Questron II: Final Rating

This game has the least effective copy protection of any game I've ever played. You can figure out the answers without even glancing at the manual. Another one said something like: "Which of these creatures lives in a dungeon?" with answers like "1. Cloud Soarer; 2. Wood Nymph; 3. Giant Shark; and 4. Deep Dweller."

    

Questron II

United States

Westwood Associates (developer); Strategic Simulations, Inc. (publisher)

Released 1988 for Apple II, Apple II GS, Atari ST, Amiga, and DOS

Date Started: 12 June 2011

Date Ended: 18 June 2011

Total Hours: 7

Difficulty: Easy (2.0/5)

Final Rating: 26

Ranking at Time of Posting: 17/59 (29%)

Ranking at Game #453: 233/453 (51%)

   

I honestly hadn't intended to play Questron II beyond my six hours, and then I found that six hours was almost enough to win (I said I was under six yesterday, but when I tallied it up, it actually came to seven). 

    

Here's the GIMLET:

     

1. Game World. Well. Questron II gets some points for originality for sending me to another planet, even if that doesn't really make sense. The time-travel angle is also unusual, but again poorly implemented. The world itself is a collection of towns, castles, and terrain features no different from Britannia or Ymros. You do have a lengthy history and lore in the manual, they're just not all that interesting; "stop the evil wizard" had already become a cliche by 1988. And the looting castles and slaughtering guards bit bothers me. Didn't Ultima IV teach us anything? Score: 3. 

    

2. Character Creation and Development. The only real option you have when creating your character is the name. Leveling occurs at fixed intervals and in response to progress on the quest, not slaying monsters or building experience. You have no choices when leveling. You can increase some of your stats in dungeons or by purchasing training in castles, but basically every player ends the game with the same character as every other player. Score: 2. 

     

3. NPC Interaction. No games are really rocking us yet with NPC interaction, but Questron II still feels like a throwback to a few years prior, when NPCs gave a single line of exposition. It's even worse here because most wandering NPCs say something worthless ("Me not like you") as if they were straight out of Ultima II. You do get some plot points from barbers, innkeepers, and publicans, but not enough to really advance the plot--most of the stuff they tell you, you'd figure out anyway. There are no dialogue options, not even when dealing with the main quest NPCs. Score: 2.

And if you're going to make a Treasure of the Sierra Madre reference, at least put it in some kind of context.

    

4. Encounters and Foes. We just came across a game--Pool of Radiance--that advanced the concept of "encounters" light years, and in this game, we might as well still be playing Akalabeth. Despite descriptions in the manual and interesting names, the monsters are utterly unmemorable, and there are no episodes in which you have to make any kind of real decision. Usually I like games that offer random encounters and respawning, but only when there's some point to fighting, and there's no point to fighting in this game: you don't get any experience, and you get more gold from gambling and dungeon exploration. Score: 1.

     

This kind of encounter wasn't even fun the very first time.

    

5. Magic and Combat. Combat consists of hitting "F" over and over, and the magic system offers exactly four spells. I'm seriously contemplating giving this game a 0, but the only game I've done that for is Braminar in which you literally make no decisions in combat. I guess that here, you at least have to pick the best out of four spells. Score: 1. 6. Equipment. We've seen lots of games with limited equipment, but this is the only game I've played in which your available equipment is tied to your character level, which makes no sense even on the surface. The best I can say is that at least you can tell, based on the price, when you're getting an upgrade. If I consider transportation as part of equipment, though, I have to give the game some points for the flying eagle. Score: 3.

    

Keeganac's gear at the end. The game's best weapon, as far as I can tell, is the broadsword.

    

7. Economy. There are quite a lot of things to buy in the game--stat upgrades, healing herbs, weapons and armor, spells, hit points, food, transportation, information. And I like the gambling mini-games; there aren't many games that feature mini-games in this era. But the game unbalances itself with high returns on gambling, making it pointless to accumulate treasure through combat or dungeon exploration. Having tens of thousands of gold pieces likely made the end game much easier for me than the creators intended. Score: 5.

      

Gambling is not supposed to absolve you from actually playing the game.

