Game 285: Quest for Glory III: Wages of War (1992)

           

Quest for Glory III: Wages of War

United States

Sierra On-Line (developer and publisher)

Released in 1992 for DOS

Date Started: 1 April 2018

There's a quality of a good RPG--of any good game, really--that I haven't talked about much because it's hard to describe. I can't even think of a good word for it, so in my mind I simply use the word tight. It isn't about the number of features so much as how well they hold together, how well they check and balance each other. A tight RPG might not have everything my GIMLET is looking for, but playing it is like driving a solid, reliable car. It might not turn heads, it might not exceed 90 MPH, but you know it's going to get you where you want to go without breaking down. It's like holding a nice, firm apple in your hand. No bruises, no blemishes, no mush. Most games, even good games, are like holding a piece of apple pie in your hand: it might be delicious, but it's also a bit of a mess. I don't know if these analogies make sense, but like I say, I have trouble describing it.

A tight game might be simple, but it's simple by design and not just because the developer didn't know more complex programming. Its mechanics don't break, nor allow you to break them. The developers might occasionally allow themselves a little excess, but they know when to reign in that excess. They establish what the game is about at the beginning and hold true to its purpose until the end. Once you realize you're playing a tight game, you feel a warm glow of trust between you and the developer that transcends simply "enjoyability."

The Quest for Glory series is a series of tight games. (Please, someone, give me a better word.) They perfectly fuse role-playing and adventure gaming. Their worlds are just big enough to get a little lost in, not to exhaust you. You have fun, but they end before the fun goes on too long. There's hardly any wasted space--except in places where a little extra space is necessary. The NPCs say just enough to establish their personalities but don't drone on and on. The three classes are well-balanced and find meaningful class-specific experiences no matter what paths they take. The games are bug-free and error-free, and the authors have done a great job anticipating just about every action the player might take. Their attitude is perfect: they have a sense of humor, but rarely straying to absurdity. It's clear that weighty events are happening, but that doesn't mean someone can't make a joke.
          

I have a feeling this game is going to make me regret my use of "rarely" above.

          
Even the main character's appearance is well-done. Normally, I'd object to having only one option, but I don't really mind role-playing this guy. He doesn't look like a stereotypical hero, but neither does he look risible as a hero. And he plausibly handles all of the classes well. If Corey Cole happens along, I wouldn't mind his comments specifically on the design and appearance of the character and whether he was deliberately designed to be a blank template while not feeling like a "blank." It's a remarkable achievement.

Quest for Glory has always been a little coy about whether it takes place in the real world (albeit in an ancient Hyborian Age) or a fantasy world populated by real-world influences. The individual settings have done a good job evoking broad themes from real-world locations while still offering original fantasy details. It's almost too bad that the series never continued its way around the globe, visiting settings reminiscent of India, China, and Central America, among others.
          

This doesn't sound like the real world, but the fact that the denizens of the bazaar speak "Arabic" does.

         
Here, from the moment you hear tribal drums and shouts on the title screen, you're transported to "Fricana" and its numerous African influences. (Playing this game in the same season that Black Panther dominates the box office is an extra bonus.) Yet are they just influences? The manual says that the major city of Fricana, Tarna, "has retained the basic architectural style of the ancient Egyptians" and that the major languages are "Egyptian, Swahili, and Common." On the other hand, the place is ruled by "liontaurs" and magic is openly known.
         

In Tarna, the developers have created another evocative setting.

        
As usual, you choose between a fighter, thief, and wizard (promoted from "mage" after his success at the WIT) in character creation, and I expect as usual, each one offers a very different path. There are a few changes in the character sheet. "Magic" becomes an attribute rather than a skill. "Honor" is added to the end of the skills list, but you can't set it during creation or import. "Communication" is carried over from Quest for Glory II. The "score" explicitly becomes "Puzzle Points."

I have three characters saved after Quest for Glory II: Trial By Fire (1990). The first is a thief whom I originally created for Hero's Quest. He's by far the strongest character of the three, as I spent a lot of time grinding his sills and attributes. He has 200 in all attributes and above 150 in most skills, including non-thief skills. He has the lowest "honor" score (68).
             

I must have been very dishonorable in Shapeir, because a new thief here has more honor points than my imported one.

        
The second is my wizard, who came from the first game remake, Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero (1992). He's also pretty buffed, at near-200 in most attributes (somehow, "luck" is at 204 despite 200 being the cap in the second game). He has no thieving skills but is above 150 in the fighting skills.

