Quest for Glory 1-5

These games are, even by 2023 standards, very solid adventures to enjoy. Some specifics worth knowing: The series really was ahead of its time as far as having a 'coninuing adventure', since you can import your character from one game to the next. Mass Effect and other series have done this since then, but this is my first memory of it...and is still rare even today. Quest for Glory IV, at least for me, is my favorite installment. The art, music, story and overall FEEL is amazing. I play a good chunk of it, if not all, almost every October. It also features some amazing voice acting by film and gaming legends! While you might be temped to brush it off due to the EGA graphics...Quest for Glory II is a really, really great game. There's something magical in the text-parser interactions of Quest for Glory II, as it makes it feel like you are really having a conversation and coming up with questions...instead of just clicking dialogue options. Great music, too (set it to MT-32)! The only game that I don't revisit in modern times is QG5, mainly because it just felt like too much of a departure from the rest of the series. It's not a bad game though, and should be tried during your character-journey. I recall the sound effects work to be stellar. Great series...and definitely worth your time!

You will have to forgive my enthusiasm, but this absolutely just made my week. I have been waiting a very long time for Quest for Glory, ANY of them to show up on GOG, let alone all 5 of them in a reasonably priced pack. This has absolutely made my day, week, pick a time frame. I first played through these quite awhile ago, but I'm still very fond of them. The humour, and gameplay to me are timeless. For me, probably the weakest entry is number 3, but it's not really even weak. To call it weak would be an insult, so forget I mentioned the word in the first place. I love that you can import your character from each game, to be sent to the next game. It is fun to see the progression of your hero from a complete weakling to something a bit more powerful. If you haven't played these games, but love adventure gaming, then you need to pick them up. Hopefully you won't regret it.

The VGA remake of the first Quest for Glory would have to be my favorite game in the whole point and click genre. I haven't really liked many other adventure games but Quest for Glory mixes RPG elements with point and click adventure and it's wonderful. Especially for someone like me who enjoys RPGs far more than adventure games. You can pick one of three classes at the beginning; fighter, mage, or thief. This choice will determine how you'll be overcoming many of the obstacles in the game. It also adds a lot of replay to the game since you can go through it again with a different class to change things up. The remake still looks good today and has a great intuitive interface. The combat is pretty simple but I felt the later games made it too awkward to control. This first game had the right idea. Like most Sierra games Quest for Glory doesn't take itself very seriously and is often quite funny--which I like. I've played a lot of point and click adventures but I still go back to play through Quest for Glory to this day and for me that proves it's still one of the very best this genre has to offer.

I would like to go more in-depth but given the limit GOG has put on reviews these days I unfortunately don't have that luxury. Without going into spoilers I ran into a bug that prevented me from finishing a game. To be clear, this is not a bug that you can simply ignore but given that there are multiple classes you may never encounter it. It's not like I wanted it to fail, reloading previous saves and trying up to 10 times. I looked up if there was a patch. It turns out that there is a patch, which comes with the GOG version, but this does not fix the issue. It is an old title so there is no excuse to not give buyers instructions on how to bypass bugs which are this severe and prevent them from completing a game. Thus, at least one game in the series earns a 1/10 or 0/10 from me. As there are 5 stars to be awarded the bundle of 5 games loses 1 star here. The games are best served for people who enjoy grinding stats and preparing for challenges often within a time limit. In terms of story the game suffers from ludonarrative dissonance (the gameplay won't allow you to do what the story tells you should be possible). There is some social commentary which works at times but at other times you stop to think about the implications and it just makes you shake your head. Another fact which I personally do not enjoy is when characters have their personalities and mannerisms altered over the course of multiple titles without us seeing the character progression. In terms of importing, a selling point, *most* of the games try to take items away from you without even giving you a suitable explanation as to what happened to them. You may find it grating that the chainmail you bought doesn't carry over because you are not a fighter. -The 2nd game has got the best character import. -The 3rd game has got the best bartering system. -The 4th game has got the best object interactions. SPOILER The 5th game spoils itself in the intro cutscene by showing you who the main villain is.

I recall in my first run through QFG II as a magic user where I beat the developers. There's one part where a "bad guy" is casting a spell inside a pentagram of candles. Okay, so I was supposed to fight him, but since I had a Zap spell I used it to knock a candle over in order to interupt his spell casting. (Well it made sense at the time). Anyway, suddenly up pops a panel with text something like "You've done something we didn't think of. That's really clever! But now the game can't continue. Press <whatever key> to load your save game". I laughed myself silly. Made me an ever bigger devotee of the spirit in which the game is written and played. This series comes from a time when Sierra was one of the best and most reliable Game producers.