the graphics are more appealing than the computer versions.
Speaking of censorship, I'm happy to say I owned the *original* pressing of the game - where they slipped in the ability to microwave the hamster without Nintendo noticing. Until they did, and forced a recall eprint of the entire game.
Funny enough the developers of the NES version were required to have "wall to wall" music because that was the trend, hence why it only exists in that version.
I can't decide between the charming original C64 or the mighty Amiga version. Amiga version looks like the DOS VGA version but sounds way better (because only the pc speaker is supported in the pc version)
I had this game on the NES, and I spent probably 50 goddamn hours playing and ultimately beating it. It’s what ultimately got me into playing Sierra and other adventure games on PC. I’m grateful for it for that reason, but I cannot BELIEVE that I had the patience for this bullshit.
The adaptation is alright. If it wasn't for it I would have never looked for the computer games once I finally had a computer in the early 90s. I rented this thing so many times until i finally cleared it.
Hrm, well I suppose it's a matter of aesthetics. Considering the fact that it was a graphical port with a pixelated facelift.....well, I agree, tan does not look great. Given the hardware limitations, I'd think it more fair to compare it to Colonel's Bequest. As that game still looks bloody spectacular (when you're not looking at character portraits), the tanned lighting in this game does not age gracefully today, and infact it likely looked off, even back in the day. Though I guess it's a step up from pink and gray, an oddly common color scheme for EGA games from way back when. As I'm really fond of pixelated art, I'm willing to fudge some of this port's credits. Does it size up to its original? Not remotely. But for what was available on the Nintendo, all throughout that thing's life cycle, this is a fairly impressive (if not a bit clunky and aesthetically offputting) title for the system.
Paw played through this a while back. Below is the playlist link, for anyone interested in seeing the full game in all its... glory? ruclips.net/p/PLQG2ApQMLOtqLln3aSSuMJk12Hlm3P1uA
01:54 Well first, don't fire a third party company who know jack shit about the 6502 ASM registers of the NES, since it is extremly different what you can code on a C64 or such. Secondly, Konami failed to inform the dev-team that instead of using a common mapper like MMC3 (which this game is running on), they should have used MMC5, which has extrenal RAM and nametable mirroring features which could be used for graphics. Look up games like Metal Slader Glory, Just Breed, Laser Invasion, or Castlevania III. The all use MMC5.
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
2:57 - That's the goat dude from Zack Snyder's 300.
2:58 - That's the snake robot boss from Mega Man 3.
2:59 - And that's White Vision from WandaVision.... in a wizard's cloak.
Terrible Adaptation, however one of the most impressive push of the NES's hardware limitations. Keep in mind, the ENTIRE game, is 500k. That's the graphics, music, animations, dialog, and code. The THUMBNAIL for this video is 800k. Think about that.
Limitations? I beg to differ.
The problem is just they used a mapper (MMC3) which is like a deathwish, especially for programmers who barely made anything to this system.
An MMC5 chip could have solved the issue, not to mention it has more external RAM and nametable mirroring features.
If you look at NES / FC titles such as Metal Slader Glory, Laser Invasion or Just Breed (then again these were made by japanese developers) you can see that the NES was much more capable.
A strong contender for the all-time "Yeah, okay, I acknowledge that you ported this" award. Also in the running: Resident Evil for Gameboy, and Doom for graphing calculators.
I wouldn't really count RE on the Gameboy though since it was never completed nor released -- unless you're talking about Gaiden, which wasn't a port of any prior game.
Now I'm looking forward to a potential video on the NES port of Maniac Mansion.
The NES port of Maniac Mansion isn't too bad actually. I have the DOS version and the NES version actually improved on the graphics and sound
Yeah, can confirm. I had the NES version as well and it was quite solid. Having never played the PC version until much later, I actually prefer the NES. Although it did change quite a bit of dialogue due to Nintendo's standards. OTOH, it was the subject of a rather infamous recall because initial pressings of the game included the ability to microwave the hamster. Nintendo was very not happy about this.
