Quest for Glory III: Wages of War: Wizard Edition

I HAVE THE POWER!!!

We left Magus after ridding the world of Ad Avis by making him fall down the balcony and as a reward Magus was appointed prince of Shapier.  After a couple of months Aziza the enchantress summons you and Rakeesh since the land of Tarna is in dire need of Rakeesh due to a peace mission failed and the  diplomats were ambushed and killed by what is assumed to be one of the parties, the leopardmen. The one leading the peace mission was Rakeesh daughter. Rakeesh's wife creates a portal for you, Uhura and Rakeesh to make a trip over 1000 miles south to the Savannah. There you get aquatinted with the locals. And here a big problem with being a wizard appears. You can't use magic in the villages since both the people of Tarna and Simbani fears magic. Only the Leopardmen use it and they are nobodies friend.... Great!

Feels like I'm back in Rasier

Interestingly there's not much to do in the city of Tarna. I can wander the bazaar and pretty much stop a theft, change my money and pretty much buy up everything I need with the money I already got. There's no magic to buy and the only new three spells are acquired by reading the paper of a present I was given in the intro cutscene, giving some magic wood to Rakeesh's wife and talking to a Leopardman... or in this case Leopardwoman. You meet a hippie in the Apothecary and tell him about Julinar to resolve that thread and are given yet another quest for dispel potions. And no healing pills until you found a feather from a honey bird. In the Inn you can find the only survivor of the peace mission and he can only tell you that he survived only thanks to Rakeesh's daughter keeping the attackers at bay. Only description he gives is red eyes in the dark and claws clawing after him. This is actually a creepy scene as the dialog clearly states how this man is on the brink of insanity. Sadly by talking to him he dies the very next day. And it's also setting up a really good who did it story since the description points at the Leopardmen with the claws and all that. A pity Rakeesh spoils everything with his talk of demons as the obvious culprit.

It's as if the game think I couldn't have figured it out without being smacked on the head with the answer.

After a while you leave Tarna with Rakeesh and travels the Savannah to the Simbani village where they tell you the problem. Apparently their Spear of Death have been stolen, but they acquired the Drum of Magic from the Leopardmen. I'm just guessing here, but it seems the vice versa happened for the Leopardmen. That is the origin of the conflict. So you travel the jungle and savannah trying to find certain location like the Pool of Water, the Great Tree etc. And here we come to another problem with the game, some locations are randomly generated. The Honey bird area? Randomly generated. The blue orchid, which you need to find to get magic wood and is a requirement to get the summon staff spell and trigger the next part of the game, also randomly generated. Also, their is no clear indication in the map for obvious points on the map. I would greatly have preferred a circle with an image which I could click and there I was. This also means that there is random encounters closer to an normal rpg game and it is a bit annoying to travel on the vast map when you are interrupted constantly. Ah well, getting the spell triggers the capture of a Leopardman and you must get him to reveal where their village is. Which is what you need the dispel potion for... and I just realised what I might have needed 3 for when I only used 1 in the whole game, bad on me I guess. Sill, you use it on the Leopardman and...

He is a woman?

Ok, alright. Suddenly this turns into woo the bride and I gotta do it before the rest of the tribe tries. Why they would marry one of their ancient enemies I don't know. Now, had you been a fighter/paladin you would have to be initiated as a warrior of the tribe, now I'm just a wizard so I can just buy her for 1 spear, 5 zebra skins and 1 fine robe. Of course, this doesn't sit well with modern standard so I have to woo her the old ways. Buying her stuff. A carving, some beads and my fine dagger. Now I gotta release her, but her I stumbled a bit, Uhura wouldn't let me. Apparently I had to wait until night when another guard watched. Since he didn't speak my languish I pretty much ignored him. I followed Johari into the desert and called out to her and she pretty much berated me for being stupid and what not. I assured her I just wanted to be friends. So in practicality I just friend zoned her. After some tries she teach me another spell and take me to her village. We wait for nightfall and in the meantime make out... great friend zone I say. You watch the shape-shifting ceremony and enters the village and are more or less forced to enter a magic duel against the village shaman.

Another magic duel, I love these!