    

8. Quest. There is one relatively boring main quest but no "side quests." There is only one outcome to the main quest, and no opportunities for role-playing at all. Score: 2. 

    

9. Graphics, Sound, and Inputs. I'm almost scared to rate anything in this category now. The graphics are a nice upgrade from Questron and Legacy of the Ancients, but the sound is still primitive and I mostly kept it off. The keyboard commands were mostly intuitive enough, but there's no excuse, in this era, for disallowing diagonal movement--especially when your enemies can both move and attack you on the diagonal. I'm going to give it an extra point for the automap, probably the game's only innovative feature. Score: 5.

     

10. Gameplay. Questron II is completely linear. You have to visit each dungeon and castle in a particular order. Towns are an exception, but the game's dozens of towns are essentially interchangeable. Although I admire its quick resolution (again, I think the creators intended more monster grinding and less gambling), the game is a bit too easy. (Among other things, resurrection is immediate and guaranteed upon death.) There would be absolutely no reason to replay it. Score: 2.  

     

The final score of 26 almost seems too high. I think I might revisit my system soon to allow for a "discretionary" category where I can add and subtract points based on particularly well-done (or hated) features. It's time for an updated GIMLET review anyway; the one I keep linking to is from over a year ago and it talks about The Bard's Tale in the intro. 

    Note: Nothing this ad says is actually true.

    

Earlier today, reader Macnol was kind enough to link to the issue of Computer Gaming World in which Questron II was reviewed. The review's last sentence (p. 50) sums up the game perfectly: "Bottom line: Not equal to the original; best for the beginner, not the experienced." Next up: I couldn't find a working version of the 1988 edition of Rogue Clone (which, by all descriptions, was pretty much a clone of Rogue; who would have guessed?), so it's on to Scavengers of the Mutant World.

Questron II: Won!

And boy are they happy about it!

Well, I'll give Questron II this: it doesn't wear out its welcome. It's the first game I've played since Akalabeth in which I won before hitting my six-hour minimum. It never got a lot better, although it did unveil some interesting features towards the end. Let me take it chronologically. When we last left the game, I had been transported to the other continent on the planet of Landor, called the Realm of the Sorcerers. It wasn't much different from the first continent except that the random encounters in the wild were more frequent and did more damage. Fortunately, this didn't last long. I set out exploring the continent--I already had a rough map from the Room of Maps in Castle Redstone--and got some slightly better weapons and armor. One of the "travel" shops had a boat for sale, which I bought and sailed back to the first continent to make sure I wasn't due a level up from Mesron. The boat, oddly, didn't seem to have cannons, so when I met a creature I was still attacking it with my melee weapon.

Presumably, I'm hanging off the side or something.

It was a good thing I returned, because I was due a promotion, which got me some stat bumps and a new key: As before, when I reached the new level, I not only got a new hit point maximum (600), but new weapons (axe), armor (chain mail), and transports became available to me.

What a "camalon" is will have to remain a mystery.

One of the transport options was a "trained eagle," on whose back I soared! Not only did this take the place of the boat, but it prevented me from having any random encounters in the wilderness. That fact alone did a lot to get the game back into my good graces. The Realm of the Sorcerers turned out to have four places to explore: a tomb in Twilight Cathedral, a "great fortress," an unnamed dungeon, and the Dungeons of Despair. At first, I thought the game was opening up its linearity, but it turned out I needed keys to enter both the tomb and the Dungeons of Despair, and my initial raid on the fortress was aborted because I couldn't get through locked doors, so it really turned out that the map was completely linear, requiring me to visit the unnamed dungeon, the fortress, the Twilight Cathedral tomb, and the Dungeons of Despair in that order. Fortunately, at least, there wasn't a lot of backtracking.

Who is actually telling me this?

The dungeon was three-dimensional, and exactly as I remembered from Legacy of the Ancients. There are traps, and you have to search every hallway to make sure you don't hit them. Chests provide food, gold, and items. Occasionally, you find a healing potion or a coffin that effects a statistic increase. And of course there are monsters, but far fewer here than I remember from Legacy.

For god's sake, just call it an "umber hulk." That's clearly what it is.

