King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella (Sierra On-Line) - 1988
Series: Let's Adventure! A Journey into Adventure Games (1980-1999)This review is part of the Let's Adventure! series. See all reviewed games sorted by rating here.
- ← Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work (Sierra On-Line) - 1991
- King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella (Sierra On-Line) - 1988
Article 102 of 102 in this series.
King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella is a graphic adventure game developed by Sierra On-Line for the MS-DOS, Amiga, Apple II, Apple IIGS, and Atari ST computers and released in 1988. The player takes on the role of Princess Rosella, daughter of King Graham of Daventry (King’s Quest I and King’s Quest II) and the twin sister of Gwydion/Alexander (King’s Quest III), who must save her father and a good fairy and destroy an evil witch. Critically acclaimed, it was one of the first games for IBM PC compatibles to support a sound card.
King Graham and Queen Valanice were glad to have their children back. Graham thinks that it is time to pass onto them his old adventurers’ hat. When he throws it across the room, he suffers a heart attack and collapses on the floor, and he is carried off to bed. The only way that Graham’s health can be restored is by retrieving the magic fruit in the faraway land of Tamir. A beautiful fairy called Genesta offers Rosella the chance to be transported to the land, and find the fruit. But once she gets transported, she cannot be sent back unless she helps the fairy regain her talisman that was stolen by the evil witch, Lolotte.
King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella is the first game in the series to have a female protagonist. Rosella will meet characters that will either help or hinder her. The player moves Rosella around with arrow keys, and have her perform actions by typing commands. Unlike the previous King’s Quest games, which used the AGI engine, this installment uses the new SCI engine with more detailed graphics; the most visible effect is that the game is paused while the player is typing, giving unlimited time to complete even the longest commands. An AGI version of the game, however, was released as well.
Gameplay-wise, the game is similar to the first two installments of the series, with a large interconnected world open for exploration and no time limit imposed. The game is the first in the series to have a day and night cycle; certain actions can be performed only during a specific time.1
Before Rosella’s adventure can begin, you’ll need to contend with some good ol’ fashioned copy protection. I’m sure there’s a way to bypass this via ScummVM (maybe using the debug menu), but it’s really not hard to find a scanned copy of the manual nowadays.
After the intro plays, you’re dropped onto the shores of Tamir and are off on your adventure. Being the first Sierra game to be made with their new Sierra Creative Interpreter (SCI) game engine, the graphics popped at a stunning 320x200 resolution (unlike the preceding AGI engine’s 160x200). Interestingly enough, King’s Quest IV was actually released in AGI at the same time, likely to ensure gamers hungry for this title with older computers could still play it (see Making of KQ4: SCI vs. AGI).
King’s Quest IV takes place over a 24 hour period, and has a distinct day/night cycle. You can check the current in-game time in the haunted mansion at any point, but that’s about it. There are also certain puzzles you’ll only have a fixed amount of time to solve, and failing to do so can result in a game over.
Having played this game before I knew there was some element of timing to be aware of, but it’s less of an issue as the randomness of various events and character appearances.
Various characters randomly appear on certain screens, and if they’re missing, you have to come back and try again
As you explore Tamir you’ll run into a handful of creatures and characters on various screens that you’ll need to interact with. Most of these interactions occur randomly, so you may not realize there’s a character you need to talk to (or give something to) if you don’t happen to wander back and forth between screens multiple times.
You’ll likely stumble on everything naturally though as this game is one giant series of fetch quests, and the game world is actually quite small so you’ll visit most screens multiple times.
There are a lot of items to collect during this game
Tamir is a fairy tale inspired world, so the characters and creatures you meet will mostly be recognizable and not require much introduction. The downside is if you aren’t already familiar with the lore of the characters, it won’t be obvious what you need to do to progress - and the game doesn’t really give you many clues in these situations.
When you go to the Seven Dwarves tree house, it will be messy and trying to LOOK around either room will tell you that as well, but if you don’t know the story of Snow White you may not think to CLEAN HOUSE.