The whole duel is to counter the spells of the shaman without reusing the same spells so one use only. Of course, wouldn't reversal work for the whole duel? Anyway, you win and suddenly the shaman summons a demon and gets possessed and I killed him... now I assume I could have used a dispel potion on him to avoid killing the village shaman. Still... magic battle to the death. Since you have proven yourself worthy as a magic user you are allowed to make the exchange of the spear and drum and the leader of the tribes are brought to Tarna to seek an understanding. 

Peace in our time!

Now, one of the demons possessed the leader of the Leopardmen and killed the leader of the Simbani. The Liontaures are pissed so you escape the capital and rushes toward the Lost City in the east to confront the demons as Rakeesh did 15 years ago. You are led there by a monkey you saved in the jungle and are brought to the ape village where you pursued him to show you the way to the Lost City. Traversing a waterfall you enter the City crawling with Apemen, the courage of the talking monkey falters and he stays behind. Magus Fetch a crystal eye and open a secret passage that leads him behind some jailer demons. The obvious solution is to Calm them, walk past them and Open the prison door. Inside you find Rakeesh's daughter still alive, but a demon possess her and here is where I probably should have used the third and last dispel potion. Instead it was a MAGIC BATTLE TO DEATH! Sadness, despair as the young liontaur falls to the ground. Suddenly an Ankh appears before me and out steps Uhura, Johari... the thief I talked to in Tarna... a Simbani warrior I hardly interacted with and Rakeesh. Rakeesh saves his daughter. All my "friends" have come to put an end to the demons... except the thief who chickens out and instead the monkey returns and takes his place. We enter another room while Rakeesh and Uhura stays behind with the thief to stop the demons from interrupting us. We enter a hall of mirrors and you know what that means.

Evil Doppelgängers

Everyone starts to fight, but it would take to long to defeat these mirrored versions and in the last minuet the thief backstabs my shadow and hands me some pills and tells me to go onward. I'm now confronting the demon summoner who tries to bring all demons through the portal with the use of a magic crystal. I summon my staff and fires a Bolt in his back. He Fetch my staff, but I remember what Rakeesh's wife told me when I created the staff, don't Trigger it since it would unleash all the magic within it. So that's exactly what I do and the the staff explodes in his hand and he is unmade. AWESOME! But the portal is still up and I need to destroy it. And here is where the game seems to glitch out on me. I tried to throw a Lightning Bolt on the crystal, but it got sucked up. At that point it wouldn't allow me doing anything else and my cursor was stuck as a scarab. So I had to reload. I guess it was supposed to show the failure screen, but somehow it didn't work. Not the first time it craps out. Several times when exiting an area the hero turns back to the previous screen without me doing anything and when I returned to Tarna the sun just wouldn't set even though it was in the middle of the night. Lastly when I "bought" Johari the tribal chief seemed to get a stroke cause he constantly wondered what I was doing in his hut and the game wouldn't let me leave. I might not have cared so much if the last game didn't play so well, but is not actually fair since that game was made in the 2000's and not released until they were happy with it while this game probably had a deadline. Anyway, I destroy the crystal with a Flame Dart since that one was maxed out and I return to my friends who all survived the ordeal. They all celebrate when dark magic suddenly envelops me and we are shown a screen of Ad Avis with fangs and what must be his dark master. To Be Continued!

Well, they look happy to see me

It was a fun game. I probably knew the least about this game and probably helped by the randomness of several events. Also this appears to be the game where they really differentiated between the classes compared to before where the skills you possessed determined what you could do. I feel though I hardly had to grind. I didn't max out magic or intelligence on this one and the only spell I recall getting 300 was Flame Dart (maybe Force Bolt as well) and still there never was any problem finishing the task with my magic. Still. hated I couldn't train my magic in the cities and when I did it at the Savannah like in the Pool of Water or the Great Tree it didn't seemed to affect anything. I used the spells, but my mana never drained and my skill points never went up. No time limit so I probably could have trained my skills if I wanted to, but there was really no point. Most important skills to train as wizard is magic and intelligence to get more mana and at this point it hardly matters since I got enough mana for most things and sleeping replenish it all thank god. Also some have complained that the demon plot was kinda bad, but I liked it and the only problem as stated is that it should have been more subtle and not until the Leopardmen village would blame have been shifted to the demons. But no, Rakeesh says it at once, the demons are at work. Could have been done better. Let's see if I can get Shadow of Darkness to work.