Video games - Quest for Glory I: So You Want To Be A Hero

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	Video games - Quest for Glory I: So You Want To Be A Hero

Hero's Quest I: So You Want To Be A Hero (later re-released as Quest for Glory I: So You Want To Be A Hero because of copyright issues involving the Hero Quest boardgame) was an adventure game/role-playing game hybrid, designed by Lori Ann Cole and published by Sierra On-line. Hero's Quest I has been credited for being a genre-inventing game, as no other game before it had tried to mix adventure gaming with role-playing-like elements such as statistic building (strength, intelligence, health) that would actually have an impact on the ability to accomplish certain parts of the game.

Story

The game followed a nameless adventurer on his journey into the valley barony of Spielburg (German for "game castle", the first of many puns and in-jokes) in order to help people and become a proclaimed Hero.

The evil ogress Baba Yaga has cursed the land and the Baron who tried to drive her off. His children have disappeared, while the land is ravaged by monsters and brigands. The Valley of Spielburg is in need of a Hero able to solve these problems.

The would-be Hero battles monsters, solves side quests (such as finding lost items and spell ingredients) and helps fairy-tale creatures such as a dryad and a ring of fairies. Fulfilling quests will grant him experience and money, which he will use to buy equipment and potions. The game is open endend which means the player can explore all the game at once and solve the quests in what order seems convenient to him. During the quest, the character also meets recurring series characters such as the wizard Erasmus and his familiar Fenrus, and first hears tales of the benevolent faery Erana.

The title of Hero is given when the Hero meets the Brigand Leader who turns to be the Baron's daughter, Elsa von Spielburg. This can be done even without solving the secondary quests: In the optimal ending to the game, which nets the player the maximum score and serves as canon for the remainder of the series, the player also frees a Baronet from a powerful curse and thwarts the plans of the witch Baba Yaga. Ultimately, the adventurer fulfills a prophecy, restores Spielburg Valley to prosperity, and is awarded the title of Hero.

After this, the Hero, with the merchant Abdulla Doo and the innkeepers Shameen and Shema, leaves on a magic carpet for Shapeir, the homeland of the latter three, setting the plan for the sequel, Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire
.

Gameplay

The game advertised itself as '3 games in one' since it was the first Sierra game that (according to RPG customs), allowed the selection of a character out of 3 classes: Fighter, Magic User and Thief.

What class the hero assigns to a character largely determines how they can solve puzzles and what quests they will run into. However, the distinction between classes was not an absolute one; players could add skills to a character and allow them to complete quests related to other classes in this game and others in the series.

Quest for Glory introduced a realism rarely found in RPGs and other adventure games even today. Day, night and the passage of time was a factor; the main character had to eat on a regular basis, they would became tried from walking and fighting which required rest and sleep. Skills were not obtained by gaining levels through combat, but rather increased distinctly through the regular course of your adventuring. The more you used magic, the more your magic ability would increase; likewise the more you engaged in battle or training, the more your strength, vitality and agility would increase.

There was some criticism concerning the game (and subsequent chapters) as time-consuming. For example, while adding to realism, in order to build a certain skill or reach a certain point of time, the player has to repeat for countless times some certain action (such as 'climb tree' to develop Climbing, 'get rock'-'throw rock' to develop Throwing etc), or walk aimlessly until the time passes.

Like other games by Sierra, a VGA version using Sierra's 'point and click' SCI1.1 interpreter, was released in 1991. As a result of some limitations of this version, many diehard fans of Quest for Glory resent the VGA rendition due to the lack of movement that was prevalent in the original, which used the 'text parser' based SCI1.

Trivia

The game's villain, Baba Yaga is based on the Baba Yaga creature of the Slavic folklore. Although her presence is improper in a Scandinavian setting, Baba Yaga reappears in Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness
, which has a proper Slavic setting. Another out-of-place character is a centaur and his daugter, who do not appear in any later entries in the series.

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