User reviews

Dragon Fire is an excellent final game for an excellent series. Anybody who hasn't played Quest for Glory is strongly suggested to do so. Quest for Glory is one of the finest classic games Sierra has ever produced. You start off the series as a nobody who tries to become a hero, and every game after than you are allowed to import your same character into the next game so that you can continue to build up your stats instead of starting all over again like most sequels. Dragon Fire has many characters that you've encountered over the past four games, including many new people to meet and a couple of new skills you can develop.

As the last game in the Quest for Glory series, there were many improvements from the last four. The graphics are a bit too pixelated at parts but the visuals are nice and the magic spell effects are stunning too. Plus we get a full voice cast, some of which appeared in dubbed Japanese anime series, especially Steve Blum. If I had to pick some favorite characters from this game, it'd be the Liontaurs. You'll see what I mean when you play the game. The action is a bit too much but the puzzles are the best part. I'm not sure I would have put everything in 3D but at least I could play the game without a 3D card. Still, the pixels could have been smoother. There are plenty of skills to develop and a beautiful soundtrack to accompany your travels. Plus the setting is in an Ancient Greek island kingdom with all the mythology and motifs. And a compelling plot that will keep you guessing until the end.

"Dragon Fire" represented the end of an era for fans of "Quest for Glory" and the company that produced the series, Sierra. For many years, Sierra churned out very thoughtful computer games that were usually based on solving brain-teasing puzzles instead of mindless, "Doom"-style action. However, the computer game market changed over time, and as action games became more fashionable, Sierra's thoughtful brand of game died out. "Dragon Fire" is pretty much the last gasp of the traditional Sierra game.

Sadly, it attempts to compromise between the old, story-driven style of "Quest for Glory," and the more trendy action-oriented style. For an old-school Sierra fan like me, the game simply has too much action. Far too many "puzzles" can be solved by killing loads of monsters and guards - there's not too much of a cerebral component. There are some occasional brain-teasers, but most of them are associated with an area called Science Island, which is an aggressively anachronistic and sort of annoying part of the game anyway.

But I don't mean to bury "Dragon Fire", because it is pretty enjoyable. Like other "Quest for Glory" games, it has a very well-developed internal mythology, and pretty good (if sometimes rather wordy) dialog. The voice acting is generally strong, and the graphics are rather attractive. The Greece-like setting is cool, and the blend of different mythological elements - Atlantis, Hades, the Hydra - works really well.

The first time I played the game, I missed many of the "side quests," so I developed the (perhaps unfair) impression that it was very shallow. Once I did some further research on the game, however, I returned to it with a desire to explore it more thoroughly, and found the second play-through more rewarding. But, to be honest, much of the depth really is too easy to miss.

For example, I actually think it's too hard to get married in the game. You're given a choice of potential wives, but wooing them is sort of a superficial and tedious process that involves giving them just the "right" presents. Some of these presents are bloody hard to find! There's also a problem with the Thief's storyline - if you forget to contact a fellow thief very early in the game, you'll be up a creek much later on. Those kinds of elements bother me.

Still, this is a fun game, and probably the best of the latter-day Sierra titles. Other late Sierra games - Gabriel Knight III, The Mask of Eternity - were really pretty poor attempts to make adventure games "cool" in the eyes of a new audience that simply couldn't appreciate them. Despite its action-oriented bent, "Dragon Fire" is at least faithful to the spirit of "Quest for Glory," so it outshines other Sierra products of the period.