Incline Elminage Gothic (former Japan only dungeon crawler)

[Dorarnae]

just wait til you get to Tbag tower. first few floor aren't too bad but late floor with belial and star gazer :S

 

[Covenant]

Well, I lost my savescumming cherry as far as this game goes. Trying to grind for Kiss of the Goddess traps in the Royal Tomb to de-age my Hotlet Thief and got teleported straight into stone by a mis-identified trap. I've spent hours upon hours in Wizardry clones (and the originals, obviously) building up alternate parties to go and rescue the battered corpses of my original party. And alternate alternate parties to rescue THOSE guys when they invariably fuck up. But teleporting into stone and irreversibly losing the party is my line in the sand (a position I seem to share with Dorarnae), so there we go.

Overall I'm quite enjoying Elminage Gothic so far. Though I have mixed feelings about the whole 'old-school' thing; it's great that it has actual difficulty and doesn't contain all the soy that seems to be infesting the western market currently, but I do wish the game had a somewhat more modern approach toward valuing the players' time. Bonus point rolls are outdated compared to point-buy systems, and Spirit Pact convertees gaining a random EX Skill seems poorly thought-out to me. Every forum post or wiki basically says 'Just save before using Spirit Pact and reload till you get the EX skill you want', which seems a tedious waste of time compared to just allowing the player to choose manually. I suppose it could be meant to add difficulty in some way, but with the way saving works (not even limiting you to just doing it in town ala Etrian Odyssey) that seems unlikely. I really doubt there are large swathes of Japanese players who aren't reloading when they get teleported into rock, for example.

I also agree with aweigh's (much) earlier comments about things like Identify being only on Bishops and Summoners practically necessitating a Brawler being mistakes. I'd go further than that and also suggest that Stealing should also be either a selectable Ex Skill or added on more classes.

 

[aweigh]

point buy is cancer

 

[Covenant]

point buy is cancer

How so? Point buy, when done correctly, requires you to make meaningful decisions about what strengths and weaknesses your character will have. Whether you succeed in a given situation where someone else's character may have failed is based on what you chose to prioritise. Whereas with rolling for bonus points, that dividing line isn't based on any kind of logic or strategy employed by the player but rather 'How much boring rerolling can I put up with before I just say "Meh, good enough"'.

I'll grant that point buy can be is mostly done shittily in recent games, but that's just the sad state of the industry at the moment, nothing to do with the system itself. They'll find a way to fuck up things we hadn't even thought possible in a year or two.

 

[Covenant]

Got to the late stages of postgame content before giving up on this. The game wasn't half bad in the early stages, but the flaws become more apparent the later you go. For a game that's built around its mechanics - specifically in terms of party building and combat - those mechanics are surprisingly poorly balanced. RNG reigns supreme. That's mitigated somewhat by the fact that you can save and reload anywhere if you choose, but at that point I have to ask why you're even playing a Wizardry style game in the first place. To me, at least, Wizardry will always be about the brutal slog of attrition, not I Wanna Be The Guy style 'attempt the challenge 20x in a row until I succeed' show jumps.

Itemisation is poor. For all that the game boasts having hundreds of different items, many of them are completely pointless. Some quite obviously; things like a Rock or a Cracked Breastplate or Old/Holey/Rotten Gloves, which I'm assuming pretty much just exist to punish Bishop-less parties by taking up their item slots. That's a logical, if dated and clumsy mechanic. Far worse is the huge amount of later drops that are outclassed in pretty much every significant way by common items that can be found earlier. The vast majority of drops could be summed up as trash, with the only variant being whether it's the 'This has a 5% confuse chance' flavour, the 'This has 20% poison resistance' flavour, or "You can use this in battle to cast a shitty spell that you can already cast with three other members of your team (but actually doing so would be dumb as fuck compared to just hitting the enemy with your sword)" flavour. The flavours are invariably things you're not going to give the slightest shit about, with rare, rare exceptions. Yes, I'm sure someone out there wanked themselves to frothing delight during their playthrough with 6 Mages all using the Magician's Staff, but I'm equally sure that that person has autism.

Combat is underwhelming later in the game. Enemy HP totals are often surprisingly low and instant kills abound (on both sides), so rather than defensive strategies most combats are the basic fare of trying to kill as many enemies as quickly as possible. This means that surprise rounds are extremely overwhelming, to the extent that a suitably-levelled party could easily be wiped before they have a chance to act. Even putting the RNG-factor aside, there's just not much tactical depth to combat. Offence is king, and overpowered spells like Miracle that allow the enemy to teleport you away (potentially into rock, which means irreversible party loss) or for you to revive and heal all party members mean that any nuance, any weighing of the benefits of healing X condition versus boosting your resistance against Y element is completely absent. You'll largely be doing the same things in each fight, and the lamentably rare times where you'll be casting Slay or Charm Row instead of Sleep just aren't enough to make up for the fact that when compared to its peers the game's combat just doesn't stack up.

