Good explorefag games

[Abu Antar]

Lots of good suggestions. If not isometric or top down, I'll go with:

Mine would be Ho Tu Lo Shu. At times, a technical mess, and it can only be played with a questionable fan translation.
YET, the exploration is much fun, on top of fun combat, and good character customization. Someone (on here?) once said that the game is basically Gothic style in its exploration. You'll find lots of secrets, and encounters. You can freely explore the world, and not care about fall damage.

Salt and Sanctuary is a lot of fun. So much fun that I jumped atthe chance to review it for the CRPGBook. Metroidvania x Soulslike. There are many secret nooks and crannies to explore, and many secrets to find.

I'll stick to three, so my last choice will be Grimoire : Heralds of the Winged Exemplar (V2). Exploring in this game was a lot of fun. The world is big, and there are many different biomes to see.

For the future, I hope Archaelund, and Mystic Land: The Search for Maphaldo can deliver.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Then they released the Etrian Odyssey series, which I haven't played, but is fully just about grid exploration:

These are best on the DS/3DS. They were made around the dual screen features of the DS/3DS. I'm not sure what they did with the PC releases, but I would have to assume that the auto-mapping is the default and you just place the icons on it?

I can wholeheartedly recommend Strange Journey Redux as well. The best dungeon crawler with the best map exploration out there.

Most people tend to favor the Nintendo DS one as opposed to the 3DS one, which is the Redux one. Apparently they altered several story elements in the redux one that the fans of the original didn't like much at all.

 

[d1r]

Then they released the Etrian Odyssey series, which I haven't played, but is fully just about grid exploration:

These are best on the DS/3DS. They were made around the dual screen features of the DS/3DS. I'm not sure what they did with the PC releases, but I would have to assume that the auto-mapping is the default and you just place the icons on it?

I can wholeheartedly recommend Strange Journey Redux as well. The best dungeon crawler with the best map exploration out there.

Most people tend to favor the Nintendo DS one as opposed to the 3DS one, which is the Redux one. Apparently they altered several story elements in the redux one that the fans of the original didn't like much at all.

Story doesn't change unless you dive deep into the Redux content. Besides that, some of the Redux endings are much better than the original ones. And of course he was talking about exploring here, and not story.

 

[Miner 2049er]

Shin Megami Tensei V (Vengeance), if JRPGs are considered.

Did they expand the exploration aspect somehow in Vengeance? Vanilla V had one of the most uninspired and soulless open worlds out there.

SMT V has no open world. It is linear. One area after another. Large sections don't mean open world, right ?
Personally I don't think it's uninspired or soulless. If you explore thoroughly, you'll always find something substantial like Miasamas, boss encounters, shrines, quest giver, abscesses to conquer and new demons to recruit. What are you missing ? Settlements ?

 

[Tihskael]

I will get flak for this, but I love spending time in Assassins Creed worlds. Constantinople in Revelations, Paris in Unity, Greece in Odyssey have all been a pleasure to roam around in. The climbing gives the world verticality too, so it is not conventional in that sense. Looking at the Pyramids from the ground and climbing to the top, soaking in the desert around you are two different experiences. Very video gamey, very cool.

 

[ghostdog]

Have Wizardry 7 & 8 been mentioned? They provide a huge deal of exploration, although combat is the main focus.

I will get flak for this, but I love spending time in Assassins Creed worlds. Constantinople in Revelations, Paris in Unity, Greece in Odyssey have all been a pleasure to roam around in. The climbing gives the world verticality too, so it is not conventional in that sense. Looking at the Pyramids from the ground and climbing to the top, soaking in the desert around you are two different experiences. Very video gamey, very cool.

I won't give you flak. For me also, AssCreed is only good to be played as a historical tourist simulator. But sightseeing isn't exactly exploration, you never discover anything of interest in AssCreed apart from some crappy collectibles.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I'd suggest Crystal Project if you can get over the graphics. The world is massive, detailed, and rewarding. Basically no story to speak of, just all freeform exploration, looting and crafting your party into some sort of cheesy monstrosity. I gushed about it on the forums in a couple other places. Recommend playing on hard difficulty with default settings otherwise.

Looks interesting. How's combat ?

