Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Blobber Recs

Joined
Feb 28, 2011
Messages
4,099
Location
Chicago, IL, Kwa
MMX is pretty divisive. People tend to love it or hate it, I love it.
MM3-5 are some of the greatest blobbers ever. If you’re looking for something shorter just play 3. WoX is massive.
Grimrock 2 is great. Clear improvement over 1 in every way.
Wiz6-8 are also top tier, but 8 is quite large and 7 is probably the largest blobber ever made. 6 is fairly small though.
Xulima is quite good too, although it’s not a “true” blobber, and it overstays its welcome.
The Dark Spire is great.
Etrian Odysseys are pretty good if you enjoy the Japanese style of blobber, otherwise they get very grindy.
Sword and Sorcery Underworld is awesome and fairly short.
Paper Sorcerer is fairly mediocre except for its art, which is terrific.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,083
Location
Bulgaria
MM are the best blobbers for sure,clear evolution of the genre,shame that they died because the parent company was bleeding trough its ars and dragged NWC. :negative:
 
Joined
Feb 28, 2011
Messages
4,099
Location
Chicago, IL, Kwa
Wiz6-8 are also top tier, but 8 is quite large and 7 is probably the largest blobber ever made.

Grimwah is bigger.
And Fate: Gates of Dawn bigger still.

I know Cleve has long claimed Grimoire dwarfs Wiz7, but despite having purchased it at launch I still have not played Grimoire, and you must forgive me for not taking Cleve's word for it. Fate: Gates of Dawn is a new one to me. Not sure how I would have missed it. Is it good?
 

Lady_Error

█▓▒░ ░▒▓█
Patron
Joined
Oct 14, 2012
Messages
1,879,250
I know Cleve has long claimed Grimoire dwarfs Wiz7, but despite having purchased it at launch I still have not played Grimoire, and you must forgive me for not taking Cleve's word for it.

There are people who actually finished both Wizardry 7 and Grimoire. Crazy, I know.
 
Joined
Feb 28, 2011
Messages
4,099
Location
Chicago, IL, Kwa
I know Cleve has long claimed Grimoire dwarfs Wiz7, but despite having purchased it at launch I still have not played Grimoire, and you must forgive me for not taking Cleve's word for it.

There are people who actually finished both Wizardry 7 and Grimoire. Crazy, I know.

*Shrug*
Like I said I bought Grimoire on Day 1, but the consensus seemed to be that it was a buggy, poorly documented mess so I decided to wait for some post-release support. By the time the game got to an apparently playable state I had a newborn and absolutely no time to commit to a massive game. I've followed the game's reception enough to have an impression that the game is pretty great, but that Cleve was being wildly inaccurate when he boasted of it's playtime being 600 hours. I've also been on these forums long enough that I don't really doubt it when people say that Cleve's statements are... aspirational.

That said, if you're saying Grimoire is indeed bigger than Wiz7, I don't really have any reason to disbelieve you, but I'm also not sure of the relevancy of that considering the OP explicitly asked for shorter blobbers.
 

Lady_Error

█▓▒░ ░▒▓█
Patron
Joined
Oct 14, 2012
Messages
1,879,250
but I'm also not sure of the relevancy of that considering the OP explicitly asked for shorter blobbers

The relevancy is that you claimed this:

“Wiz6-8 are also top tier, but 8 is quite large and 7 is probably the largest blobber ever made.“

The game world in Grimoire is definitely larger.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
Wiz6-8 are also top tier, but 8 is quite large and 7 is probably the largest blobber ever made.

Grimwah is bigger.
And Fate: Gates of Dawn bigger still.

