Legend of Kyrandia series
 

The Kyrandia games weren't my all time favourites but I still have fond memories of them. I never hear people talking about them as much as the more popular adventures, so I wonder if they have been forgotten. The three games in the series were quite different from each other, with the protagonists in each game being different and an imaginative, quirky and humourous world to interact with. I always felt they had more character than King's Quest and were great fun.

Do you like/hate Kyrandia? Have a favourite in the series?

I enjoyed all three but absolutely loved Hand of Fate. The opening sequence in the forest had a wonderful atmosphere and the puzzles were so involving while being accessible. If I had to show someone what adventure gaming was all about I'd probably get them to play through that part.

I have played Kryandia 1 & 2 and have 3, but not played it yet. Loved those two and like you, think 2 was the better one.

I am contemplating replaying them again since there seems to be nothing out recently that strikes my fancy - or abilities.

I always thought the series were somewhat underrated. People keep saying that it is "a mediocre clone of King's Quest", which I don't understand.

King's Quest is a fairy tale. Kyrandia is pure fantasy. While the first game has this "walking around an endless forrest" feel and gameplay, it's still different. The interface in very unique for an adventure game, as well as storytelling. I think that if they wanted to, they could make a long series just adding new locations and scenarios, like in RPG.

But they chose to follow an innovative path, with every new game being a completely new experience. I also enjoy kyrandian humour, not to mention some of the most beautiful scenes adventure genre has ever seen.

While I also love the 2nd part, I have a special place in my heart for the 1st one as it was the first adventure game I've ever played.

I think they are def. worth mentioning, they are among the best. Very nice graphics and good characters. The downside of the games are probably many of the puzzles. Like mixing a hundred different potions and such, not that funny

I liked the second one best, they learned a lot from the mistakes of the first (which was a good, but flawed game) and Zanthia was a much more likeable character than Brandon. the third game was an interesting twist as well, but while fun also suffered some some absurd logic failures and didn't completely explain all of the plot, for example

Spoiler:

why, if Malcolm was innocent of killing the king, he claimed credit for the murder, seized the kingdom and became a tyrant and why all of that was forgiven when he proved he didn't kill the king

first game had an occasionally annoying protagonist, a few too easy ways to die (eg: look at the wrong thing and get eaten by a swamp creature, nicely parodied in the second game though), one or two (I forget) annoying maze sections and at least one possible dead end, where the game would admittedly tell you "if you don't have this item from the last section you can't win the game, but oh by the way there's no way back there now so I hope you saved your game" which is at least better than some games which would just let you continue to bang your head into a wall until you resort to a walkthrough and find you missed an item ten gameplay hours ago that you can no longer obtain

overall though it's a fun and underrated series. the trilogy ties things up well enough (mostly) not to feel like it needs a sequel, but I certainly wouldn't have minded a fourth game

Me too, I feel we are in need of another real pure fantasy adventure game. Since 2000 games have turned towards realism (which I don't think is a bad thing) but I don't think there has been much real fantasy besides stuff like Longest Journey, Whispered World and a few others. I'm starting to crave that stuff again.

I disliked the fact that there were dead ends. Not sure if I ever played the first one but I played the second quite far if not through. I have the third one but I think I never finished it for some reason...

Should probably get back to those, they weren't bad at all, just for some reason didn't get to finish and I am bad at continuing after a break. I want to start from beginning as it's horrible to play a game if you've forgotten parts of the plot, and then often I don't feel like starting over (yet). I had TLJ hanging on the 3rd last chapter or something for like 10 years too ;), I think it went with Windows install or something... So in my case it doesn't mean the game would be bad, this just happens.

I've played all 3 games, had a little problem with scummvm and kyra.dat but eventually worked. My favorite is book 2, (had lots of laughs with Marco who was there to "help and save" Zenthia in numerous occasions. They should do a forth Kyrandia game with him!:P ), liked the third one also, while the first one was a little annoying, especially Brandon itself and the firebush cave and gems.

About Kyrandia, I just love the fact that are multiple possibilities, like in Book 2 you can make the crocodile either laugh or either cry to get the tears, or that there are more alternative path for Malcom , multiple ways of getting somewhere, like when you have to get to the Isle of cats, you can either get a potion, or with the circus, I guess there are about 5 ways to get there!
I wish there were more games like that!

