King's Quest V: Absence Makes The Heart Go Yonder! VGA

King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder was the most innovative King's Quest since King's Quest I: Quest For The Crown in 1984. Released in November of 1990, its graphics were amazing and it became the best-selling computer game in history at that time. It was later released as a "talkie" CD-ROM, in which Graham looks very young and well-built for his years.

The Story
The evil wizard Mordack, brother of Manannan, shrinks Daventry's castle and its inhabitants and imprisons them in a bottle. Mordack threatens to feed the royal family to Manannan, transformed into a cat during the events of KQIII, unless Prince Alexander can restore him to his human form. King Graham, out for a walk when Mordack shrank the castle, is the only one unaffected by the spell. With the help of the wizard Crispin and his familiar, Cedric the owl, Graham travels to Mordack's castle to free his family.

Cat's Cute and Rhorough Review
It has been over twenty years since Graham rescued the treasures of Daventry and became king. He takes a walk around his kingdom but does not realize that something terrible is amiss. The evil wizard Mordack appears on a hill overlooking the castle and starts casting a spell. All of a sudden, the castle and all the inhabitants disappear!

When Graham returns to the site of the castle, he can not believe his eyes! Suddenly an owl, Cedric, appears and tells Graham what happened. He then explains that Crispin, a powerful wizard, will be able to help him. Cedric uses fairy dust to help Graham to fly to the land of Serenia where Crispin resides.

Crispin greets Graham but is unable to tell him why Mordack took his family. However, he gives him magical white snake which would help him understand the speech of animals, a magic wand that has to be charged, and Cedric (whose comments turn out to be more annoying than useful).

Graham and Cedric start traveling the countryside. ("Graham, watch out for that snake!") They go into Serenia town but are not able to buy anything just yet. Graham understands that he has to have some kind of finances in order to get what he needs in order to cross the Great Mountains and continue to pursue Mordack. Graham ends up heading towards the Endless Desert, meets up with a group of bandits (who were sleeping), takes a staff from them, and journeys to a temple. There, he uses the staff ("Open, Sesame"...predictable, huh?) and enters. He quickly grabs some treasure and heads back towards Serenia. Pretty quickly, Graham comes to a fortune teller. He goes in and Madame Mushka shows him in a crystal ball his son, Alexander, clasped in the clawed hand of the wizard. He hears Mordack, "Look Manannan, look what I have for you. Take a good look at what you did to my brother, Alexander. Because of you he seems to spend the rest of his days as a cat, and there's nothing I can do about it! But you can do something about it, since you're the one that did this to him, you're the only one who can turn him back into a wizard, BACK into the wizard Manannan!" Alexander tries to deny his knowledge of magic, but Mordack does not believe him. He informs Alexander that soon he will start feeding the cat, beginning with his mother, Valanice. Graham and Cedric continue their journey and soon see a weeping Weeping Willow. Graham determines that they must cheer her up, but to do so, they must find her heart which the local witch had stolen. Graham enters the dark and gloomy forest alone (Cedric's such a coward). Soon he encounters the witch who stole the willow's heart. He gives her a magic bottle, which was inhabited by an evil genie. As soon as he is free, he makes the witch reside in the bottle and they disappear. Graham finds the home of the witch, where he finds a key. The key leads to a door in a tree which holds the heart. Graham, being gallant, takes the heart to the willow and she becomes human again. (Along the way, he met some elves, but that just makes this summary even longer).

Hmmm, how to keep this from getting too boring or too long?? Well, soon, Graham does some trading and gets a sled, a fur-lined cloak, and a cobbler's hammer. He also gets some mutton from an inn after he had been captured (and broken free with the help of a rat).

Graham and Cedric head towards the Great Mountains. They climb dangerous ice-covered cliffs, jump wide chasms, and slide down snowy hills. Eventually, Graham meets the Ice Queen, Icebella.

In order to save Cedric (who had been captured by Icebella's wolves), Graham plays a harp, which softens her heart, but in order for Cedric to be released, Graham must kill the Yeti. He heads to the cave and uses a custard pie thrown into the yeti's face to kill it. Then he takes a crystal from the cave.

Eventually, they come to the ocean and a boat. They use it to visit an island. Turns out, it's full of harpies! Again, Graham must rescue Cedric and uses the harp to entrance them. As they're fighting over the harp, Graham and a wounded Cedric escape and sail back to land.

Graham gives an old, almost deaf, hermit a conch shell and the hermit heals Cedric in no time at all. The hermit does not know how to get to Mordack's castle, but provides the aid of Pearl, a mermaid, to help them.

In no time it seems, Graham and Cedric are at Mordack's island. Cedric, the scaredy-owl that he is, stays outside, but Graham continues through a maze in the basement of the castle.

He comes to a pantry and enters into the kitchen. There he sees a slave girl cleaning the floors. While she is scared, Graham gives her a locket he found on his journey. The girl tells him that she is Princess Cassima of the Land of the Green Isles. Mordack kidnapped her when she refused his offer of marriage. After Graham tells his story of woe, Cassima informs him of where he can find is family... and not to let the cat see him! As Graham continues through the castle, he comes to Mordack's study (just off of Mordack's bedroom). There he finds a book on casting spells. He does not understand exactly what the spells are, but knows they will come in handy very soon. He does not realize how soon. He turns around and sees Mordack has fallen asleep on his bed. Graham walks in and takes Mordack's magic wand. He then walks into the laboratory and sees a huge piece of equipment on the balcony. For some reason, Graham decides to put each magic wand on either platter of the machine and starts it (by throwing a piece of moldy cheese into the machine!). The magic in Mordack's wand transfers to Crispin's wand... just seconds before Mordack wakes up and is in his laboratory! Even though Mordack's wand is useless, he is so powerful that he transforms himself into some type of flying scorpion. Graham recalls the spellbook he saw earlier and transforms himself into a tiger. Mordack then became a dragon, and Graham a bunny; Mordack a cobra, Graham a mongoose; and finally, Mordack a fiery ring, and Graham conjures up a rain cloud. He puts out the fire and Mordack is no more. While Graham has no idea how to restore his family and castle back to their original sizes, Crispin appears. With no trouble at all, he is able to correct what Mordack did. He returns Cassima to her homeland, but not before Alexander begs an invitation to visit her; Castle Daventry back to its original resting place; Cedric to full health; and Valanice, Graham, Alexander, and Rosella find themselves on a hill overlooking Daventry... home sweet home.

Hey, whatever happened to Alexander and Cassima??

dompasnotro

The Game
The owl Cedric accompanies Graham through the entire game to provide commentary and advice. He has to be rescued from danger at several points, but the owl rarely says or does anything useful. Cedric was unpopular with many gamers, and easter eggs in future Sierra games showed Cedric being harmed in some way. (In Space Quest 4, while playing the Ms. Astro Chicken game, you net 50 points for hitting Cedric. In Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist, you can see vultures eating Cedric.)

The game KQV is infamous for its large amount of dead ends and difficult puzzles. Late in the game Graham must navigate a frustrating maze where each room is rotated according to the character's perspective rather than being shown with north always at the top of the screen. There are several actions the player can take that render the game impossible to finish if they are not careful. This makes KQV difficult to complete without resorting to hints if the gamer does not save often or uses items carelessly.

The name of the wizard Manannan (named after a figure from Celtic mythology) is consistently spelled Mannanan in this game. This is likely a typo, albeit a pervasive one.