I know Cleve has long claimed Grimoire dwarfs Wiz7, but despite having purchased it at launch I still have not played Grimoire, and you must forgive me for not taking Cleve's word for it. Fate: Gates of Dawn is a new one to me. Not sure how I would have missed it. Is it good?
Well, howlongtobeat puts Wiz7 at 70 to 110 hours, Grimoire at 140 hours (but only based on one record), and Felipe's review said he beat it in 80 - so I guess it's slightly bigger than Wiz7.
Fate, going by CRPGAddict's records, clocks at a whooping 272 hours - but that's probably because he insisted on mapping the whole worldmap, so I guess this number can be knocked down by 50 hours or so. Fate really is the Daggerfall of blobbers. Here's a useful comparison of Fate's world map to those of the first 5 Might&Magic games:
DFZm4La.png
Wiz7 isn't on this scheme, but by my calculations it's approximately 7 times smaller than Fate (200x200 tiles vs 650x400 tiles) - but that's not taking into account that in Fate cities and dungeons have their own maps.

As for how good it is - I guess by this time you've probably guessed that it's too big for its own good. I has some nice and innovative mechanics for both combat and out of combat situations, but they just can't support the size of the game and get stale and repetitive roughly halfway through.
 

Lady_Error

█▓▒░ ░▒▓█
Patron
Joined
Oct 14, 2012
Messages
1,879,250
Wiz7 isn't on this scheme, but by my calculations it's approximately 7 times smaller than Fate (200x200 tiles vs 650x400 tiles) - but that's not taking into account that in Fate cities and dungeons have their own maps.

Wizardry 7 and Grimoire have that as well of course. My estimate is that a Wiz7 speedrun can be done in half the time of Grimoire - but in both cases that means missing much of the content. So finishing time only makes sense when comparing semi-completionist runs.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
Wizardry 7 and Grimoire have that as well of course.
What I mean is in Wiz7, cities exist at the same scale as the world map and are part of it, like in Ultima 6-7 for example. Fate follows early Ultimas convention, where each city is represented by a single tile on the world map, but leads to a map of its own of up to 60x60 tiles. Dungeons do exist off the world map in both games, but in Fate they're also bigger, with individual levels having up to 60x60 tiles as well.
 
Self-Ejected

TheDiceMustRoll

Game Analist
Joined
Apr 18, 2016
Messages
761
I won!

Not a bad little game. There's a bunch of stuff I left unfinished, like having the magic door opener now, I'm gonna dive back in and get that. Final boss was pretty easy, honest. I didn't kill the black dragon, but overall, I really enjoyed this. It was short and sweet (9 hours) but maybe a bit too easy. Onto vaporum and Starcrawlers!


Edit: Took another hour and took 100%. Black Dragon went down easy after a few levels!

KE04Sl5.png
 
Last edited:
Self-Ejected

TheDiceMustRoll

Game Analist
Joined
Apr 18, 2016
Messages
761
I am not enjoying Vaporum: Lockdown. What's with these puzzles? And the traps are so "haha got you" and usually that means a five minute trek back to where I was....make it stop
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
Patron
Joined
Apr 30, 2020
Messages
3,292
Location
Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
I am not enjoying Vaporum: Lockdown. What's with these puzzles? And the traps are so "haha got you" and usually that means a five minute trek back to where I was....make it stop

Vaporum is pretty shit in general. If you want to play real time blobbers play good ones like Grimrock and Eye of the Beholder. I have not played Dungeon master yet but by how much Zed Duke of Banville shills for it it is probably good aswell.

Vaporum somehow feels even more dependant on dancing around enemies than Grimrock/Beholder while damage from traps and slip ups can be so debilitating that it forces loads/long detours all the time. One hell of an annoying game and not even remotely tactical.
I hoped Lockdown would be better but that really sounds like more of the same.
 
Self-Ejected

TheDiceMustRoll

Game Analist
Joined
Apr 18, 2016
Messages
761
I am not enjoying Vaporum: Lockdown. What's with these puzzles? And the traps are so "haha got you" and usually that means a five minute trek back to where I was....make it stop

Vaporum is pretty shit in general. If you want to play real time blobbers play good ones like Grimrock and Eye of the Beholder. I have not played Dungeon master yet but by how much Zed Duke of Banville shills for it it is probably good aswell.