Then something unexpected happened: I found something called a "Scroll of Scalna," which provided an automatic automap on the right side of the screen. It's the most sophisticated automap I've seen in a CRPG so far, showing doors, traps, coffins, and potions (if you don't pick up the latter two) as well as pits to go up and down. And it's integrated to the main screen--you don't have to call it up with a separate command. It remembers levels (which do not respawn items) after you leave. Well done, Questron II!

The Shape Shifter, oddly enough, does not actually shift his shape.

Anyway, I found an Agate Key and an Onyx Key during my exploration of the eight levels of the dungeon. It wasn't a tough dungeon to explore. There were a few areas inaccessible unless you went down and back up again, but nothing tough, and rendered all the easier by the automap. When I got out, I headed for the fortress and, resignedly, launched into an attack of another castle's worth of luckless guards. Looting the castle gained me some other keys. I left and returned and was able to march on in to see the king. I was about to remark that the guards have very short memories--they don't attack if you just leave and return--but I guess since I slaughtered them all, the more remarkable thing is how fast the castle is able to replenish its staff. Just as in the first Questron, instead of ordering me executed for my needless massacre, the king--Kelfar, which is one letter off from Legacy's Kelfor--respected my power, increased my stats, gave me 5000 gold, and appointed me his champion.

I meant to reload and find out what happens if you say "No."

I figured that meant yet another level bump, so I got on my eagle and returned to Castle Redstone. There, an interesting thing happened: Mesrom told me that Mantor was attacking one of the cities. I couldn't remember where Cramford was, so it took a while to find it. When I did, it was properly destroyed. All the people had turned to piles of bones, and the whole place had a red tinge. It reminded me how the sorceress had destroyed towns in Shard of Spring, and I wonder if, had the game taken me longer, Mantor would have hit other towns. With the key from Kelfar's fortress, I entered the Twilight Cathedral tombs, which were almost exactly like the tombs in the other continent. Fortunately, I had that map, which made the exploration of the very maze-y (but curiously monster-light) dungeon much easier. The only plot item was the discovery of the Black Key.

I read this as "ASS OF PAIN" at first.

Returning again to Redstone, I was informed Mantor was attacking another city--Seaside--which, fortunately, I remembered where it was. When I got there, Mantor sicced the guards on me, but all I had to do was fling one fireball at him, and he fled like a bitch. The town reverted to normal and everything was cool. Mesron promoted me to knight and sent me on the final quest to the Dungeons of Despair. Before heading into the dungeon, I went shopping and found I could buy 2000 hit points! (More on this in a minute.) I got a fauchard as a weapon and ribbed plate mail for armor. The Holy One at Twilight Cathederal sold me 30 loaves of that healing bread. I loaded up on spells and headed into the Dungeons of Despair, which were also 3D. As I explored the dungeon and drilled downward, I noticed that the healing potions I was finding kept adding to my hit points. Before, they wouldn't allow me to go over a maximum, but at this level, I kept going up--3000, 4000, 5000--and so I wasn't even particularly worried when a trap destroyed my armor and I started taking massive damage from monsters. I got all the way to the bottom and into a fortress (no longer 3D) where Mantor and the sorcerers were creating the book. But the damned place hit me with 40-50 hit points damage for every step, not to mention what the guards were doing. I soon died.

This shot is from my second visit.

I realized the game had changed the rules on me. Where before there was a hit point maximum, in the endgame, the goal was to get to Mantor's place with as many hit points as possible. With that in mind, I reloaded and checked out the hit point store again. It turned out that the 2000 hit point offer wasn't a one-time thing. Every time I entered the town, I could go to the store and buy another 2000. I spent all the rest of my gold. In the dungeon, I cast "Time Sap" every time I saw a monster and killed him before he could even hit me, and I took advantage of every potion I could find. By the time I reached the bottom-level sanctuary again, I had over 15,000 hit points.

