The Quest

The Quest is a game that is 20-years back-ward in quality-of-life despite being very-charming to the point of rivaling absolute-classics like Wizardry 8 and Might And Magic 3. Perhaps not in sheer-scale but definitely in heart! Its down-fall however are its quality-of-life features. You can't Tab between buy and sell modes in stores; use any keys to play the card game; select favorite spells so navigating the magic menu is very clunky as a mage who has to use it often... You can't even easily see if a shop item is an upgrade or not to your gear without leaving the trading screen; the shop screen; entering your inventory; selecting the slot in question and then reversing the process again back to the trade screen, for every item and purchase you'll ever make. If Final Fantasy 6 could do it in 1994, what's the excuse 20 years later? This may sound trivial and it is but when every-thing is just that clunky and could so easily and obviously be improved-upon, it makes the 50 hours ahead of me in this adventure look like an exercise in unnecessary frustration rather than an epic journey! None of those things are hard to implement. An experienced programmer could add them individually in an hour and still have time left to brew a coffee. Being inspired by retro-classics isn't an excuse, Baldur's Gate 3 doesn't have a 90% score because it decided to keep the out-rageously bad companion-AI for the sake of fidelity! If the creators don't have an hour to add standard features that have been common-place in RPGs for 2 decades, why should I spent 50 hours in their game? I can't fault any-one who disagrees with me. 4$ at 50%-off is very-fair for the amount of content and charm here. The issue is that when the engine-implementation is so out-dated that it makes me want to replay any number of classic CRPGs and JRPGs instead, it becomes hard to recommend The Quest even for free, despite its abundant charm and vast world! What I do like about it, other than what has already been mentioned: * Single-hero turn-based combat. Huge and a dream come-true! You can get one or the other in literally every other RPG but when you don't want to juggle 3-6 characters at once and just chill and grind and explore this feels absolutely perfect! * I can't believe I'm saying this but the generic european medieval setting feels like a breath of fresh air, genuinely! After going bronze-age in Tyranny; grim-dark heavy-metal in Rogue Trader... the plain-old back-to-basics setting comes full-circle! * I obviously have not got any-where near a second play-through but from what I've read in the forum the replay-value is implemented properly, so that many play-styles are possible with different routes through the game, even if they're not dramatically different from each other. That said, an internal or external randomizer would have gone a long way into me keeping this game and it's a shame that the data-format used internally is needlessly hostile to one being created. If you were one of those godly-patient gamers who powered through the ancient-interfaces of early Ultima and Wizardry titles for the sheer joy of exploring the secrets within a digital game-world and the glory of claiming victory against it dozens of hours later; and are still willing to do it all-over again in 2025, you will find The Quest an absolute steal at 50%-off! All else should probably stay with the safer recommendations like Vaporum and Grim-rock. I may sound like a snob to some but I really am not. I wrote my own extensive journal when playing Rogue Trader just last-year and had already started to do the same with this game. I don't mind some amount of house-keeping but missing key QOL features that were common even in games from the 90s (even many that were considered clunky back then) isn't justified by any amount of nostalgia. Would love to come-back to this after some easy UI fixes but the authors have stated they're not interested in adding new features to The Quest. Good-luck and have-fun to the brave who enter the journey but I doubt most folk would want to.

I wanted to give this game a thumbs up. It’s always fun leveling up and buying gear in an environment that’s easy on the eyes. But there’s a real lack of care and sophistication in the quests that ends up making this game feel like slop. For instance, early on you get a quest to basically kidnap a particular child to work for the government. I did a little extra legwork to find a weird kid who actually wanted the job, but then the quest just insta-failed with no recourse to fix things. So the whole thing felt like a waste of time, and anything that seemed like a choice really was no choice at all, but just an opportunity to break a quest. Another quest invovled an orc blocking a bridge who wanted you to find an orc-god statue he dropped in the river. I searched around for a while, then I used my big brain to determine that some goblin fishermen in the nearby village had probably already found the statue. I talked to them… nothing. So am I really just supposed to wander around and find this goofball’s item? I ended up wishing I’d just paid him off, but, of course I couldn’t walk the convo back to that point, so the quest was on rails. I had already seen other quests kind of borked at that point so I just gave up. Ultimately this comes down to the same problem a lot of games have: You guys need a writer on deck. I know you think if you can code a game, then you can write a story, but you just can’t. A storyteller uses a completely different kind of brain than a game dev uses, and if you don’t have a writer, then odds are good your game is going to feel generic even if it looks spectacular.

