King's Quest 1: Quest for the Crown has a charm to it that is characteristic of the very early games in this series. The game relies heavily on strategy and thinking in order to solve puzzles and overcome certain situations. I really like the multiple solutions aspect to this game because you have more options to solve a situation. For example, you can either kill an evil creature or figure out some clever way to trick it. Therefore, violence is not always the answer; and in many cases, it is the less desired one. Also, you have many choices on how to use the items that you find. If you did not find an item in this game, or use an item unwisely, you probably will not get completely stuck. King's Quest 1 provides so many alternatives that even if you could not solve a certain puzzle, you probably can still finish the game. This is not so for some of the later games, in which getting completely stuck is extremely common.

The superb use of fairy tale, mythical creatures, and other legends really make this game worthwhile. To climb a beanstalk in the same lands as the leprechauns or the gingerbread house is such a treat due to the clever ways these otherwise different stories are beautifully inter-twined.

If it is a cute, woven storyline that you desire, then this is a great classic game to play. The only slight setback to it is the fact that it is text-driven (if you are the type who prefers using the mouse instead). You will have to type in commands in order to perform tasks, but the vocabulary base in this game is greatly expanded over Roberta Williams' earlier games. Therefore, hunting for that certain command word is much easier now. In the remake, you are aided by the addition of the mouse cursor and stereo soundtrack (not found in the original version). The graphics are a bit less sophisticated than today's standards of graphics, but keep in mind that the original was made around 1984 and the remake in 1990. For their time, these games were the fore-runners in graphical gaming technologies. 4 out of 6 stars. -- Kimmie