Or for the newtimers, your first time feelings about this game also work :)

Just remembering when these games were new and my own experiences with them and I'd like to share them with you all, and ask that you share some of yours in return.

[1VGA]
Honestly, my most played one as a kid. I remember actually being *scared* of the game over scenes because the music was so dour that it made me sad.
I always played the game with magic no matter what class I was. In fact, as a Fighter without magic, I wouldn't have known how to beat the game because I didn't know how to open some things without the Open spell.
I was also very bad at making proper saves so I'd sometimes lose a lot of progress, lol.
(In some cases I'm STILL bad at making proper saves!)
I remember thinking that there were ways to get into certain places, I just couldn't figure out how. Stuff like the grate in the graveyard, for example. I just don't remember the other places.

[2]
Oh boy, considering I was raised on the VGA version of 1, I struggled with this game because my typing skills weren't so great (though I think they were good for my age!) I think this was another one that I couldn't figure out how to beat without magic, though I think I did better than the first game. I never figured out how to become a Paladin (mostly because I didn't know what a paladin was or that it was even in the game) but that wouldn't matter because...

[3]
...This game came with the ability to change you into a paladin upon character import, and oh boy did I have a lot of fun with the powers you got! It was so gratifying, Rakeesh was so awesome, and I was old enough that I was able to understand things better. This was during the golden age of DOS Gaming so this was my favorite of the series at the time (and in many ways still is). It helped that I was a HUGE nerd for Ancient Egypt at the time so I spent a lot of time loving Tarna. I loved the colors, I loved the characters, I loved the music, and I loved the way your sword became a blue flame. The only thing I didn't love was that it was impossible for me to beat the game as a Fighter or Paladin because our computer was already too advanced for this one, and either the NewRisingSun patch didn't exist yet, or I didn't know it existed. (And we searched for quite a few ways to fix it.)

[4]
And here's where my experience fell flat because by the time I got an opportunity to play this game, it was already too broken to play (this is the Anthology version, so I got it at the same time as 3). I was lucky to make it down the swamp, and then Error 52 reared its ugly head and made the game impossible to beat.

So... for the longest time, I didn't even bother with this game. I hated it. It was too broken, the mood too dark, and a lot of things were quite frankly scary for me at that age so I couldn't really handle it that well. I did manage to see the rituals and the ending, but I cheated to see it by using the Jester save files that were present on the CD.

Of course, then I was able to play the game properly and I enjoyed it more, but I must admit that this battle system is, ironically, my least favorite, despite it being so many others' favorite.

And then the CD got huge scratches right over the voice parts of the game and I lost a huge reason to actually play it, since the voices were integral to the experience (or that was my opinion at the time, at least)

[2VGA]
Just a brief thing to bring up is that I very clearly remember hearing about this, back when the company was called "Tierra", and eagerly awaiting its release until it finally happened.

This was 9 years ago.

And it only feels like a couple of years ago.

[5]
I have no real nostalgia surrounding 5. I had no idea it had been released, and by the time I had learned of it, it had already stopped being stocked at stores. I managed to get ahold of the game at one point, but I couldn't beat it because it would crash whenever anything breathed fire on me.

The GOG version fixed that bit though, thankfully.

My opinion is kinda one of big disappointment, but a disappointment that's been tempered into "It's not as good as I wanted it to be, but it's good enough to appreciate". I still have my odd complaints but overall I guess I like it.

QFG1: I first played the VGA version of this game when I was 7, and what I remember most about it was being scared spitless by the Cheetaurs at night, mostly because of the way their dark blue fur seemed to glow in the dark (like everything blue, actually). But their battle music probably made it particularly overwhelming to my puerile mind. It took me another 8 years to muster the courage to actually fight a Cheetaur from full health.

For most of my childhood and teenage years, I preferred the VGA version, but from about the age of 19 I decided that I liked the EGA version better.

