What makes a good dungeon

True need a torch darkness. Sick of these bright bullshit baby one corridor dungeons.

 

I was recently replaying Chrono Cross, and I was quite surprised to find that the game has some relevance to this thread. See, Chrono Cross is one of those Playstation 1 JRPGs where backgrounds are prerendered (or painted to the same effect), with the effect that dungeons are very short, just a handful of screens each. You'd think that would make them very streamlined and nearly pointless, but what the best PSX JRPGs do to turn this around is pack that short dungeon full of things to do, and Viper Manor is one of the best of the lot.

So. The party has decided to sneak into the Viper Manor to steal a MacGuffin called the Frozen Flame, among other things. First you have to figure out how to get in - there are three different alternatives for this which you can learn about by talking to people in town, each involving a different recruitable character. Two of them have their mini-dungeons that you get through before entering, one is a straight battle gauntlet.

Now we get to the actual inflitration. The game shifts to night-time, and there's a simple but quick-paced (and optional) stealth sequence as you explore the grounds to avoid guards with some searchlights for good measure; you get a key in an admittedly inane but goofy minigame and enter the main building. So there are traps, you get caught in one, get mocked for it, escape, get some guard uniforms (except for your pink talking dog with a goofy accent), walk around the compound in disguise to learn the code to another door while robbing the place and optionally learning relevant background information, get caught again because one of your companions is an idiot, continue because your captor doesn't mind, enter the inner chambers, get much plot thrown at you, get hit on by a cute French harlequin, fight two boss fights, and finally escape in dramatic fashion. All this in an hour or so, and for that hour I was entertained.

I'm not saying it is the greatest dungeon ever, but it is a delightful, eventful romp through some magnificently beautiful screens with the back-and-forth comedy-of-errors feel that reminds me of a good, light-hearted pen-and-paper RPG session. Much of the route is ultimately predetermined, but it's delivered in a nice hands-off way that doesn't tell you what to do but has you look for the solution yourself. It stays fresh because the best PSX JRPGs still have very decent pacing. A lot of the best dungeons that people remember are mega-dungeons that you chew on for days at a time, but a small one can be really memorable when done with proper flair.

 

I don't give a sufficient amount of fuck to make this step.

 

I mean, your loss. It is literally download emulator, download rom. Start emulator, load rom. That's it.

 

Legend of Zelda dungeon design blows any western rpg out of water but high self esteem codexers won't agree with this statement.

 

All Zelda dungeons are not made equal. Most of them have some unifying concept and maybe a visually impressive central hub, but only some of them have really interesting puzzles or mechanics attached. Wind Waker dungeons were pretty mediocre, but Majora's Mask dungeons were excellent.

 

In rpg genre the three shining examples of great dungeon design for me are Golden Sun 1,2 and Wild Arms. All had such clever puzzles in dungeons and were always fun to go through. Persona 5 actually had some really good dungeons as well.

 

Thanks for the tip, TR4 looks perfectly fine indeed and very enticing. I had another look at some TR2 and TR3 playthrough videos and I actually find that early 3D engine look quite charming, I think it would rather add something interesting to the experience than detract from it.

I'll be a bit off topic (sorry for that), but your suggestions here and in this thread renewed my interest in the series so I've put together a playthrough order, would you mind sharing your thoughts on that? I'm more or less a completionist and I like to go through things in order when that's preferable, although I'm not completely sure if the order matters that much with the TR games (in a way like it matters for the Gold Box series, for instance).

Start with...

TR Anniversary (instead of TR1)
TR2
TR3
TR4

...then play

Legend
Underworld

Stay way from

Chronicles
Angel of Darkness
Tomb Raider And The Temple Of Osiris

Alternatively, Legend/Anniversary/Underworld, then TR2/3/4, or if the order really doesn't matter at all, just pick one that I feel like next.

One more question, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Tomb Raider 2013, are these worth playing at all? I hated the action sequences, the cutscene overload, the "RPG-light elements", and the trophy collecting achievement shit in Rise of the Tomb Raider, I only kept playing it for the puzzles and atmopshere of the tomb levels really, which were excellent and made me forget about the rest.

 

They are great, mix really well the puzzles with some excellent level design.

But do you play RPGs for that? A short segment might be a nice change of pace, but Zelda's dungeons have no complex combat, no place for character skills, no choice & consequence, no dialog trees, no factions, no multiple approaches depending on your class/race, no epic loot...

