HeroQuest (Amiga) - A Playguide and Review - by LemonAmiga.com
104HeroQuest is a turn-based RPG, based on a Milton Bradley board game, published by Gremlin Graphics in 1991. You are a Barbarian, Wizard, Elf or Dwarf; a bit like Gauntlet, only a bit slower.
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Production Notes:
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Captured: 19th March 2018
Narrated 7 Dec 2020
Edited: 19th Nov 2020, and 26 Jan 2021
I recorded this at the same time as Breathless, Seek and Destroy, The Clue, and PowerMonger, and was part of that batch I recorded for series 5. The series got split in the middle with a summer selection of Roman themed games, and Amiga 35, so thats why the gap seems huge. Really, Im just finishing up the games I recorded for the 45 series 5 shows.
The inspiration for recording this came from thinking about a 'tips special', where I take a tip from the LA database and check it out. With this one, the tip was to get as much money in the final maze first, so you can afford protection and weapons, taking in one guy as a fighter, and another as a cash grabber. I tried three times to do that, and this is the video from those attempts. The final maze is easy apart from the final battle, so its best to avoid that. All of the previous levels escalate in difficulty, with the Quest For The Spirit Blade being the toughest of the first set. You saw this level in the last part of the video, and this is impossible without protection.
I missed a lot of info in the review. Basically all of the mazes (except for the first one) start you at the exit. All you need to do is search each room for treasure and hidden doors until you find the objective of the quest; as described in the text at the start of each level. There is one objective to find something in each maze, and you have to get it and then escape with all of the party. Having more in the party means they can spread out to search in different places, or go out in teams, but this slows down pace quite a lot. Having done all the quests in the set, you face the big bad guy at the end of the last one. The expansion adds new levels, as can be seen in the review.
I also failed to talk about the defensive game, which I said in the review I would mention. All of the items do something. The Spear, Staff and Short Sword allow you to roll two 'combat' dice in attack instead of just one. They can also be used to attack diagonally. The defence items like the Shield and Helmet give one extra combat dice for Defence each. So if you hold more defence throws than the enemy, you dodge every attack. If you dont get hit then you are almost invincible, and thats why I say its a Defensive game.
Danscore:
This is a long game . Unfortunately there is no way to save mid quest that I know of, so you'll just have to keep the game running if you're mum call's you down for dinner. There is also no way to switch off the annoying drone of the music either - which can be quite mind-numbing after a bit. The game itself is playable, and gripping for young minds with big imaginations. Questing for items can get addictive, and once you get through a few tasks, maybe you'll be hooked?
This same format was ported to many other machines, with almost identical graphics. Some machines got better colours than others, but if you played HeroQuest on one machine, you basically played them all. This Amiga port was NTSC compatible, so players only got to see the screen as a small area, and this spoils the atmosphere compared to any other port of this game. Maybe they ported the ST version? If so, the American built Atari ST was an NTSC machine, so no wonder the graphics look squashed in PAL mode.
Overall I think this hasnt aged very well compared to; Shadowlands, the Legend games, Darkmere and D/Generation - not to mention Cadaver - where the player could free roam, and attack enemies with the joystick our mouse. Basically a whole cluster of better isomeric games on the Amiga eventually emerged, but for 1991 this was something of a fun fantasy for RPG fans, and fairly light on stats for novices to understand, without needing to read a 300 page Tome beforehand. So it gets a 6.5 out of 10.