Game 154: Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire (1990)

Note my little party sailing into the game in the lower-left.

      

Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire

United States

Sierra On-Line (developer and publisher)

Released 1990 for DOS and Amiga, remade in 2008 for Windows
Date Started: 14 July 2014

     

Just the other day, I was praising Stuart Smith for setting his games in Arabia, ancient Greece, and Mesopotamia, in an era where generic high fantasy was the norm. The Coles and their colleagues deserve the same kind of credit. The five Quest for Glory titles explore, in order, themes from Bavaria, Persia/Arabia, Africa, Hungary/Romania, and Greece. The first, fourth, and fifth come the closest to skirting the edges of standard high fantasy, but all the games do a great job of establishing settings that are familiar from television and films yet very unusual in RPGs.

Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire takes place in the city of Shapeir, which exists in the imagination somewhere between Marrakesh and Baghdad. The game establishes the setting from the opening screen, when the main "hero" theme from the first game is re-cast into the minor modal style that signals "eastern" music. (Judging by this interview with Corey Cole, that was Chris Brayman's contribution, though Mark Seibert is also credited.) The Hero and his friends, the merchant Abdulla Doo and the Kattas Shameen and Shema, are shown arriving in Shapeir on the magic carpet they used to leave Spielburg at the end of Quest for Glory.

An unspecified time later, the hero is sitting on a cushion in Abdulla, Shameen, and Shema's newly-established Katta's Tail Inn. Outside the inn, a series of winding, maze-like streets connect various plazas and bazaars where turban- and thawb-clad denizens wander about, peddlers hawk rugs, pottery, and falafels, snake charmers play their pungi, and guards patrol with scimitars.

One of the few games of the era to offer generic wandering background NPCs, like the citizen in the lower-right and the guard in the lower-left. Most of the time, they claim not to understand your language, but occasionally you can talk to them.

Trickster over at The Adventure Gamer is playing Quest for Glory II at the same time as I am. In his first post, he asked for advice about whether to create a new character or to import his successful hero from Quest for Glory, the issue being that imported characters may be overpowered. I understand his concern. A newly-created mage has 480 total attribute and skill points and starts with 150 gold coins, whereas my imported Chester has 810 attribute and skill points and 222 gold coins. And I didn't even grind very much in the first game. My imported character also started with a suit of chain mail and all the first game's spells, while a newly-created one starts with leather and must go purchase "Dazzle." Nonetheless, since I just replayed Quest for Glory specifically so I'd have a mage to import, I decided to live with the game being perhaps a little too easy in the opening stages.

The class-selection screen has a great series of animations where the fighter bursts through the wall, the mage apparates in front of it, and the thief leaps down from the top of it.

There are a few attributes new to Quest for Glory II, including an "Honor" statistic, which started for me at 50. I assume it's something like a karma meter. Instead of just a "score," we now have both "Puzzle Points" and "Experience" (the latter started at 5,000). There's a new "Communications" skill that seems to increase every time I talk to someone.

Gameplay is essentially the same as Hero's Quest. You can walk with the arrow keys or keypad or by clicking the left mouse button, and the right mouse button operates the "look" command. Most other commands are entered via text (BUY MEAT, PICK LOCK, CLIMB, ASK ABOUT SHAPEIR), though there are shortcuts for common commands: CTRL-I does the same thing as typing INVENTORY and CTRL-A automatically populates the text box with ASK ABOUT, for instance. There are probably new commands available; I don't know for sure, since part of the challenge of the two games is that the player doesn't have an exhaustive list of verbs and nouns. In some games, this would be annoying, but the programmers of Quest for Glory did a fantastic job anticipating all of the various ways a player would try something, starting with the first move, when STAND and GET UP both work.

