The Quest

The Quest has had a place on every device I’ve owned for years. While it could be argued that the game and gameplay are dated, that is kind of the point. The fact that there is no firm way to achieve victory is a huge selling point. I’ve played through one quest at a time, collecting multiple quests and grinding away and I’ve also played as if the game is just a sandbox. The experience is different every time and while there is some overlap in operations, it still feels like a new game every single time and playing new paths is always rewarding.

There’s a skill curve to this game that isn’t necessarily based on mechanical game skill, but instead the ability to somehow decipher what is going on in context to the quest and how they’re done (mostly the explanations for what you’re supposed to do is not explained to the player). The first quest was to find a a sick person’s father in the starting gb town (I have played daggerfall, bulders gate and diablo classic) and even after approaching every door and person in town I still could not find him. The skill ceiling immediately jumps beyond what your level allows if you travel to other places without grinding. Consumables are rare and your whole route can be ruined during travel when you take damage from an encounter and now have to pay money to sleep somewhere. So much of the game is based on playing around the dated mechanics and respecting the monotony. Through nostalgia-glasses it’s a good handheld game, but as far as quest design, intended exploration routes and the mob given to you, this fame misses the mark in design. It is definitely a game where dying and trying multiple times is part of the philosophy of the gameplay. Hardcore or Outdated? That’s subjective up to the player. In my individual case, I was bored out of an experience I paid for that other games (with some research) do for free. The Quest might be a series for fans of this very particular genre.

I have just about every expansion to The Quest (now called “Classic”), simply because there is so much to do you can easily spend several hundred hours alone on this game. I bought the new and improved Quest because why not? It’s the best thing on the App Store ever! The drawings are more crisp and clear, the movements are more smooth, and I even noticed several gameplay improvements from the “Classic,” such as the card game AI seems to be not much of a pushover anymore (small things like that). I haven’t played that much on this new game (but I still bought four expansions), but there are a few things that keep this review from becoming the five star it deserves. No map markers to show quest points, no updating journals (or even a description of where the objectives are located), a few other nitpicking details that just seems odd not to have on here, especially with an updated game. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a game ending problem (although later on in the game, especially on the expansions, quest locations are far apart and sometimes complicated), but you WILL need to write certain objectives down in order to keep track of what you need to do. Once you forget only google will save you.