QFG2: I first played it at age 11, as that was when the Anthology came out. I enjoyed it, but it took me a while to figure out the mechanics of conversation (i.e. that I had to type out what to "ask about"). I also needed a hint about how to defeat the Air Elemental, as I had some trouble deciphering Keapon's clues and didn't know to ask Aziza about elementals.

My proudest moment was, strangely enough, figuring out how to defeat Ad Avis. I had always played a Fighter with Magic, so I had to defeat Ad Avis the way a Wizard would... and I had not yet played Quest for Glory III as a Wizard.

QFG3: I got this game when I was 7, but I didn't really enjoy it as much as the first game, mostly because for a non-imported Fighter, the battles are extremely tough. I played the game again at age 11, and spent about a year trying to figure out what to do after marrying and giving the three gifts to the Leopard Lady.

I remember associating the angry red sky above the Lost City with the same sort of ethereal horror that was also present in QFG4, and I really liked that.

QFG4: I first got this game as part of the Anthology, and for some reason it never seemed to suffer from bugs that much. Maybe it's just because I knew how to avoid them? Error 52 didn't start to be a thing until my parents ditched our old Windows 95 computer.

You wouldn't think that the Cheetaurs in the first game would have anything in common with the Rusalka, but for me, they were about equally horrific. Even before avenging her as a Paladin, I still couldn't stand to look at her (which is probably why her... makeover... after said retribution didn't really phase me). It's not so much that I dislike nude women, but I was extremely unsettled by this nude woman trying to kill me!

The first few dreams by the staff and in Erana's Garden were also pretty unsettling, but that made night that you actually have a thoroughly pleasant dream (when you get to hug and kiss Erana) that much more poignant. I think I fell in love with Erana during this game, even though her appearance at the end of the game was pretty... unsettling.

QFG5: Got it at age 13. My first impression was displeasure at how you couldn't wear the same sort of heater-style shield that the Fighter and Paladin had worn in the first four games; they're all hoplon-style in this game.

Then I was overjoyed to learn that you could restore Erana to life and even marry her. I always had more of a connection to Erana than Katrina, so you can guess which one I usually chose.

Then after completing the game as a Paladin and as a Wizard, I went back and played the rest of the games and realized that there was way too much combat in this one.

Love this question:

QFG1EGA -
As an avid DOS gamer on the BBS systems, I wasn't new to EGA games, but man... after playing the VGA version, this one felt so lacking. That was my first impression of it. As an adult, now, I appreciate what it set out to do some much more.
- "Ugh... why all the pink colors?" (I understood EGA limitations, and still said something like that.)

QFG1VGA -
The first time I ever saw this game, it was on a DOS demo I had downloaded from a Wildcat BBS in Philadelphia. And I thought, WHOA!! Neat! And then I played it, after playing QFG4, and it was MUCH harder.
- Whoa! The graphics in the battles are AWESOME!
- What's with the cape?
- Whoa, Baba Yaga looks WAY different in this one.
- Ah! Antwerps! That's way bigger than the ones in Dr. Cranium's lab.
- Wait a second... where the heck is the Strategy setting for fighting?

QFG2EGA -
I thought the game was huge, and because it was in EGA, I kind of saw it as a black sheep. I REALLY struggled with the text-parser. It was probably my least favorite of the series... until, again, I became an adult. I actually appreciate this one almost as much as QFG4, now, because of just HOW huge it was an how detailed they made the game.
- I can't figure out this map!
- I wish there was a way to do this game without the passage ways (Even after I had the map, I didn't understand you could teleport with it. I used it for reference in the hallways.
- Why can't I rest?

