Quest for Glory 1-5

The first time I ever played Quest for Glory was in 1989 when "Hero's Quest" first came out. It was revolutionary for Sierra to expand upon their adventure genre and add RPG elements, but man was it fun! And hard! the battle system in the original Hero's Quest (the name changed to Quest for Glory later due to copyright issues with the board game Hero's Quest, which didn't have anything to do with the game) was brutal, but you got it eventually. And the puzzles and deaths were pure Sierra trademark. The story entails a hero (you) who comes to the small town of Spielburg where trouble's abound. Brigands and monsters rule forest, the Barons children have dissappeared and an evil wich have settled near the town. Yes, a hero is indeed needed and you can choose to be a warrior, thief or a mage. You get to set some skillpoints as is custom in RPGs (even back then) and start near the town gates. The game got a VGA remake some years later and added the icon UI instead of typing, which greatly eased the difficulty, but still retained the fun of the original, plus better graphics. For it's time. The second game "Trial by Fire" changed the setting from forests and mountains to deserts and huge cities and added a very distinct oriental flavour. This time you two cities are at war, and you are the only one who can stop it. An evil vizir is plotting against you, so it won't be easy. The third game in the series "Wages of War" takes you to Africana where you must combat demons and convince the warring tribes to unite and fight with you. This one is my personal favorite, because the story and mood fits perfectly with the setting, not to mention the different characters you meet, all of which are interesting and fun. It ended on a cliffhanger which "Shadows of Darkness" picked up. You are now in a bleak Transylvanian setting with vampires and werewolves, fighting an ancient Chtulhu-like old God. There's also a vampire and her slave out to get you, so again the hero must prove his worth. Again! The last game "Dragon Fire" takes place in a an ancient medieval setting where the quest for the crown has begun. Several contestants, including you, must complete a set of trials to win. From Hades to Atlantis, dodging assassin attempts and fighting monsters from mythology, the hero really has his hands full this time. Now with very much improved graphics and interface. This is a pure gem of a download, and I'll damned if I won't take the hero through this amazing journey. Again!

The Quest For Glory series is, combined, an engaging story arc of an adventurer who rises from humble origins to become a hero of five different lands. At face value it's a hybrid of adventure gaming and roleplaying, successful on both counts in every iteration of the franchise, although admittedly to varying degrees depending upon the individual title. I'd be doing the series a disservice if I referred to it as excellent gaming and nothing else, though. There's more to be had here if you look at what's presented. Spanning five different nations, each of them analogous to regions/countries in our own world, the Quest For Glory series is a celebration of cultures. Whether you're browsing the bazaars of the desert city of Shapeir, trailblazing the jungles of Tarna in search of treasure, or reveling in the song and dance of gypsies in Mordavia, your hero becomes a part of the land he's fighting to save. In a way this is important, because it makes the saving all the more satisfying, providing it with context. By the time you reach the climax of each game, you're more emotionally invested in the characters you've worked so hard to protect. You essentially learn during the game why the land is worth saving. There are five games included in this download, six if you count the two versions of Quest For Glory I. I consider all of them worth playing, especially since your hero's journey feels like it needs to be completed, but feel compelled to talk about one of them in particular - Quest for Glory 4: Shadows of Darkness. Although my youth was spent playing games that were technically excellent, with fantastic gameplay and other traits worthy of praise, it wasn't until QFG4 that I realized games could truly be art. Shadows of Darkness weaves an intricate tale of love, loss and redemption around the gameplay elements of it's predecessors, hitting emotional notes that other games just didn't. The spot-on voice acting and tone of the game are immersive and engaging and it remains to this day one of my favorite games of all-time. This wouldn't be a proper review if it were written without some criticisms, so here they are. The games in the series suffer from different faults, so here's a brief rundown of what I personally found lacking with them by title. QFG1 (I've only played the VGA version) - Not much bad to say about this one. The combat is fun and you get a sense of accomplishment as you progress in the quest. It can be frustrating for new players when they lack the power to take down some of the random monsters early on, but the difficulty overall scales well once you get your stamina score high enough. 4/5 QFG2 - The graphics are dated, to say the least. The music, too, for that matter. You might want to pull out your hair navigating the streets right away, as the city is literally a maze of sorts. 4/5 QFG3 - The storyline in this one is arguably the weakest. Understanding how to progress can be a bit confusing at times. The game also seemed to have a smaller selection of monsters to battle. 4/5 QFG4 - It was released with a lot of bugs, making it unplayable at the time. Those bags have been fixed, as far as I can tell. If you've read this far, you know I don't have much to say negatively about it. 5/5 QFG5 - While popular opinions may differ, I consider this the weakest game in the series. The combat is dull and the shift in art style, which is a weird blend of 3d and 2d, just doesn't quite seem to work. The quality voice acting in QFG4 is diluted here, with a handful of voice actors giving poor performances. 3/5

