Old-school dungeon crawls - post your favourite, and why!

[Jasede]

Hey guys. Threads like this always tend to make me happy with nostalgia, so hey, why not start one myself again...

What old-school dungeon crawl RPG stands out for you? Which one is your favourite? What do you like about it and how does it compare to others? This thread is about real RPGs in the meaning of RPG before Fallout, which basically means crawling through a dungeon with a party, solving puzzles, exploring worlds and increasing numbers.

Typical games like this are Might and Magic 1-9, Wizardry 1-8, Lands of Lore, Dungeon Master 1 & 2, Eye of the Beholder 1-3, Bard's Tale 1-3, Ishar I-II-III... basically pretty much all the "arrow RPGs" as I liked to call them as a kid, with an FPS view and square-grid based movement, including the Goldbox games, Dark Heart of Uukrul and Black Crypt.

 

[JarlFrank]

If Diablo [the first one] would count as something like this, I'd choose that one, as it was the first RPG I ever played and made me really interested in the genre. Then I began exploring the ancient gems of olden times.

Might and Magic, for example, especially 4 and 5 which can be combined to form World Of Xeen. Those cartoony graphics looked really cool to me when I was little, and the gameplay is just fun. It has an interesting world with beautiful graphics and that nice old-game feeling to it which makes it lovely. I also liked the combat, even though it is more simple than the one in Wizardry.

Coming to Wizardry, I love Wiz8 for being a rather new game with oldskool gameplay, and for letting you import the party of Wiz7 which was roughly 10 years old when Wiz8 was released [!] and it could even make a difference. And the combat is wonderfully tactical, and you have a huge selection of classes and races to choose from, which I love as character creation is a fun thing.

Coming to character creation, Realms of Arkania 2 is still my favourite in that, closely followed by Icewind Dale 2, which are both excellent party-based dungeon crawl RPGs, both for their own reasons. Realms of Arkania because of the realism and micromanagement [thanks for pointing me towards that game, Jas] and Icewind Dale 2 for general athmosphere, art and writing. Also, RoA had a great combat system.

 

[Squeek]

Ultima Underworld, because it was the first cRPG that truly utilized the first-person perspective. The Gothic and the TES series of games both borrowed from it, and the makers of the groundbreaking FPS, Wolfenstein-3D, cited it as inspiration as well.

After that, I'd say Icewind Dale. If you like dungeon crawling, that one is a must to play!

 

[kingcomrade]

I've been trying to get World of Xeen to run on my computer. So far I have been unsuccessful.

 

[Jasede]

Where's the problem? It worked well with DosBox for me; I used the version from Abandonia.

 

[JarlFrank]

Where's the problem? It worked well with DosBox for me; I used the version from Abandonia.

http://www.abandonia.com/en/search_aban ... +and+magic

They even got Ilses of Terra. Gotta try that one out.

 

[mirrorshades]

I spent a crapload of time on Might & Magic 2. Good stuff, I'd still play it today if I could find the time.

Stonekeep was another fun one, pretty immersive for me (though outdated when it was released).

A friend and I spent countless hours on Pool of Radiance and Bard's Tale I and II, sitting in front of his C-64.

Ultima Underworld 1 was a lot of fun, too.

 

[Cassidy]

Darkstone, it's a 3d "diablo clone" but with two-party mechanics, hunger meter, randomly generated dungeons and a bunch of randomly generated quests as well, meaning that it is more replayable than most of the genre.

 

[xantrius]

Dungeon Master for me was the crpg I played, started out playing it together with me father ,those where the days. Today all he plays is World of Warcraft... heh but the game is quite misty to me though, but I enjoyed it back then maybe one should give it a spin again at some point.

 

[Spec]

Dungeon Master, though it took me forever to actually play though the thing because I would start with one party, play a few levels down, and then go back and start with a brand new party to freshen things up.

 

[Risine]

Lands of lore, lands of lore...

 

[Joe Krow]

Nice thread. For me it's M&M Clouds/Darkside/World of Xeen (was there a Swords of Xeen in there too?). No game has offered that kind of variety since. There was plenty of riddles, codes, and obscure lore to discover. The world was so big I had to tape eight sheets of graph paper together to get it all mapped. What a blast!

 

[Hory]

HeroQuest, baby.

 

[fastpunk]

Icewind Dale is my favorite. What a great atmosphere it had!

 

[Kingston]

Icewind warms me cold Finnish heart.

 

[kingcomrade]

Ok it turns out World of Xeen does work in Dosbox. However when you start a new game it just plops you down, so I have no idea where I am or what I am doing since I don't have a manual. Perhaps there is a wiki.