The third is my fighter, created specifically for Quest for Glory II, promoted to a paladin at the end. He's the most limited of the three, with no thieving or magic skills, but still relatively high attributes. Oddly, despite having achieved paladin status, he has a lower "honor" than my wizard (118 vs. 121).

Whichever character I choose, he's going to start at a significant advantage. New characters start with class-specific attributes between 80 and 150 and class-specific skills between 90 an 150, averaging around 120 in both cases (although you get an additional 50 points to allocate). It is no longer possible to create a "jack of all trades" from scratch because getting a skill from 0 to 10 costs 30 points, and the thief lacks both "magic" and "parry"; he's otherwise the closest by far.

During import, you can re-assign your character's class, but the attributes don't change. So if I decide my paladin is really a thief, he's going to be in tough shape with 0s in "Stealth" and "Pick Locks." You get the same 50 points to modify an imported character as you do a new one, but that's only enough to get one skill slightly above 0. I don't want to do that anyway. I prefer to adopt a path and try to follow it in-character rather than have my thief use magic to solve his problems.

I decided to start with my wizard since Alex over at The Adventure Gamer is playing as a paladin. Naturally, you may see me try other paths before the end, just as I did in Quest for Glory II, depending on the length and complexity of the game.
           

My imported character.

        
Wages of War picks up three months after the defeat of Ad Avis in Quest for Glory II. The enchantress Aziza summons me and the liontaur Rakeesh to discuss the events of the game. You may recall that Rakeesh is a paladin and former ruler of his people. Injured in battle against a demon, he left the throne in the hands of his brother and made his way to Shapeir, where the player found him hanging around outside the adventurers' guild.

Aziza recounts how the player defeated Ad Avis in a class-specific way, so I got the mage version in which my "Reversal" spell protected against his magic while I bounced a "Force Bolt" off the wall, knocking it into the brazier, which fell over and pushed Ad Avis out the window. In case you don't remember, Ad Avis had been trying to summon a demon named Iblis, partly to break control of his yet-unidentified "dark master." Aziza relates that Ad Avis's body was never found.
          

A fun, class-specific recap.

       
Aziza has just received a message from a sorceress in Tarna named Kreesha, asking for Rakeesh to return home and help forestall a war. Aziza thinks something demonic is going on, perhaps related to Ad Avis and Iblis, and suggests I accompany Rakeesh to Tarna when a portal opens in three days.
         

Aziza outlines the main quest.

        
Three days later, there's a little farewell ceremony in which the sultan says goodbye to me, Rakeesh, and Uhura (head of the adventurers' guild in Shapeir), who has decided to return to her people, the Simbani. She is bringing her son, Simba, who was born in Shapeir. The sultan is particularly distressed to see me go, as he has adopted me as his son and named me Prince of Shapeir. Nonetheless, when the portal appears--looking like an ankh cross--we all enter and find ourselves in Kreesha's magic shop in Tarna. Uhura immediately sets out to return to her village.
        

I'd say that this is an Ultima homage except for the rest of this game's Egyptian influences.

       
I take stock of my inventory. I have 200 dinars, a fine dagger, a throwing dagger, 4 poison cure pills, 13 healing pills, 9 mana pills, 20 rations, a water skin, a sapphire pin, and a note from Shema to another Katta named Shallah, whom I'm supposed to find in Tarna. I also have a mysterious gift package from Keapon Laffin, the magic shop owner in Shapeir, which blows up in my face when I open it. The wrapping paper contains the instructions for a new spell called "Juggling Lights."
          

I mess around while the linotaurs discuss serious business.

         
This is the first Quest for Glory title natively written for the Sierra SCI1 interpreter, a point-and-click interface that probably most players prefer, though I rather enjoyed the greater challenge of figuring out actions and dialogue options in the text interpreter. As usual, the authors did a great job supporting the "look" icon. Every individual object in the room has some kind of description attached to it.
            

I preferred when I had to pay attention and note potential keywords.

          
Unfortunately, I have the same issue I had before with the "action" sub-menu--the menu where you can switch between "walk," "run," and "sneak," sleep, or check the character stats. From the moment it appears, any tiny use of the mouse causes it to vanish. You have to click it and use the arrow keys to move through the items. I also have the same issue where the game doesn't take me to the next screen when I try to run off the present one. Overall, there isn't quite enough keyboard redundancy in the interface.
        

