What was QfG5 like, anyway?

[JustLuke32]

Yeah, I"m not a fan of the overhead maps in those games either.

I loved the overhead map in QfG3 (it's my favourite wilderness system in the series) but I felt very uninspired by the one in QfG5. It's all in the implementation, I guess.

[Erpy]

I think an overhead map was the only way to portray the vastness of East Fricana and the size of Marete. It wouldn't feel right if you could leave Tarna, walk like 10 game-screens to the right and find yourself in the Simbani village. So for QFG3 and QFG5, I really think an overhead map was the right choice.

[Kotskoets]

It was definitely possible to do really good looking pre-rendered 3D backgrounds in those days. I think a mixture of prerendered backdrops and detailed, 2D, hand-drawn sprites could've worked nicely.

It was certainly possible, but to my mind it could have looked much nicer. I'm thinking of backgrounds in games like Final Fantasy 8 and 9 for instance. Just looks much prettier in my opinion.

[MeshGearFox]

In regards to pre-rendered 3D backdrops, there was also Riven, which came out a year prior to QfG5, and remains really, really good looking even today.

Anyway, since you brought up Final Fantasy 8 and 9, were those 3D or handpainted? I thought 8 was pre-rendered 3D, but FFIX looks more like the hand painted style they used in chrono cross and some other games I'm not remembering.

Actually, looking at screens, FFIX looks more like pre-rendered 3D that was painted over or rotoscoped (?) or something. Or pre-rendered 3D for the cities and handpainted for the more organic-looking areas. I should do some research I guess.

[Dragonfang]

I think an overhead map was the only way to portray the vastness of East Fricana and the size of Marete. It wouldn't feel right if you could leave Tarna, walk like 10 game-screens to the right and find yourself in the Simbani village. So for QFG3 and QFG5, I really think an overhead map was the right choice.

I agree with vastness and realism part. However, I have to agree with JustLuke32 with the implementation not being top notched. I remember in first time I played QFG3, I was trying to reach the river, ant hill, waterfall and I kept clicking on them from the overhead map. I kept ending up in a random screen wilderness screen. Just not enough places to visit.

[Spikey]

I remember a bug where you get stuck in endless wilderness screens, without being able to return to the overhead map...very depressing that was.

[Kotskoets]

In regards to pre-rendered 3D backdrops, there was also Riven, which came out a year prior to QfG5, and remains really, really good looking even today.

Anyway, since you brought up Final Fantasy 8 and 9, were those 3D or handpainted? I thought 8 was pre-rendered 3D, but FFIX looks more like the hand painted style they used in chrono cross and some other games I'm not remembering.

Actually, looking at screens, FFIX looks more like pre-rendered 3D that was painted over or rotoscoped (?) or something. Or pre-rendered 3D for the cities and handpainted for the more organic-looking areas. I should do some research I guess.

To be honest I'm not 100 percent sure about FF8 and 9. I know FF7 had some prerendered and some hand drawn (Costa del Sol obviously) and also Chrono Cross was drawn/painted as you said. The reason I'm assuming 8 and 9 were hand painted is the fact that the backgrounds sometimes went all FMV and stuff and the camera would move about, obviously indicating that they were 3D models. It might have been touched up in some scenes but who knows. The cutscenes in both those games were however also most impressive, which means they knew how to make things look beautiful in full 3d anyway.

[Goilveig]

Anyhow on the original topic:

Graphics -- somewhat dated; it was early 3D and in many ways, the later 2D games (representing the best 2D had to offer) look better now than early 3D games. And it's missing some of the key pieces of later 3D games -- the camera is fixed and often clunky, there's no resolution or quality setting, etc. But apart from the dated technology, the game looks decent.

Combat -- fantastic for mages, especially as they are really strong anyhow, especially if they choose the optional path that gives them access to Dragon Fire (the spell Ad Avis tries to use on you in 2 and 4). Dragon fire pretty much kills everything but the final boss (who is immune to fire) instantly.

