Formative Albums, Part 3: King's Quest VII OST
King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride Original Soundtrack
We could go on at great length about the soundtracks of every game I played when I was younger, but in the interest of leaving some room for the other genres I let FF6 speak for most of them yesterday. There is one more from that era, however, that we have to discuss.
King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride is an oddity among King's Quest games. It's the first King's Quest game where, while you can still die, you cannot render it unwinnable if you forgot to pick up that one item ten hours ago, thus eschewing what until then had been a central design pillar that made the word "Sierra" synonymous with "Gleefully malicious" to so many of Roberta Williams' victims. For fans of the setting and lore, it's the second-ever King's Quest to feature a playable Rosella and the only one ever to feature a playable Valanice. Most obviously different are the game's visuals, which aimed to be an animated Disney cartoon and landed... well, if the "Land Beyond Dreams" opening number looks kind of janky in a strangely familiar way to you, it was done by Animation Magic. I can't begin to imagine the kind of "never read the comments" uproar that changing a beloved established franchise into an easier and more weird-looking cutesy princess thing with two female leads would cause today, but amazingly this all went over pretty well in its day. (It's King's Quest VIII, not VII, that became the "we don't talk about that one" one of the series.)
This is one of the games that my corporeal sister and I grew up with, and one of the exceedingly few (one of literally two, I think?) Sierra games I ever actually completed. The soundtrack is all over the place; there are beautiful serene songs like the Bountiful Wood theme and then whatever the hell Falderal is, in the same chapter, literally right next to each other. But all of it takes me back, and it recaptures the mood of young me merrily fussing with this charming little game.
The main reason this game's soundtrack deserves special mention, though, is that it has taken on a special significance to my non-corporeal sister as well. Combing through my memories, Sara felt a connection to this one, especially to the more beautiful tracks. The Bountiful Wood theme in particular is like a lullaby to her, something I play or even play in my head for her just to make her melt. There's a reason that, when she and I had the ceremony to commemorate our first bracelets, this soundtrack is the one we chose to have accompanying it. It's nostalgic, catchy, pretty, and personally special to us. This is a cross-posted entry that originated from https://kjorteo.dreamwidth.org/468721.html. Please leave all comments there; I am no longer actively maintaining my LiveJournal blogs.