Fantastic, once you get past the early game. The interface is standard jrpg fare, but it has 2 factors that change everything. The first is the creativity of the skillset. You don't get a bunch of lame elementally flavoured damage spells. You get shit like a spell that increases the duration of all other debuffs, rogues get abilities that can only be inflicted while their threat is low, so despite costing no resources, they have powerful damage and debuff abilities and you have to prioritize which you'll use. Clerics get a spell that prevents all fire damage from being dealt in the battle for either side for 3 turns, but there's no equivalent spells for other elements. You get stances, combo finishers, and will often initially think a skill is garbage only to later find some synergy that makes it incredible due to it's strange mechanics.

The other factor that makes the combat for me is the transparency. Enemies telegraph their intentions each round (Sometimes with a bit of vagueness, but you can generally figure them out) and you can read a list of their abilities that tell you very specifically what to expect. It makes the combat less random and turns it into something like a game of chess, where you win by thinking several moves ahead and orchestrating a detailed plan that causes your opponent's most dangerous moves to be foiled by having the right buffs or debuffs in place at the right time, or setting up your own ultimate attack, with a bunch of short duration buffs lining up with a vulnerable window on the enemy. Feels awesome pulling that shit off. Spells are generally expensive too, so the old standby of just spamming healing and using basic attacks won't fly unless you're overlevelled or fighting one of the first few bosses.

 

[frajaq]

People will hate these but: unironically Genshin Impact (and that other GI clone like Wuthering Waves)

Also Guild Wars 2

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

No Rest For the Wicked could be described as isometric Dark Souls/Elden Ring. I've only played couple of hours, as it's still early access and thus unbalanced mess. The exploration however is amazing even now. Verticality is greatly used, you have some good moves and can swim, there's plenty of hidden places. It's made by the same folks as Ori games, and exploration in those games felt amazing.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Ultima IV and Underworld perfectly scratch all my explorationfag itches, way more than any other RPG, including Ultima VI and VII.

Also, Expeditions: Conquistador.

If you don't mind playing non-RPGs, you should play some NES classics like The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Solstice, Legacy of the Wizard, and Lizard.

 

[ferratilis]

Three pages in, and no mention of Enderal, but Skyrim was mentioned twice. And even Assassins Creed. Fucking decline enablers.

But nothing comes close to Gothic 1/2 and Elex imo.

 

[Deadyawn]

Since I've seen some non-RPGs being recommended, I'd like to take this opportunity to shill Northern Journey.

It's a fairly linear affair, but if you like exploration, DO NOT sleep on this gem.

 

[luj1]

Storyfags have been served a lot of games for two decades now, and in recent times combatfags have also gotten quite a lot of stuff to play with.
But what about us explorefags? The guys who just wanna explore a cool world, discover cool secrets, and fill in empty spots on their map?

I'm all about that exploration, so let's make a thread on explorefag RPGs. Please list any I've forgotten.

The Might & Magics: great stuff, there's always a lot to discover, dungeons to crawl through, skill trainers you have to find, permanent stat boosts, lots of stuff. My favorites are World of Xeen, 6, and 7.

Morrowind: my absolute favorite explorefag game, especially with Tamiel Rebuilt; there's just so much to discover here, cool lore you can learn from books or interacting with factions, unique items hidden in dungeons, spells like levitation that let you explore vertically, a big open world with tons of dungeons and villages and other places; the equipment system with so many different armor pieces and being able to wear clothes and armor together makes exploration even more rewarding because there's so many different equipment pieces that can be combined together

Piranha Bytes games: everything from Gothic to Elex, their games are a joy to explore, lots of cool side quests, factions to choose between, and a genuinely dangerous world filled with content

Deus Ex: more immersive sim than RPG, Deus Ex features huge levels you can approach in any way you want, and there's always little secrets hidden away in them, excellent explorefag game

Thief: not an RPG, but same imsim design principles of Deus Ex; especially Thief fan missions tend to offer huge levels to explore, often with optional objectives and a ton of loot to pocket

FromSoftware games: be it Dark Souls or Elden Ring, their games thrive on exploration; interconnected worlds with secret areas and even entirely optional regions you can miss, worthwhile rewards when you discover secret areas, no handholding

This thread is probably more about first and third person RPGs than isometric ones, although I quite enjoyed the overworld exploration in Arcanum and the towns usually had interesting stuff to discover. Most isometric RPGs have maps with constrained dimensions though, so you know exactly where the edge of the map is and "exploring" just consists of lifting all the fog of war. That's anti-explorefag because there's no surprises. Arcanum is better in that regard because it has a seamless world where sometimes you can find cool things by walking outside the city limits (and there's at least one secret you can find that way). Baldur's Gate, Pathfinder, etc don't qualify because of that.

