Le Chevalier du Labyrinthe
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Surprisingly enough, with my long record of hard-to-please cynicism, I found I really enjoyed that (mind you, I was watching it at 3 am). It's like a nicely modified episode from S3, with some great variations of Dave Rowe's best work. The enhanced hand-paintings are far better than the superimposed photos used in S4-7 of KM. I was also impressed with some of the animation, although less so with the colour schemes of some of the outfits.
To my amazement I rather liked the Dungeon Master (although the jury's still out on that pre-quest set piece with the jester - but even that's no worse than some of Treguard's exchanges with Pickle), who made up for his excessive niceness with some hectoring energy.
The different rules worked a lot better in practice than I feared when I first read them on the site a couple of years back. The single-episode-per-quest nature and the allowance for up to three dungeoneers in a team does lessen the tension a lot though.
Interestingly, the team kept using English terms for quick commands, like stop or go. Understandable, as it's easier than saying "Allez-vous!" or "Arretes-toi!" but it suggests that the teams may have watched a few episodes of KM in their time. Good taste.
On the downside, the puzzles weren't all that varied, and the team were a bit daft to lose their first dungeoneer in the first room (but, hey, a certain team in S4 of KM got away with an identical early mistake didn't they? Not the makers' fault).
Overall, well worth a look.
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theres not really any emphasis on survival because they can always replace the dungeoneer with another person...
In fact, they can't ALWAYS replace the dungeoneer, but they can do so three times. Remember also that each succeeding dungeoneer will have fewer advisors, potentially making life more difficult.
Also, the reduced finality gives the producers the chance to be harsher with teams who make mistakes - Dunstan would have been cut up on the Corridor of Blades, Mark would have fallen to his death when he stepped over the edge of the path in the stained glass room etc, 'cos the quest wouldn't necessarily end there. There were numerous occasions in KM when the producers were clearly reluctant to bring the axe down because that would've been it.
The real problem is that because the quest can't last more than one episode, they're likely to run out of dungeon before they run out of dungeoneers. I suspect that that would be almost as big a problem as it is in Labyrinthe if the KM dungeon were that small.
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Well, naturally enough Nic uploaded it to http://www.Knightmare.com itself last night.
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I watched it last knight and I did somewhat enjoy it. It made me feel somewhat 'homesick half expecting certain things, which I missed including the lifeforce, putting food in the knapsack, spells and levels. But then I think it's because I am so used to watching our version. I did think that the difficulty of the rooms were varied but I think that they were easier that the UK version ones, even though the first dungeoneer died in the first room. They were basically level 1 rooms. The graphics were great with some series 2/3 rooms with a slight twist. Even the 'Block and Tackle' room (with a twist was there). I felt that their dungeon Master helpful than Treguard. I am so glad that the clip included subtitles (are they included or were they added), and so it also helps us learn and or brush up on our french. I also think that it's worth a try on Challenge and has potential in the rating amongst KM fans. I also liked the idea that the team Le Chevalier du Labrinthe tops, which I think may have been a good idea for the team members on our version to wear KM t-shirts.
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Challenge should definitely be asked to do Le Chevalier du Labyrinthe and Knightmare- and maybe the Spanish one aswell. Then it could be a non-stop Euro-Knightmare fest! Is there a Chevalier website- I unfortunately don't know French, but it would be cool just to look at the pictures. How long does it take to download the episode- I guess a long time; downloading just a three minute music-video on my computer takes four hours.
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It took my computer about 5 minutes to download it but then again that's through broadband. So it depends whether you are on broadband or not (which I suppose you're not) and what speed modem you are using. I think mine's a 150k modem, but a 1mb modem will be much faster at downloading!
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I found it rather insteresting. The 'Monster Bash; was an odd puzzle...I feel our version called upon a lot more skill, but just seeing it in another version is...Intresting to say the least.
Enjoyed it an awful lot, would love for it be be shown over here.,...But I personally prefer to keep trying for the remaining UK Knightmare eps to go out before they do!
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Well I downloaded it last night and checked it out. I have to say it was very interesting to watch and compare to our version so here are my thoughts
One thing I found which was unique is that when a dungioneer died, another team member came in to replace him and carry on, I wonder if this is actually normal in the series though or they done it because the stupid dungioneer died in he first room and so they thought they would give them another chance?? Certaintly worth a thought
The Rooms - I quite liked the look of some of the rooms, some very nice graphics and good to see some rooms like what we had in the english version with some new twists to them.
The Puzzles - The Puzzles clearly required not much skill whereas compared to the english version, a lot of them required quite a lot of skill and judgement, However I'm not saying it was that bad as there was still quite a bit of balance between easy and hard puzzles, The Monster Ballroom scene was probably the hardest the team had but even that didnt seem incredibly hard, The show also seem to suggest if they answered all the questions for riddles wrong, they would die there and then which I think is a better solution compared to the UK Knightmare as if a team done bad in the questions on our version, they could still continue but would just die later because they didnt have the information/items needed.
