The first Elemental sent to threaten Shapeir is the Fire Elemental, a man-sized creature consisting entirely of flames which burn all that come near. After its arrival, you have until the end of the next day to capture it or else the city will be destroyed, meaning game over for you. There's a major problem that comes with this premise, and it's not that two days is too short a time to succeed. In fact, it simply requires a puzzle that most gamers will have figured out within ten minutes, and you'll literally be back before breakfast. However, since the second Elemental isn't scheduled to arrive for several more days, you're left with a lot of extra time waiting for things to happen. If you're the kind of gamer that enjoys honing your character's skills and fighting monsters in the desert, you'll be able to bide your time easily enough. If not, you might just find yourself skipping time by sleeping through an entire uneventful day.

Other than a few side quests, the main interest in going out into the desert is to fight monsters. Combat has been upgraded a bit in QFG2, as the nine numerical keys now offer different combat actions, with attacking, defending and dodging now all have three variants. Fighting in Trial by Fire is still as rudimentary as in QFG1, however, as the best approach to defeating monsters is still to strike at your enemy as quickly as possible.

Most of the game's other obstacles are overcome by solving puzzles in a typical adventure game fashion. Trial by Fire is still not as puzzle-heavy as other adventures but requires much more use of your wits than the first game. QFG2 offers more complex inventory puzzles, and although various puzzles again concern the use of your skills, I found myself succeeding at skill puzzles much more quickly than in QFG1. Additionally, the nuisance of stat-building can be toned down in certain situations by lowering the arcade difficulty setting, which is a new feature.

Since RPG elements are less frequent in this instalment, Trial by Fire seems more like a traditional adventure and less of a hybrid than other games in the series. It also offers more subplots for each of the three character classes (Fighter, Magic User and Thief). The Magic User, for example, gets to become initiated as a Wizard by completing a series of puzzles that require the casting of various spells. Though not the most difficult puzzles in the game, these tests are certainly the most enjoyable.

One particular subplot designed for the Fighter is becoming a Paladin, a champion of good, justice and honor that is basically a new character class. Only those Heroes that have stopped at nothing to perform good and noble deeds throughout the game will be declared a Paladin when the game is over. It's not easy to become a Paladin, so getting this bonus at the end makes finishing the game all the more satisfying.

After all the main objectives and side quests have been completed, you'll join a caravan travelling to the city now under the control of an evil regime. The designers clearly took the term "sister city" quite literally, giving Raseir a similar appearance to Shapeir, though more run down due to the evil government. Except for some areas that are prohibited, the city's layout is also identical. The first few people you encounter are far from hospitable, which is a prelude to what's to come as QFG2 takes a dark turn which makes the game much more interesting than the sometimes boring cuddliness of Shapeir.

Unfortunately, events in Raseir also happen only at set times, and here there is no way to sleep away the extra time, nor is there much of anything to do. The day and a half you're in the city is spent mostly waiting for the next event to happen. While the events themselves are fine examples of storytelling, the experience is spoiled by having to wander around aimlessly between them. Since QFG2 is clearly divided into two segments that both suffer from a confining linearity, the pacing would be better if both cities were made available at the same time. It would have been nice to explore the dark setting of the terrorized Raseir while actually having something meaningful to do.

After your second day in Raseir, things will finally start moving, and the endgame is lengthy, challenging and exciting. Players will enjoy a series of situations requiring puzzle solving to proceed. As the plot unfolds, you'll get to play in some scenes reminiscent of the well known Aladdin story, ultimately claiming the title of Hero once again.

Like its predecessor, QFG2 tries to look at the adventure genre in new ways. It is less of an RPG hybrid overall, placing lower importance on combat and skill building. On the other hand, it tries to provide total freedom of exploration while at the same time being linear in nature, which is a mix that doesn't work that effectively. Because of this, Trial by Fire becomes somewhat boring if you don't willingly avail yourself of the RPG elements, so the effect is ultimately not much different.

If you're wondering where to find a copy of the game or how to get it to run on a modern system, luckily a VGA remake of QFG2 is currently being developed by AGDI, the same independent team responsible for the first two King's Quest remakes. AGDI was kind enough to provide us with the current alpha version of their game to compare with the original, though they asked us to keep some of the changes under wraps for now. What we can say is that besides greatly improving on the original's EGA graphics, the remake offers a number of other enhancements that make Trial by Fire a more pleasing game. The combat system, to name one aspect, will be more intelligent and challenging, while other elements that some adventure gamers would consider nuisances have been eliminated altogether, including the text parser. The story remains unaltered, but the improvements in such key areas should make it more appealing not only to gamers new to the series, but appreciated by long time fans.

Whichever version you play, in Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire you'll find yourself in a richly detailed world that's uncommon in adventure games. And though its pace is uneven and the atmosphere doesn't always feel authentically Middle Eastern, the game still manages to create an appealing story and setting that maintain their appeal so many years after release. Ultimately, it fails to surpass its own predecessor, but Trial by Fire is still a satisfactory sequel that fans of the first game should enjoy.