Anyone not familiar with the fanchise might think that it's just another "quest" series from Sierra's heyday, and in a sense that's true, but it's also much more than that. In essence, QfG is a graphical adventure with RPG elements. While nowadays RPG routinely include elements that are typical of graphical adventures, QfG tried to create a hybrid starting from the graphical adventures' side. This was very innovative at the time and to this day, the five QfG games are the only attempts in that direction (that I know of, at least). The games themselves are based on a variant of Sierra's classic SCI engine, with the exception of QfG 5. QfG 1 and 2 works with text parsers, whereas 3 to 5 have a point and click system with pictorial icons reperesenting available "verbs". For those who cannot deal with parsers, a VGA remake of QfG1 using the newer interface is included in the package, and a free AGS based fan remake of QfG can be found on the net. The games themselves tell the strory of an unknown adventurer, and his quest to become a hero of legends. At the start of the game, the player is asked which character class he's going to play as (Fighter, Magic User or Thief, with the bonus class of Paladin being available from QfG 2 onwards) and he's offered some (limited) options to further customize his stats. The actual gameplay is very similar to that of a normal Sierra adventure, except that some RPG style management of money/equipment is also needed. Furthermore, like most RPGs there are monsters prowling around which you can choose to either fight or flee from (there are also some enemies that give you instant Sierra-style game over when challenged, but usually there are hints to warn you of such a possibility). While the RPG aspects mentioned above give flavoring, what provide the games with a distinct style is that the puzzles the players have to solve have multiple solutions, so different classes have to figure out different ways to solve them. The philosophy is similar to the three paths of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, except that here instead of a three different storylines which share a number of locations we have one single storyline wherein challenges are overcome differently by different heroes. Another - for the time fairly groundbreaking - feature of the series is that once a game is beaten, it is possible to export the character to the following games; for this reason I would REALLY recommend to play the games in sequence. Furthermore, as the hero is the typical silent protagonist, most of the tone of the story - generally light-hearted and tongue in cheek, but also with moments which show a certain depth- is set by the cast of NPCs, most of which appear and evelve throughout different episodes, and whose characterization can therefore be fully appreciated in a sequential playthrough of the series. Lastly, it's worth mentioning that the series often went to explore settings and related mythologies which are not much explored in games, such as african savanna (QfG 3) or slavic countryside (QfG 4).

I remember when QFG 1 was called Hero's Quest, but had to be changed due to legal issues. That game set the tone for the series, and QFG 3 is the only one that I finished. I can't wait to play this series from start to finish and revel in the awesomeness that is QFG. Kudos to GOG for this, and like others, please add the soundtracks :).

I've played these classics for a long time over the years. Glad that GOG finally was able to get it for sale...and at a reasonable price, too! I was feeling nostalgic awhile back and wanted to play this series again so I went on Amazon and saw sellers wanting hundreds of dollars for old Quest for Glory compilation game packages they use to sell years ago. Ugh...Are you kidding me??? Join GOG, folks. They won't rip you off.