Any new stuff that caters to the exploration gamer?

Stalker
Outcast
Brigand

 

[Louis_Cypher]

Some thoughts on exploration.

Some people, when playing an open world game like Ghost of Tsushima, or an ARPG like Diablo, or even an RTS like Age of Empires, like to "fill out all the edges" of a map. Completely eliminate the fog of war. That is one kind of compulsive exploration, but it isn't, I think, what we mean here by exploration, even though it certainly can count as a nice pastime. It's more driven by compulsion, when there isn't really much of a reward for getting the last tile over in some corner of the sea.

Rather the exploration we are talking about here, is one where you open routes, fill out rooms, purge dungeons, sometimes in a non-linear way, remember doors that you couldn't open earlier, feel clever using a new ability to get somewhere, open up previously locked areas, maybe get rewarded for strange approaches, get rewarded for thoroughness, become poweful, find valuable optional items that are not just trash, find permenant upgrades to health or ammo, or secret weapons, or even sometimes hidden lore, and above all feel that you are uncovering something worthwhile. Sometimes they are gentler than action games, giving you time to explore at leisure, and exploration can be the main way of defeating the game, rather than physical skill; it allows you to become OP. RPG dungeon crawling is theoretically an experience like this, but Metroidvania games like Super Metroid distill the experience to a fine art, games like System Shock 1 too, games with good level design like Tomb Raider 1, and early "survival horror" games like Resident Evil 1 or Dino Crisis 1 are also fantastic. Among RPGs, grid dungeon crawlers like Legend of Grimrock 1, I think, do this best. In a good grid dungeon crawler, you want to see every square filled out:

As someone pointed out before on the Codex, one of the fundamental "Ur-Genres" of gaming, is the 'adventure game'. The adventure game is fundamentally this:

It's incredibly satisfying. It is, at it's core, exploring a room, to find a key, to progress to another room, containing another puzzle or key. It is one of the most addictive cycles in gaming, but is rarely talked about, because it is so ubiqitous. It is an art, when done well. I think as you get more mature as a gamer, you maybe even realise that this is way more enjoyable than the physical action (or maybe not and I'm just a natural explorefag). The Ur-Genre called 'action game' by constrast, is physical challenges such as combat. Something like Street Fighter is all action with no adventure component. Most games are 'action adventure' incorporating the two.

Even boomer shooters like Doom, or Quake has a fair bit of this feel, at least the first time you play. I think part of the appeal psychologically might be to carve out a habitable order from evil, cleaning the area of corruption. Perhaps better if enemies don't come back, for that reason, and you feel you have "cleaned" the area. Even if there are no enemies, you are essentially bringing chaos to light.

So looking at some of the games mentioned here, that give a really satisfying feeling of exploring, like Deus Ex, Morrowind, Thief, Metroid, Legend of Grimrock, Dark Souls, King's Field, SMT: Strange Journey or early Resident Evil, the kind of exploration we are talking about is mainly "unlocking every room" in adventure fashion, feeling that you have perhaps also metaphysically purified every space by uncovering it. It's not quite the same thing as collecting every collectable and eliminating the fog of war in an open world map.

Some Metroidvania games, or isolated boomer shooters like Dark Forces, can feel like better dungeon crawlers than many RPGs. Some goes for how we previous noted that 'boomer shooters' are sometimes better at evoking the feel of dark fantasy than the actual RPG genre.

Maybe what I'm saying is obvious to many here, but not everyone.

 

[Rincewind]

Completely eliminate the fog of war. That is one kind of compulsive exploration,

Wait! Can you... not do that?

 

[lukaszek]

Wait! Can you... not do that?

yes, by making it extremely tedious for the player. Think of quest journal entries in spider gaymz. Eventually you will question whether you truly need to clear that optional quest forcing you to backtrack few times in areas where enemies respawn each time.