I have been playing the computer version of Maniac Mansion and the changes are pretty minor. My biggest peeve about it is the pointless censoring in the NES version. But at least the NES version is better looking and sounding then the Famicom version.
It was one of my favorite nes games as a kid. It felt like a big adventure.
Did you like the NES version
@@Doo-l5x Yes, I never played the PC version but the NES version was really fun and neat.
"Whoop, she showed a fake comment on screen for two seconds, lemme scroll down right now and see it as the top comment, written verbatim."
It's important to note, the Nintendo policy of removing religious references was generally only something held by Nintendo of America. Nintendo in Japan generally didn't do this, and even allowed more themes relating to death.
Nintendo of europe didn't either.
Well, being used to NES graphics I must say I think they look very decent. That the controls would be bad in this game though comes as no surprise.
I loved the graphics lol
King's Quest V for NES allowed for more than two save slots, it just didn't visualize more than two banks until you created two save games. I don't know how many it save slots it allows but I played through this recently and made 3 save games.
I am interested why they made this game for the NES, though, as the SNES came out in the exact same month this was released. I know they were really pushing KQ5 as a game for the whole family, so it makes sense they would want a console port. Maybe they couldn't get a hold of SNES developer hardware soon enough.
They were probably developing for the NES well in advance
You can give the Weeping Willow's heart to the baker? I'm dying laughing.
I must admit, looking at this the NES's graphics are beautifully used here. I'm impressed!
i thought it was a great port too!
I wish Sierra would make a modern graphic and sound enhanced quality of life upgraded collection of the first 7 games and slap that puppy on the switch!
"ridiculous puzzle logic" I'll always remember vividly being stuck in the haunted forest for years, eventually giving in and looking it up to find out you have to walk to a random corner of the forest.. squeeze the honeycomb onto the floor and throw priceless emeralds into it. If my life depended on it I never would've figured this out lol
I still don't get why they didn't wait to make this port for SNES. Was it a 'Gene Deitch's The Hobbit' situation where they only had the license for so long and if they didn't make anything by a certain date then it would expire?
Pur, did you finish it. 7:52 so beautiful
I've loved this game for years (PC version). That Weeping Willow theme will always give me the feels
Yeah, I'm not sure what it is, but it seems games like Deja Vu, Maniac Mansion, and Nightshade were done highly better on the NES than with King's Quest V. I think the main point is that they have a lot of charm for one.
Oh yeah the first Deja Vu on the NES was great. Sadly Deja Vu 2 was only ported to the Gameboy Color.
King's NES 5: Nonsense makes the cartridge blunders.
Thank you for mentioning the music as a positive, if only a little bit. There are something like 41 songs that had to be translated and programmed into this. That's pretty impressive, and quite a few of them are pretty beautiful in 8-bit.
Okay, fan defending over.... I think. There is still 2 minutes left lol
Growing up, this was the only version of KQV that I had and I absolutely adored it. I think the first time I saw the PC version, I had a hard time believing it was the same game. I played through the NES game again a few weeks ago and I loved every moment, except the labyrinth which I definitely repressed somewhere. I don't think I'll ever play the PC version at this point, but I do love it on NES.
I'm sure the NES was profitable for them and that's why they did it… But yeah in terms of a pleasurable gaming experience it would have been nice if they had waited a year for the SNES with its 16-bit graphics
Have you ever played the AGD remakes of King's Quest 1, 2, and 3? They are phenomenal fan remakes that remake the games in King's Quest 5's graphic style and point-and-click gameplay.
I remember her doing a let's play with PAW of the AGD Kings Quest 3.
The NES version was my introduction to the series.
I had played the first game on my uncle's computer, but never owned a PC til many, many years later, so I had no idea what KQ5 was supposed to be like, ha ha!
