“The Perils of Rosella” is the fourth game in the popular “Kings Quest” series produced by Sierra. Incredibly popular during its time, the game opens with King Graham collapsing due to a mystery illness. His daughter Rosella is informed by the magic mirror that only a magical fruit in a far off land can save her father. Rosella is transported to the far off land, and thus begins her quest to save her father.
The graphics of the game are simple by modern standards, as are the sounds.
“The Perils of Rosella” is the fourth game in the popular “Kings Quest” series produced by Sierra. Incredibly popular during its time, the game opens with King Graham collapsing due to a mystery illness. His daughter Rosella is informed by the magic mirror that only a magical fruit in a far off land can save her father. Rosella is transported to the far off land, and thus begins her quest to save her father.
The graphics of the game are simple by modern standards, as are the sounds. But it was never for graphics and sounds effects that the Kings Quest series was popular. The series is considered a paradigm in the ‘questing’ genre. Game-play involves directing your character across a series of screens solving various puzzles along
the way. The puzzles themselves are incredibly imaginative, and this was one of the main attractions for gamers in the first place.
Kings Quest 4 was the last of in the Kings Quest series to require the player to direct the character around the screen using the keyboard and to type in commands manually using keys. The subsequent games in the series introduced a ‘point and click’ style of play that some gamers feel loses some of the magic inherent in the early Sierra titles. If nothing else, having to manually type in commands was also a great way for younger children to learn to type.
There is little to criticize within the game. One downside is the element of luck that is required to progress to later stages of the game. Some gamers might remember with mounting frustration the pain of continually swimming across screens of ocean trying to avoid the shark, searching for the whale that swallows Rosella and thus progresses the gamer to the next section of the game.
The difficulty level is decent. But the game is also old enough that numerous walk-throughs can be found on the web. In the tradition of the Kings Quest series, many of the puzzles reference various children’s stories or ancient mythologies. The Perils of Rosella is no exception, with appearances by the seven dwarves, a hen that lays golden eggs, and Pan and Cupid (confusingly) from Greek and Roman mythology respectively (the Cupid equivalent in Greek mythology is Eros).
Those who play this game and enjoy it should also consider trying out the other quest series in Sierra’s arsenal, the Police Quest and Space Quest series.
Kings Quest 4 is certainly one of the strongest games in a strong series, eclipsed perhaps only by Kings Quest 6.
