I've always held QfGIV on a Pedestal, citing it as possibly my favorite adventure game of all time. I had grown up playing King's Quest and Space Quest, but didn't play Quest for Glory until college, and this game was the first one made available to me. The setting hit just the right mix of campy horror for me, and I loved the flexibility. I later played through the rest of the games, and got to appreciate them all on their own merits, but I always loved the fourth entry.
On a more recent playthrough, now with my partner, and the ability to see these games from a fresh perspective, I can see all that was wrong with QfGIV as it came up, and I found myself frustrated with it, especially because I held it in so high esteem. Same with QfGIII, but I never held it in too high esteem. (Hell, I don't even think we were able to finish it because of the bugginess.)
That being said, my partner ended up loving IV and we still frequently quote it to one another. But I'm forced to objectively acknowledge that the first two were just more solid games, and had very focused design and this translated into better player experience at the end of the day.
We didn't play Dragon Fire for obvious reasons (the same reasons we decided we're better off ignoring Mask of Eternity.) But we did play Hero-U for a while, and particularly enjoyed the Cole's Latest effort.
I highly recommend at least the first game for anyone that's into Adventure games but prefers to stay away from Sierra because of wonky logic/unfair scenarios/zombie states. The first game does a lot to blur the lines between tabletop RPG and adventure game in a very fair and enjoyable package.
The QFG games were my favorites growing up, except for IV which I still haven't completed (after 3 attempts ending up in an unwinnable state due to bugs, it's hard to start again).
It's almost hard to overstate how good of a game QFG-1 is., so I won't get into that there.
As TFA mentions, QFG3 was critically acclaimed, and I loved it. It is absolutely the easiest of the games, but that meant it was the only game I was able to complete it with all classes solo; typically my group of friends would play in parallel and help each other out when we got stuck (as an aside, I still remember when someone figured out how to kill the Antwerp).
The only other three non QFG sierra games I played were KQI and VI and conquests of camelot. I played rise of the dragon as well, but that was a released under the dynamix label.
Played QFG1 all characters...but had to constantly log onto Prodigy and go to the billboards (BBS) “video game cheats” or something of that nature. I may have had to do that to answer some of the Sierra unlock questions referencing the booklet it came with.
I played through the original Hero's Quest when it came out as well as QFGII, including run throughs with all of the characters. I have very fond memories of the first one, that game was pure magic.
I also bought QFGIII and played through maybe half before losing interest. I thought the graphics were cool and it felt more ambitious, just couldn't get into the story and mechanics in the same way.
That said, I was one of those who really decried the move away from text parsers in Sierra games. Those early Police Quests, Leisure Suit Larrys, Space Quests, etc, those + a variety of Infocom games were the foundation of my childhood.
Right on about the text input--maybe it was just my child's mind at work at the time, but Infocom and Sierra text entry seemed to allow for infinite possibilities and secrets to discover in the game world.
I wouldn't put Dragon Fire in the same camp as Mask of Eternity at all. Dragon Fire is very much a QFG game, with almost all the same feel and some great moments. Mask of Eternity has almost literally nothing to do with KQ. I recommend you try Dragon Fire, actually, it's a lot of fun.
QFG1 was an amazing game. It solved the main problem of adventure games: players getting stuck. The solution is embarrassingly simple: allow every puzzle in the game to be solved in three different ways (corresponding to fighter/mage/thief classes, but any class can use the solution of any other class). For example, there's a bird nest in a tree and something is glinting inside. You can climb the tree, or throw something at the nest, or cast a "fetch" spell; any of those will work. That makes you feel that the nest is part of the game world, not just a "lock" requiring a unique "key".
And then adventure games promptly forgot that idea and went back to locks and keys. Last year's Milkmaid Of The Milky Way and Thimbleweed Park are artistically head and shoulders above the QFG series, but allow only one solution for each puzzle, so they feel like guessing games instead of worlds. I wish there was some new point-and-click adventure taking the QFG approach.
The ability in these games to import a character from a prior game's save state was incredible and is something I haven't seen in games since. Unlocking the special character class for doing so (paladin) led to hidden cutscenes and choices. I would be happy with a modern game simply recognizing I played its prior installments with much less programming required.