Dungion Master - I think he was quite good, He was very helpful to the team and always telling them what to do and always really got involved in the adventure, Nice to see.
Main Differences - So it seems to suggest all quests fit into 1 episode, again this is quite unique and certaintly gives all the teams a much better chance of winning and fits more teams into each series but does this make it incredibly easy for the teams to win?? Lets say that second dungioneer died, would they have still been given another chance or would that have been it after 2 goes, seems to me if they had been given yet another chance if a second dungioneer died, then surely teams would find it literally impossible to actually lose.
No Lifeforce either I see, but prehaps they feel if all quests are in 1 episode, It is simply not needed as it would rather be pointless for just a handful of rooms to complete
Overall Opinion - Very enjoyable to watch and certaintly interesting to finally see the chances to their version compared to ours, However I have to say I think I prefer our version better though, there is just a much better variety of everything and quests are much longer too to actually enjoy them better. Of course I'm really only saying this as I'm just so used to seeing/enjoying our version, but no dought if more episodes were to surface on the net, I may get used to seeing it and likeing it a lot more
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According to the rules sent to Nic by a devotee of Labyrinthe in France (see the main site to look for them) every time a dungeoneer got squished, one of the advisors would take over. This would carry on until the team ran out of advisors.
On reflection, that would probably work better in OUR version than theirs, with the quests lasting so much longer over here. Oh well...
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I've forgotten all my French, and I really wanted to make some unwitty jokes in French too. Since the only foreign language dictionary I can find is a German one, I guess I'm going to have to spare you the poor jokes this time.
Great to see this episode. As I've said before, it'd be nice if sample episodes of the foreign versions could be included on any DVD release, along with the American pilot. It was fun to see the differences to the format, although generally, like others, I prefer the British version by a pretty long way.
As an episode on its own, I liked it. But I think that same format every week would bore me somewhat. There's just not much room for variation within Quests or development. Clearly they stripped things down to the bare minimum- some floorish puzzles, ledges and a few questions. It's stating the obvious, but I prefer the more textured British KM, with development of difficulty via the 3 levels, clue items, spells, decisions to make, life force and such. Once you choose to do a whole adventure in one episode, you naturally have to lose a lot of that. I also thought it would lead to a lot more teams winning, unless they were really crap. I liked KM because unlike so many kiddies' shows, it was hard, and winning was a real achievement (well, most of the time). The fact that winning was an exception to the norm appealed to me a lot, and I think it made it more tense, and made you follow Quests with a lot more sympathy and eagerness for the brats to do well.
I did like the Dungeon Master, although again I think I'd tire of him after a 16 episode series. Too much "Very good" and not enough "Ooh, Nasty" for my cynical taste. Well done to the French developers though, for having the courage to do it differently. The fact he was so active in the game again made me appreciate how darn fabulous Hugo Myatt was, in hanging back, keeping the atmosphere and not forcing himself to centre stage constantly. Stuck in an antechamber with just a few unresponsive brats, it would be easy to think "To make this good I've got to keep talking and keep the momentum going", and I can think of at least one of the British cast (who I won't name, but from my previous comments you'll guess who anyway) who probably would have done that had they been in the antechamber and given the chance. Kudos to Hugo for resisting that temptation.
Talking of Merlin, the French version's nose looked a bit like Mrs. G's! If John Woodnutt had worn that, I'd laugh even more than I currently do at his awesomely slow spellcasting, waving of his silly little wand, and pushing dungeoneers out of the way so the real star of the show is completely in shot. Teehee, oops.
The scenes were generally pretty good, although the floor puzzles would get a bit samey after a while, I guess, just like some of the British ones did around that time if they were overused. I liked the skeleton guy, but I thought the bones question was really hard for youngsters! Um, I don't like jesters, so that whole scene at the beginning wasn't my cup of tea. I still preferred him to Pickle, though.
Very good to see. Thanks for putting it up for us to enjoy.
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In fact, GG, a season of Labyrinthe lasted something like a HUNDRED episodes ifI remember rightly, which is why there were only two seasons of it. In that light, yes, the Dungeon Master would be pretty annoying after a few eps.
I actually preferred that jester to the ones we had in KM, as he seemed quite relaxed and not as much of an attention seeker. Yes, that opening sequence was very weak, but I think that was more because the scripted "banter" between him and the DM was pretty naff. Nothing unusual in that... does the term, "New Forest? What was wrong with the old one?" ring any bells? (Oh be calm, my splitting sides.)
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In fact, GG, a season of Labyrinthe lasted something like a HUNDRED episodes ifI remember rightly, which is why there were only two seasons of it. In that light, yes, the Dungeon Master would be pretty annoying after a few eps.
Yep, pretty sure it was several more eps than the British series, but now annoyed because I can't remember where I learnt that. I was just making the parallel with watching a series of the British version, really.
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