Quest for Glory is a series of adventure-RPG games possessing elements of both the old Sierra adventure games and their inventory-based puzzles, and RPG elements like statistics and combat. The player starts as an up-and-coming adventurer who wants to become a hero, and can choose between three (eventually four) different character classes, each with unique abilities that color their approach to obstacles. Featuring recurring characters and the ability to import a character from game to game, the series can be experienced as one long story over as many as five separate games.
Character classes
Each character class possesses a default skill set; however, players can spend customization points during the creation of their character to obtain skills their character class would not usually have. This means the classes can be hybridized to some extent; however, the game will still regard the player as possessing one class, and some events or abilities will still be available only to a certain class regardless of skills.
The Fighter
Aside from his sword or battle axe, everything about the Fighter is blunt. His approach to combat is to get in close and hack away, and obstacles will generally be pushed, endured, or hit.
The Magic User
The Magic User posses few physical skills and relies on his spells in all aspects of the hero's life.
The Thief
The Thief is not a champion of combat, but his skill in stealth will often carry him past danger. The Thief's lock-picking skills allow him to break into villain's fortresses and people's homes with equal ease. A hero of grayer morality, the Thief steals from the rich and the poor, but in the end he'll rescue the land, as well.
The Paladin
The Paladin has some similarities to the Fighter class, generally preferring to engage in close-range combat with his fiery-blue sword. However, he can gain access to magic and special Paladin powers as well, and focuses more on helping others during his adventures.
The Paladin class is not available in the first game, but heroes of other classes can eventually become a Paladin if they prove themselves worthy.
Series structure
Series creators Corey and Lori Cole originally envisioned the series as a tetralogy, with each of the four games set in a different location and each corresponding to a different cardinal direction, classical element (earth, fire, air and water) and season. Later, an additional game was inserted into the cycle, bringing the series total to five games.
The first game in the series sees a young, untested hero arriving in Spielburg, a small mountain town troubled by brigands and an evil witch. The setting is inspired by Germanic folklore. It is themed around the Spring season, the element of earth, and the cardinal direction of North. The game was first released in 1989 using EGA graphics and a text parser interface. Sierra remade the game in 1992 with VGA graphics and a mouse-driven interface.
The hero travels into the southern deserts to the twin cities of Shapeir and Raseir, where he must face rampaging elementals and a wizard intent on conquering the world. The setting is inspired by Arabian Nights folklore. Its theme season is Summer, its element is fire, and its cardinal direction is South. The EGA version of the game was released in 1990. This was the only Quest of Glory game that was not officially released or re-released using a newer point-and-click interface. In 2008, AGD Interactive released a freeware fan remake in the style of Sierra's point-and-click adventures with enhanced graphics.
The hero explores the savannahs and jungles of Tarna, uncovering a plot to incite war between the Simbani tribe and the Leopardmen. The game's setting is based on African mythology. This 1992 release was not part of the original planned series, and as such does not have a thematic season, element or direction.
The hero is transported to Mordavia, a Transylvania-inspired land of mists and fog, where he is entangled in a plot by the villain Ad Avis to summon a dark god. Released in 1994, Shadows of Darkness was themed around the Autumn season, the element of air, and the cardinal direction of East.
The hero's journey comes to a conclusion as he competes to win the crown of the kingdom of Silmaria and to defeat a dragon. The game's setting is inspired by Greece, its season is Winter, its element is water, and its direction is West. Released in 1998, this final game in the series uses a different game engine with more emphasis on action role-playing rather than traditional adventure gaming.
Patches
With the exception of Dragon Fire, the QFG games were originally released for DOS, and thus experience timing issues when running on newer, faster computers. Most notorious is the "For what have you come, friend of Rakeesh?" bug in Wages of War, wherein the Simbani leader repeats that line over and over without allowing the player to act, forcing a restart. These timing bugs have been fixed with patches made by fan "NewRisingSun", and are available here. Patches are available for other classic adventure games, as well; running the games in DOSBox, an open-source DOS emulator, also helps with functionality (as well as providing players with the ability to run the games on non-Windows platforms such as Mac OS X and Linux).
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