Anyway, they are enjoyable and fun, had lots of laughs and definitely worth playing them all !:D

I played the game with Zanthia long ago, with my little niece. I was happy to have found a game with a female hero than. Now female heros are common, but back then it was hard to find a game like this.
My favourite game is the third one. I loved beeing bad like Malcolm. And to see his wicked grin. For me it was a new experience to be the bad one in a game.
Old times!

I played all of them back in the day and loved them, but I was especially fond of (no surprise here) HOF. I remember that upon finishing it I thought to myself - "this is the best game I have ever played". Years after I can safely say I was wrong because multiple replays of all the classic lucasarts games gave me some perspective, but I still think that HOF was an amazing accomplishment. I was actually a little disappointed at the third one and waited years for a fourth one. I wonder what the odds are.

Ah, The Legend of Kyrandia trilogy. Great games. My favorite was the 2nd one.
It's been ages since I played them though, and I think I've never finished Malcolm's Revenge.
It seemed too complicated and rather unintuitive with all the mood choices.

I personally love the Kyrandia series. I started with Kyrandia 2, and then did my best to find the other two. And it was totally worth it. While they are each quite different, they are all great in their own way. And by playing all three of them you eventually get the complete story.

Also, Zanthia and Malcolm are two of my favourite characters. Brandon is okay, but he's a bit too...noble. That's not bad as such, but you get bored of it. That's what I disliked about the King's Quest games a bit. Sometimes you might want to hear a bit of humour from your character. I know it can be hard to do, especially if your character is overall not the type to crack jokes or make snarky commentary. But still, it gets tedious.

Then again, Zanthia doesn't try to be humorous. She's more of the: "Don't mess with me" type of character. But that's also much better than the "I'm as funny as a brick" type of character that tend to weigh down King's Quest. (The last real King's Quest with Rosella, the one in cartoon graphics finally realised that. But I remember Rosella being not much better in the older one featuring her.).

Anyway, I loved the Kyrandia series, like I said. It was really great.

Hmmm...I think I have to replay them now. ^_^




You are right of course. And they did a great job with her, having an actually independent character instead of just being a not really defined character with boobs instead of dangly bits between the legs. (I'm looking at you, King's Quest series. Like I said, Rosella wasn't much different from her father and brother when you played them. Correct me if I'm wrong, please. But that's really how I remember them. Which I guess shows that if they had differences, they weren't quite defined enough to stick in my mind. Quite sad, actually, because the King's Quest series as such was not really bad.).

Aslo, this reminded me of an awful walkthrough I found back when first playing Kyrandia 2. The writer of said walkthrough made no secret of the fact that he was not delighted about having to play a Girl. I have no problem with people preferring to play their own gender in a game, but it's not as if you're going to die from it when you play the other side once or twice - it certainly didn't do me any harm controlling Brandon, Guybrush, Malcolm, Rincewind, etc.. Though I think I remember him eventually gaining some respect for Zanthia's abilities, he still seemed to consider he mostly as a piece of flesh, or some kind of object. A real chauvinist, really.





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I never understood that kind of mentality. if we can only play games where the character is like ourselves then we're pretty limited. I was planning to buy Mass Effect 3 but maybe I should've joined NASA before playing the first two? :P

personally I like playing different characters. Zanthia, April Ryan, Gabriel Knight, Guybrush Threepwood... none of them are really like me, but that's part of the appeal. I can be myself in real life, games are for being somebody else

and incidentally Jazhara7 what's your avatar from? it looks familiar but I can't place it... apologies if I've already asked before, I have an awful memory

HA! yeah me too... I loved & finished the first 2 games but only got like
half way through the 3rd. I was not a fan of Malcolm's voice... very annoying.
For some reason I always remembered the bit "Hey Mime nobodies watching..."
then you get killed by an imaginary arrow that the mime acted out....... HA!

I'm one of the few who prefer the first game, and not so much the sequels. The first one has a wonderful fairy-tale/fantasy atmosphere and Malcolm is a fantastic villain. I realise that Brandon isn't a very interesting character, but he fits into the setting being a classic fairy-tale hero. The music is great, too. Puzzles are tedious, but the rest of the series suffers from the same problem. The two last games have a very different style - some people say unique but I'd just call them weird. :P

I agree with you on the first part. The first time I played Kyrandia 1 was when I was very young, and with my dad doing most of the thinking. I have no memories in which I found the puzzles illogical back then (I can't say I have a very accurate and complete memory from that time though). But when I played it again I asked myself multiple times how on earth I would ever have found it out if I hadn't played it before.