Vaporum somehow feels even more dependant on dancing around enemies than Grimrock/Beholder while damage from traps and slip ups can be so debilitating that it forces loads/long detours all the time. One hell of an annoying game and not even remotely tactical.
I hoped Lockdown would be better but that really sounds like more of the same.

It's literally just dancing around enemies. The traps instakill you and there's way too many puzzles. I don't mind puzzle, but...
 

Strange Fellow

Peculiar
Patron
Joined
Jun 21, 2018
Messages
4,013
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
If you don't like puzzles, stay away from real-time crawlers, because there's nothing else for you there. Re: Vaporum, I actually thought it was fairly tactical, certainly as far as RT blobbers go. I did end up dropping it because it got too predictable with its monster-arenas and box-pushing, but the combat itself was alright.
 

sebas

Scholar
Patron
Joined
Dec 20, 2015
Messages
282
Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut
Vaporum is pretty much a disco dance in terms of combat with some stats that don't really do much. You need to avoid getting hit anyway. The end fight is fun, so it's got that going for it at least. I found the puzzles very annoying and just waltzed them using a guide. I mean, the library or the teleporters are straight up bullshit.

Oh and if you're gonna M&M it, try this with it: https://www.eskimo.com/~edv/lockscroll/WhereAreWe/

Otherwise I just wanna give a nudge to Lords of Xulima as well. Yes it overstays it's welcome (by about two princes) but it's really well made otherwise.
 

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
Onto vaporum and Starcrawlers!

So, you don't enjoy vaporum and you enjoy Amberland, meaning you have a good taste, i doubt you'll enjoy starcrawlers, it looks fine at first but the retarded exploration; camera movement isn't locked and you can look everywhere but there's nothing but trash to find, it's extremely painful; and the bad dungeon design add up real quick, and when you add little to no enemy diversity, you've got yourself a game better bought on 90% discount if you really have to play it.

Wizardry 8 with fastanim and wizfast should be your next stop, you can even add a 2x speed with cheat engine if necessary, never tried but some codexers say it works.

Aside from the combat speed, it's by far the best blobber (or is it the best cRPG?) ever created.
It's a one way ticket though, once you've experience its masterfull character creation and its greatness in all aspects, you'll see other games with a different perspective...
 

Lady_Error

█▓▒░ ░▒▓█
Patron
Joined
Oct 14, 2012
Messages
1,879,250
Turn-based blobbers >>> real-time blobbers.

The best real-time blobbers are Eye of the Beholder 1 and 2, Grimrock 2, Lands of Lore and Dungeon Master. None of them really require dancing around like in Grimrock 1 or Vaporum.

An almost complete list of turn-based blobbers and a vote on the best ones from last year:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...-based-blobbers-of-all-time-non-anime.129064/

Same for real-time blobbers:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/codex-vote-best-real-time-blobbers-of-all-time-non-anime.129091/

And tactical combat blobber-hybrids:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/codex-vote-best-tactical-combat-blobbers-of-all-time.129420/
 
Self-Ejected

TheDiceMustRoll

Game Analist
Joined
Apr 18, 2016
Messages
761
Turn-based blobbers >>> real-time blobbers.

The best real-time blobbers are Eye of the Beholder 1 and 2, Grimrock 2, Lands of Lore and Dungeon Master. None of them really require dancing around like in Grimrock 1 or Vaporum.

An almost complete list of turn-based blobbers and a vote on the best ones from last year:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...-based-blobbers-of-all-time-non-anime.129064/

Same for real-time blobbers:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/codex-vote-best-real-time-blobbers-of-all-time-non-anime.129091/

And tactical combat blobber-hybrids:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/codex-vote-best-tactical-combat-blobbers-of-all-time.129420/

Thank you! I'm gonna push through V:L because a friend bought it for me, but fuck this game
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom