Are all of these games available in VGA or is it just QfG1? Just wondering before I buy.

Thanks.

QFG 1 comes in both EGA and VGA, while QFG 2 is only in EGA and the others are VGA (I think; not really much of an expert in graphics on the tech side, but all I know is they do't have the color palate of the first 2 EGA games). There is a fan remake in VGA, but I've heard mixed things about it.

The Fan remake of QFG2 is very well made for a fan remake. The art style is a little off, but that for some it might be ok. The 'worst' bit is the portraits for various characters, in which some look somewhat deformed, lumpy/asymmetrical, amateurish? Although some might see as an improvement over the glitchy Technicolor clay animation closeups in the QFG1 remake, or the 3Dish closeups in QFG5.

The background artwork, and recolored screens however are generally all of reasonable quality, but imo nothing up to the quality of old VGA and SVGA sierra ventures.

The music in the remake is excellent, and is probably the best part of the remake. Although I still hold a deep spot for the Roland music of the original in some ways.

The fan remake maintains all or most of the script from the original, but adds new material (for a purist the new stuff will be 'fanfiction' and not relevant, but still fun to read and play through).

The new battle system? Some love it, and its improved level of strategy (requiring being mindful of being attacked from the sides in some cases), some prefer the simpler system in the original.
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Ah, thanks :) Also am I right in assuming that VGA (apart from the graphics) is where you don't have to do any typing, you just have a choice and mouse click what you want to ask and the EGA version is where you have to type your questions? If so, does that mean it's only QfG2 that you have to type (unless I get the fan remake)?

The EGA versions of 1 and 2 used a mostly-typing interface (with some mouse work). The VGA versions of 1, 3, and 4 were made with a fully mouse-driven engine. (The QFG1 VGA remake was partly to demonstrate the new engine.)

(Actually, I think 1, 3, and 4 were technically MCGA; VGA generally meant 640x480 resolution, whereas MCGA was still 320x200 but went from 16 (EGA) to 256 (MCGA) colors.)

Thank you all for your replies, I now understand the differences :)

QFG2 remake maintains the 'typing' interface, if you want to use it. It is is required if you want to discover some of the hidden new material as well, or access some of the old material as well.

One benefit to the typing interface versions of the games were more features, such as the ability to drop items anywhere, including your shield. The typing games also allowed for a few more verbs which meant extra narration in many places, and lots of easter eggs and jokes.

Unfortunately, I've got a mental block with games where you have to type commands. I remember years ago, must be the early 90s, I tried to play quite a few text adventure games and remember spending like what seemed hours trying to find the right phrases to type in. Everything I typed just didn't seem to be recognised. I know it was a failing on my part but since then I've not been able to look at a text'type game without breaking into a cold sweat! :) I'm in two minds whether to give it another go with QfG as I've heard so many good things about the series.

Quest for glory's vocabulary is actually rather forgiving, compared to the old text adventure games. You can type in full sentences, and most of the time it is pretty good at knowing what you want to do.

It's also good at knowing simple commands like "look" or "look room" (which will often give you good description of important things on screen.) Also you have the ability to 'right mouse click' to look at things on screen as well, which makes things much easier. The game is often pretty good at telling you if something can be manipulated or not.

Old text games were often used much simpler vocabulary, and you had to often limit yourself to two word commands, and you had to be able to figure out what verbs it actually understood.

I wouldn't compare things to more primitive era of earlier text adventures.

Also I recommend reading the user manual, it has a good suggestions and descriptoins of most of the main verbs that can be found useful in the game, including verbs that will work (but are more for narrative flavor, but have little functional purpose).

Another advanced feature in the game is the ability to "ask" questions of various characters, and they often have many things to answer (but keep in mind their knowledge is generally limited to places around them, and people they may know). Experiment, if one character mentions some place or character, or item, sometimes asking another character about those same topics will yield more information, or they'll tell you they don't know what you are talking about. (note that it might be a good idea to take notes on topics as you learn about them, so you can remember to ask about them to other characters)

In QFG, typing is actually fairly intuitive so long as you stick to 1-2 word phrases; any more than that, and the text parser gets confused. Then again, the type-controlled QFG games never really descended into moon logic with regards to what action needed to be done in a given situation, so sticking to simple phrases would reliably see you through, as opposed to some games I could name where the action required is so nonsensical noone would ever think of it.

You can usually get by with three word sentences. Like "get the gem", although "get gem" works just as well.

Thanks for the in-depth explanations - I'll bite the bullet, face my text typing fears and give the games a go :)

Keep in mind most questions require you to type "ask about 'topic'". Fill I'm topic with whatever topic you are wanting to ask about.

<CTRL>+<A> or is it <SHIFT>+<A> now I forget.