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

Blaine

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Lady Error Jason Liang

Care to elaborate?

This is why I've always been against lazy-ass downvote buttons on forums. If you disagree, explain yourself instead of doing a drive-by, you useless faggots.
 

Bumvelcrow

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I tend to think that Ultima VII and Betrayal at Krondor have stood the test of time better than any other cRPGs, given their age. Ultima VII has probably aged the best between the two of them, because its graphics, while simple, have 2D charm and don't utilize digitized low-res photos of actors in cheesy costumes or primitive 3D graphics.

Ultima VII is still outrageously fun today. I hadn't touched it since the 90s until a year or two ago, but when I did fire it up again I played it for two weeks non-stop and had a massive raft of notes saved in Notepad++.

I don't agree that Ultima VII has aged well. It was trying to be bleeding edge at the time (and I remember the trials of getting it running on a DOS PC) and inevitably any game that pours so much effort into graphical style will look dated as technology improves. The early Ultimas (well, certainly Ultima V) have aged better as they took an abstract view of the action and left it up to your imagination. Plus, when you strip away the Ultima VII graphics what you're left with is the gameplay, which is pretty poor. The story is good, but the game is memorable despite how badly it has aged, not because it's aged well.

But, yes, all those '90s games with digitised portraits and animation (Serpent Isle is also guilty here) have aged very badly.
 

Lady_Error

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Lady Error Jason Liang

Care to elaborate?

This is why I've always been against lazy-ass downvote buttons on forums. If you disagree, explain yourself instead of doing a drive-by, you useless faggots.

Fuck you, that's why.

It was mainly the part that Ultima 7 and Betrayal at Krondor aged better than any other cRPG of their age. There are many others that aged far better, especially considering the primitive 3D of BaK which you mentioned. Even among 3D cRPG's, Ultima Underworld 1 & 2 aged way better than that.
 

Jason Liang

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I tried playing Ultima VII a couple of years ago and it was barely working on my laptop. Exult didn't really help; the scrolling was choppy and that UI is primitive. It's really the exact opposite of what the original poster is asking for.

At least Ultima V has the Lazarus remake.
 
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Bumvelcrow

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I tried playing Ultima VII a couple of years ago and it was barely working on my laptop. Exult didn't really help; the scrolling was choppy and that UI is primitive. It's really the exact opposite of what the original poster is asking for.

At least Ultima V has the Lazarus remake.

The OP asked what games stand the test of time. Of course 20 year old games will have primitive interfaces, but they can be primitive and intuitive or primitive, intimidating, and messy. It'd take the Ultima 7 interface over the Wasteland 2 interface any day of the week.

And if the OP wanted to play fucking dungeon siege then he can do that. Lazarus is *not* Ultima 5.
 

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It's not really the game that ages, it's the person playing it. If you just put yourself in a mindset that you're going to adapt to what is on your screen, learn it and then have a good time with it, you will. It's not really hard to play any RPG from any year and have fun with it, IMO.
 

Jarpie

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I tried playing Ultima VII a couple of years ago and it was barely working on my laptop. Exult didn't really help; the scrolling was choppy and that UI is primitive. It's really the exact opposite of what the original poster is asking for.

At least Ultima V has the Lazarus remake.

It's kinda a shame that Lazarus was made with Dungeon Siege engine as it's pretty damn shit engine, but probably the best (or most convinient/practical) choice available at the time. Shame that they couldn't keep it turn-based.
 

octavius

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IMO Ultima VII has aged far better, graphically, than Ultima V.

I played neither back in the day, but I had no problems playing U5 some years ago. U7 OTOH, with it clunky UI and small viewing area is one of the very few classic CRPGs I just could make myself play due to the UI.
 

Jason Liang

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Mind you, this was a few years before GoG, so maybe the GoG version is playable.

But it's a shame that the NES U5 and SNES U7 are shit.
 
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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...

...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.

To me Wizardry 1 is the first CRPG that is both "historically important" and "fun".

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

these two biblical scholars said everything i would've said in super long-winded posts in less characters than a couple of tweets.

thank you both for expressing all that needs to be said about this thread's OP.

I played Wizardry 1 for the first time literally less than 3 years ago, and It has better UI, mechanics, itemization, encounter design, and is more "accessible" and much more mature than any other game released since in the following 30-whatever years.

People who know nothing about RPG design, such as Roguey, praise games like Witcher 3 and call it a great RPG, and at the same time say RPGs that focus on gameplay instead of graphics/story such as Wizardry don't qualify for the title of RPG.

LOL!

That says all you need to know about what modern RPGers think about RPGs. And I'm not even "an old", I used to be a huge casual gamer and my first RPGs were all JRPGs; until all of my life's experiences led me to eventually discovering games like Wizardry 1 (and all of its ensuing Wiz-clones, et al).

If someone like me who did NOT grow up with computer RPGs can instantly recognize the brilliance of design inherent in majority of late-80's and 1990's era computer RPGs without falling into the casual-retard trap of allowing prejudice about graphics prevent me from objectively evaluating the superior gameplay and UI and aesthetic (aesthetic being subjective, though) from 30-year-old RPGs... anyone can!

Except Roguey, who has gone on record as saying early RPGs like Wizardry 1 don't qualify as RPGs because they don't feature CYOA-style A/B/C dialog responses.

ROOfles!
 
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Barnabas

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I don't know if I ever played an rpg on the pc that was released before 1995. Iv watched plenty of gameplay of SSI Gold Box, Darklands and Betrayal at Krondor, but I'm not interested in playing any of them. Some of the games I look back on when I played NES and I wonder how the hell could I have played this game how deprived was I?!? I'm sure kids now say the same about Baldurs Gate which is my favorite.
 

ghostdog

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Dark sun has aged pretty well and it feels like a precursor of the late90s/early80s crpg era.
 