The video records the last couple levels of the dungeon and my assault on the wizards in Mantor's sanctuary. When I reached Mantor and the Evil Book of Magic, I was able to kill the six insane sorcerers, but none of my attacks or spells would do anything against Mantor himself. Nor could I pick up the book. I bumbled about a bit, trying to use different objects I had aquired (I still have no idea what the Unicorn's Horn or Crystal Goblet were about) before I finally hit upon using my copy of the Evil Book of Magic, in which there was now a "Destruct" spell. Mantor "flickered and vanished" despite the game's assertion that destroying the book wouldn't change the past. The end game sequence wasn't as good as I remembered in Questron, but I did get a nice promotion on both planets. And the last screen promised a sequel that never materialized: I'm glad it didn't, because the plot already sounded stupid--why is a child playing in dungeon ruins? This posting is already too long to do the GIMLET here, so look for that tomorrow. For now, I'll just say that Questron II helped cure my guilt for not playing Questron last year, since it's pretty much the same game. It's harmless enough, I guess--a good option for beginners--but I'm looking forward to moving on to something meatier.

Questron II: Massacre

How dare these guards do their jobs by stopping me from looting their liege's estate?

We need to consider what the creator of the Questron and Legacy of the Ancients series has against castle guards. Was he sodomized by Beefeaters as a child? In all three games, you are forced to advance by going on murderous rampages through castles whose denizens are actively helping you. This one goes even further by actually leaving visible corpses in your wake.

Ah, my old nemesis, Locked Door, we meet again. Clearly, none of my fireball spells will do anything against you.

The game follows the general schtick of its predecessors by having only a couple of locations and forcing you to travel back and forth between them multiple times. In Legacy of the Ancients, I complained about making repeated raids on Castle Kelfor, each time picking up something that I had to take to another location to get something that would take me back to Castle Kelfor. In this game, the linear dependencies were between Castle Redstone, Rivercrest Cathedral, and Rivercrest Tomb. Let me see if I can remember the specific steps:

• In Rivercrest Tomb, I found a Moonstone Amulet that let me through a mystical barrier in Rivercrest Cathedral and speak to the "Holy One," who sold me the "Bread of Life" (basically healing potions) that made it possible to survive a long trip through the Tomb. (Later, I found a chalice that, when given to the Holy One, increased the amount of bread he was willing to sell.)

The "help" turned out to consist of getting out of the way.

• Returning to Rivercrest Tomb, I found a Brass Key.

• The Brass Key opened a door in Castle Redstone, leading me to various treasure chests. Looting these chests roused the ire of the guards, leading to the aforementioned slaughter.

• Some of the chests in Redstone contained Iron, Brass, and Copper keys.

Apparently, the copper key was very heavy, and I picked it up and put it down 300 times.

• The Emerald Key opened a heretofore impassable door in Rivercrest Tomb, beyond which I found the Wand of Power.

• The Wand of Power, shown to Mesron in Castle Redstone, got me elevated to "scout."

• Being a scout was enough to take the Orb of Enchantment from Castle Redstone (before, it kept saying, "Come back when you are better!").

• Bringing the Orb to Morle the Magician in Rivercrest Tombs, I was transported to the Realm of Sorcerers, the second continent.

As you can see, this required me to go back and forth between these two locations about six times, making Questron II a rare game that both is completely linear and involves a lot of backtracking.

I videoed some of the game and uploaded it below, so you can see a little of what it's like to play it.

In the video, you can see me check my inventory, enter a town, play a few hands of blackjack, check out the armor shop, buy some spells and food, get a tip at an inn, donate at a temple, enter the Tomb, and blast a few monsters with fireballs. Note how quickly my food decreases as I walk through the dungeon. Either each food unit represents, like, one Cheerio, or my character is a real glutton.

Oh, a few other notes while I'm in the mood for bullets:

• You can't just go charging down dungeon corridors by holding the arrow keys. Monsters appear very suddenly, and then can get 5 or 6 free whacks at you while the buffer clears.

They also tend to appear in large batches.

• Monsters are basically indistinguishable. Yes, each one has a little icon, but all they do is hit you. There might have well have just been one creature called "monster."

• A guy in Castle Redstone sold me stat upgrades--one per level--for a lot of money, but with my knowledge of gambling, money is no object.

A hideous pluck! Am I getting attacked by a giant chicken?

• In the castle was a "Hall of Maps," where I was shown screenshots of two continents and a dungeon for 1,000 gold pieces. I don't know if this means there are only two continents in the game or what.