Same here! After I played this one, I moved on to KQ 6 on the PC. I actually really enjoyed KQ 5 despite it's graphical "flaws" and limited color palette. Thinking back on it, I thought all point-and-click adventures were supposed to be like this, with unfair deaths and unwinnable conditions/situations, so it prepared me for games I would eventually play in the future. I agree that the controls were a bit clunky and would've benefited greatly from a mouse, but oh well. 8.5/10 back then :D.
Ditto.
Compare the NES version of King's Quest V to the NES version of Maniac Mansion.
While NES KQV is abysmal, Maniac Mansion's NES port is actually really good, both in sound, graphics and the UI even controlled fine enough.
Not only that, but there's also Deja Vu, Shadowgate, and Uninvited. Some even consider them the best versions of those games. So, good point and clicks can be done on NES.
Probably because it was developed by companies who had more experience with NES coding. :P
The developer Novotrade International only made 5 games for the NES (this was their 4th one) and it shows.
oh my god the bear and his little feet
Considering the amount of 5 1/4 floppies this game took for the VGA version I am surprised someone got it to work at all on the NES.
I know a lot of people riff on KQ5, and for good reason, but I still really love it. I don't even mind Cedric. All in all, it's one of my favorite games, along with most of the KQ games.
Thank you for covering this port! I've been really interested in it, but I have little interest in playing it, at least all the way through, for rather obvious reasons.
This was how I first played KQ V. It helped me gain an interest in adventure games and in the storyline of this series. It was a truly deep and impressive experience for the NES.
i know its three years later, but the fact you reviewed this at all says a lot about you. This review is awesome.
This was actually how I first played King's Quest V. Yay for old video stores closing down and having a fire sale on their rental games.
As for decent ports, the Ultima games were actually translated very well to NES. Well...Ultima Exodus and Ultima Quest of the Avatar were, Warriors of Destiny is kind of bad.
Dean Thomas 6, 7, Serpent Isle and Savage Empire are on SNES and are total dogshit
So, you actually get 20 save slots, not 2. When you use your two, another row will appear giving you two more, and this will happen 10 times for a total of 20 slots.
However, Konami didn't include a battery to make sure those saves survive a reset, so there's that. I actually just finished a romhack that fixes this limitation. Not that it matters when emulators have save states, but it seemed like a fun and challenging project to work on.
I have fond memories of KQV on the NES. It was the first point and click adventure game I played. Though as a little boy it was insanely difficult to figure out those challenges... I got stuck on that stupid yeti for so long...
KQV on PC was the first game I saw VGA graphics in. It literally blew my mind, although I only had a monochrome monitor and a PC-speaker for sound. Funny enought, I got stuck in the desert because I could not see the water in front of the temple. I felt really stupid after I got a color monitor.
Anyway, even in 2021 this game still looks really beautiful. One ofthe best hand painted sceneries ever.
That beginning music honestly makes me think of Click-Clock Woods from Banjo-Kazooie.
Why did they not use the same format as in The Black Cauldron?
01:12 Now that's a weird way to pronounce a hungarian name. :D
I actually now that guy in person, and he had quite some interesting stroies behind Novotrade. I also know a guy called Zsolt Prievara, who worked there after they namechange (Appaloosa Interactive).
As someone who lives in Daventry, I really ought to play a kings quest game. But where should I start?
Just walk outside and wait for crazy shit to start happening?
Unfortunately the craziest shit around here involves drugs and weapons (including a recent acid attack)
It's very much a dancing bear. You aren't impressed because it dances well, you are impressed it dances at all. Then it eats your face, because, bear.
Another NES port that was both technically impressive AND pretty good, was the port of Elite. Now, Elite is a very early 3D wireframe game, a space shooter and trading sim with a great deal of procedurally generated elements. Now, the NES graphics are tile based, all of them. They basically made a bunch of little sprites and had the game line them up so they form 3D (albeit wireframe) graphics . . . in an NES game.
I don't know about you, but I find that very impressive indeed.
