So I've been playing Quest for Glory 5 as the one class I haven't yet -- Fighter.
I've played it as a Paladin, Wizard, and Thief, all to great success, but I've been hesitant about playing the Fighter.
First of all, one thing you should know about Quest for Glory 5. The combat system is
terrible. The pre-rendered backgrounds kill all depth perception you have. You have two battle methods, the cheap kind and the involved kind. Cheap kind is to left click repeatedly on the enemy, which makes the hero do his fast attack. And then you just chug pills to eat the damage.
The involved kind involves switching to keyboard controls. You use the arrow keys to move and turn. F is a fast attack. G is a strong attack. D raises your shield to block attacks. You can hold down CTRL to change how you move around a bit.
Yes, it's a pretty terrible battle system, because it's hard to tell where the enemy is, and you have to turn to face them, which can get troublesome because of taking damage. However, this is probably the most fun I've had with physical combat in
years. Blocking attacks, trying to slip my blade in between their defenses, and so forth. It's awesome.
That being said, all of this Fighter play is making me want to raise up a Paladin from Quest for Glory 3 onwards (since QFG3 is the earliest you can play one). The two become very different in the fifth game, whereas in the third and fourth game, the Paladin is basically a Super Fighter with a better weapon, self-healing powers, and a passive defense ability, as well as a better plotline.
Ha...
One of the things that makes QFG5 so different between a Fighter and a Paladin is that, while the Paladin has the best weapon in the game (it's as strong as the Fighter's strongest sword, but it also gains an additional boost to damage from your Honor stat) the Paladin has an express desire to avoid unnecessary conflict (outside of random battles). Two of their abilities are a superpowerful fear which sends all enemies fleeing (which results in a non-violent victory) and a superpowerful calm ability that essentially allows you to just walk past enemies no problem. (Attacking an enemy that's calmed will cost you honor points, though.)
The Fighter, however, thrives in conflict. Cerberus willing to let you pass through with a bribe of food? Nope! Stab him in his three faces. The Queen of the Tritons is willing to listen to reason if you give her flowers? Slaughter her guards instead and intimidate her into peace. The Thief gets around the problem, the Wizard attacks the problem from multiple angles, the Paladin tries to resolve the problem with peace first, sword later, and the Fighter just outright murders the problem.
I love this game series. It needed to be more than a cult classic