Quest for Glory I: So You Want To Be A Hero

The Good
What's there not to like about the game? The hand painted graphics still hold up almost two decades after the game's original release, the claymation monsters and models would never really get old, and the overall story would be best dubbed a classic.

Compared to the EGA version, the land of Spielburg (contrary to popular myth, is not named after Steven Spielburg, but is a pun: Spielburg means 'game town' in German), is much more alive and easier to explore, with the added benefit of a few new easter eggs (such as finding Earl Sinclair from Dinosaurs) that were more from the early 90's than the late 80's. the level of detail and quality of the artwork is better than the original as well. This wasn't surprising, since Quest for Glory was the last major 'quest' series to be launched by Sierra (though not the very last, EcoQuest held that title, but it wasn't nearly as big as any of the rest), and when they got about to making the remakes, it was the very last game to be remade. For that, I'm wiling to assume that the artists had had enough experience with graphic design to make this game the best looking of the original EGA and VGA remakes.

The interface was also quite good, with the icons looking better than most early sierra VGA games actually. What really was improved dramatically I believe I was the combat. Beyond better graphics, I believe that the game play, while not perfect (The series was never that good on combat mechanics), was much better than the original EGA, which for the life of me, I never quite got. Also the tie-ins from other QFG games and sierra series never fail to put a smile on my face. The dialogue trees were also some of the best in the entire series, if overtly simplistic (but that could be excused by the fact that they are not tied to any in-game event, and as such are available in their entirety from the start). And in my own opinion, the inventory interface is still the best in the series.

The Bad
(Please note that these might contain some spoilers. You have been warned)

I mentioned in my title that I called it 'almost' completely superior. Are there problems? Yes there are, and sadly, many of them are so glaring that they seriously detract from the game play and immersion.

Firstly, in the bad old days of pre-DosBox, there was the Sword Master problem... in the game, as a fighter, you had to beat the sword master to get full points, and since the game ran on it's own clock, if you manage to get the game running without dosbox, it meant that he would move at lightening speed and defeat you before you were able to press the first attack button. Though this has been solved by DosBox, it still annoyed me for years on end before then, and I still resent it quite greatly (while other games had clock issues, none of them had problems of this magnitude).

The other big problems were the potions and goblins 'training' looting bugs. When buying potions of the from the healer, you had to open and close your inventory twice after every purchase to make sure you got it. What I mean is, if you buy two stamina potions in a row, but don't check your invention after every purchase, you will only end up with one potion. Same thing applies to looting the dead goblins you fight in the goblin training grounds screen. If you search one and don't double check your invention, you will only get the money from the latest one you searched. Though this isn't a gamebreaker, this issue makes it rather tedious to perform what is a routine game function.

Another bug (again solved by DosBox, but still annoying) is that Yorick does not leave the maze room even after you explain your purpose there, and unless you adjust the game cycles he would continue to throw things at you to hinder your progress through the maze. In the original game, after telling him/ why you were there, he would leave you alone. It was another notable error.

The graphics issue that almost everyone has experienced... well I suppose I could give it a notable mention, but to be honest I was never bothered by it as a kid, and as an adult, I just like to think it's the effect of the mushrooms that the hero would use to get his mind of the fact that every monster in the forest wants him dead.

But to me, the single biggest problem in the entire game is the dagger bug. In every iteration of QFG, before combat, you could throw daggers at your enemy, and then after combat you could pick them up. This includes QFG EGA, but in the VGA remake, if you throw a dagger at your enemy and then enter combat, that dagger is gone forever. You could avert it by throwing a dagger and then picking it up before combat, but that still does not excuse the original issue.

The Bottom Line
Have you ever wished you could leave the world and all it's problem and embark on a great adventure? Well this is it, and it gives a brilliant and colorful start to a great series of adventure games.

That being said, the game really was an overall great improvement and if it wasn't for the annoying bugs, it would have been a 100% improvement over the original in every way.

The Good
The last of the remakes Sierra produced, Quest for Glory is an adventure/RPG hybrid made by the same people that brought us the original game. An unnamed hero enters the town of Spielburg overrun by brigands, and discovers a curse placed on the Baron's daughter by the witch Baba Yaga. And it is up to the hero to find someway to break the curse, even if it takes him days to do so.