Was any of the space quest games ported to the nes
We had KQV for NES as a kid. I remember being super interested in playing it because of the pretty artwork on the cover, but I could never figure out how to play it.
I had a similar case with a game I think was called "Draken", more specifically the SNES version.
My sister and I rented this from Blockbuster so many times in 1992 but we could never beat it! Thanks for showing it!😊
I actually didn't have a PC until my mid teens so my first exposure to the series was this version on the NES. I loved it very much and played it a whole lot. I always wondered where were parts 1 through 4. My games often ended with me playing tiddly-winks in the desert ruins.
its funny you mentioned the Nintendo power issue featuring KQV, I found out about the very existence of the NES KQV release by going through my friends older brother's issues in like 2001 or '02
Totally rented this as a kid even though I had a copy for Win 3.1 on CD. That was not my best rental decision, but reaffirmed that it was weird and different.
Lol, yeah, Nintendo was rather oddly inconsistent with their censorship of games. The most striking one to me is how Gannon in the original Zelda game literally disintigrates into a bloody pile with the Triforce sticking out. Guess they assumed that if you got that far into the game it didn't matter.
They probably didn't care in any way that didn't threaten their business. The changes were probably just a response to one million moms types who would get all worked up and blast games for corrupting the youth and such. I think all the drama is what ended up forming the ERSB, and similar ratings boards for other countries, which is probably a good thing really.
I always assumed Gan(n)on distentigrated into ashes and his torn robe when he got killed to death by the pantless hero.
I once beat this on an emulator on my phone, and it took literal hours to hit the cat with the boot. Fun times.
There is one reason to do this: so that kids who didn't have access to or couldn't afford a pc at the time could play it. For that reason, it deserves some respect. Though a point and click adventure game on the NES is...difficult to pull off to say the least.
I got to see the PC version and play it a little at my neighbor's house, but the first time I got to really finish it was the NES version, which I rented from the grocery store up town. I got pretty far on my first try! And then I discovered that the two "Save" slots are actually more like saved states... and were wiped when you stopped playing. Since I never wrote down the passwords, I had to start over. It's okay though, I did manage to beat it, and despite its ugliness, there's some fond memories for me.
I was in 4th grade when I got this game (which I love and still own, and actually prefer over the PC version. That's right, internet. FIGHT me!). I was obsessed since I owned 1-3 on Macintosh Plus, and this was something new and beautiful by NES standards. The "terrible" art reminded me of the book I was reading in school at the time, Little House in the Woods. It was all rough pencil drawn winter sketches of cottages and woods and 1800's-y stuff. So, when I reached the snow section and the frozen waterfall for the first time, my imagination related the styles and made me love both for what they are.... Also, this game flows better than the PC version once you get the timing of the menu controls down, and realize that Select brings you directly to the inventory.
Just discovered your channel. Love it. Happy Gaming :)
I actually don’t mind this version to be honest. To be real, I toss this one on much more than I do the pc version. I like moving graham around with the d-pad. I had doubles of castlevania and traded one of them for this cart years and years ago. I had played the pc version years beforehand and had no idea that an nes port was out there. I grabbed it up because I was so surprised and figured it must be rare. I’m still happy with the trade
I was a huge Nintendo fan but also huge King's Quest fan on the PC's. I got the PC version that was both sizes of discs for Christmas 1991. I loved it and have never played the NES version because I already knew it was going to be garbage in comparison. The King's Quest series never gets the love it deserves. The only games I haven't beat yet are VII & VIII and I have yet to play the new remake on the Xbox 360.
This look awesome. I'm definitely gonna add it to my game hunt list
I like the " What the critics may say" Segment of your video that you have added! Nice touch!(LOL).(Cooled Smile)
These are much newer, but I'm slightly fascinated by later console games that also made it to previous generation hardware, eg: the Xbox 360 versions of Rise of the Tomb Raider, The Evil Within and Wolfenstien the New Order, which had 4 discs. I know a lot of these were developed alongside the PS4/Xbox One versions, but seeing these titles run on 10 year old hardware is still pretty impressive. Also the Wii U version of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which barely had any advertising compared to the Switch version.
