You have absolutely no idea how long I've been waiting to do this one. At 43 parts, this entry in this long-running, popular series became not only the biggest and grandest adventure to date, but in the history of the entire series as well.
Unlike the other games, this one was co-written by Roberta Williams and Jane Jensen, who wrote the Gabriel Knight series. As a result, the game's story is better than that of the fifth. Jensen also wrote the guidebook.
The game no longer asks if this is your first time playing, and instead just gives you the option of either playing the opening which then leads to playing the game, restoring your game or just going straight to the beginning without the intro...all from the main menu! About time!
There is speech in the CD-ROM version of the game, and compared to the fifth game, the speech audio is a vast improvement over the original. The voice actors are hired from outside of Sierra and really sound motivated, and aren't simply Sierra staff just reading lines off of a sheet of paper.
The sixth game begins with Prince Alexander (voiced by Robbie Benson) thinking about Princess Cassima of the Green Isles, both of whom met briefly at the end of the fifth game. Thoughts of her have tormented him for months, until one night an image of Cassima appears in the Magic Mirror. Cassima is trapped in a tower, and longs for Alexander. Alexander pays attention to the stars in the night sky as he looks on, and tells his mother, Queen Valanice, that he has to sail out into the sea if he has any hope of finding Cassima.
After three long months, Alexander finally spots land, but it will still take hours for him and his crew to actually reach it. Before they can get there, a storm brews and wrecks their ship. Alexander then wakes up an unknown amount of time after this alone.
The commands for the drop-down menu at the top are the same as the last game, but for those needing a refresher course, here they are from left to right:
Walk: With this icon, you can move Alexander around by clicking on a location. Just be careful where you click, because there is definitely as many ways to die as the last five games...probably more.
Hand: With this icon, you can pick up objects if you click on them. Just because it's not nailed down doesn't mean you can take it with you, but it's there for a reason and you'll never know what you can collect until you try.
Eye: With this icon, you can look at and examine objects in the immediate area.
Speech Bubble: With this icon, you can talk to people.
Inventory Item: When you select an item from your inventory, it appears in this slot. This lets you interact with things in the environment with that item. The simplest example: if you have a key in your inventory, it can appear there. You can switch to it and click on a locked door to try your luck at unlocking it.
Pack: This is your inventory, which shows everything you currently have on your person.
Settings Switch: These are the game settings. Here, you can save and load games, and also play around with the volume settings for music, sounds and speech.
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