Also, the quests and events largely fall flat. There are a few exceptions (the three consecutive Dragon fights in the Ice Caves was cool, as was the Great Tree boss), but they're very forgettable overall. This is compounded by the rewards being so underwhelming, or frequently non-existent. 'While you're exploring this dungeon, please find my daughter's necklace.' *Two hours later, step on a random tile, 'You find a necklace'. 'Thank you so much! Have an item that will be of no use to you whatsoever!'. Really, it's pretty poor. Keep in mind that this game was made twenty-five years after the Loon's machine puzzle in Wizardry V and twenty years after Lands of Lore and mixing potions for the Draracle. Is it so much to expect it to have some actual character to the narrative or environment, some quality that isn't so woefully generic?

It's not terrible by any means, just mediocre. There are plenty of good things about it that distract from the bad. Summoning and forging Spirit Pacts to turn monsters into adventurers is really exciting. I got lucky with a mini-boss called Ulgel who I managed to contract after about a dozen castings, despite him having 90% summon resistance and me having no brawler. He turned into a Dragonnewt Fighter with Dark Breath, 80% status recovery, something like 300 HP recovery per turn, 75-90% resistance to all the major statuses, and a strong weakness to water. That was great fun. Completely blew my existing fighter away. Sometimes nothing beats the feeling when that 1/256 chance occurs and you get some fancy OP shit. And the game's got plenty of that kind of stuff, whether it's a summon contract or finding an early Muramasa in the Volcano.

I had some fun with it, and some of the dungeons were pretty cool (dungeon design - in terms of theme at least - was on point in this game. Most dungeons felt like they had their own niche. Only a couple felt entirely superfluous, mainly the Rosslie Ruins and the Afum Zar Light Cave), but pretty much from the point I cleared the Igdra Underground Church things took a downward turn and I kept waiting for the game to pick back up again. It never really did.

I'd expected better after skimming the thread and seeing how much some people had praised this, but horses for courses I suppose. At least the Ancient Cave's gimmick was neat. I liked the music.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i still don't understand how you people can stand its interface.

 

[Dorarnae]

dunno about RNG, sure there is some but I think it's more about knowing what you should do against some monster. like one of the monster, the swallow killer skill is good. one way to deal with belial is probably to cast the alch spell so he targets your pet instead(if you have the right pet, one in particular is a pretty good tank), the arch angel requires you to lower their AC(unless you're really high level)....
the only group of monster that is insane are the star gazer, but other than that it's not too bad if you're at a good lvl, good party and know what you're doing. you can use the alch item to avoid fixed encounter for the last few floor, so even the star gazer aren't that much of a problem.

 

[Leitz]

Which should I start with: Elminage Original or Gothic? From what I've heard Gothic is a lot harder. Are there other differences? Elminage:Gothic is down to 1 buck on steam right now btw.

 

[Hrymr]

Which should I start with: Elminage Original or Gothic? From what I've heard Gothic is a lot harder. Are there other differences? Elminage:Gothic is down to 1 buck on steam right now btw.

Yes, there are many differences that make Elminage: Original easier (so it's better to start with this one). You get free automap from the very beginning, characters don't age after resurrection, items don't have have chance to break when used, you can exchange gold for exp at any moment, weapons have more accuracy, and generally it's easier to get low AC. There are way more differences - this is what I remember from the top of my head. I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will mention them.

 

[Eggs is eggs]

Original is way better but for $1, it might be worth picking up Gothic anyway.

 

[turkishronin]

Which should I start with: Elminage Original or Gothic? From what I've heard Gothic is a lot harder. Are there other differences? Elminage:Gothic is down to 1 buck on steam right now btw.

Elminage Original has slightly better interface, much better translation, actual mini-maps(inb4 muh popamole) and overall the graphics are better looking.

 

[Haplo]

But Gothic has much more enemy variety and challenge.

 

[Matador]

Gothic is better. The dungeon design after the mediocre first one is great and varied. Like a master class and Encyclopedia of blobber dungeons. I only missed intelligent shortcuts, but they balanced the design around the party having the teleport spell, that's the only issue.

The progression is much better, because in Original you could explore different dungeons from the beginning in the order you wanted, so the challenge was not as finely tuned. Here you usually have 2-3 dungeons to explore, one being the main quest, and the others, optional ones.