Sigourn

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I'm strongly against the whole "games don't age" reasoning. The thing is, some people are better at coping with the age. I can't cope with Wizardry's slow gameplay, clunky interface, lack of music and sounds. All those things were taken for granted back in the early 80s.

I downloaded Nahlakh. Honestly, I thought it was shit, and I barely played for a few minutes. That kind of game just isn't fun to me. Not because the concept behind the gameplay isn't fun, but because the presentation, by modern standards, is awful, and gets in the way of my enjoyment.

If someone were to tell me they think Nahlakh is perfectly fine as it is, I would call them liars. If they were honest, then I supposed they are the kind of people who eat their meat raw.

Let's face it, people: if games don't age, we have to accept that no activity really ages, and games were born for a reason: people were bored and wanted something else.
 

felipepepe

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I more and more wonder just what the hell you expected when starting your project to play 280+ RPGs all the way back to PLATO games...

We wouldn't get mouse controls & actual music until the Amiga & Atari ST in 1985, FFS.
 

Sigourn

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I more and more wonder just what the hell you expected when starting your project to play 280+ RPGs all the way back to PLATO games...

We wouldn't get mouse controls & actual music until the Amiga & Atari ST in 1985, FFS.

I wonder too, sometimes. Especially because to learn the history of something, you don't need to live it. I don't need to play through five Wizardry titles to notice they all look exactly the same.

Surprisingly, my list basically consists of what it used to consist of back when I first got the idea: Top 70 cRPGs and related games, barely anything else (Diablo and Diablolikes being the exception, alongside the newest Age of Incline). All I got left is the ones I feel "morally obliged" to play, but not because I want to show them to the Codex.

Anyhow, anyone have something to say about Two Worlds and Two Worlds II? Are they worth it? Are they shit?
 

Jacob

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I'm strongly against the whole "games don't age" reasoning. The thing is, some people are better at coping with the age. I can't cope with Wizardry's slow gameplay, clunky interface, lack of music and sounds. All those things were taken for granted back in the early 80s.

I downloaded Nahlakh. Honestly, I thought it was shit, and I barely played for a few minutes. That kind of game just isn't fun to me. Not because the concept behind the gameplay isn't fun, but because the presentation, by modern standards, is awful, and gets in the way of my enjoyment.

If someone were to tell me they think Nahlakh is perfectly fine as it is, I would call them liars. If they were honest, then I supposed they are the kind of people who eat their meat raw.

Let's face it, people: if games don't age, we have to accept that no activity really ages, and games were born for a reason: people were bored and wanted something else.
you might also want to try these games, they have music, sounds, and good interface too.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...lish-translated-nsfw-updated-01-11-17.112873/
 

almondblight

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Meh. So here's the thing that gets me. When we discuss something like PoE or ToEE, it's pretty much universally agreed upon that - whether or not you like the combat - the same encounter copy and pasted 10 times is a big negative. But when talking about some older games, people are bringing up games where you keep running into the same encounter over and over again and don't even mention it as a drawback. Rather, they act as if these games are the pinnacle of RPGs.

It's kind of like SciFi/Fantasy books. There's good stuff out there, but most of the fans are such idiots that their recommendations are worthless and you're going to have to figure out for yourself what's good and what sucks.
 

octavius

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Meh. So here's the thing that gets me. When we discuss something like PoE or ToEE, it's pretty much universally agreed upon that - whether or not you like the combat - the same encounter copy and pasted 10 times is a big negative. But when talking about some older games, people are bringing up games where you keep running into the same encounter over and over again and don't even mention it as a drawback. Rather, they act as if these games are the pinnacle of RPGs.

Which older games are you talking about?
 

octavius

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I downloaded Nahlakh. Honestly, I thought it was shit, and I barely played for a few minutes. That kind of game just isn't fun to me. Not because the concept behind the gameplay isn't fun, but because the presentation, by modern standards, is awful, and gets in the way of my enjoyment.

If someone were to tell me they think Nahlakh is perfectly fine as it is, I would call them liars. If they were honest, then I supposed they are the kind of people who eat their meat raw.

The UI and graphics are fine and do their job, just like Ultima IV and V. The graphics are simple and functional, you have a good overview and using keyboard is quick. And the core of any CRPG - the gameplay - is better in Nahlakh than in most CRPGs, assuming you play CRPGs for character development, loot and tactical combat, and not for story, romances or HD cutscenes.

Personally I have more problems with the much more modern U6 and U7, with their clunky interfaces and small viewing area.

I guess it boils down to what is more important: substance or presentation (not implying U6 and U7 don't have substance)?
 
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Sigourn

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The UI and graphics are fine and do their job, just like Ultima IV and V.

Nahlakh is from 1994 (or something), though. I understand it is a "fan"-made game, but that doesn't mean I should be okay with it looking like a ten year od game.

I don't play cRPGs for the tactical combat, especially not when it is boring. Wasteland 2 wasn't exactly "tactical", but it was fun nonetheless.
 

k0syak

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I don't play cRPGs for the tactical combat, especially not when it is boring. Wasteland 2 wasn't exactly "tactical", but it was fun nonetheless.
:what:
Fun?
D:OS has fun combat, couldn't discover any kind of fun in Wasteland2.
 

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I mean, whether the game or the person playing ages, it's up to the person and their own tolerance level for old stuff to see if they find it playable and can get enjoyment out of it. I find that I'm interested enough in RPGs that I enjoy checking out the ancient systems and mechanics, etc., and once I adapt to the old factor, the game just becomes another RPG to enjoy. Individual results may vary.
 

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