Meleemario720 The GameCube port of Twilight Princess is very good. It came out at the same time as the Wii version.
I sought out the GC version as I couldn't get on with things like the fishing on Wii. It's funny how it was intended as a GC game first and then got a Wii version, then years later a similar thing happened with BOTW, which was going to be just a Wii U game before a Switch version came about.
Am I the only person who likes Cedric?
I don't hate him completely; for me it's more of an in jest heckling. He's annoying but he's a part of the game for me since I grew up with the talkie version.
I really don't mind him, personally. He can get a bit annoying since he always says the same lines when you go certain places, but I feel he definitely has a charm to him.
I don't hate him, but I didn't grow up with the CD ROM version. I always gave myself a laugh reading his dialog with a really deep voice like Isaac Hayes.
Cedric is cute. And he does save the player from the snake! (from a certain point of view)
Best bit for me is when you walk through the ants.
"Is that a new dance Graham? The bugaloooooooooooooo?"
I never even knew this existed until Paw played it a few years ago.
I wonder if you've done, or are planning to do, the NES version of Maniac Mansion? That seemed like a pretty good conversion. I suspect this could have been beter if they had re-done the graphics rather than try and squeeze the PC graphics into the NES.
Hey roses. Have you ever played sierras Manhunter New York or its sequel? I'd love to see a review. Such a creepy disturbing game. I loved it as a kid. It seems like it'd be right up your alley
Personally, I would eat a pufferfish
I'm really liking these version comparisons!
This was my introduction to King's Quest and I absolutely loved it as a kid. My sister and I had to constantly check out a KQ strategy guide from the library to get anywhere playing it (though the NES desert is laid out differently, so that was still a mess, lol), but it is probably in my top 10 NES games. Probably due to nostalgia, but the heart wants what it wants. ;)
Going from this to playing KQ6 on my computer was an insane difference, I'll admit! You may consider NES KQ5 a hot mess, but thank you for making a video on it anyway!
In 2017 with all the options we have available, I can't imagine playing this version. But...give this to me in the 90s, I might have thought it was a decent port.
I have mixed feeling on this little title. Mostly because I agree with the whole "is impressive in what they tried to do but failed in many places" thing. The graphics are actually quite detailed for the NES, but tried too hard to mimic the original. The old NES just couldn't cut what KQ5 had to offer. Ya I know you went over the graphics but it's always bothered me about this game. For what it can do, the NES can do some cool things. Maybe it would have worked it they build the graphics from the scratch. Trying to copy what a computer could do at the time on the counsel was foolhardy. One I often think about that worked is a good old game called "Ultima: Quest of the Avatar" based off Ultima IV. Where King's Quest 5 tried to mimic and failed, Ultima managed to improve some aspects. Granted some things were changed game play wise, but they worked with the system. This created a rather unique game compared to other ports, and yet faithful to the source material. Ultima for NES is hard to summarize in a short comment but I suggest it to anyone who likes old RPGs for the 8-bit systems!
Anyways, realize I'm just rambling, so just want to say awesome video and all that jazz! Awe the memories of a different time! ^_^
Nintendo Power was always full of solutions. For some big games they would literally just dedicate a whole issue to be a strategy guide for a game walking you through everything
A friend of mine in elementary school had this (I had the CD-ROM version), and I remember the controls being just as miserable as you describe. For whatever reason, I was really worried about getting out of the desert temple in time. Visually, it actually looks better than I remember and is pretty impressive for the NES.
Agreed. The controls could actually screw you hard when it came to escaping the temple.
This game was great. Not all of us were able to afford a PC back then. We only got to play this on the PC when we visited my cousin's house a few times a year. Once it came out on the NES we could rent it every weekend. Half the titles in the NES library have sucky control schemes. You just dealt with it back then.
