Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire

Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire is an adventure/role-playing game developed and published by Sierra On-Line in November 1990 for MS-DOS and Amiga. First teased as Hero's Quest II: Trial by Fire at the end of Hero's Quest's original release, is the sequel to Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero and it was the last EGA game that was made using the SCI0 Interpreter before moving on to the SCI1 Interpreter for VGA games.

The game would be followed in 1992 with Quest for Glory III: Wages of War.

Gameplay
The game follows the path of its predecessor, although there are distinctions in gameplay. Trial by Fire operates on a restricted time frame; the entire plot is concluded in 30 days. Many of the puzzles in the game do not appear or cannot be solved until certain days. This keeps gameplay on a tight, linear narrative. At some moments in the plot, such as the three days spent in Raseir, this slows down gameplay and can seem ponderous.

The player has the opportunity to advance his character and explore interesting side-quests. For example, a Magic User can earn the title of "Wizard" with the sponsorship of the wizard Erasmus, provided he can overcome a series of magical challenges and graduate from the Wizards Institute of Technocery. A Fighter may earn a membership in the Eternal Order of Fighters. A Thief may perform several thefts, including the running gag of stealing the Black Falcon. One of the unique features of this game, however, is that the character is not locked out of different side quests depending on class. If you play as a fighter with some magical ability (or import a magic user from Quest for Glory I and play as a fighter) you can utilize this cross-training to complete other quests. It is possible for your character to become a Wizard, complete every theft in the game, and join the Eternal Order of Fighters.

This is also the first game of the series where the Hero may be awarded the title of Paladin. To achieve this status, the Hero must act honorably throughout the game and Rakeesh, the liontaur (lion-centaur) will present to you his Paladin sword, Soulforge. Since the title of the Paladin is given at the end of the game, their abilities and Soulforge are only usable with characters that are imported into Quest for Glory III: Wages of War and later games. It is also possible for fighters to become Paladins in QFG3.

Surprisingly in the ending, shows the Hero heading out into the desert night on a Saurus. He watches the moon, and bids a fond adieu. He contemplates where his road will lead. It implies that he is journeying to Mordavia as his next destination for Quest for Glory III: Shadows of Darkness. This was ignored and retconned into Wages of War, which had him living in Shapeir for three months before heading to Tarna.

Synopsis
Quest for Glory II takes place in the fictional land of Shapeir, in the world of Gloriana. Directly following from the events of the first game, the newly-proclaimed Hero of Spielburg travels by flying carpet with his friends Abdulla Doo, Shameen and Shema to the desert city of Shapeir. The city is threatened by four magical elementals, while the Emir Arus al-Din of Shapier's sister city Raseir is missing and his city fallen under tyranny.

After defeating the four elementals that threaten Shapeir, the Hero travels to the city of Raseir. There, he is imprisoned by Khaveen and under hypnosis helps the evil tyrannous wizard Ad Avis to resurrect the evil genie Iblis. In the final fight, the Hero attacks the palace and battles with Ad Avis, who falls to his presumed death begging for assistance from his Dark Master. As thanks for the Hero's success in liberating Raseir and restoring its lost splendor, the Sultan of Shapeir, Harun al-Rashid, rewards the Hero by adopting him as his son.

Credits

 * Executive Producer: Ken Williams
 * Creative Director: Bill Davis
 * Producer: Guruka Singh Khalsa
 * Design: Corey Cole, Lori Ann Cole
 * Art Designer: Kenn Nishiuye
 * Lead Programming: Robert Fischbach
 * Programming: Corey Cole, Brian K. Hughes, Gary Kamigawachi, Robert L. Mallory, Randy MacNeill, Jerry Shaw, Mark Wilden
 * Lead Artist: Kenn Nishiuye
 * Backgrounds and Animation: Tamra Dayton, Desie Hartman, Douglas Herring, Eric Kasner, Dean Larocca, Nathan Larsen, Cheryl Loyd, Harry McLaughlin, Gerald Moore
 * Music and Sound: Christopher Braymen, Mark Seibert
 * Implementation Specialist: J. Mark Hood
 * Interpreter / Development System: Corey Cole, Dan Foy, Pablo Ghenis, Eric Hart, Robert Eric Heitman, Larry Scott, Jeff Stephenson, Mark Wilden, John Rettig
 * Quality Assurance: Mike Harian, Mike Pickhinke
 * Documentation: Bridget McKenna
 * Illustration: Ernie Chan
 * FACS Manual Written by: Lori Ann Cole