QFG3 -
Ah, now I'm back to something I recognize. I felt at home in this one.
- Wow... there's a lot more people than in Mordarvia.
- Whoa! That tree is huge!
- Whoa! That ant hill is huge!... wait a second... it doesn't do anything!
- Neat! A vision sequence!
- The first time I saw a rhino charging at me, I had no idea that's what it was, and thought I could fight it. I was sorely mistaken.
- I tried to import my character from QFG4 into QFG3... and was very disappointed when it didn't work. My dreams of doing a world-tour with one character in any order I wanted were dashed. :( I still remember that disappointment. I laugh at it now. :D

QFG4 -
The first Quest for Glory game I played, and I was hooked from the outset. The adventure, the fighting, the characters, the setting... everything was dark and magical.
- The first time I met the Domovoi, I was REALLY worried that it was going to kill me.
- I remember telling my dad about another part of the Adventurer's Guild I discovered as a thief. He was wowed, too.
- I was convinced what I needed was hidden in that maze of a castle. I was wrong. I still had to convince Anna that she was a ghost, first.
- I was 10, the game was newly released, I had played it for weeks, loving every second... and had no idea how to beat it. It wasn't until a year or so later that I got my first walk through and realized where I was messing.
- When I finally beat it and exported my first character, I was stoked. It said to wait for the next game, but I was too excited, so I tried to import it back in QFG4... and it WORKED! I was thrilled, because I got to try the Paladin which had eluded me until then! (This was actually the beginning of my speedruns of QFG4.)

QFG5 -
After going through all of the games in the Anthology release, I was stoked for QFG5!... and then, the delays happened. And then I heard it was cancelled. And I wrote a letter to Sierra asking them to un-cancel the game... and I heard the game was back in production!
- Why the heck did I bother training all of those seemingly useless stats... when they really did turn out to be useless in the end? Where's my Glide spell that made my life so much easier?
- Wow, I miss QFG4 side-view combat. My character went from being an unstoppable juggernaut in QFG4 to a clumsy pushover in QFG5 because I was addicted to Stategy fighting from buffing my stats in QFG4 by re-importing over and over again.
- "I miss Dmitri."

QFG1 EGA (Hero's Quest): A buddy of mine owned the game and I would play it at his house. We almost always used hybrid characters i.e. thieves with magic wizards with lock picking. I would spend a lot of unnecessary time fighting trolls and cheetaurs to obtain as much gold and silver as possible only to find the hero struggling to make it across the screen. I actually enjoyed the text parser. I probably learned to type mostly through this game and the early space quest chapters. Still my favorite of the series.

QFG1 VGA: The first qfg game I personally owned. It was the only game of the series that I could get for the mac. I wasn't much thrilled by the improved graphics and thought the new combat system was a time stink (how can you beat mashing the up arrow?). I haven't played this one in probably twenty years.

QFG2: We had a pc by the time the anthology came out so I finally got to play the later installments of the series formally unavailable to me. I was in my early teens at the time and wasn't opposed to using the internet to look up walkthroughs. That killed a little of the game play and intrigue. I never liked the seemingly endless desert and hated the fact that the game was on a timeline. It also really bugged me that Harik would quickly fill up his stores of scorpion tails and ghoul claws. In retrospect I like the story, but initially found this game frustrating.

QFG3: Not too much to say about this one. While it was kind of cool getting to make a wizard staff and being able to use paladin abilities, not much stands out about the third game. Oh and I hated the damn map.

QFG4: This to me was like a return to form for the series. Finally we got a world that you could explore like the first game. One thing I liked doing for qfg1 was making my own maps and yet again I was able to employ my emerging cartography skills. The story was dark and ominous, but the voice acting was a nice contrast. I loved listening to the Hans, Franz, and Ivan. I'll never forget the tale of the mysterious stranger that drove off all the elephants (AHA I am an elephant!). That stuff still makes me chuckle. I liked how Erana was tied in with the storyline and was surprsied that you finally get to meet the enigmatic sorceress.

QFG5: The game play of dragonfire really sets it aside from the rest of the series. It feels more like a "game" rather then an adventure. That being said, I enjoyed how the storyline gets nicely wrapped up ( Bruno's revenge!).

