Good old crpg wanted - the oldschool itching

[Nedrah]

Hey,
after I got seriously into 8bit theatre last night I for some reason want to play some nice cliched archetypic crpg. Something along the lines of "Mage, priest, thief and fighter stroll across the lands to defeat greater evil and gain progressively phater l00t and skillz".

The thing is, despite all that I'd obviously still appreciate a decent, non-railed and somewhat choice-consequence'ish story/gameplay experience. Graphics are only important insofar as that I can't quite cope with pure ASCII representation of the world and game.

So, dear codex audience, what should I check out?

 

[FrancoTAU]

Play Dragon Wars. It's basically Bard's Tale 4 with a little story chucked in.

 

[LCJr.]

Spiderweb Software http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/ Try the demos for Nethergate, Exile's and Avernum's.

 

[Nedrah]

For some reason spiderweb doesn't do it for me.
I'll have a look at Dragon Wars, though, never heard of it before.

What about the ssi goldbox series, worth checking them out?

 

[LCJr.]

The only one I finished was Pool of Radiance and it was pretty much pure combat. Basically at anytime you had a choice of 3 missions/locations to go to and kill monsters or you could wander around and kill monsters. Some of the later ones are supposed to be better but even the Buck Rogers Goldbox were pretty limited by todays standards.

What have you already played that fits your criteria? Darklands, Ultimas, etc.?

There's an overabundance of new "old school" party based games. Just theres hardly any that are non-linear or have any kind real choice and consequences. Most are just dungeoncrawlers or JRPG clones.

Of course there's always this game http://www.reloaded.org/download/Final-Fallacy/273/

 

[FrancoTAU]

For some reason spiderweb doesn't do it for me.
I'll have a look at Dragon Wars, though, never heard of it before.

What about the ssi goldbox series, worth checking them out?

Most here seem to like them, but I never got into them. I'm pretty anti D&D CRPGs in general though, so I might be biased. The Gold box series are pretty much soul-less dungeon romps. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but to me when you add in the pen & paper D&D rules to a CRPG.... bleh.

I'd imagine that Dragon Wars would be on abandonware sites. It's from 1990 or so.

 

[NeVeRLiFt]

http://www.christoud.com/

All the games at this site can be downloaded and all of them are old school cRPG's.

Enjoy

 

[FrancoTAU]

Anyone ever play the Ishar Trilogy? How is it? What does it play like?

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Dark Sun? Haven't played it yet myself, but sounds pretty much like what you're after. Feel free to correct me.

 

[mirrorshades]

The thing is, despite all that I'd obviously still appreciate a decent, non-railed and somewhat choice-consequence'ish story/gameplay experience. Graphics are only important insofar as that I can't quite cope with pure ASCII representation of the world and game.

So, dear codex audience, what should I check out?

I liked Might & Magic 2 a lot -- one of the very few games I played through to completion the first time. Can't vouch entirely for the "choice & consequence" aspect entirely, but gameplay was fun and there was a lot to do in a non-linear way.

I particularly enjoyed the combat; it follows the usual "fighters in front, spellcasters in the back" but there is a character class called Archer that can use ranged weapons. There are also a lot of NPCs (somewhere around 25, I think) that can join your party to mix it up a bit.

Skills can be learned, there are some interesting puzzles/quests, and a pretty big game world. The end puzzle is annoying, but otherwise I'd recommend it.

 

[Elwro]

No, really: Avernum! If you didn't like it the first time try it again :D

 

[made]

Anyone ever play the Ishar Trilogy? How is it? What does it play like?

The main selling point of the Ishar trilogy was its graphics. The gameplay itself was pretty shallow, but offered solid adventuring through atmospheric dungeons and wilderness. It also featured an early form of "companion interaction" in that partymembers of different alignments wouldn't accept someone in the party or occasionally backstab one another during sleep.

 

[Nedrah]

[...]

What have you already played that fits your criteria? Darklands, Ultimas, etc.?

[...]

Of course there's always this game http://www.reloaded.org/download/Final-Fallacy/273/

Well, without being in any way a complete list, the games that I played that come to mind:

-The usual: Fallouts, Arcanum, Vampire: Bloodlines, Baldurs Gate 1+2 including expansions. Replayed each one of those several times. I liked the party aspect of the Bgs, but would have prefered them to offer a true turnbased mode for non-trivial battles.

-NWN (meh), NWN2 (meh2). They were kind of fun for a few hours.

-Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion(...). Loved the first one, was somewhat divided on Morrowind, n/c on oblivon, the horse is dead.

-Darklands. I didn't get into it, or better, i didn't get it when I tried this one a few years ago. I also forgot about it. Should I give it another try then? Some people here seem to consider it the pinacle of freeform gameplay.

-Ultima 7 (including si) and 8 as well as Lazarus (never finished it, actually). Loved them, but I'm not sure wether I'd be happy with the other, earlier ones.

-The gothics. Pure sex - 'nuff said.

-Wasteland. Cool game at the time, but a bit on the hard site for the kid I was when playing it.

