REVIEW – Almost four and a half months passed by after the first King’s Quest chapter to see the second one. This time around, Graham – as a King – will have to make more serious decisions. Even lives can be at stake! His decisions will change who will help us escape from captivity.

I’m not going to exaggerate, but I think Sierra and The Odd Gentlemen made us wait until the middle of December for a good reason. Although you can complete the second chapter in around two hours with some logic, for that, you have to think a lot and set up a proper order to help everyone survive (?) the Goblin-captivity.

Food chain

Graham is freshly crowned, and he almost immediately gets kidnapped along with the entire Daventry population. Amaya, the bakers, the Hobblepots and even Mr. Fancycakes will have a health bar. It gets lowered by one every day. We get a piece of meat each day and sometimes, we have to eat it ourselves to get strength. Force is needed to open certain doors and get some items.

To progress with the escape route of the characters (I recommend the Hobblepots and hand them the frog to not waste it), it’s necessary to have that character’s health at max to give us the final item. The bakers would use their culinary skills, the Hobblepots with some magic and a bomb while Amaya would use brute force to get out. Good luck. We have to decide what to buy from that few coins, what food do we give to whom and what item gets used where.

Changes

Although Graham now has a crown, his humor and kindness are still the same. But to see how the storyline takes a sharp twist can be taken as a taste of things to come: as a King, some harsh decisions have to be made, and lives can depend on them! Or maybe not…?
Still, I took a break from the game after an hour, and I was somewhat disappointed to see that the percentage was at „60” when I loaded my save of chapter two.

What the hell? I completed the chapter in little more than eighty minutes! Wow. The length is one of the biggest issues of the second episode. While the first one could easily take 4-5 hours to complete it in a blind run and give some replayability for some decision changing moments, Rubble Without a Cause creates a bit of disappointment, especially seeing how it took over four months to be completed.

There are other issues, too – I’m going to say that a spoiler is coming now. Skip this paragraph. So I understand that King Graham has to be depicted as a hero, but the way that The Odd Gentlemen has pulled it off is slightly annoying. The food issue is not a problem if you know what I mean. It took me some time to restart the game multiple times to keep everyone alive, but at least, I had to skip dialogues – this is an excellent addition, please save it in for later installments!

It kept the style, but it’s falling back

At least, the dialogues’ quality is still very high (and yes, that means King Graham has a few puns) and the background music is still very highly regarded in my eyes. The Odd Gentlemen can’t go wrong with this aspect, but I’m sad to say that they messed up almost every other thing for the second chapter after A Knight To Remember. Reminder: if you are a PS Plus subscriber, you can get that for free – play THAT episode and skip out on this one… I’m serious.

The length of this episode, the non-existing punishment in our decisions will make our escape bittersweet. The cave system looks a little subpar graphics wise, but it still looks charming.

Not recommended

It’s a short episode that doesn’t punish you. It has meh graphics, and it lacks character development between Graham and the villagers. After the first episode, I hoped that The Odd Gentlemen can raise to the standards of Telltale and Dontnod, but for that, they have to do something braver. This is not the King you are looking for. Sadly.

-V-

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Publisher: Sierra

Developer: The Odd Gentlemen

Genre: Episodic, adventure game

Release date: 15 December 2015 (PS4, PS3)