The command bar has options for walking, looking, manipulating, talking, casting, using an item, checking the inventory, disk options, and a "special actions" button.

       
A conversation with Rakeesh and Kreesha first establishes, surprisingly, that the two liontaurs are married, something I don't think Rakeesh bothered to mention in the last game. The "war" referenced in the introduction is between the Simbani and the "Leopardmen," strange shape-shifters who live in the jungle. There are some among the liontaurs who think they should be neutral in the war, others who think they should try to stop it, and still others who think they should actively take the Simbani side. Tarna's Council of Judgement (on which Kreesha sits) will meet in a few days to discuss what to do.

Meanwhile, a delegation sent to talk with the liontaurs was ambushed, and only one human returned. The leader of the delegation was Reeshaka, Kreesha and Rakeesh's daughter, and no one knows if she's alive or not. Rakeesh's brother, Rajah, the king, is a hot-head who actively favors going to war with the Leopardmen.

As I head out the door, Kreesha says that she's reserved a room in my name in a nearby inn. Rakeesh says he will speak to the Council in two days and urge peace. He asks me to accompany him, after which we can journey to the Simbani village.
            

What does . . . how do . . . where is . . . you know what? I'm just gonna go.

         
Outside, Tarna is cleverly situated on a large pyramid with many openings and shops around its base. I decided to try a top-down approach to exploration. On the next tier, a guard gave me the layout: The top of the pyramid is the Temple of Sekhmet (the liontaur goddess); the next tier has the Hall of Judgement and the king's chambers. Shops are found further down, and workers live at the base. Liontaurs mostly live in the eastern side of the upper sections, and humans aren't welcome there.
              

Any chance you call the upper tiers the "Cloud District"?

            
I didn't get far into the Temple of Sekhmet before the priestess kicked me out, upset that a human was "defiling" it.
           

Well, that's just racist.

         
It becomes clear talking to some liontaurs that Rakeesh is a bit of a controversial figure. Some feel he abandoned the kingdom when he abdicated the throne; others feel he did the honorable thing. Usually, to become king, a candidate has to challenge the sitting ruler, endure a series of trials, and fight him to the death. Rajah's rule is slightly tarnished because he didn't go through the usual challenges.

Next door to Kreesha's shop is Salim's Holistic Health and Happiness Eclectic Energy Emporium, a head shop run by a familiar-looking proprietor. He sells health, anti-poison, and mana pills, but I need to change my dinars into local currency before I can buy any. He asks me to help him make health pills by bringing him feathers of the honey bird, but the honey bird has to be alive and happy when the feather is collected. He also says he can make me a "dispel" magic potion if I find some water from the Pool of Peace, a gift from the Heart of the World, and the fruit of a venomous vine. Why does every place have a different recipe for dispel potions?

Salim's been having dreams about finding a tree on golden sands and dancing with it; it then somehow turns into a beautiful woman. This sounds a lot like Julanar back in Shapeir, but I don't get an option to tell him about that. Salim also tells me about a tree somewhere in Fricana called the Mother of the World.
          

He also has a talent for ripping off Grace Slick.

        
Night is already falling when I leave Salim's, so I head next door to the inn, a beautifully-composed location full of people (including, for some reason, a clown) sitting on cushions around short, round tables. (Is there a name for these?)
         

What a great scene. I want to go here.

         
A nearby message board has the simple list of the "laws of Tarna," including a prohibition against using magic on the streets.
          

A whole council had to come up with these?

         
Nobody at the tables can speak common, but the waitress does. Among other things, she tells me that the human who returned from the peace delegation was Khatib Mukar'ram, and he hasn't had much to say since he got back.
           

The city is quiet and eerie at night.

          
Checking outside, I quickly assess that the rest of the city is only about 5 more screens, so I'm not worried about running out of time before running out of things to do. I head up to my room in the inn, where there's a chest to store excess belongings. I sleep until morning.

This seems like a good enough place to wrap-up the first entry. Be sure to check out the coverage at The Adventure Gamer, of which I'll have more to say now that the initial postings are done. I'm letting them set the pace on this one, so my own entries may not be as regular as usual.

I know that many fans consider this the least of the series, and that many of the things I said above about the series as a whole may not apply here, but I don't really remember this game (despite playing it before), so try not to ruin my experience with premature discussions of the story, length, difficulty, or what other classes may or may not experience until I've had a chance to experience those things for myself.

Time so far: 1 hour