-Some game I played on my C64 way before I actually got into crpgs for real. I *think* it might have actually been Death Knights of Krynn. I remember loving the game, being in terror of black horsies called nightmares, but I've got no idea how I'd like it today, since, again, I was a kid when the C64 was new and shiney.

-Vogel's games, Geneforge and Avernum. Got about a hour into each one, then decided I *really* disliked the game mechanics. I keep hearing great things about them, guess I should indeed give them another try. Everyone agrees that Avernum is better than geneforge - or is it more a matter of taste?

-The Dungeon Masters. They were really cool games, but actually I think they sated my hunger for pure Dungeon crawlers for life. In other words, I'm not interested in this kind of games any more.

- Might & Magic 4+5. Great games from the good old days, but again, I'm not interested in games where your party is a blob anymore. I'm a sucker for 2D isometric, though. However, I tested Wizardy 8 - to be instantly put off by the "party=blob" thing.
Do any of the later M&Ms have something special enough to possibly overcome my anti-blob attitude?


Well, yeah, guess that's about it - I propably forgot about a few "minor" ones.

So, with that information, any further recomendations?

 

[AZ]

Dungeons ans Dragons - Eye of the Beholder for gba? I used to play it whit an emulator as a coffe break game. First person dungeon exploring whit isometric turn based battle.

 

[JoKa]

have you played albion? i'd recommend playing that...

 

[LCJr.]

I'd give Spiderweb/Vogel and Darklands another shot.

Vogel's games are always too combat heavy but he is a pretty good writer, creative and does a good job with choice/consequence. I just wish he'd realize that and stop making sequel after sequel. Oh well, guess the business model works for him.

Geneforge is single character so you probably want to stick with Exile/Avernum/Nethergate if you give him another shot.

Darklands didn't hook me the first time I tried it either but later it did. Just keep in mind it's slow starting out while you beat up thugs for loot and skill building. Once you're tough enough to go outside of town it gets a lot better. There's several fanpages for it still up and alive which I think says a lot for a game made in 1992.

 

[Jasede]

Might & Magic 9, with fan-patch to 1.3. More old-school than you can shake a stick at, and it looks worse than Wizards & Warriors [an amazing feat if you consider the release date of M&M 9]. Still, I do not regret picking it up for 6$.

 

[Nedrah]

So what you're saying is it's oldschool, looks ugly and is one of the games that you'd only not be sorry for buying if you got it dirt cheap? Are there any positive points standing out?

I have for now settled for Betrayal at Krondor, Anvil of Dawn and Final Fallacy.
Haven't tried any of them, yet - still I'd imagine either one could keep me busy for some time if I manage to get over the UI and mechanics.

 

[serch]

Nedrah, give a try to DL. Seriously, pick the flash map from Underdogs and the manual and you'll be hooked sooner than later.

 

[LCJr.]

So what you're saying is it's oldschool, looks ugly and is one of the games that you'd only not be sorry for buying if you got it dirt cheap? Are there any positive points standing out?

I have for now settled for Betrayal at Krondor, Anvil of Dawn and Final Fallacy.
Haven't tried any of them, yet - still I'd imagine either one could keep me busy for some time if I manage to get over the UI and mechanics.

BAK is worth at least one playthrough. Be sure to read the manual and try to explore every square inch of the map. Now generally I don't give a rat's ass about graphics as long as it's not ASCI. But I will say the digitized graphics in BAK really put me off the first few times I tried it. They're just fugly.

If you decide to try Darklands you can get a lot of goodies here: http://www.darklands.net/index.shtml

 

[Nightjed]

Might & Magic 9, with fan-patch to 1.3. More old-school than you can shake a stick at, and it looks worse than Wizards & Warriors [an amazing feat if you consider the release date of M&M 9]. Still, I do not regret picking it up for 6$.

where did you get the patch and what does it do to make that pos something playable ?

 

[Nedrah]

If you decide to try Darklands you can get a lot of goodies here: http://www.darklands.net/index.shtml

I've already been sold on Darklands. Seems I've been missing out right there.
The only thing I'm still not sure about is wether I'm into my oldschool trip deeply enough to set up a real Dos-Box instead of using the windows app.

edit: oops, bad quoting.

 

[Jasede]

Might & Magic 9, with fan-patch to 1.3. More old-school than you can shake a stick at, and it looks worse than Wizards & Warriors [an amazing feat if you consider the release date of M&M 9]. Still, I do not regret picking it up for 6$.

where did you get the patch and what does it do to make that pos something playable ?

http://www.gamershell.com/news/7818.html

This should prevent ALL game-stopping bugs. The game was very playable last time I played, thought it's still only kind of... meh. But it's not horrible and it also is very old-schooly, no doubt. Apply the patch to 1.02 first, though.

 

[Nedrah]

[...]thought it's still only kind of... meh. But it's not horrible and it also is very old-schooly, no doubt.[...]

Right, that one won't even as much as touch my HDD.
"Kind of meh" was the general impression I got from my research on the game. Don't want my keen memories of 4+5 spoiled.

 

[WittyName]

The gold box games are indeed 99% combat but I enjoyed them just the same. I thought all of them had decent story lines.