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What old (pre-1995) cRPGs stand the test of time?

Sigourn

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"Games don't age", say some people.

After having played some of the earliest cRPGs ever made, I can tell you: that is bullshit. Games do age. They age by virtue of better games being released with time. Being the only cRPG in existence is not the same as being one among thousands of cRPGs, which offer different experiences, probably better and more fun ones.

Temple of Apshai wasn't fun for me. Ultima 1 wasn't fun. Akalabeth wasn't fun either. Hellfire Warrior was a chore. Wilderness Campaign was interesting, but not exactly what I would look forward to playing after returning home from college.

I managed to find one "gem" amongst all the rubble: Eamon. One game that truly stood the test of time, because it asks you to play with your imagination. All of it. Unlike Temple of Apshai's "in this room you see yadda yadda yadda", only for the rooms to look all alike, Eamon is pure text, so you have no trouble believing you are truly in a cavern or in a smith's workshop. It is a game that is perfectly playable today, if only because it is possible to have genuine fun with it.

With that in mind: which old school cRPGs are fun today? Which ones do you still play? Why do you still play them? I'm not asking you to tell me what would be fun for me, I just want to see what's fun to you.
 

canakin

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I always found Wasteland a fuck sight more playable than most of those old games. Give it a go if you haven't already.
 

octavius

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Of course if you consider all the very old (pre 1980) CRPGs, of fucking course most will be bad and will have aged badly. 90% of everything is crud.

But the games that were great in 1985-1995 are still great today IMO. And I wouldn't be surprised if the same is true for the 1975-1984 CRPGs, none of which I personally played back then.

But I played many of the CRPGs released from 1985 to 1995 - and replayed many of them -, and generally they do stand the test of time IMO.

CRPGs I enjoyed back then, and enjoyed when I replayed them:
The Bard's Tale
Dungeon Master
Gold Box games
Might and Magic 2
Chaos Strikes Back
Wizardry: Bane of the Cosmic Forge
Ultima Underworld

CRPGs I enjoyed back then, not quite as fun when I replayed them:
Ultima IV
Phantasie III
BattleTech: tCHI
Eye of the Beholder
The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight

CRPGs I enjoyed more when replaying:
Dragon Wars
Black Crypt
Ultima Underworld 2

CRPGs I enjoyed when I played them for the first time the past five years:
Wizardry 1-5, 7
Phantasie
Might and Magic I
Ultima V
Demon's Winter
The Magic Candle
Knights of Legend
The Dark Heart of Uukrul
Disciples of Steel
Might&Magic 3-5
Darklands
The Legacy: Realm of Terror
Betrayal at Krondor
Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos
Dark Sun: Shattered Lands
Nahlakh
The Aethra Chronicles
X-COM (remake)
Jagged Alliance
Anvil of Dawn

CRPGs that needed an unoffical patch or a remake to be enjoyable:
The Bard's Tale III: The Thief of Fate
Ultima VI

Conclusion: old crud is still crud, but the classics have in general stood the test of time.
 
Last edited:

CryptRat

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I (re)played most of the games recently :

- The Gold Box games and Disciple Of Steel, some of the best available combat RPGs out there

- Might&Magic series, Wasteland, Dragon Wars, Escape From Hell, Legend Of Faerghail : fun exploration/party building/turn-based combat

- Dungeon Master & Chaos Strikes Back, Eye of the beholder 1&2 : real-time dungeon crawlers, with very good dungeons

- Quest For Glory series : the best single-character puzzle-based RPGs out there

- Realms of Arkania 1&2, Darklands : games with a lot of things to do, nice party creation and good use of your character sheets
 

oldmanpaco

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I think Ultima III, IV, and V stand up pretty well. U6 and U7 suffer a bit because they are just modern enough to be irritating without the nostalgia factor.