I do suspect this screen shot is going to come in handy.

• Possible inventory is tied to your level. Only after I became a scout did I gain the "ability" to buy "bar armor," a mule, and time sap and sonic whine spells.

So now I'm on a second continent, with a bunch of towns and stuff that seem rather the same as the first continent. Is it too much to hope that I'm halfway through the game?

Wasting time killing monsters outdoors remains pointless with the imbalanced gambling systems. But I regard this as a good thing: Honestly, I can't imagine how much I'd hate this game if I had to spend hours grinding against Vivid Fishes and Boring Shrubs (thanks!). I can't say that I haven't died a few times, but this is still fundamentally an easy game. It is devoid of complexity in mapping, tactics, puzzles, NPCs, encounters, magic, or role-playing. I understand the need for "easy CRPGs" to lure new audiences, but to me this is a huge disappointment after Pool of Radiance.

Questron: 2

Minutes the developers would last in Vegas before going bankrupt: 15.

Number of minutes I initially played "Wizard's Squares," a casino game I found in a few towns, before deciding it was a stupid version of roulette and moving on: 8.

Number of minutes I continued to play the game before a nagging voice in my head made me say, "Wait a second..." and return to the casino: 12.

Average return on investment if betting on one of the four "corner" squares in the game (see spreadsheet above): 112.5%.

Amount of gold I had after about 15 minutes of playing: 25,446.


Number of treasure chests in Castle Redstone: 25+.

Number of chests you have to open before the guards start attacking you: 1.

Likelihood, given previous games in this series, that I will somehow end up having to kill all of these guards for vague reasons: 100%.

Number of walls it breaks for characters in the game to actually refer to "hit points": 4.

Number of character deaths I suffered before discovering that the way to heal myself is to buy hit points at unmarked stores in a handful of towns: 6.

How much sense it makes to find a network of "banks" in a quasi-medieval society: 0.

Given that you can store money in a bank, that you get an extra 200 gold with each resurrection, that there doesn't seem to be any chance of permanent death, and the only downside to death is that you have to re-purchase your weapons and armor, how much death sucks on a scale of 1 to 10: 2.

Percentage of the time I screamed, "No! Really! You don't have to do that!" when viewing this screen: 100.

Levels I gained for finding the Hall of Visions in Castle Redstone: 1.


Levels that you can gain in the game based on experience fighting monsters: 0.

Average amount of gold gained from killing a monster: 25.

Number of monsters I would have to kill to equal roughly 5 minutes of playing Wizard's Squares: 320.

Reasons, therefore, to fight monsters: 1.

Reasons to fight monsters other than "they're standing in my way": 0.

Number of other CRPGs in which a staff beats a hammer or axe: 0.

Given that more "advanced" weapons and armor, like hammers and ring mail, started showing up in towns after I attained an extra level, likelihood that the type of weapons and armor you can buy is tied to your level: 100%.

How $(&#@ing stupid this is on a scale of 1 to 10: 10.

Number of dungeon entrances in the upper left-rightcorner of this temple: 1.

Number of dungeons I have discovered after visiting every town and temple on the continent: 1.

Likelihood that the Wand of Power is in this dungeon: 100%.

Google results for "OOLATEK!": 155.

Number of magic missile and fireball spells I am allowed to buy and carry at one time: 99.

Average damage I do against creatures in the dungeon with my hatchet, and average percentage of the time that I hit said creatures: 13/50.

Average damage creatures in the dungeon do against me, and percentage of the time that said creatures hit me: 33/100.

Maximum number of hit points I am allowed to have: 400.

Average damage I do against creatures in the dungeon with my fireball spell, and average percentage of the time that I hit said creatures: 80/100.

Realistic tactical options I therefore have while exploring the dungeon: 1.

Reasons that vermin would have to be "wrathful": 0.

Having reached the end of this posting, satisfaction level with this particular gimmick, on a scale of 0 to 5: 0.

Given that I'm at a beachfront hotel in California, likelihood that I'm going to re-do this posting: 0.

Given that I'm here until Friday, number of other postings you are likely to see before then: 0.

Apologies that I offer for this: 1000.