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

The Good
Hero's Quest tells about the first adventure of hero name your choosing. You set towards Spielburg, a town in a valley overrun by brigands, an ogress Baba Yaga and monsters. There's also a reward offered to anyone who can shed light in the case of two lost children of the local baron. So there's plenty to do and even a bit more depending on the character you choose to play with.

As in any RPG you can choose a character from three different classes: a thief, a fighter and a mage. You can also create a hybrid class, so if you know the game there's more ground to cover in a single game play this way.

Playing with fighter is the most straight forwarded thing to do. You choose brawn over brains the most of times, while mage and thief solve many puzzles a bit differently. Thief also has some side quest burglarizing houses and selling his loot at the thieves guild, while the mage (or any magic possessing character) has the possibility to play mage Erasmus's wizard duel.

On a side note, the score system gives points only if you solve puzzles in the way your character core class would even if you play a hybrid, so if you play as a thief/mage you should solve puzzles like a thief, not like a mage, despite that is possible to do.

Adventure/RPG is well balanced. You can spend time grinding your abilities, if you feel like it, but you can also just play the game through with out unnecessary buildup if you so choose. But the grinding is advised, as it does pay off in the sequels if you choose to export your character over to the later games.

The Bad
There's surprisingly little I don't like about the game. All the things I don't like are more like nitpicking, as the game is all around pretty solid.

There's very little music in the game and the sound effects are virtually non existing. The graphics are nice, but not necessarily as nice as in the other Sierra titles of the era. Also the plot is pretty basic, so it doesn't offer that many "whoa" elements.

The different classes also provide a different amount of missions and quest. The fighter is a class, that gets less quests, as if he doesn't know magic he can't duel with Erasmus and giving fighter a thieves properties is futile, as he doesn't get a lock pick or know how to identify as thief, so no guild entry for him.

But, as I said, the things I don't like are merely nitpicking.

The Bottom Line
Hero's Quest, or Quest for Glory as the series was later known, isn't among the most well known Sierra properties but it is among Sierras best properties.

As an adventure game it does much right, giving multiple ways to solve puzzles depending on your character class and the RPG elements give it more flavor, as you can do fighting in the middle of regular "look thing a from place b in order to achieve c" adventuring.

And as a bonus you can start a hero in the first game and export it in all other Quest for Glory games as well, so the feeling on continuity is always present.