It's a bit like saying metroidvanias should have platforming challenges like Super Meat Boy. Hollow Knight did that a bit with The Path of Pain, but that's an optional, ultra-hard challenge. The game would be worse if they added more of that, as that's not why people play metroidvanias.

 

That's like saying people play Zelda merely for puzzles

 

Haven't played Zelda and not trying to be argumentative just for the sake of it, just pointing out that EoB and LoG don't meet much of this list of criteria either and they're still considered great RPG games. So yes, I would say I am playing games like EoB, LoG and such blobbers in general primarily for the puzzles and the dungeon exploration aspects, the rest are pretty much secondary. My view is that different RPG subgenres put emphasis on different criteria from that list so for example the Gold Box games emphasise tactical combat and exploration, then most single-protagonist action-RPGs primarily the story, and so on.

But then, I agree with you, Zelda is just not an RPG anyway. The almost total lack of other RPG-like elements makes it a non-RPG.

 

Some thoughts:

• Originally I thought that dungeons should not be contained within a n x m grid......but then on closer inspection there are heaps of dungeons that are great to traverse and are in this form, the original Wizardry being one of those. That is not to say that there a good dungeon must be in an array though.
• On the other hand, I also thought "one branch tree searching" (ie. one corridor off which there are many rooms that can be opened in any order) was also not good design....but again it seems to work in so many games. You don't even have to even have anything in some of the rooms.
• I have always thought verticality (multiple levels) was important to a good dungeon.....I still think this is true. Maybe this comes from the horror of playing Phantasy Star 1 and dropping down a trap-door and finding myself on another level with no knowledge of how to get back to the surface; there is a sort of horrific delight in finding oneself completely at a loss as to how to get back to safety.
• I find I like dungeons which lead into different areas or other dungeons (there needs to be some differentiation between one dungeon and another though).

 

The first level of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord is great. I've already talked about it on the Wizardry thread, but it essentially breaks the floor down into 4 quadrants, each with their own distinctive style. So even if you don't map, it is very easy to find your way around as each section feels different from the other. And it also eases you into the idea of mapping, and learning how to find landmarks in the game.

 

That's not my post you're quoting

 

Ice Cave from Elminage Gothic was also quite an ebin dungeon

 

What makes a bad dungeon ? long and narrow corridors, filled with dead ends, mixed with shitty pathfinding. behold ! BG1 thieves maze and firewine ruins:

 

Firewine Ruins was terrible with vanilla BG1, but it's a nice enough dungeon with TuTu or BGT, with no endless respawning and with better path finding.
But the Thieves' Maze always was the least inspired dungeon in the game.

 

By the way,

I think this is a very interesting aspect when talking about RPGs.

In Metroid (I'm thinking of Super Metroid, actually, I have not played Metroid yet) there's no party creation nor shops, you can use everything and your exploration depends a bit on what you find.

Note that most games supposedly inspired by Metroid takes this aspect to a 99% counterproductive extent (only 99% because looking for secrets can be fun) by making linear games while it should not be how it's done at all, many upgrades should be fundamentally optional with different combination working ; multiple early, independently acquirable, upgrades should unlock multiple paths and different combinations of these upgrades should unlock different paths ; besides most paths should be less or harder depending on what you have but still doable (easy walk on lava rather than hard regular plateforming or moderate double jumping above) with many different combinations and then there should be tons of both hidden, optional, upgrades and hidden shortcuts. That's a very important point, it's the difference between Metroid done wrong and Metroid done right.

Now let's talk about RPGs and specifically of navigation spells (walk on lava ...), in practice it's only natural that you acquire them the same way as combat spells but how you acquire combat spells is independant of what I'm talking about, unlocking more combat options does not radically change your exploration like finding a "walk on lava" spell. There are at least two different ways to acquire navigation spells, choosing (at the start like Wizardry classes or as you advance for example by buying them) or finding them.

RPGs should take a completely opposite approach from Metroid done wrong, the use of tools should be limited to certain characters but so that your exploration depends a lot on your party that won't be enough, you should also for a big part choose spells, skills and buy tools beforehand (like before entering a dungeon). In practice, if I'm totally fine with only choices, and I'd even add that I'd really like to play many more games with advanced party creation and a starting pool of gold you spend on some tools rather than others, I'm not against a balance between choices and Metroid done right approach if only because a "walk on water" spell which will trivialize some parts may generally be a satisfying reward for completing a dungeon more often than another weapon is.

