Quest for Glory’s Designers Tackle Shannara
Legend Entertainment’s licensed fantasy adaptations usually stuck to a fairly consistent formula, which makes Shannara worth a closer look — it’s the one where the designers themselves brought something new to the table. Released in 1995 for MS-DOS and Windows, Shannara is a point-and-click fantasy adventure based on Terry Brooks’ popular novel series, designed by Corey and Lori Ann Cole, the husband-and-wife team best known for creating Sierra’s Quest for Glory series. Their influence brought a distinct sensibility to Legend’s usual adventure formula, blending narrative-driven exploration with lighter RPG elements that feel directly descended from their Quest for Glory background.
Bringing in outside designers for a licensed title wasn’t unheard of at Legend, but pulling from Sierra’s own roster specifically, for a competing publisher’s game, was a notable move, and it says something about how tightly the Coles’ design sensibility was associated with quality fantasy RPG writing by the mid-90s.
The Surprise Battle System
The core loop is standard Legend fare: explore detailed fantasy environments, interact with characters, and solve inventory and dialogue-based puzzles as you guide the protagonist through locations drawn straight from Brooks’ novels. What sets Shannara apart from most adventure games of its era is a built-in battle system used at certain points in the story, where you can choose to retreat, issue orders to party members, attack, or defend. It’s a light layer compared to a full RPG, but it’s a real mechanical addition that neither Death Gate nor Companions of Xanth attempted, and it clearly traces back to the Coles’ Quest for Glory pedigree.
Tips for Shannara’s Combat Encounters
- Don’t default to attacking in every battle — the retreat and defend options exist for a reason, and pushing through a fight you’re not equipped for can cost you more than a strategic withdrawal followed by better preparation would.
- Pay attention to party orders if you have companions with you; letting the battle system run on autopilot wastes the tactical layer the Coles built in, even if it’s lighter than a full Quest for Glory encounter.
- Treat battles as story beats, not random encounters — they tend to be scripted and tied to specific plot moments rather than roaming threats, so there’s usually a “right” way to approach each one rather than a purely reflexive one.
- Between battles, lean on the adventure-game half of the design: dialogue and inventory puzzles still do most of the heavy lifting, so don’t neglect exploration in favor of combat prep that ultimately matters less than the story does.
Shannara vs. Death Gate and Companions of Xanth
Of Legend’s three big literary adaptations from this period, Shannara is the one that breaks from pure point-and-click convention. Death Gate stays purely exploration- and spell-based, and Companions of Xanth is entirely puzzle-and-dialogue focused, while Shannara alone adds real tactical choices to the mix. That makes it the most mechanically varied of the three, even if its narrative pacing leans just as heavily on Brooks’ source material as the others lean on theirs. If you had to pick one Legend adaptation to show someone who wanted proof the studio could do more than straight point-and-click design, this would be it.
Legacy: A Rare Genre Crossover
Few licensed fantasy adventures from this era took a similar swing at mixing genres so directly, which makes Shannara worth revisiting even for players who’ve already worked through Legend’s more conventional titles.
It’s worth appreciating how unusual it was in 1995 for two designers with a strong RPG pedigree to be handed a licensed fantasy adventure and actually allowed to bring their own mechanical ideas to it rather than being asked to replicate Legend’s existing house style exactly. The Coles went on to further Quest for Glory entries after this, and Shannara stands as an interesting side note in their careers — proof that their design instincts translated well outside Sierra’s walls. For Legend Entertainment, it’s remembered as the one licensed adaptation in this run that dared to be a slightly different kind of game rather than another straight point-and-click experience.
Getting It Running in DOSBox
Shannara is a commercial release without a legal free-download option, so look for it through official re-releases where available. Copy your installed game files to a folder, mount it in DOSBox with mount c [folder], switch to that drive with c:, and launch the executable. Check our DOSBox guide for advice on getting sound and CD-ROM content working if your copy shipped on disc.
The Verdict
Shannara is a distinctive entry in Legend’s catalog thanks to its unexpected battle system and the pedigree of designers Corey and Lori Ann Cole. It successfully blends narrative-driven fantasy adventure with just enough RPG structure to keep encounters interesting, wrapped around a faithful take on Terry Brooks’ world. The battle system, while a nice change of pace, is also fairly shallow next to a real RPG combat system — don’t go in expecting Quest for Glory-level depth, because you won’t get it, and the encounters that do exist are more scripted set pieces than an open combat sandbox.
Even with that caveat, fans of the novels, Quest for Glory alumni curious about the Coles’ other work, and anyone who enjoys fantasy adventures with a bit of combat variety will find plenty to like here. It’s a comfortable middle ground between Legend’s purer adventure titles and a genuine RPG, and it mostly succeeds at being both without fully committing to either.
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