Combat is pretty clunky for fighters, though. Enemies move around you in 360 degrees, and gang up, and you really can only attack and defend in the front, so it's pretty tough. In some ways it's worse for thieves, because they give thieves a sneak attack (stealth + blackjack for an instant KO) but:

1. Blackjacking only works on certain monsters -- it never works in random combat or the optional combat areas. It should have been designed to work on ALL monsters, assuming you are sneaking, in range, and unseen by them.
2. In one of the areas, while thieves can blackjack the guards, trying to loot any of them respawns the guard, so you can't clear the area.
3. In that same area, you can clear to the door to the objective in stealth, but there's no stealth way to deal with the final room; you have to take 4 guards and you can't do anything sneaky.

Overall it's not bad though. Throwing weapons can be funky sometimes, and they're much easier to lose. Money's so plentiful though that it's not an issue.

General Gameplay -- Overall it's pretty good. The only minor gripe is that, similar to other games in the series, there are certain events that happen which, if missed, will cost you opportunities for things later on. Some of those can hurt, like for example, missing one thief sign 14 days earlier, and one conversation 12 days earlier made me have to replay, because I would no longer be offered the last (and best) two thief jobs.

Also, like QFG4, one thing I dislike is that people who show up in different areas (for example, a dancing woman who is in the inn but also on the balcony every fifth night) have different dialog trees for the different places, and there's no real way (except by accidentally finding out) that you'd know to talk to her in one place instead of the other.

The thief jobs are quite good, this game is probably the most thief-friendly of any except the AGDI version of 2.

I miss puzzles, though. QFG4 had several puzzles/minigames, 5 has pretty much nil in that regard. There's a "memory" game for disarming traps, that's about the only minigame or puzzle. Of course there's the usual "collect a bunch of items and combine them" aspect, but there's nothing like a minigame.

Sound -- Voice acting isn't as good as QFG4. And some of the art direction from 4 didn't carry over to 5 very well (a certain peaceful spellcaster, for example, looks and sounds completely different).

I think overall it's a pretty good game. It's definitely a good part of the series -- it's not quite on par with 2/4, but it's better than 3 and 1 in my book.

I think the main reason it wasn't well received is that, for the end of the series, the game didn't deliver as well as 4 did. So while it is a strong game, it doesn't quite measure up to its predecessor, so the series doesn't end on a really high note.

[Goilveig]

Not entirely. If you complete each of the first six Rites on your own (namely you get whatever item or items are necessary to show the Rite has been accomplished), you can hold up the start of the next Rite by simply not turning the stuff in. Once you're done with whatever grinding/sidequests/general explorations you wish to perform, you can continue on the primary plot.

Yes, but sometimes doing so will cause you to lose the rite. It depends on if your solving the rite makes it uncompletable for others, or if others can also finish the rite.

For example, on the Rite of Destiny, if you visit the Oracle the game will wait for you to turn in the rite (it won't automatically summon you to the Hall of Kings when Elsa finishes) but when you turn it in, you'll find you got second place to Elsa. Likewise with Courage.

On the other hand, on something like the Hydra, you can hold onto the teeth indefinitely before turning them in, as nobody else can complete the rite now that you did.

[Brainiac]

Right, you have to block completion. In other words, save every fishing village, defeat General Claudius, keep the Hydra's teeth, and make peace with the Tritons. There's no way to directly block another person getting an audience with the Oracle or the Styx water, of course.

Of course, if you don't care about winning the Rites, you can just let things lag by not doing what you're required to and not sleeping at Gnome Ann's so that you won't be summoned to the Hall of Kings after a rite is completed by another.

[Maxor127]

Am I the only one who actually liked the graphics? I thought they were a nice compromise between 3D and pixels by using voxels instead. I thought the graphics looked good for 1998.

[Goilveig]

The graphics overall aren't bad. I would have preferred either complete 2D or complete 3D rather than the compromise, but it looks decent for the era, especially for a game that uses only software rendering.

Most of my gripes for the game were getting it installed and patched, to be honest, and getting the videos to not crash the game.

(For the record, the way to do it is):

1. Install the game
2. Don't install the bundled Quicktime
3. Install the 1.2 patch
4. Delete the \Data\QGM folder that the 1.2 patch added
5. Uninstall any Quicktime version you have already installed
6. Install Quicktime 6.4 (Quicktime 7 won't work, but 6.4 works like a charm)
7. Right click the icon, run it in Windows 98 compatibility mode with Visual Themes off
8. You *might* need to install the Win2k/XP patch, but I never had to if I used compatibility mode.