Now that I have the time to get around to this:

QFG1: This was actually the 2nd game that I played (More on why later). The first thing that stood out was it was cool see some things that I saw or were mentioned in the 2nd game. The 2nd game mentioned Spielburg, so after months of playing the 2nd game, it was cool to finally see Spielburg. Also, at the end of the 2nd game, Shameen tells everybody about all the great things you did in the first game. It was nice to for me to actually make the hero do those things and see them first hand, so I have first-hand knowledge of what Shameen is talking about there. It was also nice to see characters that were in the 2nd game or were mentioned in the 2nd game (Shameen, Shema, Abdullah, Zara, Erasmus, Fenrus, Baba Yaga).And it was nice to learn why Erana hadn't been responding to WIT's summons for a long time.

After that, well, the most lasting memory of that game is the fairies. Man, the first time that I died from those things was... quite an experience LOL. It took me a while to process exactly what happened. Fairies, creatures that I associate with goodness, will kill you just for entering their territory? And they do it by making you dance to your death? Never before, never since have I experienced anything like that. In the end, I found that I enjoyed that greatly. I am glad they put that in the game.

The only part where I got stuck and had to consult a walkthrough to beat the game is the Spirea puzzle as a fighter. When I hacked those plants with my sword, yes I did notice the loss of points, but I didn't care. I don't go for the perfect score during my first playthrough of a game. But when I took the seed to the Dryad, that's when I was forced to care. But who would think to throw a rock to intercept the thing in mid-flight? Even if you were a really great thrower, that'd have a "googolplex to one shot" (to quote Droole from Space Quest 5) of working in real life. Furthermore, I never used my throwing skill as a fighter in the 2nd game, so how was I supposed to know the fighter would need it in the first game? Not the worst puzzle I have seen, but IMO it's a rare bad puzzle from the Coles. But only having to consult the walkthrough once to beat the game is a sign of overall good game design.

That's just for beating the game, I also had to use the walkthrough to learn about the secret meeting at the archery range. I had no idea that was in the game. I just forced my way in through the front entrance of the fortress. I had no idea there was another way. That was a surprise to me.

Overall, I very, very much enjoyed that game, and was glad I bought the package from GOG. After I was done with this game, I was sure I was going to prefer the "Quest For Glory" series to the "King's Quest" series. And I did!

QFG2

I have to start by saying that the VGA version of this game is the first one I played and the one I play most often. I found it when I was looking for a way to get the "King's Quest" games to work on my computer. I wanted to relive my childhood. When I found out that a fan company had remade and improved on the first 3 games and released them for free, I HAD to play them! And boy, am I glad I did! Anyway, they plugged their QFG2 remake multiple times and I figured, well, they have and and it's free, so why not give it a try? Corey said that when he and Lori presented to series to their boss, Ken Williams said he didn't understand the game. Well, I didn't understand the game either at first. I restarted the game and then I found there were ways to simplify it. As I did that, I slowly began to understand the game. It took me a while to learn the combat system and then win the combat, but once I finally beat a Jackalman, I was thrilled! Then the elementals started showing up and I had some real puzzles to solve and that was fun. And then the game just got better and better and better. When I beat the game, I was happy I played it. When I found that there were 3 different character classes and some of them had alternate solutions to the puzzle, that was mindblowing to me! It's like these games are 3 games in one! And for this game, they just kept finding new ways to keep me entertained. The paladin sidequest, Sweeping Sir James, the pizza elemental, the cheat codes, it was like every time I beat it I'd look to the walktrhough for something else to do, and I'd find it! And beating the pizza elemental was the best feeling I had experienced in a long time. Other things I loved are Aziza's minigame, and the 2 funniest deaths ever (attacking Julanar and "drop clothes"). Needless to say, after I was done with this game, I bought the whole series from GOG.

