Basically the game and the manual was created by two different authors...
Roberta Williams created the game, the manual was written by Annette Childs.
Annette Childs also went on to write the manual story for KQ3 as well.
I've tried to do some research on her, and I'm not sure if she was a Sierra employee or a third party professional writer... She wrote a few manuals for other companies as well, but that could be after she 'left' Sierra.
In anycase back KQ2, this meant that Roberta focused more on Dracula as the game's uber villain...
Whereas Annetted focused on Hagatha...
Oddly enough, Roberta kinda did the same thing when she wrote the second story prologue for KQ1! Where she made the Witch, Wizard, and Dwarf somewhat more important to the game's backstory, but in original game they were not nearly that important...!
A few discrepencies exist between that second version of the prologue story and the KQ1AGI as well! For example, in KQ1AGI, Edward makes a point that the treasures were legendary treasures 'he's heard of'... Whereas Roberta's updated prologue story, made the treasures out to be 'treasures stolen from Edward"!
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Yeah, as Bt said--Sierra acknowledged how different it was and essentially established it officially as a spin-off by removing the number from the title. It is only numbered in the European release, I believe. And you know what they say about Europeans.
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Actually, the number was removed (although Roberta in articles and interviews still called it King's Quest 8, she and Ken still do!) not because they 'considered' it a spinoff but because they didn't want new players to feel they needed to play previous games in the series to enjoy it. Roberta always called it KQ8 in her personal correspondance, even after the game's release. Early versions of the American release also contained a gold foil emblem that called it the 'eigth game in the King's Quest series' as well.
Keep in mind that around that time quite a few games were droppign their sequel numbers! Previously there was Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness (not called QFG4 on the packaging or in game)!
There was Police Quest: Open Season (not called PQ4 on the title screen or packaging).
There was Lost Secret of the Rainforest (didn't even bother to list the fact it was the sequel to EcoQuest).
The Beast Within (didn't even number itself, although there was a note it was a 'Gabriel Knight Mystery').
Leisure Suity Larry 2 isn't called Larry 2...
The Dr. Brain games never bothered to number their games at all. The Dagger of Amon Ra, didn't bother to number the game at all (although Roberta referred to it as LB2)!
Btw, Did you know Roberta nearly dropped the number from KQ7 as well (probably for the same reasons, not force new players into thinking they had to buy previous games in the series to enjoy them)!
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A game is not a spin-off just because you deem it to be.
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This is true... Besides if Roberta had truly wanted to distance it from KQ as a 'spinoff' (which as we know she didn't), she could have dropped the "King's Quest" (from the title altogether).
BTW, the King's Quest wasn't the only series of that era, that change directions to survive the decline of adventure game genre... Adding new features, or moving in a different direction for series! To the chagrin of some of the old fans...
Look at Broken Sword 3 which consists primarily of box puzzles, stealth gameplay, and timed action sequences! With next to no regular adventure inventory puzzles!
Quest for Glory V, dropped the adventure aspects, and went straight action-RPG! It was no longer advertised as an 'Adventure" or "Adventure-RPG".
The Dr. Brain series went from Puzzle-Adventures and went pure 'puzzle'.
Gabriel Knight 3, went 3D, and added alot of time specific puzzles (easily miss half the game, if you aren't in the right place at the right time)...
Police Quest series turned into RTS (PQ:SWAT2), and finally FPS (but ultimately started dropping "Police Quest" from the title)!
Quite a few classicaly 2-D games went into the realm of 3-D with often mixed results...
Ultima XI almost completely changed directions in style from previous games, when it went 3D. Becoming more of a platformer RPG...
Mario 64 is very different than 2D marios...
3D Castlevanias are very different than their 2D counterparts...
You could go on and on... The rise of 3D had a huge influence on the direction of games...