Characters and references
Quest for Glory II is the only game in the series without any influence of Erana in it. It does, however, feature a reference to Erana - as she is in one of the portraits of great mages in the Wizards' Institute of Technocery. If the Hero requests her sponsorship in his initiation as a wizard, he is told that Erana had not been answering the WIT's summons for many years now.

The astrologer may have been based on Omar Khayyám.

As in the other games of the series, there are a large number of in-jokes and mythological references, especially, from Arabian Nights. One of them is the name of the Sultan, Harun al-Rashid.

Signor Ferrari and Ugarte, characters portrayed by Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre in the movie Casablanca appear in Raseir, as does the Maltese Falcon from the movie of the same name which featured Greenstreet and Lorre in other memorable roles. Caricatures of the Marx Brothers also play important roles.

At one point, the hero gives a spare outfit to a woman named Zayishah, who changes into it behind a veil. This sequence has a rare easter egg: a character wearing the otherwise useless X-Ray Specs will see through the veil as she undresses, albeit at the cost of the hidden Honor stat. Nudity of any kind is almost unheard of in Sierra adventures outside the Leisure Suit Larry series, but the low-resolution, 16-color graphics show no more detail than a mass of flesh-colored pixels.

There are several references to other games or movies in magician Keapon Laffin's shop: a princess Rosella doll, a Cookie Monster doll, and an antwerp doll, among other things.

Behind the scenes
This is the last Sierra game to use EGA graphics.

The manual is illustrated by Marvel Comics artist Ernie Chan.

This is the second Quest for Glory game to have some mild swearing which was unusual in the Sierra game. The word "Damn" is used by the Persian Golfer who also uses swearing symbols while he is cursing. Also the Map Seller in the market uses the word "Ass" as he is advertising maps (although this is almost certainly the term for a donkey)

Many releases of this game has an import bug in which a character (thief, or magic user) from QFG1VGA will import into the game as a 'fighter'. There is an official patch to fix this bug.

Choosing to type blow/blowing/suck/sucking followed by "blue" and ending with frog/toad activates a developer mode, allowing cheats in the game.

After you kill Ad Avis, the trailer to Quest for Glory III: Shadow of Darkness is shown before the credits. However the game leads up to Quest for Glory III: Wages of War and the Hero won't actually visit the place until Quest for Glory IV: Shadow of Darkness.

Reception
Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire sold over 100,000 physical copies, and earn itself a SPA Certified Gold.

UK magazine ACE gave the Amiga version a score of only 600 out of 1000, praising its size, but criticizing it for its average graphics, grating music, slowness and for the large amount of disk swapping needed while playing.

Legacy
It is the only game in the series to not be originated or remade beyond the EGA graphics engine by Sierra. While Quest for Glory I: So You Want to Be a Hero turned out to be Sierra's most successful, and profitable remake, most of them did not sell well enough for the company to continue the line with Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire VGA.

On August 24, 2008, AGD Interactive developed and released an unofficial remake, Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire VGA (AGDI), as a freeware game using the Adventure Game Studio engine.

Patches

 * Quest for Glory II Character IMPORT Patch (QG2IMPRT): Corrects problems importing characters from QFG1, especially character type changing to Fighter. Use ONLY if you are experiencing character IMPORT problems with  Quest For Glory II: Trial By Fire  for MS-DOS versions up to and including 1.102. Other uses may give unpredictable results.
 * Quest for Glory II SAVE/RESTORE Patch (QG2FIX): Corrects difficulties with saving or restoring saved games in  Quest For Glory II: Trial By Fire  for MS-DOS version 1.000. Use ONLY if you are experiencing game SAVE/RESTORE problems. Other uses may give unpredictable results.