I admit, at the time I was kinda excited... We didn't have a home computer that could handle King's Quest 5 but did have a Nintendo...
As a kid with a NES but no computer, I adored this game. I probably never would've played it otherwise.
This feels odd seeing an official demake of King's Quest V (a game with 16 bit graphics) on a console with 8-bit graphics, and not the most colorful 8-bit system too.
Could have sworn this game was also on the Master System.
Controversial statement: King's Quest is more of an RPG than most so-called RPGs.
4:04 Haha the cupboard on the wall spells "BOOB"
Maybe not the port type you were asking for, but I really like the Aladdin port from the SEGA Genesis to PC. Not sure if you've ever considered doing videos on that type of port, but I'd be interested in seeing them! (Aladdin is quite good, but if you like pain you can try out The Lion King... That game is way too hard for me and I can't beat it without level skip cheats.)
I actually played this around 15 years ago to see the ending, because my pile of crap pirated copy of the Disk Version was glitched and never loaded the ending cutscene. I also cheated, cause boy this was a pain in the ass to play.
It was very...ambitious. I have to give credit for remaining as faithful as they probably could to the original game given space limitations and Nintendo policies, but I do wonder why NES was chosen as the system to port it to over something else. Cost? Licensing issues on the development side? Tight/rushed production schedule? Exploiting the popularity of the NES to intoduce the series to a wider audience? Could such a port have benefitted more from a different console that could make better use of cursor control? Why KQ5 and not an earlier game in the series (KQ4 was already out before the KQ1 Master system port, after all)?
While KQ1 for the Master System was no masterpiece, it felt much more alive with its wide use of colors (even if the character sprite redesigns were a bit lacking). It stayed faithful to the journey, but understood its limitations with the UI, and I very much liked their solution to the parser system. Added bonus was you were never left wondering what something actually was and looking at your commands could easily give you hints on not only what to do, but what you COULD even do.
Sure, some of the old frustration factor in Sierra games was part of their charm on some level, but back then, PC games and console games were different beasts with different styles of games, and KQ1 played to that. KQ5 didn't.
KQ5 suceeded in the "can you cram this ground breaking game (mostly) faithfully into an NES cart". Yes, you could. It just probbaly wasn't a great idea to do so.
It’s weird when people talk about Nintendo’s censorship they fail to mention it was only Nintendo of America who censored games. Take Castlevania for example, the JP version has the Cross and Holy Water instead of the “Boomerang” and “Fire Bomb”.
Maybe, they could have made the cat shuffle-walk, like the bear, or otherwise slowed its speed. Point & click was bound to make for a strange adaptation, but they should have put more thoughts into the limitations of the port, instead of directly translating it. This bothered me about some of the PC versions of Sierra VGA edition games. Sometimes CD version of VGA games allowed you to play in different screen modes. However, they just somehow translated the colors. This sometimes meant that certain scenes lost detail, and you couldn't tell what was going on. Compared to EGA versions on disk, that were made made specifically for that mode, they looked far worse, though they represented the same game. Unfortunately, my EGA version of the SQ1 remake is long lost. One of the disk came with errors on it, and I only got it to install twice. It had ZZ Top as one of the bands at the bar.
I am lucky that most of my first encounters with the Sierra games were the disk versions. I didn't even realize the full Cedric experience until much later.
Can you please make a video on King's Quest: Mask of Eternity?
I know you probably hate it but please i want to know what you think about it.
Guys I think....I may be wrong but, I feel like Roses is a fan of Kings Quest. Idk just a thought
Being a Kings Quest fan and also Sierra in general....I tried to play this and had to stop.
The port of Prince of Persia 1 on SNES was a decent job, the PC version's controls are slightly more responsive but the SNES one is most definitely playable.
Wait a minute. Did that magazine call King's Quest 5 an RPG???
Request: _Night Trap_
9k away from that big 100k!