I already covered the game mechanics in my review of the original, so I won't go into detail into those here. What I didn't say in that review is that each of the classes offer different solutions to puzzles, but all of them require a certain trait to be built up. For instance, you are supposed to climb a tree so you can collect the Healer's ring from a bird nest. If you try to climb up the tree, you will fail. If you do it often enough, you will be able to climb up in the end.

Being a remake, the game benefits from running on Sierra's newer SCI engine. You direct the character through a point-and-click interface, rather than typing commands. There are actually two icon interfaces. The main one is found by pointing the cursor to the top of the screen, and if you played other Sierra games, you know what that looks like. The secondary icon interface can be found by clicking an icon in the main one, and it is there you can make your character walk, run, sneak, choose to rest for a period of time, or check your statistics out. Both icon interfaces are well designed and I could easily tell what each one does just by looking at the pictures on them.

The hand-painted backgrounds are wonderful, and the animation of each of the characters is smooth. The character portraits were done with clay models, but I didn't like some of them. Baba Yaga looks like the Joker's wife. I love the monster fights. The monsters themselves are drawn and animated nicely. I almost felt sorry for having to kill them.

I enjoyed listening to the game's soundtracks, especially when you go into combat mode. The soundtrack itself blends in with what you are doing. Now, I know I said this in my original QFG reviews as well as my others, but I'll say it again: If you happen to have a Roland MT-32 sound module, you get to hear the soundtrack with real instruments rather than MIDI.

As I said earlier, the game offers different solutions to most of the puzzles, depending on what class you have selected, so it's well worth replaying the game again and taking a different approach. I have the strategy guide, which contains a brief walkthrough and there are specific instructions for each of the classes. There is enough interesting information that already made me play the game at some point.

The Bad
In the original version, when you were in combat mode, you could still type commands in that allowed you to escape or to cast spells at the monsters, among other actions. The remake has none of this. In the remake, however, it has been replaced by eight icons, four which are hidden from you unless you click on the big shield in the middle. I still can't get used to this system, and found out typing commands are much easier for me. Also, when you try to escape, the monster which you are escaping from reappears right next to you, making it hard to run to the next screen. This becomes so annoying if you are escaping because you don't have the health/stamina to kill them. For this reason, you are forced to restore a game and then try again.

Not a lot of effort was put into the ending. It is even worse than the one from the VGA remake of Police Quest. There is no background music, and there is only one closing scene, then there are the credit.

The Bottom Line
If you haven't played the original Quest for Glory, you're not missing out on much. The remake boasts wonderful graphics and a soundtrack. The point-and-click interface may have replaced the text parser, but that's Sierra remakes for you. Any QFG fan should at least try the remake to see whether they like it or not. For me, it's just the new combat system that I found tedious.

The Good
Like most of the adventure games that Sierra made during the time period of 1991-1992, it shares the same sort of graphical style that can be found in RH: Conquests of the Longbow and King's Quest V. Since those games (and this one, as a matter of fact) have a very classic and distinct look, it sort of rubs off here as well and gives the setting of Spielburg Valley a distinctly fairy tale look that is sort of absent from the rest of the series. This is probably a good thing, as I can’t imagine the same look working in QfG 2 and 3. It works here though.

The Bad
It's REALLY short. It took me only a few short hours to complete the game. And I got close to the maximum score (492 pts.) as well. Other than that, I can't really complain.

Well, I could mention that the puzzles are a bit easy and that choosing your class doesn't really affect the plot or what you can do in the game. I played as a Thief/Magic User and I was able to accomplish just about everything that both classes can do in the game with only a minimal amount of fuss. And, as I stated earlier, I wish that there were two separate panels in combat (one focused on conventional combat and one for spell casting), instead of having to switch between the two.

But I shan't hold these problems against the game, as it's far too enjoyable to do so.

The Bottom Line
If you can find a copy of this available somewhere, I would get it. You may need to get a DOS Emulator (like the excellent and free DOSBox program) to run it properly on Windows XP, though.