Realms of Quest III, was the game that initially got me interested in the Realms of Quest series. It had all of the essential requirements IMO, into what I think makes a good crpg. I’ll list them out here…
1.) a party based adventuring group/team consisting of a variety of tasking and multi-tasking members.
a.) at least one fighter style character (a tank character that can take a beating and keep on ticking).
b.) a thief character (that can disable traps and recover treasure, sneak about, and back-stab vile menacing monsters). [Make sure this character has ultra high DEX & CHA,as you need high DEX to disable traps, and you want high CHA to to be able to talk to monsters and avoid combat situations, with the additional possibility of collecting treasure from your newfound monster friends instead of fighting them to boot!
c.) a priest character that can heal wounds, repel the undead and kill evil and vile demons!!!
d.) a wizard character that can cast all the basic combat spells, magic missile, lightning bolt, fireball, meteor swarm!
and…
e.) whichever remaining party character class & race you choose to fill up the remaining slot characters….
In the beginning, it is initially good to create a whole bunch of tough tanks that can hit hard, and survive the brutal battles of your initial adventuring team. To simplify, you may want to make a bunch of Ogre Fighters (for their high constitution/+HP, and strength).
Along with a Wizard and Priest character, who can cast offensive spells and heal respectively. The Wizard and Priest characters will be vital further along in the game.
Once your characters a far enough that they don’t keep getting killed, you will want to have a 1.) thief character to disable traps with high DEX and avoid combat with high CHA.
Later on in the game, you will want fewer fighter class characters and more priests and wizards or for the best of both worlds….(necromancers).
To plan the best final team, I would say you should have at least …
1.) 1 thief with high DEX and CHA to disable traps and avoid combat, along with…
2.) 1 priest to cast priest spells to their highest potential and quick leveling as a 1 class character.
3.) 1 wizard to cast wizard spells to their highest potential and quick leveling as a 1 class character.
4.) 1 fighter so to be able to use all the best fighting/warrior style equipment that you may find throughout the dungeon. There are many good fighter style weapons and armor galore. You should have at least 1 fighter. If you don’t like the straight up fighter, you can have a monk, or paladin, or ranger.
5+6.) NECROMANCERS! (Basically, Priest/Wizard combinations that can cast both Wizard and Priest spells). Necromancers are tough to level up early on, but you should definitely consider these character classes once you are able to level them up appropriately. They will be your most useful characters ever. Get-em!
Once you have assembled your final team, and delve into the depths to fight Nikaedor’s Demons and Demon Brides, after defeating the Demon/Demon Bride battle you get a whole slew of gold which you should then spend to firstly….
a.) make sure you have bought a ship at the dockyard so you can travel to the other side of the sea to continue your adventure,
You need to travel across the high seas to get to the other dungeons on the far side of the sea. Plus, you will find more interesting monsters to fight when battling on the seas.
b.) make sure you have bought all you need from the weapon/armor shop, including as many arrows, and bullets as you can carry.
then…
c.) spend the rest of your gold on trading your Gold for Experience Points (XP), this will often result in one of your characters in training a level. Do not hoard your gold as gold is pretty much useless unless you do not have a priest to resurrect your fallen characters. Trade your Gold for XP to train your characters!!
Plus, not even to mention, there is a whole new slew of places to visit once you get a ship of your own. So get out there and sail the high seas! Adventure awaits!
then, Once you have defeated Nikaedor and his evil demon brides…
There is further adventure to be had and discovered!
The game will reset so that the 8 orbs of power that you had previously obtained, will now display as zero, but a / 1 will appear to the right of the orbs of power to display the fact that you had beaten Nikaedor once. You can continue to replay the game by continuously obtaining the 8 orbs and fighting Nikaedor again and again with increasing difficulty.
But what is even more cool is the fact that you can transfer your characters from Realms of Quest III to Realms of Quest III -the [Dungeon Crawler]- (which is an additional Realms of Quest III quest which your goal is to recover the King’s sceptre from the Chrome Dragon which resides at the 15th level of the dungeon.
You can decide which slot you want to save your transferred characters from Realms of Quest III to Dungeon Crawler.
And begin your continued quest in “The Dungeon Crawler”.
Descend to the 15th level and fight the Chrome Dragon in Realms of Quest III: Dungeon Crawler! These dungeons are blue! as opposed to the usual red dungeons!
I had initially got distracted from playing Realms of Quest III, as the new Realms of Quest IV game was in the process of being developed and I didn’t want to miss out on testing IV out during the time when it was being made. Realms of Quest IV is a great and super ultimate achievement in the world of Commodore VIC-20 development. I do not know of any other more complicated RPG game for the VIC-20 than that of the Realms of Quest III and IV games. They are truly in a league of their own and most worthy of a good playing through. Make sure to try them out for your self.
You can find the Realms of Quest Series on the Commodore VIC-20 Disks at Binary Zone.
Ultimately I think Realms of Quest IV is the ultimate and definitive Realms of Quest game. It has the most options and possibilities of any Realms of Quest game. IV has the best character development and class and character options available of all the Realms of Quest games.
However ultimate Realms of Quest IV may sound, though, Realms of Quest III in its own right, makes up for having 2 less characters in the party, and less combat options in general with its colorful overland world traveling and color style dungeons.
rubygolem 