Before vacating the pillow, however (a command that, regrettably, does not work; I would have been very impressed), I spent a lot of time talking with both Abdulla and Shameen. What I like about the original Hero's Quest and this game is that they don't spoon-feed you dialogue. Just as in the Ultima games, you have to figure out the keywords you want to use in conversation. They may come from the same character's dialogue, from another character's hint, from general information about the setting, and from the environment. Abdulla, for instance, had responses to SHAPEIR, SPIELBURG, and BANDITS from the game's general back story; ELEMENTALS, DJINNS, and DESERT from his own dialogue; INN, SHAMEEN, and KATTA from the environment; and words like FOUNTAIN and RASEIR after I'd discovered their importance from other NPCs. I love it when games make you take notes like this, and this is probably one of the last games that does.

A response to SPIELBURG.

The manual sets up a little about the game by noting the history of Shapeir and its sister city, Raseir. Both were built around magical fountains that never run dry. The Sultan of Shapeir is the ultimate ruler of both cities, although an Emir governs Raseir. The Emir has lately disappeared, and the city has been seized in a kind of coup d'etat that has resulted in a totalitarian government.

The hero's role in all of this is left mysterious, and there's no hint of a main quest when the game starts in the Katta's Tail Inn. I spent some time talking with Abdulla and Shameen about current events, then got up and headed out the door to look for adventure.

This guy has something funny to say every time you pass through.

Right outside the inn, a loud and funny vendor named Alichica (based on Chico Marx) hawks maps, compasses, souvenirs, and other items that he frequently claims to have but then cannot find when you try to buy them. (All purchases are accompanied by him saying "lemme see if I got one" and a cute animation as he tosses his own shop looking for it.) A map was my first priority. The game manual comes with a basic one, but purchasing one in-game allows you to type USE MAP and fast-travel to key locations. Until you have one, you're stuck walking down the maze of streets and frequently getting lost.

Is this the first game to allow "fast travel" on the automap to places already visited? I can't think of any others. Ultima VI, maybe, but that wasn't quite the same mechanism.

   
Unfortunately, Alichica didn't want any of my gold coins from Spielburg, so my first task was to visit the money changer for local golden dinars. Alichica's instructions to the money changer's shop mirrored every experience I've had trying to get directions somewhere from my mother. ("Please, mom, for the love of god, just tell me the address. Google Maps will tell me where to turn. I don't need to know about the big red barn or the small white house where they never mow the grass.")

  
Fortunately, a nearby guard told me that the money changer was at the "end of Dinar Tarik," which was a few streets away according to my map. I did get turned around a bit trying to find it, but eventually I made my way and received 176 dinars for my 222 gold coins.

Dinarzad wasn't interested in more social exchanges.

  
Back at the Gate Plaza (the one outside the inn), I bought a map and compass from Alichica. I then decided to check in at the Adventurer's Guild and find the list of active quests. Outside the guild was an NPC that I remembered from the third game but not this one: a "liontaur" paladin named Rakeesh, summoned to aid the city but hampered by a leg wound he'd received fighting a demon.

I have a feeling we're going to be friends.

The guild was run by a female warrior named Uhura, of the Simbani people. The name is a Star Trek reference, of course, but it also means "freedom" in Swahili. She has a baby boy named Simba, a pre-Lion King reference to the fact that "simba" means "lion" in Swahili. I signed my name into the adventurer's book and took a look at the quest board.

There were five notices, but only three had anything to do with quests. They were:

• A reward for restoring Emir Arus Al-Din to his rightful place in the palace of Raseir
• The apothecary, Harik Attar, is looking for spell components from the desert
• The magic shop owner, Keapon Laffin (ugh) needs someone to collect "the whirling part of a dervish"

One other notice said that the "way of the paladin" was "to seek, to learn, to do," and another was a generic note from the Sultan that those who do service to the land shall know rewards. A separate note on the wall concerned the benefits of joining the Eternal Order of Fighters. This reminded me that there's a wizard's college around here somewhere that I have to ask about.

Uhura's take on the fighter's guild.

Uhura offered free training in a room off to the side, and there was a funny animation as baby Simba clapped in the background. I'll have more on combat in a later post.

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I just hit you.

I paid a visit to the apothecary, got details on his quest (he wants a scorpion's venom and the claws of a ghoul), and bought a couple of pills, including a poison antidote. Pills generally replace potions from the previous game, although the apothecary says he'll whip up a "Dispel" potion.

My next stop was at the magic shop, where I encountered Keapon Laffin, perhaps the most annoying NPC of all time. I suffered through his idiotic banter (I know, I know: I have no sense of humor) long enough to purchase the two new spells offered by Quest for Glory II: "Force Bolt" and "Levitate." He also mentioned Aziza, a local enchantress, and offered a magic rope for sale. On a whim, I asked him about Yorick from Spielburg, and he claimed that Yorick was his cousin. When I asked about becoming a wizard, he mentioned a school called WIT (Wizard's Institute of Technocery) hidden somewhere in the city, and I'd need magic to find it.

Can I kill him? Erana didn't cast a spell around Shapeir, right?

I finished off the day with a visit to Aziza, who asked me a few riddles before she let me in. We had a nice cup of tea and she had dialogue options about the land and many of the NPCs, but I didn't learn anything uniquely valuable.

Everyone seems to agree that the Sultan is a cool guy.

I think I'll stop here for now, before I get too far ahead of Trickster. I'll post again once he's leapfrogged me in content.

From just messing about the city, Chester had some nice stat increases.

A lot of miscellaneous notes from the first session:

• The denizens of Shapeir have heard of my exploits in Spielburg, and I get hailed as "Hero of the North" all over the place. It's a fun change of pace from the typical game where you don't get any respect.

• The adventurer's guild, just like the one in Spielburg, features a moose head on the wall. I guess every Sierra game features one as a running gag. It doesn't bother me or anything, but I don't get it.

• Shameen claims that he and Shema specifically went to Spielburg to find and return with a hero. This contradicts the first game, in which he said he and Shema came to Spielburg hoping to make a profit on their trading caravan.

• There seem to be more time-sensitive elements in this game than its predecessor. NPCs appear in different combinations at different times of day. For instance, sometimes Rakeesh is in the Adventurer's Guild with Uhura; sometimes, he's out front by himself; and sometimes, he's out front babysitting Simba. A tightrope walker pops up in front of the Adventurer's Guild at various times and wagers 5 to 1 that the hero won't be able to cross. 

I have not yet been successful.

• There is a menu selection called "Silly Clowns" with settings for "Off," "On," and "Auto." I'm not sure I even want to know.

• Although I continue to like the musical leitmotifs of the series, the ambient sound is sometimes awful. The scratchy cacophony that accompanies the central fountain vies for fingernails on a chalkboard as one of the most annoying sounds I've ever heard.

• Some evenings at the inn, you can sit down and watch Shema do a belly dance. In the first game, Shema remarks that her name means "dancer" and she loves to dance, but that she won't dance again until she returns to Shapeir.

Well, this is vaguely uncomfortable.

• "Puzzle points" are awarded for certain actions. I got them from buying a map and compass, signing into the adventurer's guild, and a few other things. Unlike the first game, you don't appear to get them by simply talking to key NPCs. I think you have to ask about particular keywords.

• There are many more shops in this game than the first one. So far, I've run across a plant seller, a basket merchant, a pottery store, a souvenir shop, the apothecary, the magic shop, a lamp seller, a flower girl, a stall selling meat and dates, a weapon shop, a jewelry merchant, and a carpet seller. I don't know how many of these items will turn out to be necessary to the game.

• Right-clicking on objects is the same as typing LOOK AT them. The game has descriptions for almost all unique items on the screen--particularly notable in some of the shops, where dozens of objects spill off of the shelves. The game takes lots of opportunity for puns and jokes in these descriptions.

A reference to perhaps my least-favorite songwriter of the 20th century. Looking at the urns produces "Last week's urnings," and looking at the alcove full of censers produces the note that "the next game will be uncensered."

Even though I played and won Quest for Glory II back in the 1990s, I don't remember a single thing about it except that I liked it and had fun. That's a great position to be in. I can only hope the same thing happens by the time I get back to Baldur's Gate or Morrowind.

Let's see if we can finish Fallthru, shall we?