Publisher: AGDInteractive
Developer: AGDInteractive
Year: 2002
Platform: Windows; Mac; Linux
Excuse me while I blush for a while. Not satisfied with simply enhancing the original game, AGDI agreed that the original King’s Quest II was utter trash and essentially created a new game. And they only produced one of the best adventure games in the history of the industry.
Do you remember a town in the original game? Of course you don’t. There was no fucking town. No fucking anything. Just a bridge and a church and a lot of random nothing.
What you might remember from the original is a vampire and a witch who liked to kill you. Well, they’re still here and they still like to kill you, but AGDI made them into actual characters. With histories. With motivations. And you’re no longer trying to find three random keys for three random doors and hope you don’t cross the bridge one too many times lest you restart the game. No, you actually have a plot you have to advance while searching for your damsel in distress. A plot that ties in plot elements from the entire King’s Quest series, retroactively making Sierra’s games make more sense. And if you love Easter eggs, boy howdy it’s your birthday, especially if it’s been your lifelong desire to kick Cedric the Owl into the sun.
Josh Mandel returns to voice King Graham and he gives a delightful performance. And the other voice actors also do a nice job, including the narrator. The puzzles are of moderate difficulty level, on par with most Sierra adventures, only without all the walking dead situations. And there are multiple endings depending on choices you make throughout the game.
Not only is this remake easily the best King’s Quest game ever made, it’s worthy of play for any adventure gamer, regardless of whether or not you liked or played the original series. And, of course, it’s free. A must for every library.
Death By Troggles 
Where do I pick this up (to be sure I’m getting the right one)? Steam, or a download on an official site?
I’ve now edited the end of the post with a link. It’s a download on the official site; not sure if it’s compatible with Steam.
If you’re itching to dip your toe in the point’n’click genre and have never played a King’s Quest game before, this isn’t the worst introduction. Though I must admit there’s a strong possibility my love for this game is correlated with how much better it is than the games Sierra made in the 80’s and 90’s. If this was a standalone game and it was titled, “Adventure of Dude with Red Shirt and Blue Hat” and didn’t have a bunch of references to other games, I would probably still enjoy it but perhaps not as much. I guess what I’m saying is that your mileage could vary.