Quest for Glory Series

[Alehazar]

Formerly known as "Hero's Quest" -there already was a game called Hero's Quest, so to avoid any type of confusion they decided to change its name- Quest for Glory I (So You want to be a Hero) starts you off as a student from a correspondence course in heroism.

At character creation you cannot choose race or gender, but you can choose whether you want to be a Fighter, Magic User, or a Thief. You then get to allocate some points to some skills and attributes. Each class has different solutions to the puzzles in the game. While not much of a fighter, the thief may avoid battle if he increases his sneak ability. In this game practice makes perfect. So if you sneak a lot, your Stealth will increase -of course your starting stat would have to be anything but zero.

The fighter is the only one skilled in using a shield -unless you create somewhat of a hybrid during character creation.

The thief is the only one who can use lockpicks -referring to the different classes I will assume they are all 100% Fighter, 100% Magic User, or 100% Thief; no hybrids).

 

The first two games in the series use a text parser interface; you would need to type simple commands such as "look at", "cast", "fight", "talk to", "ask about", etc. It was up to the player to carefully read all the replies or descriptions and find new things to ask about to gain more information. Movement was controlled by the arrow keys. The Combat screen would allow you to fight one enemy at a time.

 

While the first game was centered around the village of Spielburg and had a somewhat confusing forest layout about it, it didn't take me that long to know how to exactly travel to certain locations.

 

At the successful completion of the game -after the end animations- you would get the opportunity to save your character, that you would be able to import into the sequel, giving you a bit of an edge as opposed to creating a new character.

 

The second game also gave you a chance to become a Paladin. And thus created a new stat: honor. Hnoro could only be in- or decreased by doing certain deeds. Give money to the poor as opposed to stealing for instance

For this second adventure you had moved to the Distant Desert Lands of Shapeir on a magic rug.

 

Each new game would add new spells for the Magic User to acquire.

 

The third game introduced a new thief skill: acrobatics. As well as a new interface. The use of icons to walk talk, fight and the lot.

Talking was made a bit more tedious as all your topic possibilities were listed in a dialogue tree. All you had to do was whittle down the entire list. This game also used a travel system of a World Map Overview. Zooming in only when you were beset by enemies, or when you arrived at a new location.

 

At the end of this third game -situated in the Land of Tarna- dark magics would whisk you away to the fourth game.

 

(Strangely enough at the end of the second game the third game was announced as Shadows of Darkness; this became the fourth game. The third game became known as Wages of War)

 

The fourth game was the first of the series that allowed spoken dialogue; the setting was Mordavia, a grim and bleak town full of distrusting people. The layout of the game areas had returned to its origins, just like the first game.

And like the rest of the games, apart from meeting new characters, you'd also bump into people you'd met in previous games.

While you had to drive out the powerful ogress Baba Yaga in the first game, she'd pop back into your life in the fourth game. The whimsical Wizard Erasmus would hound you throughout the series -although he would not make his appearance in the fourth game until the closing animations.

The powerful enchantress Erana -while still a mystery in Part I and rather obviously absent at the Wizard's Institute in Part Two, only to be referred to in Part Three- finally was revealed in Part Four.

 

Throughout the series a lot of references to Monty Python humor were consistently made.

 

The fifth -and final- part was called Dragon Fire. Using the map travel from Part Three, this part was a marvel of graphics and animations for its day. You could get attacked by multiple enemies and a bit of romance was added to the mix.

You would meet -in Silmaria- a host of people from the previous games and the quests were more extensive, this time centered on more or less some type of parallel Greek mythology.

And you'd finally get to meet the guy who wrote the hero correspondence course in the first place.

Furthermore, swimming was added as a new stat.

 

And the weakling Magic User you started out as in Part I, now had finally become a full fledged wizard.

 

Whereas in the first two parts anyone -who chose to break the rules of staying in character- could find the Thieves Guild, from Part Three onward, only those with thieving skills could Make the Thief Sign. In Part Five hybrids were punished: only a 100% Magic User would be able to acquire the wood required for a magic staff (even though dialogue would suggest otherwise;a thief with some magic skills would still be advised to try to acquire the wood, but would be unable to).

 

At the conclusion of Part Five I felt somewhat disappointed; you could still export your character, but no new episode would welcome your saved hero. The series were discontinued by Sierra Online.

 

The only drawback of more modern computer systems is the inability to run the first four games; while the 3rd and 4th game are also quite buggy. During a certain trial in part three, the game would inevitably crash at a certain point. With a bit of luck, you'd be able to get past that point, but the increased clock speed of more modern computers would wreak havoc on the game speed of some animations in part three.

Part four would require some fixes, or your game would keep on crashing after you left the Dark One's cave and tried to walk down a slippery path. Furthermore, some actions -like acquiering some goo- would crash the game. Sometimes the game would spontaenously crash to desktop; quite infuriating.

 

Well, that's about it.

[GreyViper]

Quest for glory 2 SVGA remake is now out so, people who couldn't enjoy it before now can. http://www.agdinteractive.com/games/games.html

PS. You have to play it, just to see the Shema's Dance.