The amount of content is crazy. Only the post game has 3 huge dungeons (I have yet to complete last two), the last one, Ibag Tower, is 20 floors height, which for many hardcore players is not only the peak of the game, but probably of the Wizardry genre. The ultimate challenge to test you Demi God party.

The semi-random encounter design is the best on the genre. You will be forced to be creative and use all your tools to win the fights. The enemies, specially, how their groups are formed, are very dangerous, but also are you with all your overpowered spells, nasty tricks and useful skills. There is always a way to make the fuckers your bitches no matter how broken they seem.

If you want unlimited mini-map usage just follow the instructions here.

http://elminage-gothic.wikia.com/wiki/Game_Mods

 

[Max Damage]

Is there a compendium/detailed wiki on this game? There are many things I need to clarify that aren't explained in game or on internet.

 

[Haplo]

Sure:
http://elminage-gothic.wikia.com/wiki/Elminage_Gothic_Wiki

There are also the japanese wikis, that can be translated for some reference data.

 

[Max Damage]

Tried it, it's useless. No info on Incr. Recovery Rate %, or what is Recovery Rate in first place.

 

[moraes]

IIRC it's the chance a character has of recovering from a status effect each round. I don't know if it's a flat chance or a modifier, and if it is a modifier I don't know if additive or multiplicative.

 

[Biggus]

Is there a compendium/detailed wiki on this game? There are many things I need to clarify that aren't explained in game or on internet.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/291960

This has spoilers in it, but it is easily the most comprehensive guide that is all in one place. There is very little that it won't answer. Gothic is the best game ever. Also the hardest game ever

 

[Biggus]

Which should I start with: Elminage Original or Gothic? From what I've heard Gothic is a lot harder. Are there other differences? Elminage:Gothic is down to 1 buck on steam right now btw.

Start with original. Gothic is MUCH harder, make that MUCH MUCH harder. Differences... original is easier Original has no ex (aka 'additional' traits) skills and in general it is a lot more forgiving. Gothic is that hard that unless you understand how and when to multiclass, how alchemy works, which things to boost and which you can ignore, it might turn you off what is a truly brilliant game. Oh, original has a mini map and an unlimited automap too. Gothic's 1 map = 1 use is a pain in the butt, though easily fixed Original only has one save slot, though this is also easy to work around. Gothic has 100 (or maybe 99, I forget) What else... umm oh yeah, the key config in original doesn't work, and the default keys are pretty annoying (for me anyway) but what you can do is to config the keys in Gothic, and manually edit the ini files to effectively import your keys into Original. By keys, I mean keyboard. If you use a controller, this is moot, since the config program works fine for them. The mobs in Gothic are slightly better, more varied, more bizarre, more colourful, though there is a fair bit of overlap. They also kill you a lot faster. You will die a LOT in Gothic I hardly ever died in Original.

Bottom line is mainly the difficulty, and thus less brutal learning curve. I played Gothic first, and finished it (well, I killed Nordetanit, which is only semi-finishing it I guess) but if I had my time again, I would definitely have done Original first.

 

[Haplo]

Original: a storyline and quests you can somewhat follow with NPCs, dialogues. Location maps are somewhat realistic/more or less possible IRL. And fairly easy to "solve". Early access to almost ALL base locations. And their difficulty level has a very low growth curve (like 15 maps with similar difficulty). Once you tackle a few maps, levelling quickly outpaces all base content, barring end game - although possibly that also. And post game, of course - that's an entirely different story. Stealing from certain enemies is very much worth it, even fairly early.
Enemies, while highly mixed in species, are a little repetetive trough most of the game. Perhaps more importantly, their properties are all mostly similar (strenghts and weaknesses).

That's the biggest advantage of Gothic for me: Enemies are mostly unique to locations AND, more importantly, have highly mixed stats, with huge strenghts and major weaknesses that can be exploited.
Otherwise the quests are mostly just a list of side little stuff you may solve while exploring locations. There is no story to speak of. Loactions are pretty much all MAZES, usually not possible IRL. Which sometimes honestly don't even look too good - like the very first caverns with tons of doors...
But there is a clear progression of difficulty between the mazes. And many of them are not exactly easy to navigate/solve.

 

[Ysaye]

*Sign* will we ever get Elminage 2 or 3 in English?

 

[muckguppy]

Almost certainly I'd say. 2019 will be the year of the port.

 

[turkishronin]

usually not possible IRL

What do you mean by that? I'm sure as hell dungeons with magical demons all over are not very common irl

 

[Haplo]

Well, that was perhaps an unfortunate expression. But the location layouts in Original resemble somewhat realistic landscape/architecture, that while unlikely, would be possible to build/arrange, while in Gothic those are purely abstract mazes, constructed only to confuse the explorer.

 

[Max Damage]

Biggus cheers. Also, oh my