Return to form for a classic series
While technically sound and with some great individual moments, Quest for Glroy 2 & 3 simply could not capture the magic of the first game. Quest for Glory 4 manages to match the original and even surpass it in a great many ways.
QfG 4 transports the hero to a new realm inspired by Transylvania. It's an intriguing setting for the game, relying upon many eastern European legends while keeping that same Quest for Glory essence of humor and adventure. The hero faces threats from every angle. This is not a friendly realm.
Stylistically, this was the darkest of the five QfG games. By today's standards, the graphics certainly aren't great, but when the game was released, this was a sharp looking game with some amazing environments. The character models are also much nicer, and even include speech for the first time in the series. Audio-wise, this is second only to Dragon Fire in the entire series for audio quality. The music sticks with the European themes to great effect, and the speech, while hammed up, fits the spirit of the game perfectly. The sound effects are drawn from the same pool as many other Sierra adventure games, which isn't bad and lends a sort of nostalgic quality to the game when playing Freddy Pharkas or Gabriel Knight.
The game doesn't really introduce any new elements to its basic inventory/action RPG formula, though the battles do switch to an almost-Street Fighter-ish feel. This was a bit of a backwards step from the previous games, but once you got used to it, the battles generally became easier. Also, in a slight grievance, certain quests became difficult to complete without proper skill-building before the event. This could lead to a lot of frustration as a player would have to rebuild or rework a character from scratch just for one silly caretaker.
Those gripes aside, Quest for Glory 4 is an easy game to recommend to any adventure gamer if you can find a copy. As with the previous games in the series, you might have to seek help online to find out how to run the game, but if you can get it going, you'll find an adventure RPG chock full of that Quest for Glory magic.