Blobbers with good stories and a smaller focus on combat?

[rusty_shackleford]

Looking to try out some blobbers but I don't really enjoy the heavy combat focus of the few I've tried.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Might & Magic III up to V has really fast paced and simple combat, the focus is heavily on exploration and dungeon crawling in these games, story is almost non-existent. Should be right up your alley. They also look really good, colorful and creative enemies and such.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Wizardry IV.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

the focus is heavily on exploration and dungeon crawling in these games, story is almost non-existent.

Sorry, meant "with good stories", I'll reword the title.

 

[Strange Fellow]

There are none. Wrong genre.

 

[BrotherFrank]

If you dont mind weebness Mary Skelters Nightmares is story heavy and there are ways to reduce the combat frequency and even just have it play itself in fast forward to skip battles you are overlevelled for, reducing them to just seconds. Use cheat engine to turn an invincibility cheat on and it becomes a combat skip.

 

[DalekFlay]

Not sure about a good story overall, but Operencia supposedly has very good dialog. It's on sale for $10 this month too, though it's Epic exclusive for now. Coming to Steam later. I just got it so we'll see.

 

[Agame]

There are none. Wrong genre.

Yeah, seriously WTF, the whole point of blobbers is combat and party builds, and the strategy/tactics relating to it.

Its like asking for a car driving game that has no driving in it...

Any blobbers with no combat are probably rubbish.

 

[Ysaye]

Agree with the above you generally don't play blobbers for the story - about the best I can suggest:

Elvira series (Elvira, Elvira 2, Waxworks) - more point and click adventures with the odd battle. Not sure it is a fun plot though and we are talking DOS here.

Lands of Lore - This game is more story driven than most blobbers but don't expect anything out of the ordinary. The voiceovers (inc Patrick Stewart) add a bit to this game.

Dinosaur Resurrection - Interesting plotline but only if you can read Japanese. There are probably some other Jap. Blobbers that emphasize boobs over battles but that is still not a plot is it?

Some blobbers have interesting settings and plot twists and the like (Phantasy Star, Wizardry 6-8, The Dark Spire etc. come to mind) but fundamentally there are a lot of battles in between. Have you instead considered going full adventure game mode and trying something like Zork Nemesis or Myst?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Any blobbers with no combat are probably rubbish.

where did I say 'no combat'?
Do you consider M&M games to be rubbish because they focus on puzzles/exploration instead of combat?

 

[PrK]

Might & Magic III up to V has really fast paced and simple combat, the focus is heavily on exploration and dungeon crawling in these games, story is almost non-existent. Should be right up your alley. They also look really good, colorful and creative enemies and such.

Also best music:

 

[Watser]

Any blobbers with no combat are probably rubbish.

where did I say 'no combat'?
Do you consider M&M games to be rubbish because they focus on puzzles/exploration instead of combat?

To be fair the combat is dog shit in MM III-V and only tolerable cause it's over extremely quick.

 

[JarlFrank]

Any blobbers with no combat are probably rubbish.

where did I say 'no combat'?
Do you consider M&M games to be rubbish because they focus on puzzles/exploration instead of combat?

To be fair the combat is dog shit in MM III-V and only tolerable cause it's over extremely quick.

The combat in M&M III-V is decent and 1000 times better than the retarded step dancing real time blobber tango spawned by Dungeon Master and re-spawned by Grimrock.

 

[Viata]

There are blobbers with good story, like Wizardry 7(damn, even 6 has a great history, David W. Bradley was truly an unique man), but I think that is mostly a side effect than anything. The reason Wizardry even got to 7 was because of how great its combat mechanics was. Even if Wizardry 7 had a shit plot, the combat mechanics would still be great and that is something you can't say about any storyfag games. I'm really glad blobbers has a big focus on combat and almost no focus in plot, because that way I'll not care if the plot is shit if I'm having the best time playing it.

 

[Viata]

Any blobbers with no combat are probably rubbish.

where did I say 'no combat'?
Do you consider M&M games to be rubbish because they focus on puzzles/exploration instead of combat?

To be fair the combat is dog shit in MM III-V and only tolerable cause it's over extremely quick.

