History VideoGame / KingsQuest2015

* {{Squee}}: Gwendolyn literally does this in Chapter 1 when Graham and Achaka discover the dragon can breathe fire. Old Graham remarks, "We didn't share your excitement."

* TastesLikeDiabetes: InUniverse. In Chapter 2, Amaya takes Graham's advice and tries to sweet talk a stone goblin guard into letting her out, even going as far as hugging him. She doesn't enjoy it one bit and proceeds to knock him out.
** She later gets involved with [[spoiler: Whisper]], and finds it really difficult to say anything positive about it. Not because there isn't anything positive (they're quite happy together!), but because she just ''really doesn't like'' to talk about her feelings.

* WellExcuseMePrincess: Graham literally says this line, (in the same way as from [[WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfZelda the Zelda cartoon]]), if he lets Neese fall through thorn bushes and she complains at the end.

** Downplayed in Chapter 2. There's really only three ways to die, and easily avoidable, too (deathly by rat, death by falling off stalagmite pillars, and death by food poisoning). There were other planned deaths but were cut; material exists in game's transcripts.

* DidntThinkThisThrough: In "Once Upon A Climb," Graham runs off to a tower to find his one true love. Once he gets to the top, the princesses imprisoned therein ask if he's got any rope. He was actually hoping for RapunzelHair.

* ArcWelding: Chapter 3 seems to be doing this for ''King's Quest I, II, III,'' and ''V''. Fans have been doing this for a while, but this is the first mention of any of the game villains really knowing each other short of Mordack in ''V'', and Alhazred in ''VI'' (or Hagatha being included as their sister in ''King's Questions'' and ''King's Quest Companion'').

* CliffHanger: Gwendolyn and Gart are both called by a guard to their grandfather's side at the end of Chapter 1.

** Discussed in-universe when Young Graham discovers the entrance to the Goblin Cave behind the Merchant of Miracle's wagon when the wagon is being repaired. Kidnapped King Graham rides down this river on a raft with two goblins.

* JustifiedExtraLives: Being a Sierra game (kinda), there are plenty of ways to die, but every time it cuts back to a silhouette of old King Graham and Gwendolyn, usually with Graham saying something like, "Of course, if I did ''that'', I wouldn't be telling you this story!" or Gwendolyn complaining, "Grandpa, you're telling the story wrong!" followed by a cut back to right before the death. Later episodes usually just have old Graham saying a terrible pun in response to the death.

* DarkerAndEdgier: The series as a whole zigzags relative to the original seven games, too. The original game was more serious but light-hearted, whereas this new series has a darker and more somber plot, but also takes things in more silly and comical directions (neurotic characters, gags and punning). Graham is strong, determined, emotionally stable and stoic in the original series, where this Graham is known to geek out over his choco-chip cookies or popcorn-flavored jellybeans even in old age.

** This is similarly seen in Chapter 3, if you use the pictures on the magic canvas to see younger versions of Brambles, Amaya, and Chester. Brambles was a punk (Strength), Amaya was a nerd (Wits), and Chester was TheCasanova (Compassion).

* EpicFail: In Chapter 3, Graham learns from the magic mirror that his future wife is locked up in a tower. With only a ring, he goes off on a quest. He finds two princesses at the top and immediately proposes to one of them. She immediately rejects him. He goes after the other one and she shoots him down, pointing out she was standing ''right there'' when he proposed the first time.

** Some of the choices a player makes in Chapter 2 includes 'never-ending beef stew' (''[=KQ1=]''), and "Smooth rounded stone of an unusual color soup" (''[=KQ3=]''), Roast fowl with cactus juice (''[=KQ3=]'').

* {{Retreaux}}: King Graham's hallucinations in Chapter 5 are based on the original Sierra games, starting with an AGI rendition of the castle similar to ''King's Quest I''. The score bar and text parser are lovingly recreated and the only thing you can hear is the hum of an old computer.

* TakeThatUs: While it has been many years, and it's not quite the same staff, Chapter 3's intro gives a short cameo to Cedric the owl from ''[=KQ5=]''. If you repeatedly try to ignore him being kidnapped and just try to walk on by, King Graham will go on a rant about how he was glad the annoying owl was dead. Keep going one more time and the infamous "Watch out! A poisonous snake!/A Poisonous Snake!" (sic) line returns from Gwendolyn, and Graham corrects her that snakes are venomous, not poisonous. The achievement/trophy image is based on the closeup talk box of the snake in ''[=KQ5=]''.
** Many of the comments from Alexander in Chapter 4 seem to reflect typical adventure game tropes, or complaints from fans about the gameplay.

