Well, I finished Fantasy Quest and so I'm putting up this review of it as promised. While I'll keep any real spoilers (puzzle solutions) out of the review, I may make allusions to a puzzle or part of the game. If having an idea of what lies ahead bothers you, please read this after you've finished. It's really a neat game, and you wouldn't want to miss out on anything. One more warning: though I generally prefer short reviews, this is pretty long, mainly because I know Sam will be reading it, and it's meant to be as much as feedback to him as it is anything else.

Fantasy Quest is one of the coolest experiences I've had in a while. It's a complete retro trip, yet due to it's online nature, it seems somehow high-tech (and at long last a good web based game that requires no java or silly plug-ins!). The ability to get your name on a high score board for all the world to see is really cool, as is being able to bug the designer of the game for help (and to give him feedback).

The past two days of mine have been largely dominated by FQ. If I have any spare time, it's been playing this game. It's honestly that addictive. Chalk this up to the fact that it is paced so well: it starts off fast moving, and then by the time that you're struggling for ideas as to what to do next you are completely engrossed in the game. I had absolutely no idea how much I'd accomplished until I got stuck last night and took stock of all my possible options. It unfolds quite nicely and is done so well that you barely realize it.

The above holds true for travelling in-game. At first, it seems like a fairly small world. You look at the map, see maybe 10 or 15 points of major interest, and figure you'll have seen everything in a couple of hours. Nothing could be further from the truth. Backtracking quickly becomes a way of life. You'll learn the quickest way to everywhere, because you'll be have to traverse the land many times over in your quest. Things change as you pick up items, and by the time you've completed the game you honestly feel like you know the land that you've been in. However, all this comes at a price: travel gets tedious. This is mainly due to the fact that there are many one-way routes, and then if you want to get from one point to another, you may have to take the longest possible way around the map. This is probably the single biggest flaw with the game, and after a while you get used to it.

The single best thing about Fantasy Quest is a point I mentioned earlier, and that is the amount of versatility put into locations and (certain) characters. You'll run across something (or someone) early in the game, and not know what its purpose is until a couple hours later when you're trying to figure out what to do with some item you've picked up. The best example of this is the fortress - once you first get there, there are a lot of possible actions. And they grow as the game progresses. When you finally manage to get inside, it's a real sense of accomplishment. There are also characters that you'll meet and then return to (sometimes more than once, for different reasons), and some that just stick around once you've helped them; it gives you a sense of making friends with the natives (and of course there will be certain enemies that you absolutely despise).

Let me mention another point of interest, and that is FQ's engine (the one used by all of the games on Adventure Games Live). It initially turned me off because it was different than the traditional text adventure engine in that it features multiple choice rather than the ability to type commands. It seemed very limiting to me, and that being just a multiple choice game would be very easy, as all you'd have to do is pick the right button (and as it allows you to undo a fatal mistake, I figured that there'd be no repricussions for a wrong choice). While to some extent this is a valid complaint, it was gotten around by forcing the gameplay not to be "guess the command" but rather "where should you be right now?" It forces the player to evaluate what's happened in the game, what items he/she has and what locations/characters still pose some sort of problem. From that, the player has to decide where to go. Throw in a large amount of red herrings, and thought must be used: if you just wander to every possible place it would take you an incredible amount of time. There's also a fair amount of item-combining in addition to simple manipulation, which provides for some neat things.

There is one big problem in the way that some of the puzzles were handled, and that is a fault of the engine. Because there are limited choices (and the player can see all possible choices for every location) certain puzzles must be solved by doing an action multiple times, without any indication that you did anything right the first time. There are two or three really annoying examples of this, and I hope it's something that is addressed in future games (either by leaving those types out or by making it somewhat obvious that you're on the right track). On the plus side, most puzzles were quite logical, which is a nice departure from recent games of this type.

I had a few other qualms with the game, but none detract from the experience too badly. The amount of monsters seemed a bit high, especially when some of them required little more than "kill monster" to beat. They seemed out of place in this sort of game, and I would hope to see their numbers toned down in the next game. The number of objects/locations that served no purpose also seemed a bit excessive (and this is really true towards the end). There were also a few puzzles that seemed to be total filler (by this I mean the item to solve the puzzle was right near the same puzzle, and then served no other purpose).

In the end, Fantasy Quest was great. The problems that seemed to be inherent with the engine were cleverly worked around, and there was also a nice bit of humor (with a great ending) worked in. Highly reccomended, and AGL is easily now one of my personal favorite sections of RinkWorks.