 

[Rincewind]

Wait! Can you... not do that?

yes, by making it extremely tedious for the player. Think of quest journal entries in spider gaymz. Eventually you will question whether you truly need to clear that optional quest forcing you to backtrack few times in areas where enemies respawn each time.

Yeah, I get that. I was implying I personally find it hard to resist the urge.

Just like *not* straightening picture frames in people's homes when they're not looking if they're just *slightly* a few degrees off from being perfectly parallel with the walls...

Takes a lot of effort for me not to do that

 

[Louis_Cypher]

Yeah, I get that. I was implying I personally find it hard to resist the urge.

I would imagine a lot of people on the Codex are the 'sort' of person who does this. Was talking to someone at work, who is a major gamer, and he mentioned he can't resist it. Probably a bit of an autist thing.

 

[lukaszek]

Just like *not* straightening picture frames in people's homes when they're not looking if they're just *slightly* a few degrees off from being perfectly parallel with the walls...

im more of chaotic neutral kind of guy

 

[Rincewind]

Yeah, I get that. I was implying I personally find it hard to resist the urge.

I would imagine a lot of people on the Codex are the 'sort' of person who does this. Was talking to someone at work, who is a major gamer, and he mentioned he can't resist it. Probably a bit of an autist thing.

Yeah, it's a personality thing. I'm definitely not autist, far from it, but have obsessive tendencies. I've come to the realisation a while ago that doing quality work and being obsessive are inseparable, and I'm definitely very quality focused.

So yeah, most good programmers, for instance, have a mild to moderate OCD at the very least.

If you can't casually spot typos and missing commas just by skimming through a big block of text, I don't wanna work with you

 

[Baron Tahn]

If not going for RPGs then Outer Wilds is one of the best I've played.

 

[JarlFrank]

Just like *not* straightening picture frames in people's homes when they're not looking if they're just *slightly* a few degrees off from being perfectly parallel with the walls...

 

[Agesilaus]

Ultima IV and Underworld perfectly scratch all my explorationfag itches, way more than any other RPG, including Ultima VI and VII.

Also, Expeditions: Conquistador.

If you don't mind playing non-RPGs, you should play some NES classics like The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Solstice, Legacy of the Wizard, and Lizard.

How did IV scratch the itch better than VI or VII? I just watched a playthrough and the amount of grinding and tedium, and the overall game being basically an attempt to imitate Lei Feng... It's unique and interesting but I don't know if I'd call it enjoyable or particularly worth exploring. I'm going to revisit V next, but I think VI and VII are just so much richer and more detailed, everything is at another level. You can't even have a real conversation prior to VI tbh.

 

[Rincewind]

Just like *not* straightening picture frames in people's homes when they're not looking if they're just *slightly* a few degrees off from being perfectly parallel with the walls...

That's an artist's interpretation of me wanting to fix *just one small thing* in the DOSBox codebase...

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Ultima IV and Underworld perfectly scratch all my explorationfag itches, way more than any other RPG, including Ultima VI and VII.

Also, Expeditions: Conquistador.

If you don't mind playing non-RPGs, you should play some NES classics like The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Solstice, Legacy of the Wizard, and Lizard.

How did IV scratch the itch better than VI or VII? I just watched a playthrough and the amount of grinding and tedium, and the overall game being basically an attempt to imitate Lei Feng... It's unique and interesting but I don't know if I'd call it enjoyable or particularly worth exploring. I'm going to revisit V next, but I think VI and VII are just so much richer and more detailed, everything is at another level. You can't even have a real conversation prior to VI tbh.

Ultima IV is an overall better designed game, it has easily the best quest structure and non-linear gameplay, it's faster and its abstract presentation doesn't waste your time with needlessly simulationistic systems (inventory management, day-night cycles), and it has also the better and most immersive dialogue system (that is, if you're not a storyfag), which is a perfect fit for its scavenge hunt gameplay. Unfortunately though its combat is truly awful, but you can easily avoid most overworld encounters by merely riding horses and casting the blink spell.

Unlike its predecessor, Ultima V is a solid game with no major flaws, but exploration suffers due to its inferior quest and level design, and because it plays slower. Ultima VI and VII on the other hand were obvious decline, they haven't aged as gracefully, and they're clearly inferior to latter explorationfag games like Morrowind and Gothic.