 

[Shagnak]

I think WoX has some issues with the beginning movie. At least, the version I have does. You have to escape the movie (I think) or it freezes. The game itself runs fine after that.

 

[kingcomrade]

Well, apparently my issue is that there is no beginning movie. Anyways anyone know where I might find the manual? Or something. I was Googling but didn't see any Xeen fansites or anything and I don't really want to start off at GameFags.

 

[Shagnak]

Well, apparently my issue is that there is no beginning movie.

I get a cartoony movie that lasts 10 seconds and then stalls before you learn anything useful at all.

Anyways anyone know where I might find the manual?

http://www.replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.671

Edit:
also
http://www.abandonia.com/files/extras/W ... Manual.zip

 

[kingcomrade]

edit- er, it locks up a LOT
edit2- Yeah, I can't leave any of the conversation screens at Tavers and whatnot without it locking up. I'll try VDMS

 

[Shagnak]

I didn't have any lock-ups in DOSBox, other than the movie one above. I must have teh good mojo.

 

[Mayday]

KC, I've had that same problem, but finally I got a version that works.

I'll look for it and upload it for you.

EDIT:

http://www.staregry.pl/?c=_rv&i=1806#

 

[Xi]

Miracle Warriors, an old Sega Master System Dungeon/Overworld romp. It was my first RPG, loved that game. You could easily snag an Emulator and ROM for it.

http://freespace.virgin.net/james.groom/MWarr/Mwarr.htm

I'm sure it's mostly Nostalgia by today's standards, but it was my first RPG.

Edit: In a nutshell, game-play wise, you travel around and search dungeons for equipment upgrades and characters to join your party. The top bar is health and the bottom bar is exp. When you gain a level your health bar raises up. Also, there are magical accessories like "nuts" and magical stave's that you can throw/use at/on enemies to deal direct damage, lowering the enemies health before the battle, which you save up for boss fights. You also purchase herbs to heal your character during combat and magical stones to prevent magical damage.(All of which have carry limits)

Bosses include Skeletons guarding bridges, dragons in caves guarding equipment upgrades, and Sea monsters that attack your boat as you attempt to cross the ocean. Pretty much your standard progression, roguish RPG where the story revolves around figuring out a riddle that leads you to the final location of the end boss. His location is not visible on the map, so as a player you have to decipher this to beat the game.

It's somewhat non-linear in that you can go anywhere at any time. The issue is difficulty though. Traveling around will result in your death if you aren't prepared. Also, some enemies will block your character's way so that you cannot progress until you defeat, for instance the skeleton on the bridge, them. Here's the world map if you're curious. You move one square at a time, though the squares are smaller than the map portrays.

The town services require "character" a type of fame system that you acquire from killing monsters and turning in Fangs indicated by the 5251 number, which is indicated by the C+ in the pict. When your fame goes up so do the services and abilities the towns provide to your characters.

Each character can equip 3 items. You can purchase simple upgrade items from the towns, or search out heroic items from the dungeons and the monsters that guard them. There are also special items like ships for crossing the sea, ship upgrades for crossing rougher seas, a mantle that prevents the weaker enemies from attacking and being annoying, a helm for reading hyroglyphs in the dungeons, and other such items that add functionality or abilties to your group.

Pretty sweet little game which will net you about 20-40 hours on average and longer to max out your team.

 

[Au naturel]

Most of the good ones have been mentioned already in the Crawler category, but Dark Heart of Uukrul should be played by anyone who fancies themselves as hardkore. Lots of playtime, and the game has some great puzzles.

http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=274

Edit: Thanks to the underdogs, there are a couple of others I finished ages ago that should be mentioned.

http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php? ... +Faerghail

Legend of Faerghail is a bards tale-like walking blob game. It is actually pretty good, and the puzzles are real bastards. Never finished this one but I can see some people here having a ball with it.

http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?name=Legend

For those that like the isometric/party game, this crawler has lots of puzzles and plenty to do. I managed to finish this one and its sequel (Also on underdogs). Gets fairly difficult after a while, but both games are pretty solid dungeon crawlers.

Edit2: They just keep coming!

http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?name=Bloodwych

Another walking blob game, and one that should not be missed if you enjoyed Dungeon Master, etc. Not turn based, but still some serious fun here. Pity the data disk wasn't ported as well from the Amiga.

 

[kingcomrade]

Thanks, Mayday, but I found a forum post that told me how to edit DosBox's config file in order for it to stop messing up.