Hero's Quest: So You Want to Be a Hero

aka: Hero's Quest I: So You Want To Be A Hero, Quest For Glory: So You Want To Be A Hero
Moby ID: 168
DOS Specs
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Description official descriptions

The little town of Spielburg is populated mostly by beer-drinking humans and some centaurs who like working in the field. Spielburg is surrounded by forests and mountains, where all kinds of weird creatures dwell: ogres, goblins, talking foxes, stupid magicians, and others. Lately, Spielburg has been assaulted by brigands; besides, the witch Baba Yaga is not to be trusted. The town has everything it needs--even a Thieves Guild--except a strong, brave hero who would protect it. So when a wandering adventurer enters the town, he quickly realizes that his skills might be of use.

Hero's Quest: So You Want to Be a Hero is a hybrid game that contains Role-Playing and Adventure elements. It is visually very similar to other Quest titles by Sierra (such as for example Space Quest), but the gameplay--besides the usual exploration, conversations with characters, and the solving an occasional puzzle with the help of inventory items--also involves combat and character development. In the beginning of the game, the player chooses a character class for the protagonist--either a Fighter, a Mage, or a Thief. The choice of class will influence not only the combat, but also many other events in the game. Puzzles might have different solutions depending on the class and the amount of ability points in various categories.

The main character's skills and abilities are raised directly by repeatedly performing appropriate actions, e.g. fighting enemies, practicing, climbing, throwing objects, etc. Many of those activities are necessary to perform in order to successfully complete the game. Combat takes the player to a separate screen (represented by the enemy's picture) and involves timed selection of commands such as Attack, Parry, etc. The interaction with the game-world is performed by typing verb commands or conversation topics.

The game features a day/night cycle, which also includes character schedules. The main character can get hungry and tired, so feeding him and getting some rest is essential.

Spellings

  • הרצון לעוצמה - Hebrew spelling
  • クエスト・フォー・グローリィ - Japanese spelling
  • 英雄傳奇 - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (DOS version)

19 People

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 86% (based on 16 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 149 ratings with 13 reviews)

The best Sierra game, period.

The Good
Before the big push to make VGA the standard Sierra managed to really squeeze some great looking games out of the old 16 colour EGA card. King's Quest IV and this one being the best of their EGA efforts but beyond nice EGA graphics this game took the already fun Sierra adventure a step further by introducing some RPG elements: combat, character classes and players statistics.

You have the choice of playing three different classes: fighter, magic-user and thief. Each class gave the game enough puzzle differences to make it worth playing over again. The fighter was the most basic of the three, essentially it was like a regular Sierra game with combat added. The magic-user added of course magic, and had the challenge of competing in a tough magic contest later in the game. The thief was my favorite of the three, allowing you to join a thieve's guild ("thou shalt not steal... here") and you could break into homes at night to make some cash. After picking your class you'd assign some points to your attributes and skills, if you wanted to as a thief you had enough points to add the skills of the fighter and m-u and be able to access their parts of the game.

The plot revolved around your character being in an unhappy valley, ruled by the troubled Baron Stefen von Spielberg who not only has his children kidnapped but his court jester is missing too (alas poor Yorick!) all the while the valley is being raided by brigands.

While the game is not very hard it is a ton of fun. There are a lot of quests to do and places to explore with multiple solutions in some cases. The type-in interface is the best it ever was and the Sierra humour is good.

The Bad
The combat is a little sticky. As its a hybrid, the rpg aspects may not appeal to hardcore adventure gamers and those rpg aspects are too light for dedicated rpg players. I happen to like both genres so its perfect for me.

The Bottom Line
Hero's Quest is definatly the jewel in the crown of the early Sierra adventure before their fateful switch to the mouse and VGA graphics. If there is one Sierra game you should play its this one.

DOS · by woods01 (129) · 2001

A succesfull hybrid genre is born

The Good
Everything was perfect for its time.The sci engine was at its peak, the animation was great and the story and plot characterazation was unique. The humour shines with originality as usual with sierra's first games.The spellcasting system borrows he best qualities from d&d modules of the time and the puzzles are simple, yet elegant.

The Bad
Nothing,really. Maybe if all battles where fought "third person" style, it could be better

The Bottom Line
A wonderful foray into "lite" rpg'ing, sierra parser style.

