Quest for Fame

Quest for Fame, developed by Virtual Music Entertainment and published by Sony in 1997.

Longplay Information

Author(s): MadMattyMadMatty
System: PlayStation
Region:
Language:
Subtitle Language:
Additional Info: No information available
Publication Date: 15/01/2022
YouTube Release: 26/07/2022
Duration: 02:28:35
File Size: 886.48 MB (907752.00 KB)
Downloads: 328 downloads
File Links: Download Part: 1
Download Part: 2



Archived Submission Thread

Screenshot

Player's Review

"Be a Virtual Rock Legend. The ultimate rock 'n' roll adventure game. You - on stage with Aerosmith. Quest for Fame takes you from obscurity to rock 'n' roll superstardom. Take the whole trip - practice at home, jam with a local garage band, play the blues clubs and, if you're good enough, join Aerosmith in a stadium performance. You don't have to be a musician to be a star in this virtual music game."

I first saw this game on the 90s ITV show Bad Influence and it's a game I really wanted to play. The original version came with a virtual guitar peripheral but by the time I got it, it only came with a Virtual-Pick. The game starts off pretty much as you would expect a rhythm game to. Match the beats to progress in the game (like guitar hero). However, this game is before rhythm games were meant to be fun and it really intends for you to learn the songs and match the beats without any assistance. For me, the game soon stopped being fun and I never got further than the garage stage.

The game was also released on Playstation, strangely only in Japanese region. With modern emus and save states I thought I could finally get through the game. Unfortunately, the game was not really adapted for console players and has the same issues as the pc version where you are expected to learn the songs without any assistance in some stages. I'm partially deaf, so this will be challenging for me. It comes on 2 cd's and you are swapping fairly often as you move backwards and forwards through the stages. It's not as linier as you would expect. Overall it's not a great port with some horrific compression artefacts that wouldn't look out of place on SegaCD. Some latency issues with some crazy button/string press requirements which you wouldn't think are possible.

At the start of the game you can set a difficulty level. The difficulty seems to only affect how easy it is to generate score of which you need around 700-750 points to progress each stage. You are still expected to play without notation in some stages. In the longplay, I start off in the bedroom. here you are expected to practice the initial batch of songs before moving on. Before leaving you can take part in a game show to earn extra music cd's with more songs to practice. You have replicate the rifts without notation assistance. Before moving on to the garage I complete all three unlocking songs which can now be practiced before encountering in the game.

In the garage the challenge sets in. you need to play through available songs to progress onto the clubs, recording studio and finally the stadium. I take the opportunity to show some fail videos here but I cant easily show them all as it depends on the song you fail on as to what is shown. This also results in being thrown back to the bedroom to practice again before moving on. The game is made more difficult if you don't have the songs to practice before being expected to play them, but somehow I make it through. In some stages you can choose a secondary difficulty (Basic, Lead, Rhythm, Stunt) which can effect how much you are expected to do in the stage but it wont fix the notation panel switching off.

Getting to the recording studio was almost game breaking for me as I was expected to play by ear alone. A few short easy rifts but getting the start timing was really annoying me. This was much worse when getting to the stadium entrance as I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to finish the game. Once the game is complete, that is it. You cant go in and play/practice any of the unlocked songs. You have to start over from scratch unless you have an earlier saved game. Thankfully, once at the stadium it's easy street. Just play along and have a score of at least 750 by the end of the song. At the end of the video I add a couple more failure videos.

Overall, if it wasn't for emulation I wouldn't have made it through. A game I really wanted to like but the game expects to much from me and I cant imagine its the experience a console player would expect when buying the game. I guess if you really are a rising guitar player that really wants to learn the songs, then this might be a game for you although I think the PC version is the better game if you can get it running. I'm spoiled by the likes of Guitar hero where the object is to simply match the on screen button presses and make it to the end.

00:00:00 - Intro
00:02:30 - Bedroom & Nail that Rift!
00:22:10 - Garage
00:37:50 - Club
01:02:05 - Blues Club
01:27:05 - Recording Studio
01:51:10 - Benevolent Brotherhood
02:06:07 - Stadium
02:25:00 - More Fail Videos

A secondary download is offered which is a blended version to reduce Interlace combing effects at the cost of slight blurring.