Quest for Glory

Quest for Glory was a series of hybrid role-playing/adventure computer games designed by Corey and Lori Cole. The combined entertaining humor, good puzzles, elements and characters borrowed from various legends, and atrocious puns with memorable characters, became one of the most enjoyable series in the Sierra stable.

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Quest for Glory 5 cover

Although the series was originally titled Hero's Quest, Sierra failed to trademark the name. Consequently, the electronic adaptation of the Hero Quest board game forced Sierra to change the series's title to Quest for Glory. This decision caused all future games in the series and new copies of Hero's Quest I to switch over to the new name.

Games

The series contained the following games:

Hero's Quest I: So You Want to be a Hero (1989; VGA remake released in 1991)

Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire (1990)

Quest for Glory III: Wages of War (1992)

The endgame sequence of the second game contains an announcement for Quest for Glory III: Shadows of Darkness, but the Wages of War (also been subtitled Seekers of the Lost City) was inserted between the two, making Shadows of Darkness the fourth installment in the series. According to the designers, Shadows of Darkness was delayed so players could have another tradional story, instead of the grimmer presented in what became the fourth title.

Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness (1994)

===Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire (1998)=== (A CD soundtrack was released both on CD and some tracks for free on Mp3.com)

The first four games were intended to indicate the four elements and the four wind directions: in the first game, you are the Hero from the East, in the second, you are from the North, etc. The fifth game was allegedly made only because so many fans demanded it of the original designers. Because of deadline issues, several features were dropped from the fifth game before release, such as several of the wizard's spells, multiplayer capability, and the ability to play as Elsa or Magnum, two non-player characters from the game.

The fifth game is arguably a different genre from the first four; while the first four are mostly adventure games incorporating role-playing elements, the fifth game is a role-playing game incorporating some adventure elements. For instance, the fifth game has a wide variety of weapons, armor and magical items, whereas the first four do not. Also in the fifth game nearly every major mission consists of going to some place and defeating some monster in physical or magical combat.

Collections

Quest for Glory Anthology (1996) a package that includes all four games, including the fully patched CD version of QFG IV.
Quest for Glory Collection Series (1997)) re-release of QFG Anthology with a Dragon Fire demo

The endgame sequence of the second game contains an announcement for Quest for Glory III: Shadows of Darkness, but the Wages of War (also been subtitled Seekers of the Lost City) was inserted between the two, making Shadows of Darkness the fourth installment in the series. According to the designers, Shadows of Darkness was delayed so players could have another tradional story, instead of the grimmer presented in what became the fourth title.

Instructions for running Quest for Glory 5 on Windows 2000 and XP

The world

The fantasy world where the action takes place, is known as Glorianna, being a parallel world to ours, separated from ours in a point in the past. In Glorianna, time did not advance in the same pace in all places, so many anachronisms are explained (other places are medieval, other victorian, and other have modern elements). The world, apart from known fantasy and mythic creatures (gnomes, fairies), is also populated with humanoids with animal features (like the Katta).

Each game drew its inspiration from a different culture and mythology (in order, Germany/fairy tale; Middle Eastern/Arabian Nights; Egyptian/African; Eastern European; and finally Greco-Mediterranean) with the Hero facing increasingly powerful opponents with help from characters who become increasingly familiar from game to game.

Each game varied somewhat from the tradition it is derived from; for example, Baba Yaga, a character borrowed from the Slavic folklore, first appeared in the first game, as did a Jotun from Scandinavian folklore (named Brauggi in the game). The second game introduced several African-themed characters who reappeared in the third game, and characters from every game and genre in the series reappeared in the fourth and fifth games. In addition to deviating from the player's expectations of the culture represented in each game, the series also included a number of intentional anachronisms, such as the pizza-loving, Frankenstein-like mad scientists in the fourth and fifth games.

Characters

The enjoyment was enhanced by the player's ability to choose his character's career path from among the three traditional role-playing game backgrounds: fighter, magic-user/wizard and thief. Further variation was added by the ability to customize the Hero's abilities, including the option of selecting skills normally reserved for another character class. During the second or third games, a the character, regardless of thier class could be initiated as a Paladin by performing honorable actions, receiving a unique sword in the end. This would change the character's profession in when exported into later games. Any character that finished any game in the series (except Dragon Fire, the last in the series) could be exported to a more recent game, keeping the stats and parts of the inventory. If the character received the paladin sword, he would keep the magic sword and special paladin magic abilities.

Each career path had its own strengths and weaknesses, and beginning with the second game, each had its own unique quests and scenarios. Each class also had its own unique way to solve various in-game puzzles, which encouraged replay. For instance, only the Thief (or a character with Thief skills) would see what the inside of the Thieves' Guild looks like, and generally only a Magic User could play the Mages' Maze minigame against the wizard Erasmus.

The Quest for Glory games also had some memorable Easter eggs, including a number of subtle or not-so-subtle allusions to other Sierra games (such as Dr. Cranium, an allusion to The Castle of Dr. Brain, in the fourth game). Perhaps the most notable Easter egg appeared in the EGA version of Quest for Glory. The player could type "pick nose"; if his lock-picking skill was high enough, the game would respond "Success! You now have an open nose". If the skill was too low, the player would insert the lock pick too far, killing himself.