** Subverted. Graham has a last name, and repeatedly tries to give it in Chapter 1, but can never get past "Cr-".

* RealityEnsues: In Chapter 3, Graham learns from the magic mirror that his future wife is locked up in a tower. With only a ring, he goes off on a quest. He finds two princesses at the top and immediately proposes to one of them. She immediately rejects him. He goes after the other one and she shoots him down, pointing out she was standing ''right there'' when he proposed the first time.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: One of the phrases Old Graham will say if you "die" climbing the tower is "Falls to the walls!"

* {{Adorkable}}:
** Young Graham is this in spades. Several times, he will excitedly release a stream of ideas, bouncing all around the scenery. He tries to control this after being crowned king, but still has one outburst.
** Princess Neese, who is practically a DistaffCounterpart to teenage Graham.

In 2015, Sierra[[note]]A new Sierra banner created by Activision, who holds the rights to the original Sierra Entertainment's stuff[[/note]] published a new game in the long running ''VideoGame/KingsQuest'' series as a five-part episodic game. Simply called ''King's Quest'' and developed by "The Odd Gentlemen", the game recounts King Graham's adventuring career in the form of stories told to his granddaughter Gwendolyn. The games are a reimagining/reboot of the series, with each chapter taking place in between the original games. While the versions of events from original games canonically happened in the new series, just how these events took place may differ, and may differ quite a bit (see Chapter 3). This series represents its own 'new canon' ("reboot canon'), but is very different than the original 'canon'[[note]]The official HandWave is that the original games represent the "fairy tale" telling, with fantastic records of heroism and good always triumphing over evil, whereas this series is the "truth behind the legend", showing either what actually happened, or adding details to the legend that were otherwise missing[[/note]]. There are three main play styles for Graham which emphasize either bravery, wisdom, or compassion, and which style the player chooses may alter events and dialogue.

The epilogue, which is available to those who purchased the Complete Collection, was released on December 20, 2016. Gwendolyn takes over for her grandfather as the protagonist, and the player guides her on her first adventure - tracking the fabled yarblesnoofs in order to earn a Wedzel Wolf patch.

** Subverted in Chapter 2. Graham suggests that legends, myths, and fairy tales are all superstitions which are never true. He says that dreams rarely play out like they do in the stories and are far more complicated. Goblins literally worship and enjoy the classic fairy tales as we know them, but these are all suggested to be 'fiction' stories (so far in the series, no actual cookie-cutter 'fairy tale' characters, events or places have appeared as they do in the original series).

** Chapter 3 reinforces the notion that the events of ''[=KQ2=]'' as players remember them are only legend and fairy tale, and that the real story of Graham's meeting with Valanice in Hagatha's tower is far more complicated[[note]]In other words, it was ''not'' love at first sight, and also no one stays in a tower because they want to: Valanice is stuck in the tower through magical means, and getting ''into'' the tower is much easier than finding out how to get ''out'' of the tower[[/note]]. This is literally a subversion of ''King's Quest'''s general FracturedFairyTale approach. The reimagined scenario is similar to the conceit behind the story in ''Film/{{Maleficent}}'', which tells the viewer that the stories they heard is not what happened in actuality.

* ArtShift: In Chapter 5, [[spoiler:Graham has two dreams. The first one is in the style of the first two ''King's Quest'' games and the second one is in the style of the fifth and sixth ''King's Quest'' games.]]

** The main ending is this. [[spoiler: On the one hand, Graham indeed dies at the end. On the other, he lived a good, long life, created a legacy, ensured the survival of his kingdom, found a worthy heir to continue looking after everything, and spends his last waking moments in the presence of family as he hears his story being recited back to him.]] Meanwhile, Gwendolyn sees adventure in her future, and eagerly grabs her grandfather's old cap to seek it.

*** "A Knight To Remember" ends with Graham winning the tournament and getting his initiation into the Knighthood (and apparently a trophy, according to Chapter 4), but [[spoiler:Manny gets away in the end and Achaka dies no matter what.]]

