The Quest for Glory series is one of my favorite adventure game loves. It introduced me to a more open-ended style of adventure game, with a class system, and an entertaining combat system. Infamous Quests clearly loved that series as well, as the Quest for Infamy embraces everything that made that series great. Instead of chasing after glory, the goal is to be as much of a terrible person as you can possibly muster.
The roguishly handsome star of Quest for Infamy is Roehm. He is wanted for sleeping with a very powerful man’s daughter, and he decided to hide himself away in a small town plagued by strange cultists and a strict Sheriff. Roehm will take his place in this town and work to become “Infamous”. It’s up to the player to choose to be a Brigand, Sorcerer, or Rogue. The story focuses on heavy comedy as Roehm commits criminal acts in secrecy to avoid getting his head chopped off.
Much like the Quest for Glory series, the story isn’t the main deal. It’s all about running about and seeing what the world has to offer. Quest for Infamy sets you free in an open world full of adventure to discover. There are subtle differences in the way that Quest for Glory and Infamy begin. In Quest for Glory, at the very start of the game… you knew what class you were going to play as. In Quest for Infamy, you have to meet everyone in town first and then wander around again to start the classes.
Eventually, I struggled my way through all of the class beginnings. I started as a Rogue and wandered about for an hour before I realized you could squeeze a fish for oil. Next I attempted to play as a Brigand, and learned that I had to melt a weapon down into a medallion. I couldn’t quite figure out how to do this, so I switched over to try out the Sorcerer class. Which to my surprise… was the easiest to complete out of all of them. You just stab a dead dude in the face and take his blood back to our Dr. Strange look alike.
Now I know this sounds like I am portraying the guise of a coddled gamer, but hear me out a bit more. Eventually, I got past all of the humps and was able to take on the journey like normal. I was a proud Rogue who discovered his place in the world, and found other compatriots just like me. I gathered the utensils I needed, and headed back to town to commit some robbery. I rested to speed up the day cycle up and was taken to a festival event.
Here I met up with Gorth, who I quickly bested in a duel and earned the praises of the Townsfolk for killing or not killing it makes no difference. After it was over, I figured I could get back to my dubious deeds. NOPE! The game instead took me home and made Roehm go to sleep. I was a bit peeved, but I figured I would just fast forward time again and get back at it. Instead of any of that happening, Roehm died from lack of food intake. So without my input at all, my character was killed by no means of my doing.
Despite my confusing beginnings, the title shapes up into fairly engrossing adventure title. There are quite a few puzzles and storyline segments where the player can make choices. Most of those choices don’t seem to actually affect anything but infamy gain, but the option is there. Infamy shares the look of adventure titles of yesteryear, and plays greatly into the nostalgia factor. You can make out what most of the characters are doing, and it doesn’t have that grainy effect to it like older titles. The voice acting is great for some characters, and oddly mechanical sounding for others. It’s clear that there wasn’t a big team involved due to the repetitive voices of the characters with a smaller role.
The kicker to the entire title has to come from the awful combat system. It’s turn-based with a three second window, which is absolutely fine until you realize that you have to die constantly early on. Prepare to flail about like an action figure jostled about in a child’s hands. You will swing and miss, and miss, and miss, while you wait for the combat ticker to get to a reasonable level. I really wish they found a way around it, or copied the system from the original Quest for Glory completely.
Quest for Infamy tickles at my adventure senses, but its confusing design outweigh games that were made 25 years before it. Quest for Infamy receives a “Wait for a Sale” from Geek Citadel. This nostalgic adventure title takes a high level of patience and care to see what it has to offer. It has a lot of potential for those with a lot of time to invest in it. If you can find a way to completely work around the combat system, this game has fun written all over it.
*This game was provided by the publisher for review*
