Lambonius good review. You hit on many points I agree with.
The funny thing is most people who hate this new game, actually hated the old games, and their complaints about the new game, are more or less points you could level back at the original games.
Those who loved the original game, but have criticisms for this game, its more about how it doesn't necessarily have enough of the 'feel' or tone of the original games. This fully understandable, and I agree with it mostly.
However, in my 'willing suspension of disbelief', I put some of the tonal difference up to Graham's 'embellishing' the story and trying to make it funnier than it really should have been.
I'm not sure where I stand on how it rewrites Graham's backstory (instead of having been raised in Daventry he's now an outsider), Edward's queen's backstory is rearranged as well (her death caused Daventry to go downhill, and mirror was stolen some point at the time of her death or after), and rewrites generally all the events of KQ1 even (
). There was no reason to make Edward's quest for Graham only be the 'missing magic mirror' (check Gwendolyn's comments in the prologue about what the quest was, and a note board mid game, and you see only the mirror is missing, no comments about missing treasure chests, or shields).
I hope later on we aren't 'mysteriously' running into magic chest, or the shield in a post-KQ1 timeline, as futre chapters 's major MacGuffin point (all three treasures are clearly seen on the wall in Graham's bedroom). It also takes away from mystery of the dragon, when everyone in Daventry knows where the Dragon lives (its used as kind of test for the knights trying to move upwards to become the next king), and in the original backstory in KQ1 manual, no one knew where the "Sorcerer' took the mirror. There were only a few clues, and rumors. Only rumors that sorcerer controlled 'beasts'. So its part of the story that Graham discovered a dragon's lair under what was simply thought to be a well. In addition Graham can no longer swim, so the well has been made largely 'dry'.. Guess that was to avoid having to make swimming physics :p...
Another part of the changes to the backstory, Graham instead of being "Edward's favorite knight' for decades, he's now 'favorite knight' because he won a tournament (IE the tournament is not only to become a knight, but prove oneself to become the next king as well).
Still this 'rebooted' story is still entertaining in its own way, and I'm sure some of these questions will be answered in later episodes. There are at least two areas you can discover in the game (which Graham says are forshadowing and one unlocks a trophy even). So it looks like we will at least be going back to Daventry in the next episode. But I hope we also get to expand into other lands as well.