King's Quest VIII: Mask of Eternity

King's Quest: Mask of Eternity, was released in 1998, it is the VIIIth and final computer adventure game in the famous King's Quest series. It is the only game in the series where the main character is not King Graham or a member of his family.

It is also the only game to not be given roman numerals in the title or the material packed in with it. Roberta Williams had said in interviews at the time that she no longer liked the idea of roman numerals or numbers designating sequels and wanted to distance the game from the use of them. She gave several reasons for her choice to remove the numbers, one being that numbers might imply to the fans that the sequel wasn't nearly as good as the games coming before it, as is often the case in movies(some may argue she had a self fullfilling prophecy). The second reason was to not alienate new players that may never have even heard of the series, so that they wouldn't have to feel as if they had to play previous games in the series to understande the current story.

The Story
Above the kingdom of Daventry is the Realm of the Sun, where magical beings called the Archons guard the Mask of Eternity. Their chief (Lucreto) turns evil and shatters the Mask into pieces. Daventry's inhabitants turn to stone and the land sickens.

Connor, a common tanner, is protected from the blight because a Mask shard fell on his feet. Connor is then appointed by a wizard to travel through different lands and collect all the Mask pieces, eventually arriving in the Realm of the Sun where he must repair the Mask and bring life back to his land.

A fan remake of King's Quest II shows a prophetic vision of the knighting of Connor by King Graham, but no reference to Connor appears in any of the official versions of the earlier King's Quest games.

Cat's Cute and Thorough Description
Popularly known as Mask of Eternity, or MoE, to the hard-core King's Quest fans, since this is far different from the other KQ games. Connor, a peasant, appears and is the main character. He travels through Daventry, the Dimension of Death, and about five other levels, killing all of the monsters who continually attack him, trying to find the missing pieces of the Mask of Eternity. Some bad guy (I don't remember his name) has destroyed the mask, which has turned everyone in Daventry (with the exception of Connor... did we ever figure out why?) into stone. Thus it's his job to restore the mask.

Long story short: he's successful and everyone in Daventry is thankful. And, if I remember correctly, Graham later knights him between MoE and KQ IX according to KQ2 (AGDI)...

Distance from the rest of the King's Quest series
King's Quest VIII was released to very poor reviews and poor sales. Many fans did not consider it a "real" King's Quest because of its 3D graphics and emphasis on Diablo-like violence. Many refer to it as King's Quest: Mask of Eternity(which was the title on the box) rather than King's Quest VIII(which is never listed with any of the game material itself).

This chapter of the series is apparently cosmologically inconsistent with the others. Conner visits Dimension of Death rather than the Land of the Dead shown in King's Quest VI. It should be noted though that Land of the dead is specifically a Green Isles legend according to Guidebook of the Land of the Green Isles and is the place where Green Islanders go when they die. It is not a legend in Daventry, and Derek Karlvaegen was the first person from Daventry to learn or write about it. In Daventry's legends the Dimension of Death is a kind of limbo ruled by Azriel where souls are judged before being moved to their rightful afterlife. The game implies that the afterlifes may include realms such as heaven with angels(Sylph), and realms such as hell with demons. Land of the Dead could easily be one of the afterlifes it leads to.