Quest for Glory 5: Dragon Fire

Sound all too drearily familiar? A few intriguing features do separate this game from all of its fantasy role-playing siblings. The greatest of these is a sense of continuity with the previous Quest for Glory games. Not only do characters from older stories re-emerge--sometimes newly married, or better established in their careers--but you can import your old characters into Dragon Fire. Instead of starting anew, you can continue a long seamless adventure with a familiar hero. Other nice touches include a rarely seen haggling system, whereby you negotiate the prices of food, weapons, and spells with their various venders. The occasional treachery of seemingly trustworthy characters and a great sense of humor also add nice dimensions to the Quest for Glory universe.

Being tied to earlier games, though, gives this one less flexibility. You cannot play a nonhuman character--you cannot even play a female hero--and players are restricted to a few very broad character classes. Character statistics and customization options are also on the simple end of the spectrum, making the game seem older than it is. On the plus side, Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire has sharp graphics, some very tough dungeons, and a streamlined, easy-to-use interface. Most of all, it tells a good story and allows long-term players of this series to retire their hero in style. --Alyx Dellamonica

Amazon.com Product Description
Combining the best elements of role playing with pulse-pounding action in the 3-D realm of Silmaria, Dragon Fire is a journey fraught with peril, mystery, and enchantment. Take the adrenaline rush alone or share it with friends on the Internet. The game is recommended for ages 13 and up.

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.


Glory   May 2, 2004
Edmund Khoo
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

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.