*** "Snow Place Like Home" ends with Graham and Alexander patching up their relationship and the family being reunited and strong, but [[spoiler:the consequence of your choice of wife in Chapter 3 comes back to bite you when it's revealed that the one you didn't pick has now turned into Queen Icebella... and just when it seems like things will be okay as she's redeemed, Manny pounces on her and she shatters and dies instantly.]]
* BlackAndWhiteMorality: Increasingly subverted as the series continues. With one exception, every antagonist in the game is given realistic motivations and desires, and none of them are explicitly ''evil''. Chapter 2 also deals with the fact that, no matter how hard you try, it's not always possible to rescue everyone[[note]]The ''best'' ending to the chapter still has [[spoiler: Mr. Fancycakes]] "killed"[[/note]], forcing Graham to realize that being a king isn't about doing only good, but occasionally doing the least amount of bad. The only character that's unrepentantly evil is [[spoiler: Manannan]], and even he's given a motivation for it: [[spoiler: he can't handle the fact that Graham bested him in the Knight Trials and eventually became King, because Manny's ego is too fragile to accept it]].

** At one point, Graham needs to set a badger on some squirrels to solve a puzzle. When Gwendolyn asks if the squirrels will remember that, Graham says they most certainly will. [[KillerRabbit They do.]] This is actually a reference to the [=TellTale=] "choice system," in which characters remember a choice that the player makes. There are two of these references in the game, the other being the rescue or kidnapping of the Merchant of Miracles, to which Graham replies that the merchant likely won't remember it.[[note]]The end of game image doesn't show whether you saved him or not, suggesting that there truly isn't a consequence to this decision[[/note]]. [[spoiler: He actually ''does'' remember it in Chapter 2. But except for some minor changed dialogue, and a whole chunk of optional dialogue choices, this doesn't have an effect on puzzle solving.]]

** Alternatively Graham is portrayed as an UnreliableNarrator and maybe lying, embellishing, telling tall tales in his old age, using "creative licensing", and even being influenced to some degree by Gwendolyn.

** [[spoiler: There's also a strong implication that Graham is just dying of old age, not any kind of magical elixir of Samhain as shown in the last episode, and that the story was concocted only so that he could have "one last adventure"... in Gwen's eyes.]]

** Graham lets out one when [[spoiler: he sees Achaka be killed by the dragon.]]

** A particularly clever one is used in Chapter 5 both for tragedy and as a sort of closing comment on the game's meta-narrative. Throughout the game, on a few occasions, when the player's gotten Graham "killed", Old Graham, telling the story, comments something to the effect of "Of course, that didn't really happen - I'm alive now." In Chapter 5, [[spoiler: when Gwendolyn attempts to tell the story so that he doesn't have to sacrifice himself to save everyone, he stops her, mirroring those humorous statements in a heartbreaking way by essentially telling her, "Of course, that didn't really happen - I'm dying now."]]

* CanonDiscontinuity: ''VideoGame/KingsQuest2015'' is an AlternateContinuity which features stories set between the main entries of the original series, and is not intended to mesh with the original series. It retells a number of the original games stories.

** Chapter 3 completely replaces ''King's Quest II'', with Graham suggesting the original story is a fabrication.

* CerebusRetcon: The dragon in the first ''King's Quest'' was just another minor obstacle, getting killed by it was (like [[TheManyDeathsOfYou everything else]]) PlayedForLaughs, and nothing much was made of the choice to deal with it lethally or non-lethally other than the non-lethal version giving more points. The whole scenario gets an AdaptationExpansion in this game and [[spoiler: the dragon ends up killing a knight Graham befriended, and [[MyGreatestFailure it's played very seriously.]] If you choose to 'blind' the dragon in the prologue, Graham is implied to [[{{Revenge}} have a very personal reason for doing it]], while by 'freeing' it Graham "forgives it for its terrible past", or he can simply distract it with thoughts of food.]]
** Subeverted by later chapters as Graham goes off track from the 'story of dragons' he promised in the first chapter as the 'rippling consequences' form his 'choice' with the dragon simply disappear following chapter 3. While vaguely hinted in the end of Chapter 5, and the epilogue, the fate of Hornswoggle is never revealed.
* ChaosArchitecture: The game world and the location of places has very little to do with the original series' version of Daventry (though many areas seem to be influenced or based on areas seen in ''King's Quest I''). Some of this has to do with the fact that the point of view of the directions changes between screens. But even still, trying to figure where landmarks are located in relationship to each other is a challenge. Daventry Castle seems to lie far to the east, and the Tournament Theatre seems to lie to the south east of the town; however, a sign states that it lies to the 'west' of the town. A hill overlooks castle Daventry much like as in ''[=KQ5=]'', but the castle itself looks different as in a different angle (and very different architecture) than the one in previous games. However, Serenia is still located roughly north of Daventry. Chapter 2 suggests that Chapter 1 and 2 take place in an area of Daventry known as the 'Northwestern region,' which apparently is part of two separate Daventries in the same way Kolyma is divided into Eastern and Western lands see Chapter 3. The Enchanted Isles is completely reimagined, as are Kolyma, Tanalore, and Avalon, and they have very little to do with the geography in previous games and books other than Kolyma/Enchanted Isles lies south of Daventry. The tower is initially in Kolyma and not a strange island. Tanalore is completely out of context as it's been demoted from its own continent into a region on the same continent as Daventry to the south nearest the Enchanted Isles. Llewdor, Eldritch, and Serenia all appear to be roughly close to each other bordering the Infinite Desert (replacing the Endless Desert, Great Western Desert/Medusa Desert, and The Desert from the original games.

