Quest Giver reverses the typical RPG setup by having you play the role of an NPC giving quests. As you experience different scenarios, you’ll have to manage your heroes and properly assign them quests. If you misstep, you may lead them to their death and inevitably, get fired.
Learning the right quests to give each hero felt like a puzzle as I tried to make the perfect match. At first, it was an entertaining challenge but by the end of the first scenario, I knew everything there was to learn. This causes the gameplay to become too simple and unfortunately tedious.
The factors that play into what hero is right for each quest revolve around their level, class, and rarely, bits of story. So once I understood that a level one hero was right for a trivial quest, there wasn’t much complexity anymore. Aside from guessing what class suits a quest to gain bonus experience. Such as a wizard for brewing healing potions.
With that said, Quest Giver is most interesting when focusing on each scenario’s storyline. As you assign quests each day, you’ll listen in on conversations between your heroes, random characters, and your manager.
Even though my impact on these conversations was often limited, they’re what kept Quest Giver going. Whether it’s a small story investigating a destroyed goblin village or being involved in a cult conspiracy. So while the gameplay can feel like I’m just checking boxes, it’s frequently worth it for the story in-between.
My favorite scenario by far was definitely the cult one since it actually made me think about my quest management. Without spoiling anything, it forced me to pay more attention to my heroes. And then assign them certain quests based on their personalities rather than only their level or class.
This leads to a cool part of Quest Giver’s narrative focus that I wish was handled better. While it only took me around two and a half hours to complete all the scenarios, this isn’t where it ends. You can instead hunt down the many endings each scenario has. Before picking one, the level select screen will tell you how many good and bad endings there are.
My main issue with tracking down additional endings is that I have to run through repetitive gameplay and dialogue to reach them. Fortunately, there is a button to fast-forward through dialogue that I’ve already seen. But, I still have to assign generic quests to heroes when it barely matters.
The short experience of Quest Giver makes it difficult to handle this better. My mind goes to other games where I can load a checkpoint before a major story decision. Due to scenarios being short, I can imagine this taking away from it as well. It’s a tough balance where I want to see the other story paths, but the gameplay isn’t captivating enough to run through several times.
I can see many players try to get all the good endings without spending their time on the bad ones. Otherwise, it can feel like a waste of time as you repeatedly lose and the game resets you to the beginning. Even when you’re intentionally failing, it’s still irritating to lose progress.
Quest Giver Review | Closing Thoughts
Quest Giver is a fun little game with a neat premise. I wish the quest management was more compelling, but it’s still worth playing for a couple of hours. While it may not have an amazing story or the best gameplay, it’s an okay game worth getting at a cheap price. Some of the short stories you’ll experience in Quest Giver are splendid.
Review Score: 7.5/10 (Good)
Quest Giver was provided by the developer via a Steam code.
Jeff is a journalist with over 10 years of experience writing, streaming, and making content about video games. With an associate degree in journalism, he’s a sucker for RPGs, survival games, roguelikes, and more.