The game I was most reminded of playing King’s Quest II was Dragon Quest II, which is not certainly not a compliment but not quite the condemnation that it might sound like either, given my vocal dislike of that game. But the design similarities are undeniable to me. Both games are kind of copy pasting the same elements that made their predecessors so successful but with what feels to me like a lot less tact. I’ll drop this premise now but just imagine before every example I list here that I start the sentence with “Like Dragon Quest 2,” okay? Okay sick.

So we’re kind of playing the hits on this one: three macguffins necessary to complete the quest, a series of classic fairy tales to romp through, one or two absolutely twisted puzzles designed to turn you into the joker, and a playful, idiosyncratic sense of humor and design that mostly serves the game pretty well.

But there’s also a listlessness here, a much lesser sense of focus to all of it. The world is bigger but not in a way that feels very carefully designed, and there’s a really important piece of this scenario that (infamously, I’ve come to learn) punishes you for exploring. Important characters and locations seem strewn about the map randomly, the larger size makes getting around more of a pain to get around when you do have an inkling of where you’re going, and in general I felt like I was spending a lot more of my play time wandering around until I found two things to bash together as a puzzle solution.

But! Part of Just Doing It All Again But A Little Bit Worse means you’re still getting all the good parts too, and luckily all the parts that got worse in this game were the parts where you play it. The parts where you look at it and read it are even better than before. The game’s wit and comedy have been further refined. Instead of being more of a fun flourish on top of a relatively straightforward fantasy adventure, the comedy is more front and center now and I’m excited to see these narratives continue to develop. This game has honest to god cutscenes in it! Cool shit! Gaming history rules. The art is also pumped up impressively. The ending sequence especially was an unexpected visual treat. The game is full of fun weird shit (Dracula is here and in an uncharacteristic move you DO kill him and the animation is one of the funniest I’ve ever seen in a game, Graham stabbing him with a stake over and over again at like super speed), pushing the borders of the fairy tale fantasy aesthetic a lot further than the first one (again, Dracula) and all of these things lead to some really fun stuff despite the general milieu of actually playing the game in the moment to moment. A fun piece of writing is always around the corner, usually even when you fail.

Fucking Dracula’s here dude idk what else there is to say.