A Boring Interlude

Hillsfar I've never really liked that much, mostly because it's so repetitive. Funny, considering how repetitive the other games also are in principle. But in the other games, at least there's some progression toward harder tasks; in Hillsfar, it's pretty much all the same throughout.

It took me about an hour to complete each task, so about six hours total, but divided over several days, as I didn't really have much time to play continuously. The thief task was perhaps the most interesting, probably because I haven't done it very often: I've never had a single-class thief so I don't think I always picked the thief task with the multi-classed thief character. Also, the thief task had maybe the largest amount of having to decide where to go next.

I found a good FAQ with a walkthrough that I used to make sure I was always on the right track. I've completed this game so many times that I didn't want to bother with sorting out false trails. Of course, the game is practically always so straightforward it's impossible to go astray.

Some of the subgames are at least somewhat interesting, others are boring or get so really quickly.

• Riding: This is probably the most boring part of the entire game. There's little challenge in it and there's so much of it in every task. I never lost my horse. I seem to recall that if you have the Rod of Blasting, the obstacles are harder, but there wasn't anything that would have required the Rod.
• Archery: Just pick the dagger as a weapon (a cleric doesn't have to go target shooting), practice once to find out which target is the best score-wise, and then just hit that in the real shoot. You can get better points by trying for the mouse or bird, but there's little point: shooting at the normal targets is always enough to get the necessary information.
• Arena: This is pretty easy. Every opponent has some sort of a tell on when they are striking and how, and they're vulnerable just before or just after they strike. Previously I've observed the tells better and used the blocks but this time I just attacked at the right times, not caring whether they hit me. I got caught a few times, sent to the arena a couple of times, but never had to fight to the death.
• Lock picking: A slow way to open locks, but with a little practice it works pretty much every time, except when the last tumbler is something that cannot be picked (like in the jail or the castle). Non-thief classes can also do this by hiring a thief, but that's just a waste of money; bashing and knock rings are much better than picking.
• Maze running: The first couple of times this is interesting, but with the amount of maze running you have to do in this game, it gets extremely boring. I usually just ran around, opened as many chests as needed to get the quest item and preferably some loot, including the switch to show the teleport traps. Then, if I was in a place with a secret room, I went there, and otherwise went to stand in the upper-right corner waiting for the exit to appear. Of course, the latter tactic failed whenever the guards were sent in long before the exit appeared. Mostly, you just get thrown out, but as I recall, at least from the jail and the castle it's pretty much a sure bet you get thrown to the arena.

It was interesting how the classes had something class-appropriate to do: the fighter quests required target shooting and arena combat, a magic-user has to charm a barmaid at some point, and a thief has to pick the lock on the castle door. The cleric didn't have anything appropriate to do, though, and the cleric was also the only class that didn't have to do target shooting or arena combat, too.

The hit point gains varied really wildly. I don't know how they are determined, but Daenerys got only 3 HP more, while Gabrielle got 30 and Eugene almost 30. If there's really so much possible variance that isn't caused by something else (another guess I had is that the hit points get raised to approximately the character's possible maximum at that level), it might be worthwhile to do the save-reload trick to get a really good number of extra HP. I don't bother to do that, though; it's a bit too much cheating for my tastes.

And finally, pictures of the quest endings, which I intend to show for each of these games.

Cleric:


Fighter:


Magic-user:


Thief: