European cRPGs - where are they?

[Talorc]

A lot people keep talking about European cRPGs and how they are going to save the RPG genre - well, where are they??

I scratched my head, and all I could come up with that had been released was Divine Divinity / Beyond Divinity and Gothic / Gothic 2. Some good games, but hardly enough to save the genre.

There must be more - what other half decent European cRPGs have actually been released?

I'm contemplating replaying about half my RPG collection at the moment, so I am getting really desperate to find some good NEW RPG I have not played!!

 

[Whipporowill]

Silent Storm isn't really an rpg - but it was made in Russia.

And most of the euro games mentioned are in development, and has been for some time, so I guess we don't know if they'll revitalize the genre or not.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Yeah, I think the idea is a bit overhyped myself. European CRPG's that come to mind are Divine Divinty, Gothic, and Sacred which were cool and all but really not all that. Then there were some turkeys like Another War and Gorasul that I know mostly by reputation. If all it took for a good RPG was a good combat system, Silent Storm might be more convincing an argument that Europe = t3h fyootur, but I kinda wonder what that would have been like if you threw in a story and all the other RPG elements. I wasn't terribly impressed by what I saw of the most recent RPG made by the Jagged Alliance guys (Wizardry 8), and JA2 was really about the closest thing to Silent Storm out there.

 

[Whipporowill]

A quick check and I came up with Arx Fatalis as well - Arx 2 in development. A game I liked - very Ultima Underworld, and started as a tribute to said game or something.

And Snails, the whole "Europe is the f0t0r3" thingie - there's a lot more crpgs being developed here than in the states, I think THAT's the point. Hopefully a few of them will be good as well... hehe.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Maybe so. I'll believe it when I see it. But please, get some native English speakers to do the translations and voice-overs. Europeans I bump into on forums tend to have a better command of the language than whoever does most of the Eurogames I've played.

 

[Jora]

I'm replaying Arx Fatalis and I must recommend it to everybody. It's very atmospheric and the magic system is very cool. The world is also quite interactive: you can bake tasty apple pies or make your own fishing rod and go fishing.

A quick check and I came up with Arx Fatalis as well - Arx 2 in development

This is what Arkane's Julien Roby said in April :

Less than 4 months before THE official news come...

So the official announcement of Arx 2 should come very soon. :D

 

[Sabotai]

Still waiting for GoldenLand.

 

[Talorc]

mmm, when it came out I thought Arx Fatalis was more of an action RPG, (with emphasis strongly on action), but now I see that it is not. That might be something to look into, I can probably get it cheap

Silent Storm at the tactical level is better than JA2, but not even close when it comes to the RPG and Strategic elements. In my opinion JA2 is a better "overall" game because of that. I think the only reason Silent Storm gets mentioned in a RPG context is because of the fond memories we have of JA2. Everyone who has played it has a favourite JA2 mercenary they love - but I cant even remember the names of the soldiers from Silent Storm. Maybe the sequel will improve on the out of combat elements.

I guess "Europe will save us" is more hope for the future rather than current reality :-(

 

[Jed]

Golden Land
Golden Land: Cold Heaven
Metalheart: Replicant Rampage
Phase: Exodus
Power of Law: Cops 2170
Silent Storm
Silent Storm: Sentinels
Star Wolves

Witcher
Paradise Cracked
Restricted Area
Blood Magic
Bourgeoisie
TEH FALL!!!!!!!!!!111
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Heart of Eternity
Shadow Vault
Spells of Gold
Trinity

...to name a few. Quality surely varies, but I'm excited about the few at the top of my list.

 

[Talorc]

...snip whole bunches of games...
...to name a few. Quality surely varies, but I'm excited about the few at the top of my list.

Cmon - on that whole list, as far as I can see only Silent Storm, Paradise Cracked and Spells of Gold have actually been released.

Silent Storm we know about (good tactical shooter, RPG worthiness questionable).

I have not played Paradise Cracked or Spells of Gold - but the reviews have hardly set the world on fire. Especially Spells of Gold!

Anyone actually played either of those two?

 

[Jed]

Cmon - on that whole list, as far as I can see only Silent Storm, Paradise Cracked and Spells of Gold have actually been released.

Most of the rest are all slated (as far as I know) for 2004 or sometime reasonably soon. We are talking about the FUTCHYOR! of cRPGS, aren't we?

 

[Ausir]

A lot of them were released - in their native languages.

 

[Jed]

It would be nice, what with the international cadre of cRPG elistists that inhabit these forums, if some reviews were submitted of some of these games currently only available in their native tongues.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

When you look at those titles, with the exception of a few of them on the professionally developed front, you have a lot of different styles of gameplay and settings coming out of Europe and Russia. Meanwhile, over here, we basically just have BioWare and those who imitate or license BioWare stuff and make games just like they do. Oh, and there's also Troika and Bethesda.

It seems most Russian and European developers actually try to set themselves apart, while North American developers run with the status quo.

 

[Dhruin]

Turn it around the other way: what CRPGs are in development in NA?

KotOR2
Dragon Age
Vampire: Bloodlines

I've left out action RPGs and (obviously) console stuff like The Bard's Tale and Jade Empire.

There's some indie projects and obviously others that haven't been announced (I'm sure another Elder Scrolls game is underway and I presume Troika has other pans in the fire).

It's no wonder RPG players look at Europe. However, many of the Euro RPGs won't do that well - even if the gameplay is good they have to fight lack of experience, translations and poor marketing. But much of that is the publisher's responsibility. If the GoldenLand translation sucks, that will be Strategy First's fault, not Burut's.

 

[Jed]

Which is why it's pretty much up to Troika, Spiderweb, and whatever indie devs that might crank out an interesting title or two to keep us satisfied Stateside...

 

[voodoo1man]

No one's yet mentioned Nival's RPG, Evil Islands. It's real-time, single-player with a free-floating camera. I didn't play it (found the camera far too annoying, but that was probably due to my slow computer), but my brother did and he was impressed. He said it's mostly a dungeon crawl, with some sneaking, but very pretty graphics.

 

[Jed]

Sounds very...American?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

It's no wonder RPG players look at Europe. However, many of the Euro RPGs won't do that well - even if the gameplay is good they have to fight lack of experience, translations and poor marketing. But much of that is the publisher's responsibility. If the GoldenLand translation sucks, that will be Strategy First's fault, not Burut's.

I think the translation for GoldenLand was done in Russia before Strategy First signed on to publish.

No one's yet mentioned Nival's RPG, Evil Islands.

Evil Islands was a BITCH. It's one of the hardest action CRPGs ever made.

 

[Dhruin]

Bad example - Burut did do their own translation. It's all their fault, then.

 

[dunduks]

No one's yet mentioned Nival's RPG, Evil Islands.

Evil Islands was a BITCH. It's one of the hardest action CRPGs ever made.

Yes, but on the other hand it had that nifty item crafting.
And then there also is quite interesting elite like space rangers.

 

[DamnElfGirl]

I played the Evil Islands demo. Got bored before the demo ended, which I took as a bad sign. As I recall, the game was panned pretty badly.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Evil Island was quite boring, and rather imbalanced especially since the Long Spear was more or less the dominant weapon. The graphics weren't much to talk about, either, especially since the 3D looked rather worse than Nox and Diablo II.

There was a feature in the game that allowed you to specifically target limbs to attack, though - and I don't think a lot of people actually knew about it. It made the game a lot easier to play because certain monsters had definite weaknesses in some areas, but the game was very, VERY challenging despite things like that. A pity, really - because the game could have a much less linear quest path and a longer development time. It was quite buggy, if I recall.

 

[Stark]

Jed, you forgot to mention Gothic 3 in your list.

the few RPGs that i look forward to are Gothic 3, Power of Law, The Fall, and Witcher (I initially had bad opinion of it but subsequent previews convinced me otherwise). I'm also keeping my eyes open on Silent Storm 2 and Heart of Eternity, which reminded me alot of Gothic.

I would love to try out Vampire by Troika but i suspect my computer would not be able to run it. As you can see, most of those above are European games. Any wonder why I believe European developers are the future?

I think European developers have an artistic style that's very different from North American ones, and being European I guess they manage to convey the medieval feeling much more accurately (Gothic vs NWN, for example)

now if only Bethestha release a better version of MW with better quests...

 

[Nick]

Evil Islands

I played it! Really great one, I THINK! I'm not sure why people at Codex don't like it - maybe Evil Islands game isn't in Codex members' taste. Bright and pleasant 3D graphics, few dungeons, lots of fresh-air adventures, superior game mechanics (IMO), party-based (depends on your choice - you can travel alone too), well-developed sneak&steal, really useful spells. Hundreds of advantages, I think. The only "minus" is that game isn't TB. Though, it has very convenient "active pause" that makes you feel TURNS. Game has no difficulty levels, it is rather hard and long with pretty-good story.
I'm replaying it again now. It's rather old now, but it was a real revolutuion in its time. And now it's simply a... legend, real legend of russian RPG.

Just don't kill me for my opinion