Indeimaus two of my favorite youtubers in the same setting? whoa
Indeimaus a
I forgot about the NES version! What a great experiment
I played King's Quest V on NES for about 2 seconds about 30 years.
I remember when they remade kings quest 1 for pc with vga and a mouse interface and the pc gaming community lost their minds. I think there are still people who refuse to acknowledge this version.
or that time the DS Remake of the first Fire Emblem got thrown into the trash by the fanbase because of an optional feature that made your units retreat and live another day instead of die to death.
I mean, now you kinda HAVE to do the NES conversion of Maniac Mansion. It's in the rules I just made up. ;)
You did it! Ever thought about reviewing the fan remakes?
A good NES port is Maniac Mansion.
I still prefer it over the dos version due to the music alone. Yeah it's censored but it's still the best version in my opinion.
I agree completely. The censorship is anoying but it doesn't detract from the enjoyability of the game, and it still gets away with quite a lot for a NES game. Plus as you said the soundtrack is so good that it alone almost makes this the best version. Personaly I also think the graphics are more appealing than the computer versions.
Speaking of censorship, I'm happy to say I owned the *original* pressing of the game - where they slipped in the ability to microwave the hamster without Nintendo noticing. Until they did, and forced a recall
eprint of the entire game.
Funny enough the developers of the NES version were required to have "wall to wall" music because that was the trend, hence why it only exists in that version.
The DOS version is much better for multiple reasons but i grew up with the nes and loved the shit out of it. Amazing game.
I can't decide between the charming original C64 or the mighty Amiga version. Amiga version looks like the DOS VGA version but sounds way better (because only the pc speaker is supported in the pc version)
I had this game on the NES, and I spent probably 50 goddamn hours playing and ultimately beating it. It’s what ultimately got me into playing Sierra and other adventure games on PC. I’m grateful for it for that reason, but I cannot BELIEVE that I had the patience for this bullshit.
I've never played kings quest v on the NES or pc but I plan to sooner or later :/ I kinda hope they're ported to Switch
It makes me wonder why they haven’t put it on The Switch with NES Online?
I really like Maniac Mansion for NES and Civilization 1 for SNES.
The adaptation is alright. If it wasn't for it I would have never looked for the computer games once I finally had a computer in the early 90s. I rented this thing so many times until i finally cleared it.
Hrm, well I suppose it's a matter of aesthetics. Considering the fact that it was a graphical port with a pixelated facelift.....well, I agree, tan does not look great. Given the hardware limitations, I'd think it more fair to compare it to Colonel's Bequest. As that game still looks bloody spectacular (when you're not looking at character portraits), the tanned lighting in this game does not age gracefully today, and infact it likely looked off, even back in the day. Though I guess it's a step up from pink and gray, an oddly common color scheme for EGA games from way back when.
As I'm really fond of pixelated art, I'm willing to fudge some of this port's credits. Does it size up to its original? Not remotely. But for what was available on the Nintendo, all throughout that thing's life cycle, this is a fairly impressive (if not a bit clunky and aesthetically offputting) title for the system.
You should check out the NES port of Leisure Suit Larry 1: ruclips.net/video/QuKbkl9X4kk/видео.html
Paw played through this a while back. Below is the playlist link, for anyone interested in seeing the full game in all its... glory?
ruclips.net/p/PLQG2ApQMLOtqLln3aSSuMJk12Hlm3P1uA
My pufferfish restaurant will be a world-wide success!
01:54 Well first, don't fire a third party company who know jack shit about the 6502 ASM registers of the NES, since it is extremly different what you can code on a C64 or such.
Secondly, Konami failed to inform the dev-team that instead of using a common mapper like MMC3 (which this game is running on), they should have used MMC5, which has extrenal RAM and nametable mirroring features which could be used for graphics.
Look up games like Metal Slader Glory, Just Breed, Laser Invasion, or Castlevania III.
The all use MMC5.
you gotta do maniac mansion for NES now