QFG3: I very much enjoyed that game. It was so great getting an extension of the back-stories of Rakeesh and Uhura. They're 2 of my favorite characters. It was also interesting, albeit saddening, that the inn was run by humans and not Katta. I thought Shameen and Shema were going to be in every game. The world map thing was new to me, that took some getting used to. The "chase" music stood out to me (the music for when a monster is chasing you), I LOVE that music. I liked Salim, he was at the time the most memorable personality to run an apothecary. His apothecary wasn't as good as Harik's since pills are more expensive in QFG3, but Salim's hippie personality, and how he feels when you tell him about Julanar, were enjoyable. A nice parody of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" and an amusing death are also in that apothecary. The Sekhmet part of the game was a unique and enjoyable experience, although I am disappointed that screwing up there does not get you killed. I enjoy the music for the venemous vines. I liked the Heart of the World: I liked the music for that and I also liked that there was a place you could go to get 100% healed, and I liked that the game said "This place is like, well, totally awesome dude." I just didn't expect games to speak like that. The Simbani Initiation was a highlight for me, though I had trouble triggering the Leopardwoman (I didn't know that you had to beat Uhura in spear-throwing to trigger that). I wish they made it clearer that Johari is supposed to run off when you release her. The game makes it seem like she shouldn't, and who would think that you're supposed to look for her in the jungle? But getting the Leopardmen's side of the story was a very cool part of the game: up to that point only Rakeesh and Kreesha were saying that the Leopardmen were innocent, so it was cool to see that they were right all along. I really liked Manu: he's a very well-done character. I love QFG3, and was quite surprised to find out on the internet how many people don't like it.

QFG4:

This game blew me away as soon as I started it up. The music, the artwork, the dark creepy vibe, John Rhys-Davies voice,... as soon as I started it, I knew I was starting the best game ever. And it just got better and better. One thing that disappointed me was that the first time I played the game I played as a pure fighter, and I spent days trying to figure out how to help the Rusalka, only to find out that only the Paladin can do it (Ugh! So many wasted days!). But that's certainly a good way to give you incentive to play the paladin. Anyway, I loved everything about the game. Highlights include:

Katrina: the first character you meet in the game who turns out to be the Dark Master
Igor: I didn't always laugh at the graveyard humor but I loved the character anyway
Dr. Cranium: I loved the puzzles you had to solve to meet him, and I love the character
The gypsies: Magda and Davy were some of my favorite characters and actors in the game. This was also my introduction to Tarot card readings. That was an awesome experience. I also liked that the townspeople hated, feared, and even threatened to burn one of them. That made the game more realistic to real life. And I like what Bella has to say about the gypsies: she's one of the most tolerant characters in the game,
Combat music: Okay, the combat system isn't the best, but you've got the chase music, and then you've got a different theme song for each monster, the only game to have that, and I love every single one of those pieces of music.
Playing as a paladin: Being able to help the Rusalka and the Burgomeister makes it worthwhile to be a paladin.
Hanz, Franz, and Ivan: They're all impersonators of famous celebrities and as far as I can tell they're all GOOD impersonations, and all the characters are funny. Kudos to those actors for their ad-libbing

Well, I can go on and on but you get the point.

QFG5:

At first, I had trouble getting used to the graphics and the interface. But even though I MUCH prefer the VGA graphics/interface, one thing I do like is that this game is MUCH easier to learn than "King's Quest 8." In that game, I gave up trying to learn, get used to the controls. In QFG5 usually all you have to do is click where you want to go, or the enemy you want to attack, and the hero will do it. That's not to say it was an easy game. At first this seemed like a beast of a game. It's a really long game, and when I got to 500 points and the game wasn't over yet, I was like "What is going on?" But that just made it all the more satisfying when I beat the game. I also liked that there are so many different things you can do. There are different ways to beat the main quests for most character classes. There are side quests for all the character classes. There are women you can try to marry. There are humorous wrong answers you can give at science island. There's the wheel of fortune. You can save Ugarte and Rakeesh or you can let them die. There are so many different things you can do in this game. It's not as interesting of a story as the other games, but what it lacks in story-telling it makes up for in other areas.