The genre of the fantasy adventure game would seem to be very flexible and wide open to original concepts. Why then is it that so many designers opt to follow in the footsteps of almost everyone before them and write your basic sword and sorcery quest thing? Thankfully, the world has Roberta Williams to challenge these stereotypes and produce games like King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride. If you're already familiar with the adventures of the Daventry family, then the latest chapter might not take you too far aback. But even if you've been with the series since the first game, you will still be very impressed with this, the most elaborate graphic adventure that Sierra has ever produced.

	The game starts with a Disney-esque musical number, featuring the lovely Princess Rosella singing about her hesitance to leap into marriage . . . especially when she's not in love with anyone. This beautifully animated sequence leads into a discussion between Rosella and her mother Queen Valanice. Valanice not only thinks Rosella should get married, but she has a few ideas as to who the groom should be. While this argument heats up, a magic portal materializes under a reflecting pool, and a flying seahorse emerges. Once Rosella sees this little visitor and realizes where it came from, she jumps into the pond and through the portal. Some people will do anything to avoid responsibility.

	It only takes a few seconds for a concerned Valanice to follow her daughter down the damp hole, wherever it may lead. Suddenly, a hairy arm reaches through the wall of the tunnel and grabs Rosella, pulling her out of the current. Valanice continues to fall, and eventually lands in a mysterious desert, far from her daughter. For that matter, she's also far from anything else, except for hieroglyphics, ornate statues and several bizarre characters, including an obnoxious jackalope, a nearsighted mole and a giant scorpion. Meanwhile, Rosella has been dragged into the kingdom of the trolls, and has herself been changed into a troll as a side effect. Let the games begin!

	The Disney influence does not stop with the opening song, but permeates the entire game from their numerous talking animals to the villainess, Malicia, who may remind players of the evil Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty. Also, like the best Disney films, King's Quest VII is not just a heap of saccharine for the kiddies, but a game genuinely designed to be enjoyed by the whole family. The attentive player will find references not only to Lewis Carroll and Shakespeare, but to Franz Kafka and even movies like Silence of the Lambs. But it's also a good idea to have the kids around to help solve some of the puzzles that are based on recent children's books.

	The characters are even animated like those in a feature film. In fact, Sierra used over 40,000 frames of animation to make this product, more than twice the amount used for part six. It is telling that the first six King's Quest games all fit onto one Collector's Edition CD-ROM, but The Princeless Bride is a very full CD by itself. The only other place you'll see animation anything like this in a PC game is Dragon's Lair, but KQ VII is completely interactive, while Lair is just a digitized cartoon with the occasional choice to be made with a joystick twitch.

	The sound is also uniformly excellent. The dialogue is all digitized speech by a cast of very talented voice actors. The musical score is very rich and textured, and includes signature tunes for over 20 of the characters.

	The story is divided into six novel-like chapters, and if a player gets bogged down with Valanice in one part of the story, he or she can "skip ahead" to the next part and see how Rosella is getting along. 

	The game interface is genuinely instinctive, based entirely on the mouse. The player clicks where they want to go, and Valanice or Rosella follow along. The cursor is a magic wand, and if the player can do anything with a game object, the wand will glow as it passes over it. The player can also take a closer look at the inventory items by picking them up and clicking them on the "eye" icon at the bottom of the screen. This brings up a lovely 3-D rendered version of the item that can be rotated and manipulated to your hearts desire.

	Valanice and Rosella make their way to six exotic and fantastic locales including Ooga Booga Land, Falderal and Etheria on their basic quest to just find each other again. If you are a fan of the series, or just looking for something different in the fantasy adventure world, you need to pick up a copy of King's Quest VII.