Starflight I and II (they are RPGs dammit) are OK as well.
 

felipepepe

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Dungeon Master and the big subsequent blobbers (Eye of the Beholder, Lands of Lore, Anvil of Dawn, Stone Prophet) all aged VERY well, since from the start they set themselves apart by being more friendly - mouse-driven UI, great artwork, simpler rules, etc...

Other than that, it's all about your personal threshold & preferences. For example, Darklands is a classic and relatively "new" - 1992 - but it's very complex, slow and requires you to truly invest yourself. So something much older like Phantasie (1985), with it's elegant UI (for the time) and straight-forward fantasy RPG rules arguably aged better for some people.

I personally enjoy:

Dungeon Master & Chaos Strikes Back
Pool of Radiance
Phantasie
Ultima IV, V and VII
Ultima Underworld I and II
Quest for Glory series
Eye of the Beholder series
Wizardry VII
Betrayal at Krondor
The Legacy: Realm of Terror
Darklands
Might and Magic: World of Xeen
Lands of Lore
The Dark Heart of Uukrul
Princess Maker 2
Star Control 2
Wasteland
 

Fowyr

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That octavius said.
If game from 1985 onwards was great in the time it's still great today.
If it was meh like, dunno, Obitus, it's still meh today. Though could be used to scratch the itch. See my lists.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

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What old RPGs haven't "stood the test of time"? Games that were great back then remain great today, games that were mediocre back then remain mediocre today, and games that were bad back then remain bad today.

I suppose you might fault these games for their technically primitive graphics, but 2D graphics generally age quite well, unlike 3D graphics, and I find graphical aging to be much less of an issue for 2D RPGs than for nearly all 3D RPGs made before the late-2000s.

Similarly, you might fault these games for their clunky user interfaces, and this would be a valid criticism for many of these games, but again keep in mind that RPG UIs underwent a general incline only to suffer later decline. It's rare for RPGs of the last 14 years to have a user interface than isn't substantially worse than was managed by Dungeon Master back in 1987, and Skyrim might have the most laughable interface of any RPG ever despite having been released in 2011.

Rogue-likes, Wizardry-likes, Ultima-likes, Dungeon Master-likes, tactically-focused Gold Box-likes, Underworld-likes, etc., as well as subgenre-less oddities like Faery Tale Adventure, are as playable now as they were then.
 

Gord

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A big issue with many older games for me are interfaces (bad UIs on some modern games notwithstanding).
I can stand even older 3D graphics (although obviously 2D is preferable there), but many older UIs are detrimental to the fun for me.
 

Sigourn

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What old RPGs haven't "stood the test of time"? Games that were great back then remain great today, games that were mediocre back then remain mediocre today, and games that were bad back then remain bad today.

That's the thing. Ultima 1 was well received (from what I could find) back in the day.

But when you break down the game to its specifics:

- Go into randomly generated and repetitive dungeon, kill monster, return and get reward.
- Repeat for different NPCs.

It's really a piece of shit nowadays. Some games, with a general remake, really shine. Wizardry I in particular, the SNES version is incredibly fun and addictive because it got rid of the annoying problems the Apple II version has: ugly, slow, clunky, lack of sound and music. In that sense, I would be willing to say Wizardry I stands the test of time, because while I have problems distancing myself from the issues mentioned, the gameplay is basically the same.

But in the case of Ultima, no graphic overhaul will fix the core issues of the game, which is how relatively short and repetitive it is. In that sense: the game has aged really badly, and it's no surprise Ultima I still hasn't been mentioned.

If I had rephrased the question to "Which ones are worth your time?", maybe the answers would be different. Both Akalabeth and Eamon are perfectly playable as they are fairly simple games wtihout weird controls or interface, but I certainly wouldn't recommend Akalabeth to anyone, whereas there's some genuine fun to be had with Eamon.
 