The same goes for the the golden ball and the frog. If you don’t know the story of the Frog Prince, why would you drop the golden ball in the pond as a way to lure the frog that happens to be wearing a crown?
When you find your way to the base of the cliffs, you’ll be picked up by some flying henchmen (flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz?) and you’ll meet Lolotte. She’s the one with the talisman you need, but before you can get close enough to her to do anything you need to prove you’re not a spy … by going on a series of fetch quests.
Lolotte wants the Goose that lays golden eggs, Pandora’s Box and a Unicorn. She’ll assign you these tasks one at a time, and once you get whatever she asked for and bring it back, she sends you back out for the next.
After retrieving all 3 she’ll tell you her son Igor is in love with you so your reward will be to marry him in the morning (lucky you). She’ll lock you in a room in the tower, but Igor will slip a key under the door so you can escape.
If you can slip by the guards and make it to Lolotte’s room, a quick shot in the heart from Cupid’s arrow should put an end to her reign, and you can grab the talisman for Genesta, make your way back to her island and close out this adventure.
The main issue I have with King’s Quest IV is that there are too many dead man walking situations you find yourself in. If you don’t find the bridle on the little island after escaping the whale, there’s no way to ever get back to it. When trying to retrieve the trinkets for the ghosts, the shovel can be used exactly 5 times (which is the number of ghosts you have to talk to to advance) before it breaks.
Also, once you have Cupid’s bow make sure you don’t shoot it more than once as you only have 2 arrows …
To save King Graham you’re supposed to find the magic fruit, which involves getting behind the waterfall (you’ll need to WEAR CROWN you got from the frog prince), get past a troll in the dark cave who appears randomly on each screen, not fall in the chasm in the dark then JUMP your way across a swamp without falling to your death.
This whole sequence can actually be missed/skipped, but if you do the game will end with you making it back home and King Graham passing away. I actually go this ending the first time because I went through the trouble of getting the fruit, then ate it right before saving Genesta (oops).
Graphically this game is a step up from King’s Quest III: To Heir Is Human, and the music is also not bad. I had to go back and replay some sections as I accidentally had the sound turned off and thought there was no music for most of the game.
It’s also not an overly difficult game if you’re familiar with the fairy tales and fables being referenced throughout - though navigating stairs is extremely treacherous. Make sure you save periodically as you climb any stairwell, as you will fall to your death more than once.
The End … but only if you remembered to pick up the magic fruit
I did have fun with this game, but it’s definitely not one of my favourites in the King’s Quest series. From what I can remember, the other game that sort of revolves around Rosella (King’s Quest VII) is also fairly weak, but I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
Sierra did a decent job for one of their last parser-driven games, but for a more modern take on this game I’d suggest you instead grab a copy of King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella Retold which remixes the game with Adventure Game Studio for a more modern point-and-click experience.
If you complete the game with a perfect score, you’ll be given a secret code that was part of a contest at the time the game was released. I tried to track down more details, but according to this reddit post the prize was a trip to England, which a couple from NYC ended up winning.
I tried to find more details about that contents but really couldn’t (let me know if you have a better source of info).
I’m sure this game has its fans, but I wouldn’t count myself amongst them. I did enjoy this article on “The Making of King’s Quest IV” though, so figure I’ll share that here as I wrap this up.
Game Information
| Game | King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella |
| Developer | Sierra On-Line |
| Publisher | Sierra On-Line |
| Release Date | September 1988 |
| Systems | DOS, Amiga, Apple IIGS, Atari ST |
| Game Engine | AGI or SCI |
My Playthrough
| How Long To Beat? | 5 hours |
| Version Played | DOS via ScummVM |
| Notes | Walkthrough, Manual |
Score
See here for a refresher on how we’re scoring these games.
| Graphics (15) | 8 |
| Sound (10) | 6 |
| Plot / Progression (25) | 14 |
| Characters / Development (15) | 8 |
| Gameplay / Experience (15) | 6 |
| Replayability (5) | 1 |
| Impact / Impression (10) | 3 |
| Bonus / Surprise (5) | 2 |
| 48% |
Gallery
Footnotes
Description from Moby Games ↩︎