DOS · by helm lehm (13) · 2000

A True Classic

The Good
Quest for Glory is one of the deepest games I've ever played.I've put over a hunderd hours into it,and I'm still playing and finding new things.It's graphics are excellent for this time and the animation's just as good.There's so many things you can do in the first surrounding the first town.There's a wizard,a bear,a band of thieves,a witch and many more people and things to see while you're just walking around looking for adventure.And,you can play as three different classes.A fighter,thief,or magician.All three of them are well balanced and have many things to see on their own.

The Bad
The fighting in this game is very hard.A lot of the creatures you fight are tough and seem they cannot be beaten.Plenty of skill must be had if you want to fight your way to the end in this game.Sometimes,the forest can get confusing but that's not really a negative at all.

The Bottom Line
The deepest game in the Quest for Glory series,it's better than the next four games for certain.If you're looking for a fun,long,and addictive adventure/RPG,play this one now.And don't play the remake,it takes away all the fun.

DOS · by SamandMax (75) · 2001

[ View all 13 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Problems with keyboard using DOSBox? Matt Neuteboom (976) Dec 26, 2009

Trivia

Balancing

Some people preferred to complete the game using this version -- opposed to the VGA remake -- because you could allocate magic points for any character class you chose, guaranteeing a somewhat powerful character for the rest of the series.

Development

From Hero's Quest I Hint Book:

You may be interested to know what goes into a game like Hero's Quest I: So You Want To Be A Hero. Development took over a year, with up to four programmers and four artists, a musician, and a designer-director. Hero's Quest I contains:
  • 111,000 lines of source code (well, so 30,000 of them are blank!)
  • 535,000 bytes of background pictures
  • 1,560,000 bytes of animation
  • 1,980,000 bytes of program code
  • 375,000 characters of text messages
  • 314,000 bytes of music and sound effects and over 200,000 bytes of compiled system code
And you thought this was easy!

Gags

  • The book that Kaspar, who runs the dry Goods store, is reading, is titled "Quest for Glory: A Hero's Death"
  • If you're a thief, try picking your nose with the lockpick.. but make sure you save your game first!
  • Attack the Antwerp with your sword and it will bounce high above your head and out of the area. However, when you leave the screen and enter a new one, a shadow will appear over you from above. Things aren't looking too good! If this Antwerp has it's way then he's gonna flatten you.. so, quickly pull out your dagger\sword and hold it above your head. the Antwerp will land on your blade and explode into lots of little baby Antwerps!
  • If you right-click on the scorpion walking across the main menu the message: "Congratulations! You have found the first bug in this game." will appear.

Title

Quest For Glory was originally named Hero's Quest, but the name was later changed due to a conflict with Milton Bradley over their board game Hero Quest.

References

  • Erasmus' house contains many 'relics' from other Sierra games:
    • A suit of armor bequeathed by Colonel Gulden Dijon (a reference the first Laura Bow game, The Colonel's Bequest).
    • A little chopper from the Lytton Police Department (a reference to Police Quest).
    • On the sarcophagus is a hieroglyph starring Rosella from King's Quest 4.
    • There is also a shield in the room that belonged to one of those "Once and Future" kings (a reference to the famous King Arthur novel "The Once And Future King" by writer T.H. White).
  • The moose head and 'Maltese Falcon' appear in this game, as they do in each Quest For Glory title (Courtesy of the Sierra prop department).
  • The Three Stooges make a minor cameo appearance in the game.
  • A creature called "Antwerp" appears in this game, which is the name of an actual city in Belgium (Europe).
  • The guildmaster of the Adventurer's Guild, Wolfgang Abentuerer, mentions "two guys from Andromeda" when you ask about the antwerp trophy. It is a reference to the two designers of Space Quest, another Sierra game
  • If you visit Mirror Lake twice a submarine will emerge on your second visit. This is a plug for the Sierra adventure Codename: ICEMAN. In the VGA remake the submarine is replaced by Delphineus (the dolphin from EcoQuest) and the monster of Loch Ness (a plug for Conquest of the Longbow).

Awards

  • Amiga Joker
    • Issue 01/1991 – #2 Best Role-Playing Game in 1990
  • Computer Gaming World
    • September 1990 (Issue #74) – Adventure Game of the Year
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #73 in the “150 Best Games of All Time" list
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #15 Most Innovative Computer Game

Information also contributed by Belboz, Boris Stovich; Itay Shahar, Jiguryo, PCGamer77, Roedie, Roger Wilco and Timo Takalo

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Eurythmic.

Amiga added by POMAH. Atari ST, PC-98 added by Terok Nor.

Additional contributors: Trixter, Ryan Prendiville, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, formercontrib, Cloudschatze, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, roy guy.

Game added July 18, 1999. Last modified February 19, 2024.