 

JarlFrank's comment was pretty on point, I have to say. Mainly the part about the lore, it can be either written logs or just some visual cues for it to tie with the general world-building, even for people who skip anything written.

I remember fondly both the New Vegas and Bloodlines mentions in the article. I'll add an extra one, even though for an extensive period of time, I disliked it. Irenicus' dungeon in the start of BG2. It sets up a villain, a motivation and is packed with a lot of traps, critters and puzzles. True, it's not the best thing for a new player to be from the start in a dungeon, while expecting a city, to explore surroundings etc, but the more time goes by, the more I tend to like it as a design.

 

Indeed, I've just realised... Sorry man.

 

Sounds fine to me. Chronicles isn't complete trash but most levels either introduce half-assed new features that don't work (stealth sections in the submarine, ugh) and those that don't lack creativity compared to the older games. It's obvious that Chronicles was just a cash-in on a popular series made by a dev team that wasn't motivated to work with the engine anymore. So yeah, avoid.

Angel of Darkness has some interesting ideas but it's marred by bugs and being generally unfinished. Sad. Could have been a great game if the devs had had the time to properly polish the thing.

While I consider TR4 my favorite, TR1 is the most important of the series, not just for being the first but it also has some of the most creative level design of them all. The Greece levels (St. Francis' Folly) are peak level design. Playing Anniversary instead of the original is okay, since the levels are a faithful copy and all the puzzles are intact. Controls are way smoother and the visuals are gorgeous. I don't like how they made Lara into a more emotional character though, she feels regret after killing human enemies, while in the original she was just a badass action hero, like a female version of an Arnie or Sly character. Still, Anniversary is a faithful remake where it matters. Start with this.

Of the originals (excepting Chronicles), I find TR3 to be the weakest. It has fewer tomb crawling levels and more set in the modern day, which I'm not as big a fan of. It also has the weakest story, but who cares about story in TR games lol. Still has some decent levels, but to prevent burning out I'd put it after TR4. The sequence you play them in doesn't matter that much as each of the classic TRs has its own self-contained story. I'd rate them TR1>TR4>TR2>TR3. My suggested sequence of playthroughs would be: TR1/Anniversary->TR2->TR4 and then TR3 only if you feel like playing more of the same.

If you want a bit of a change, you can do Legend and Underworld (play those in sequence because the story of Underworld builds upon Legend's) before going to TR3. Legend is decent but a little undercooked, it felt smaller than the originals but introduced some new ideas and changed up the gameplay a bit. Underworld is an excellent sequel, it has some top-tier level design and is a huge improvement upon Legend. Underworld is worthy of being compared to the classics in every way.

I didn't play any of the reboot titles yet. I'll probably pick them up during a sale at some point, but they've changed direction too far from classic TR so my level of interest is limited. Seems like they did the typical thing of modern sequels where they slap "RPG elements" onto an action game, which just ends up being awkward.

Classic TR is all about the tomb levels so you'll enjoy that more.

Once you finished the Legend-Anniversary-Underworld trilogy and the original 4 games and still want more tomb raiding goodness, TR has an active mod community that still shits out new levels on the regular:
http://www.trle.net/

 

That's some very good detailed advice there, thanks for the informative post! I'll take your advice and play them in your suggested order after finishing my current EoB I run.

 

I played an RPG that kinda does this: Maimed God's Saga, a mod for NWN2.

Basically you are forced to play a Cleric, and the entire game is based around the use of spells as a role-playing resource. You can use them in combat, but they are often used as possible solutions to quests & events. For example, you enter a room and see a necromancer. Before you rush in to attack him, the game gives to option to cast Silence on him. If you have that spell available, you can fight him 1:1. If not, he'll summon undead when the combat starts, as a scripted event.

It's an extremely cool mechanic, that I wish other RPGs would try.

 

Haven't played Metroid, but at least in Maimed God Saga it felt very arbitrary to me, because you can't really plan for these encounters. Ultimately, you have to plan your spell memorization with a view of combat, and if you happen to guess what the next scripted encounter will require - that's a nice bonus, but you can't make a strategy out of it.