I didn't really have that with Kyrandia 2. I think I played that for the first time a few years at most after Kyrandia 1, again with my dad, and I remember that we got through the game pretty easily together, and also when replaying I didn't have those 'I'll do this because I remember that was the solution but I have no idea how I would have known otherwise' moments.

I also think the pacing was a bit higher in 2, with a lot less of those endless forests, with a lot more to see in each scene, so it didn't feel like I was wasndering aimlessly to see if I hadn't missed anything in one of those many forest scenes.

Hmm...I can see how 3 has a completely different style, but I don't see that much difference between 1 and 2. Or it must be because of the difference I mentioned before. Kyrandia 1 definately has its charms, with the endless world you roam in, and a really nice maze (tedious maybe, but coming out safely always gave a feeling of accomplishment), but I think that 2 played a lot easier and felt a lot more like a standard adventure to me. Maybe that would even make Kyrandia 2 less unique, although it does have some unique gameplay elements. On the other hand, Kyrandia 1 also had those unique gameplay elements...

I think books 2 and 3 have more in common than the first two. But now that you bring it up like this, I'm having trouble putting my finger on what exactly makes me feel that way. The first one feels very much like a classic fantasy adventure, whereas the sequels bring a lot more random stuff and unexplained quirks to the world. I vaguely remember a completely nonsensical trip to the centre of the world (in book 2) for no particular reason other than that the game wanted you to. I may be wrong about this though, since it's been many years since I played.

To me, the two later parts felt more like a string of loosely connected weird episodes than a continuous fantasy story. But as I said, I'm having a bit of a hard time arguing for this since my memory of Zanthia's and Malcolm's adventures is so hazy.

Actually, there was a reason for it, the main quest in the game is to go there and find the solution for the main problem.

Spoiler:

There is however that plot twist that when you get there you find out that the anchor stone isn't what you are looking for/will not solve the problem.

So yeah, I can see how you can remember it as nonsensical (and, I agree, it is a bit roadblock-ish), but it wasn't for no reason.

I'm not sure whether to agree with what you say about 2 and 3 being less of a contiunuous story...I have only played 3 for about half of the game, and I think I agree with you on that one. It feels a lot more incoherent, and it never really appealed to me enough to continue playing. I usually like playing the bad guy, but the puzzles just made it too annoying.

The second one...I think I can see why you feel about that, and I think it has something to do with the main goal of the game being to simple and over-arching: save Kyrandia. The game just exists of finding the way to do that, to get where you want to get the stuff you need to do that etc. There are many different locations and events to finally get you from a (beginning of the game, oh noes Kyrandia is disappearing) to b (the end, where you reached the goal). I agee that some locations, puzzles etc. could easily be considered to just have been put in there as roadblocks, but on the other hand, if you would leave out all you could consider a roadblock, I think there wouldn't be much of a game left. (Of course this would lead to the discussion whether not every adventure is a set of roadblocks, but I'll stay out of that for now). Lots of weird events strung together, yes, but also (in my view) still part of the main quest.

I do see now how you feel book 1 is more continuous, with the largely being connected it does feel more like you stay in one world, one story. (Sorry, I can't put it into words very well at the moment). You are not dropped into different scenes all the time, as happens in book 2. Still, that being dropped somewhere new all the time gave the game that high-paced feeling, which isn't necessary a bad thing. Especially when you are in a race against time.

While the Legend of Kyrandia games aren't really my cup of tea, I must say that the first installment has a special place in my heart as being one of the few other video games in which the talent of Joseph 'Kane' Kucan can be experienced via the main character.

http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/1...ndon_thumb.jpg

http://www.ryansgoblog.com/images/ka...nd_conquer.jpg

I could never get past that coloured gem puzzle in LoK1. Seriously, how are we supposed to know the order to put the gems on the altar when the game doesn't tell us and it is randomised each time? I worked it out only by trial and error, saving and restoring until I got to the 4th gem where none of them fit. They all burned up when I put them there, so the puzzle was impossible to pass.