The Quest is a really cool old school inspired RPG. This is the kind of game I looked at with envy back in the 90s when I had a SNES and my friend had a gaming PC. It is clearly a throwback to some of those older, Magic the Gathering RPGs and there is just a real sense of charm about the whole game.
How to Download The Quest
You can download the game from Steam or GOG. Click on the Download button at the end of the review.
The Game Review
The story that is being told here is your typical fantasy fare and I like it. To give you the basics, you are sent to check out strange stuff that is going down on the island of Freymore. There is a missing king, a looming darkness and many other twists and turns that you will have to overcome. It is not the best story I have ever encountered, but as someone who enjoys fantasy, I liked it.
One of the first things that you will notice about The Quest is the presentation. It is made with that old school “grid” system and it works great. The game actually looks fantastic and I love how much detail and how clear everything is even with the retro art style. The soundtrack is fitting, but I did find some of the songs a tad on the annoying side.
Like most RPGs, you start by creating your character. The character creation is both good and basic. You have classes and races, but certain classes are more tied to certain races. For example, I wanted to play as this cool looking zombie/undead race and had to be a dark mage as a result. It is not bad, but kind of limited to what we have today.
That goes for some other aspects of the game design. One thing that I think The Quest does very clever is that it manages to feel like an older game, but also it cherry-picks some modern gaming tropes as well. This is most evident in the overall scale of the game. An example of this is how you can mess around and cause trouble in the villages but there will be consequences kind of like in an Elder Scrolls game.
On the flip side of that, one modern trope I wish it did use was a waypoint system. I get that this is by design and meant to make you take notice, write stuff down and pay attention. However, there were many occasions where I was walking around and wondering where the heck, I had to go next.
The rest of the gameplay is pretty fun. I liked the exploration aspect and there are plenty of side quests that you can do also. The way you improve your stats and level up never feels like too much of a grind which is another aspect that I liked. Combat is basic, but it is also a part of the game that you will be doing a lot so you kind of just get over it.
I was impressed with what The Quest is offering. It is a great throwback to those 90s RPGs that I wished I could play on my SNES. It is made with a lot of love and while it is not perfect. If you like old school games, you are in for a fun time with this one.