The combat in M&M III-V is decent and 1000 times better than the retarded step dancing real time blobber tango spawned by Dungeon Master and re-spawned by Grimrock.

Tbh, given how slow Dungeon Master is, the tango battle in DM is not as bad as it is Grimrock. Grimrock was a good game, 2 was better than 1 in everything, but the tango battle is really shit, sadly.

 

[octavius]

The combat in M&M III-V is decent and 1000 times better than the retarded step dancing real time blobber tango spawned by Dungeon Master and re-spawned by Grimrock.

You can play DM without step dancing. Well, except for killing the Dragon, that is. If anyone can beat that HP bloated stack of dragon steaks witouth step dancing, I'll tip my fedora to him.

 

[V_K]

As many have already noted, you don't normally play blobbers for their stories. I would also disagree though that you play them primarily for combat - isometric party-based games are far better suited for that. The defining trait of a blobber is that the dungeon as a whole is your main enemy, and combat encounters are just one of many types of challenges it throws at you, along with traps, puzzles, secrets and environmental hazards.
That said, there are a few blobbers and semi-blobbers that have more plot than a barebones framing story:
Realms of Arkania 3: Shadows over Riva is much more story-heavy than the first two games in the series, and there are some nice twists to its plot. Not a proper blobber though because combat is isometric - but also fairly sparse.
Amberstar/Ambermoon/Albion series is also a bit of a grey area because some levels are presented in first-person, and some locations in top-down/isometric view. Combat is also in-between blobber and non-blobber. The games are also progressively more and more story-heavy, and Albion is quite nicely written and original.
I liked the main quest in Starcrawlers, but the procedurally generated missions you have to play in-between story missions make its gameplay get old rather quickly.

 

[JarlFrank]

I liked the main quest in Starcrawlers, but the procedurally generated missions you have to play in-between story missions make its gameplay get old rather quickly.

Procedural generation is the devil.

 

[Dorateen]

Grimoire, and set the Wandering Encounters to Never.

 

[V_K]

I liked the main quest in Starcrawlers, but the procedurally generated missions you have to play in-between story missions make its gameplay get old rather quickly.

Procedural generation is the devil.

[offtopic]
I would say, lazy procedural generation is the devil. Unexplored does wonders with its procedural levels just by implementing a more evolved algorithm. But most devs, I think, see procedural generation as an easy alternative to designing levels by hand - and if they don't want to put effort into designing complex levels, they obviously won't put it into designing complex algorithms.
[/offtopic]

 

[Bruma Hobo]

There are none. Wrong genre.

Yeah, seriously WTF, the whole point of blobbers is combat and party builds, and the strategy/tactics relating to it.

Its like asking for a car driving game that has no driving in it...

Any blobbers with no combat are probably rubbish.

Don't be silly, the point of blobbers is not combat, as you could have a blobber without combat at all, having the party surviving hunger, traps and environmental hazards. The whole point is exploration and resource management.

But expecting a blobber to be about its plot (which in this context usually means character-driven drama and some dumb "epic" war tale) is indeed retarded.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Don't be silly, the point of blobbers is not combat, as you could have a blobber without combat at all, having the party surviving hunger, traps and environmental hazards. The whole point is exploration and resource management.

Gimme gimme gimme any examples, I wanna take a look.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Gimme gimme gimme any examples, I wanna take a look.

I was speaking theoretically, of course. Combat, while not mandatory, is an easily implemented hazard relatively speaking, and there's no reason not to do so.

 

[V_K]

Don't be silly, the point of blobbers is not combat, as you could have a blobber without combat at all, having the party surviving hunger, traps and environmental hazards. The whole point is exploration and resource management.

Gimme gimme gimme any examples, I wanna take a look.

Legacy: Realm of Terror, sorta-kinda - while there are monsters, it's way too dangerous and resource-consuming to go in guns blazing, at least in the first half of the game. Instead, you're supposed to avoid or flee from monsters, and eventually find ways to make them non-threatening.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I always wanted to play M&M III-V but intensely dislike how laggy the mouse can sometimes be in DOSBox. Games this ancient should play smooth as buttered buns on modern systems. They need a remaster by Krome Studios.