Quest for Glory 5: Dragon Fire

List Price: $19.99

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine	Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire: Prima's Official Strategy Guide	The Quest For Glory Collection

Customer Reviews:

Glory [Posted on 2004-05-02]
Quest For Glory 5: Dragon Fire is not merely the end of a great series, but the end of an era for the entertainment compant Yosemite Entertainment. As a great fan of the series, "Hero" has journeyed from the town of Spielburg to the fog-ridden lands of Mordavia, Raseir, Fricana (not in this order) - and finally the village of Silmaria.

In a game of this ilk, graphics plays second fiddle to storyline and gameplay, and it is in these two areas that Qfg5 excels. Transported to the island of Marete and its capital, Silmaria(modeled after ancient Greece), "Hero's" last adventure is fraught with peril and mystery. The music is professional orchestral, with sweeping tones unlike any other game I have encountered.

Now to the plot. Decades ago, the peaceful island of Marete was plagued by a dragon. Seven pillars were constructed with ancient spells, forcing the dragon into its lair. Lately, however, following the brutal assasination of the King of Silmaria, invaders from distant lands rampage across the country, pillaging mercilessly. Compounding the trouble is the prophecy that the blood of a murdered being will destroy the pillars, freeing the dragon from its enchantment...

An enthralling plot, filled with characteristic offbeat Lorey and Corey Cole humor, fantastic music and solid gameplay cement Qfg5's position as a good final instalment to the series and possibly the greatest of the Quest for Glory epics, sure to please fans of the series and provide a closure in "hero's" final adventure.

Time heals all wounds [Posted on 2004-07-19]
To be honest, I was quite disappointed with this game when it came out. How could you end such a great series like this? Having played through the Quest for Glory series again just now several years later, I have come to a somewhat different perspective. The game had some inescapable strikes against it from the get go, and all things considered, is a fine ending to the QfG series.

When you get right down to it, the Quest for Glory series peaked with "Trial by Fire", the second installment, and it was all downhill from there. Besides being a ridiculously large, fun, complex game, you saved a nation (if not the world) from an insane wizard trying to release an evil god, and became a Prince as well as a Paladin or Wizard if you chose that path. After that, there really wasn't any place for the series to go. The third game was basically just a remake of "Trial by Fire", and the fourth while basically "restarting" the series by stripping you of your inventory and throwing you into a town where you had no friends (in a way a remake of QfG 1), ended up using more or less the same plot as QfG 2.

Another important part of the game that died with QfG 2 was the hated text parser. Apparently everybody but me hated typing commands in, but this was incredibly important to the series. All of the games are really like mystery novels in that you have to figure out who the bad guy is and how to beat him/her by the end of the game. To do so, you had to be a good detective and ask the right people the right questions. In QfG 3 and beyond however, this challenge is removed as in each conversation you are provided a list of topics to discuss. So it is possible to "brute force" every conversation by asking every single question available in order to solve the puzzles.

Finally, the fourth game took a different angle with the series by developing closer relationships between the main character and the NPCs, developing two potential love interests. It worked great for the 4th game, but it created a big problem for the 5th game: how do you write a story accomodating a choice between several different love interests (among other things)? The answer is, you don't. This is a problem of trade-offs that plagues ALL RPGs: because the game only has so much development time available, it can be made so that you can be/do whatever you want, but nothing really matters (Baldur's Gate, Arcanum), OR you can play a specific character the authors had in mind, which can involve an extremely detailed plot that you are not allowed to deviate from (Final Fantasy). Trying to do both is like making 5-6 games at once and selling it for the same price. By going with the "multiple ending choice" route, Quest for Glory 5 would naturally be much lighter on the details than the earlier games.

So it was a bit much to have expected QfG 5 to be some sort of masterful conclusion to the series. Especially since there seemed to be some major issues with development of the game itself. All in all, it turned out pretty decent. The combat/magic system I thought was pretty awesome overall, allowing for epic battles against large numbers of enemies. The graphics were very nicely done. There were plenty of new abilities/spells for the paladin and wizard. The plot was interesting enough and had all the old crew back.

I would say QfG 5 is BYOD -- Bring Your Own Dialogue. You're the main character, you know the characters well from the previous games. Imagine the dialogue and story playing out as you like as you play the game. Don't expect the writers to have to basically write 5-6 games to accomodate the possible choices you take. Above all, enjoy the game for what it is, a fine chance to complete your character's quests, say goodbye to your friends and close out the series.

Still worth playing and finishing this golden age series [Posted on 2005-11-28]
I played and finished QG1 (back when it first came out as Hero's Quest!) to 4 upon their original release many, many years ago.

By the time, number 5 came out, the game industry had moved on, and I'd moved on with it. Baulders Gate and other far bigger RPGs had taken over and Quest for Glory seemed sad and out of date in comparison.

And to be honest, the 4th game annoyed me. I liked the fact that your character became more and more famous. In the 2nd and 3rd game, your exploits were known and it was fun becoming famous. For some reason they decided to change this in the 4th game, transport you to a land where nobody knew you, just like the 1st game!, that actually had a landscape similar to the first game! (only darker).

In 2005, I suddenly got nostalgic for the golden age of games, when Sierra was king ! :) I ordered a copy of Quest for Glory 5: Dragon Fire and played through it, and loved it !

Every 2nd character you meet is someone from the previous 4 games. It really is like an all-star reunion of your favourite TV show. And they all know and love you, the way it should be in Quest for Glory !

Sure the graphics aren't up to todays level, but they do still look nice. And the setting is perhaps the best yet - an ancient Greek/Mediterranean feel. The story is loosely based on the trials of Hercules, and many of the ancient Greek myths are worked into the story.

And Sierra even included a Paladin save for import for those of us that have long since lost our sacred QG character save disk!(since this a 'secret' 4th character, not accessible at the start).

Great fun, cheap, and if like me you just never got around to finishing this series after playing 1-4, then you should definitley grab yourself a copy.

A new take for the end of the series. [Posted on 2006-12-27]
This sadly was the end of the QFG series, and to be honest it didn't sell very well, too many people didn't like the new graphics that came with it making it look like a final fantasy game. However all Sierra was doing was updating it and being creative, and they came up with an amazing end game! It was like a 3 year pregnancy that took a fortune to make i'm sure, as basically all of the old characters come back from other games, a great reunion, a new story, the Hero can get married, and everything, and even the ability to import a paladin even if you don't have one. This is an under rated Classic that has stood it's ground. I say if you can find it, get it.

Great end to the best RPG ever! [Posted on 2008-02-05]
A lot of people didn't like Quest for Glory 5 when it was released, but I love it. Yeah, the first time I played it, the controls were different than the previous four games, and it took some getting used to, but once I got used to it, I was in love. It's got a nice, tie-up-the-loose-ends-happily-ever-after feeling about it. And of course, it's got all the famous QG humor...including the bad puns and the moose head. I have played this game I don't know how many times, especially now that you can download a patch for XP (it works great).

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