Kahr

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The thread-title is so retarded. You start a journey through crpg history with PLATO games and Rogue... (which is pretty:obviously:).
But now you get bored and write pre-1995? You're around 1980 if i'm not wrong (i'm a noob in this era).
Why don't you play more modern games like Xeen, W6 or UU before moaning about pre-1995 games?
That ones are extremely enjoyable to modern standards.
Or just change the thread title to "pre-1981".
 

Sigourn

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The thread-title is so retarded. You start a journey through crpg history with PLATO games and Rogue... (which is pretty:obviously:).
But now you get bored and write pre-1995?

Technically I was always bored when playing those old cRPGs. So now I want to play games people say "this game is really good, even today", such as Ultima VII. But I want to know where the Codex draws the line between "historically important" and "fun". Ultima I is a piece of history, it's also quite possibly one of the worst cRPGs to play in 2017.

canakin mentioned Wasteland, and I had actual fun with that game, I must have played around 8 hours total which is far more I would have played other games in my cRPG thread, and I didn't play it to "review" it, but only because it was an entertaining game.
 

Lady_Error

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Realms of Arkania 2
Wizardry 6 & 7
Ultima Underworld
Eye of the Beholder
Might & Magic
Dungeon Master
 

octavius

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But I want to know where the Codex draws the line between "historically important" and "fun".

To me Wizardry 1 is the first CRPG that is both "historically important" and "fun". There are older games that are also historically important libe Oubliette, Akallabeth, and the first Roguelike, but I was never tempted to play them.

To many Codexers I suspect Fallout will be the first CRPG that is both "historically important" and "fun".
 

Sigourn

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To me Wizardry 1 is the first CRPG that is both "historically important" and "fun". There are older games that are also historically important libe Oubliette, Akallabeth, and the first Roguelike, but I was never tempted to play them.

To many Codexers I suspect Fallout will be the first CRPG that is both "historically important" and "fun".

I used to be one of those. When I first decide to play a lot of cRPGs, Fallout was were I drew the line, and even then, I think it was only 30 games I was planning to play. But Eamon opened up my eyes, so I really wanted to know if there are more interesting games like it. I would say my short lived journey opened my eyes, at least regarding graphics. But gameplay and enjoyability are not negotiable.
 

TigerKnee

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Dark Heart of Uukrul and The Magic Candle 1 comes to mind instantly.

Honestly I think Octavius list is really close to what I would personally list down, give or take.
 

Dorateen

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Computer role-playing games got interesting when they introduced party mechanics. That's the historic significance of Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, which distinguished itself from the single character adventures of the late seventies. So then you've got your Wizardries, Bard's Tales, Might & Magics, working up to Pool of Radiance and beyond.
 

ProphetSword

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With that in mind: which old school cRPGs are fun today? Which ones do you still play? Why do you still play them? I'm not asking you to tell me what would be fun for me, I just want to see what's fun to you.

Any of the Gold Box games. In my mind, there hasn't been a better series of D&D games that captured what D&D was all about.
 

taxalot

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Codex 2013 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
There is a wall of some kind to get past when you play an old game. My initial reaction, whenever I run something new is "Holy cow, this looks terrible. And what the hell is wrong with this interface ?"
That feeling quickly disappears though if you do invest time and effort. Bad graphics do not last. You get used to it. You also get used to terrible interfaces. All games stand the test of time should you want to give them a chance.
 

Sigourn

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There is a wall of some kind to get past when you play an old game. My initial reaction, whenever I run something new is "Holy cow, this looks terrible. And what the hell is wrong with this interface ?"
That feeling quickly disappears though if you do invest time and effort. Bad graphics do not last. You get used to it. You also get used to terrible interfaces. All games stand the test of time should you want to give them a chance.

This is true for some games, but again, not every game is like this.

Some are just a waste of time since everything they do is done better, by another game. Case in point: Ultima I. Why should one play that when Wizardry has better dungeon crawling? Ultima is essentially dungeon crawl after dungeon crawl separated by boring sections of overworld travel.

Some mod change the thread title to "...are worth your time?".
 

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