An awesome 20-30 hour old-school open world grid-based turn-based RPG that doesn't overstay its welcome. Excellent and funny dialogue writing, genuinely engaging story, overpowered builds and excellently designed world and puzzles. The world feels very lived in and is full of NPCs, quests and roleplay opportunities. The 2D sprites are all beautifully hand-drawn and the game is oozing with character. Sometimes it can feel a bit unfair if you don't want to be a jack of all trades, and some enemies rely a bit too much on magic. And since everyone gets a turn during combat and enemies don't attack very quickly, this can make some of the larger dungeons drag on a bit. You also definitely have to enjoy grid-based movement, as the entire game is turn based including open world exploration, but it moves fluidly outside of combat. Just remember, there's no way to move diagonally in this game. Overall, the price of this game is insane. Don't even bother waiting for a sale, it's more than worth it already. The DLC is awesome too! If you want to take it on the go, it's available on mobile. 8/10

This is a mobile-ported dungeon crawler, bringing with it the cons you'd expect from such a port - namely very simple combat (it's essentially *click* *click* *click* to attack with your weapon of choice, and then *gulp* health potions) and a UI with large icons generally used for touchscreens. Nevertheless, it's a short dungeon romp and the game shines in its quests, generally offering a twist and having more than one solution, even if it's just a choice between A and B dialogue option or between Kill X or Y. The story was interesting enough to keep me engaged for 16 hours. Given its low price and being a short game, I recommend this if you're looking for a "coffee break" turn based dungeon crawler.

I beat this entire game on my phone in 2010.

i reccomend making a 'first character' to get a grasp on what's useful and what isnt (like how lockpicking is 100% worthless, and alchemy isnt worth leveling up manually, but is worth using) and generally getting a feel for the combat and whatnot, then restarting for a proper 'run' of the game. a fun tip: save every point for skills you get on level up, run through the entire game leveling up skills you want via the merchants... and then towards the end of the game, dump all those points into your high tier skills to make them even more high tier!

gameplay is nice. It's a game I leave on and tab back into when I'm thinking about other stuff passively. The writing is actual poison and I think you're best off not reading any of it. -You find orc slavers with human slaves and are unable to fight them. All orcs deserve to die, but especially those who are hurting your own race. -You find a bartender who is getting children drunk, locking them in a room and selling them into slavery. Can't tell the guards, can't kill him. you can only bribe him and be mocked for being a ♥♥♥♥♥. -you come around a corner in a high level area, get punched unconscious by a guard and teleported to jail where the only way to win the trial is by lying. again this is mental poison. I understand some of the terrible quests are because it's simpler to have a railroady braindead quest but these quests shouldn't exist. they don't make you feel like a hero, they demean you, insult your morality as a person. Consuming content like this is unhealthy. You should get to feel like a hero in a fantasy game. It would be just as easy to have simple quests where you get asked to go slay a dangerous monster. There's no financial/time excuse, only the depression and sick perspective of the writer. but again, gameplay is fun so... I guess there's that.

I rarely review games, but The Quest merits an exception. It’s a solo-developed, grid-based, turn-based RPG that channels classics like Wizardry and Might & Magic. You run a single character. That means no party management, and the build options are deeper than they first appear. The world is vast, packed with dungeons, secrets, quests, and loot. Combat is satisfying, yet enemy spells hit hard. So carry plenty of resist potions whether you play melee, magic, or a hybrid. And on that note potion-spamming is a MUST. NPCs are distinctive and the quests engaging, though the writing occasionally drifts into four-paragraph lore dumps that could be two sentences. Minor quibble aside, if you miss old-school “blobber” RPGs, The Quest is an easy recommendation. I've got over 150 hours in on mobile and moving to PC, I'll likely catch up to that number soon. There's just something about the game's vibe that draws me back in. End notes: The official DLC is solid, but community-made expansions are wildly unbalanced and ignore the base game’s economy. So as a person who enjoys playing games but doesn't give a crap about fandom, skip them unless you enjoy meh-level chaos. The main overworld theme is a near-match for System of a Down’s “Lonely Day.” Give it a listen and compare; the similarity is striking.

I like the exploration and all the activities you can do in the world Its a shame the combat is not more in-depth, the story is also incredibly forgettable The game in general feels very generic and has one of the ugliest artstyles ive ever seen, i think it simply hits a soft spot in my love for Dungeon Crawlers

just a simple rpg to kill the time. love the retro vibe