Hero's Quest might be named after the first game in the Quest for Glory series, but the similarities end shortly thereafter. So if you're expecting a comeback from Sierra's famous Williams family, you'll be sorely disappointed. Regardless, the game does some things worthy of its epic name by offering up a number of spells and options in its largely strategy-based gameplay. Despite the gameplay's strengths, though, Hero's Quest has many flaws, including a weak presentation and some less than savory controls. Additionally, the ending creeps up on you so quickly that you won't even know it's happened, leaving the already convoluted story unexplained, which compounds the game's overall presentation problems. Hero's Quest has the groundwork for an interesting and rich game, but it falls short in too many ways to be ignored.
There are effectively six different ways to play Hero's Quest, since you can choose to be a mage or warrior and then decide whether your character is good, neutral, or evil. However, no matter which faction you choose, you can always behave differently, although your alignment doesn't seem to have much bearing on the game, other than a slight difference in the rewards you earn. Plus, there's no reason to play the warrior since the mage is a significantly stronger character, and is much more interesting to boot.
The majority of the game takes place on a top-down view of a world map, which you navigate around like a grid, moving in four directions, block by block. This is immediately disconcerting, because there's no reason you shouldn't be able to just walk around the environment, and skipping from section to section with no walking animation simply looks and feels primitive.
As you explore, you'll come across various non-player characters that will stand in your path. Some are friendly constituents of local villages, and others are hostile creatures you have to fight. The difference between the two types isn't always obvious, but, fortunately, you can back out of any fight you come across by simply selecting not to fight it. This is actually something unique to this game that works quite well. When you walk into an enemy NPC, a screen appears telling you what you're fighting. Through experience, you'll be able to figure out how difficult the creatures are and whether they're melee or long-range fighters. The number of accompanying troops is denoted by whether they are described as being several, a pack, lots, or hordes. The strategy of the game is to gauge whether or not you can defeat the enemy based on the type and numbers of your own army. If you fail, it's not disastrous, as the game autosaves before every single fight.
Hero's Quest has a story, but there's no point in following it, since the game doesn't even try. There's a main storyline that lets you progress around the map from village to village, but you can pick up side quests for more gold and magic scrolls. You can use magic scrolls in battle to either boost up your defense or offense, but generally, the fights can be easily won by attacking the troops constantly. The battle sequences are turn-based strategy, and you can move a certain number of squares based on your class or attack (or, after you've learned the magician skill, both). As a mage, the best tactic is to simply attack the whole time, especially in the beginning, since many of the lower-level enemies can't do anything from long-range. You gain experience by winning battles, and each time you level up, you can purchase one from a number of different skills, like holy aura, which increases the chance that an enemy will miss, or archery, which improves your long-range attacks. Gold can be used to buy armor, which you'll generally receive from beating certain required sections of the game. But gold's better off spent at the tavern hiring armies. As you go through the game, you'll be able to hire a number of different fighters, both melee and long-range, who are necessary in most of the later battles.
The strangest thing about the game is its abrupt ending. After playing through the first map, you gain access to a whole new area, which must be downloaded from the game's server. However, you can't return to the first map. If you've felt that you've thoroughly explored the first area, then this doesn't seem to be a problem. But after downloading the next area (which takes quite a bit of time on a standard network), you explore a forest briefly, fight one fight against a dragon, and then nothing happens. You'll try to run around the forest looking for an exit, since there are treasures and enemies on the outskirts of it, but there's no exit. In fact, the game is over, but there's little reason to suspect it's ended. In essence, the game feels unfinished, especially since you won't have had the chance to learn nearly enough skills to make a difference. The developer has stated that additional scenarios will be available for download in the future--and indeed there is currently one new downloadable scenario, but this isn't related to your current character in any way, and you must start anew to explore it. This is a huge let-down. One of the benefits of building up a character is learning new skills, thereby changing the way you play the game. However, Hero's Quest doesn't fulfill this desire, because it's over just when it starts to get interesting.
Of course, you may not even get far enough into the game to discover the compelling aspects of its strategy, because the appearance of it on the LG VX7000 will likely put you off from the beginning. The graphics are really primitive, and they often work against the game instead of for it. For instance, you'll have trouble navigating since it won't be immediately obvious if you can get through a section of trees and rocks or not. You'll also have problems figuring out whether you're approaching a friend or foe. Sound effects might have helped with this, but they're absent from the game. The only thing you'll hear is an extremely short intro song on the title screen, which would have been good if it had been more than a few seconds long.
Hero's Quest has so much potential that its flaws are particularly frustrating. Just when you've decided that you can deal with the ugly presentation and you start to get into the gameplay, the game simply ends without explanation. Hero's Quest is tough to recommend. Even though the foundation is promising, and you're sure to find some fun here, you're probably better off waiting for a sequel that fixes its many problems.