QFGIV's official remastered soundtrack is out on Bandcamp. I would link it but I am not sure how without creating a mess. It's a treat for the new and nostalgic alike.
It was fairly standard at the time and still is in episodic adventure games (e.g. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, etc). Strictly episodic games with character continuity are themselves a lot less common, though.
I'd love to see a 'where are they now' type feature on all of the Sierra Games folks. A lot of the original Origin people pop up from time to time (Star Citizen, Garriot, etc), but the Sierra people seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth!
I know that Ken and Roberta Williams are currently travelling on a boat, doing various consultancy work. (Apparently as of two days ago, they're moving back from travelling the world on a Nordhavn to wanting to do a tour across half of on a smaller boat, but still fascinating nonetheless)
I was kind of hoping this would require the password 'Ken sent me' to get into it. Thanks for the link, that's interesting. I have also been curious about the Sierra guys over the years, despite having never met them.
The Sierra Chest 10th Anniversary Show features a lot of the Sierra Games folks. In the show, the Sierra people tell what they've been doing since the Sierra days.
I'm going to be in San Francisco soon and I actually really considered making a pilgrimage to the original Sierra Oakhurst building [0] which says something about how much of an impact their games had on me. I can't say that I stayed with QFG all the way through III and IV but QFG I (aka Hero's Quest) is one of my all time favorites.
I recently stumbled on my original Hero's Quest 1 (non-vga) disks when digging thru a box... I forget who owned the trademark but they had to change the name of the game.. after it had been released :) Thief for life.
Then, because the parade of Gothic-horror clichés apparently wasn’t enough, the Coles added H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos to the mix (or, as the manual calls him, “P.H. Craftlove”). The two make decidedly uneasy bedfellows. [long description of why they're mismatched follows]
QfG I (the original) was the first game I ever played on an x86 (and the first game I played on a color monitor). I cannot understate how amazing that experience was, and feel slightly sad that newer generations will not be able to experience the same leaps in technology and game design. :)
I only used an Amiga twice growing up (did own a C64 though), so I can't speak to the experience much, but I do believe they were amazing machines from what I have heard.
I played QFG1 on a monochrome monitor. Conquests of camelot was a killer because there is an amulet on a mummy that you need to take and it's supposed to stand out by being gold. It completely blended in on a monochrome display.
Honestly, his QfG4 section is lazy. Sorry, but in QfG3 he talks about the history of the series, the changing character of the game, the setting, what worked, what didn't (mostly didn't), and gives it a very thorough treatment.
But that changes when he gets to QFG4. In this section, he devotes 1428 words to discussing the game as a game, and 2074 words to discussing the bugs. It's a let-down. That should be a cautionary paragraph or two, especially since he acknowledges that the CD-ROM version fixed them and the CD-ROM version is what people would be playing today.
QFGIV was buggy and infuriating but by far the most artistic and evocative entry in the series. If Coles had had a little more time or access to a properly finished engine QFGIV would be one of the most famous games of the era. As it is, it's worth metagaming your way through, which is highly unusual for that period in gaming history.
On a more recent playthrough, now with my partner, and the ability to see these games from a fresh perspective, I can see all that was wrong with QfGIV as it came up, and I found myself frustrated with it, especially because I held it in so high esteem. Same with QfGIII, but I never held it in too high esteem. (Hell, I don't even think we were able to finish it because of the bugginess.)
That being said, my partner ended up loving IV and we still frequently quote it to one another. But I'm forced to objectively acknowledge that the first two were just more solid games, and had very focused design and this translated into better player experience at the end of the day.
We didn't play Dragon Fire for obvious reasons (the same reasons we decided we're better off ignoring Mask of Eternity.) But we did play Hero-U for a while, and particularly enjoyed the Cole's Latest effort.
I highly recommend at least the first game for anyone that's into Adventure games but prefers to stay away from Sierra because of wonky logic/unfair scenarios/zombie states. The first game does a lot to blur the lines between tabletop RPG and adventure game in a very fair and enjoyable package.