* ContinuityNod: These are not exactly referenced to continuity but more cameos, name drops, nods, and homages to the series IP as a whole, since many of the references are out of context or down right go against continuity of the original series.
** Lots of name drops and nods to material from the classic games, and even the The King's Quest Companions these are often largely out of context of their original source material however, or in some cases anachronistic (mentioned before the character would even know about it), but are thrown in as fun references for old time fans who might be keeping track (examples include Serenia, Eldritch, Tanalore, Avalon, Llewdor and Great Mountains, as well as many of the spells from ''[=KQ3=]''). Some of these nods include 'alternate' visual adaptations of the box art from the original series (''[=KQ6=], [=KQ4=]'', and the 2006 ''KQ'' collection) which give Alexander a different and more cartoony appearance, including a goatee, and reinterpreted outfit, place Rosella riding on a horse (rather than a unicorn, not that she ever rode the unicorn in the actual story), and a much older Graham fighting a dragon (in the original artwork it shows a much younger Graham, and was apparently intended originally as a reinterpretation of the ''[=KQ1=]'' dragon encounter), or the re-imagined appearance of the magic treasures (and the importance the magic mirror over the others, and the order they were collected).
** Werebears (''[=KQ7=]''), Yeti (''[=KQ3=]/[=KQ5=]''), Minotaurs (''[=KQ6=]''), Crystal Dragons (''[=KQ7=]/Mask of Eternity''), Spriggans (''Mask of Eternity''), Ice orcs (''Mask of Eternity''), and magic elves (''[=KQ1=]/[=KQ5=]'') all get referenced once in the game. Even goblins might be a reference to creatures from ''Mask of Eternity''. There also appears to be a couple of references which may be a nod to dragon toads (''[=KQ7=]''), hydras (''Mask of Eternity''), and bat mantas (''Mask of Eternity''). Something like a Bat Manta appears in Chapter 2. Ice orcs are also mentioned again in Chapter 2. Basilisks (''Mask of Eternity''), Griffins (''Mask of Eternity'''s Gryphs), and serpent lords (''[=KQ5=]'') are mentioned.

** When asking about the magic potion brewing in the potion shop, two of his suggestions are "the ability to understand the speech of animals" and "[giving] wings like an eagle... or a fly". These are both spells that can be cast in the third game. In the second chapter, the list continues as Graham asks if the potion teleports people at random, creates a storm that follows them, or turns them into cats.

** The layout of Daventry Castle's interior from the start of Chapter 2 is identical to its layout from King's Quest 1 and 3, although there are more embellishments.
** Graham tries to give his last name, but never gets past "Cr-". It's unknown if his last name is still supposed to be "Cracker," but this is likely a reference, at least. An Easter egg in ''[=KQ2=]'' and another in ''Quest for Glory 1'' actually does give him the last name Cracker. Later editions of ''King's Quest Companion'' flat out call him Graham Cracker in one section, discussing a potential death at the hands of the witch in ''[=KQ1=]'' remake.

** Alexander does one accidentally in one of optional dialogues early in Chapter 4. Graham later tries to encourage him, even after he said that he doesn't really like puns, but it fails horribly. Graham even notes that:

** If the player fails the Battle of Wits at the end of the game, Larry and Kyle will come to Graham's aid, accompanied by the "Coming to help King Graham" song from ''VideoGame/KingsQuestVAbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder''.

* {{Squee}}: Gwendolyn does this in Chapter 1 when Graham and Achaka discover the dragon can breathe fire. Old Graham remarks, "We didn't share your excitement."