Oldest CRPG you can still tolerate playing

[Deleted member 7219]

I think the oldest I can play is Baldurs Gate, but even then I didn't really enjoy the game as much as I think I might have had I played it when it was first released. I think the same with Planescape Torment and Arcanum. I'd have loved them if I had got them at the time they came out, when their graphics and gameplay were considered top notch.

I just realised Fallout is older than Baldurs Gate, and I really enjoyed that game. I think Fallout was way ahead of its time, you could easily slap better graphics onto it and pretend it was a game from 2001.

I don't have an adversity to old games though, my two favourite games are both '90s (TIE Fighter CD in 1995, Jedi Knight in 1997).

But I think RPGs do get better as time goes on, as gameplay and quests and characters are refined and get more variety, choices and depth.

 

[Haraldur]

As wih Jasede I find no graphics at all now to be easier to get into than hugely outdated 'bad' graphics. I find Nethack, Rogue, Angband etc. much easier to get into than Red Baron or Railroad Tycoon, despite the fact that the latter two have excellent gameplay as well. Perhaps it is because the 'graphics' of the roguelikes have improved to to higher resolutions and smoother looking fonts?

 

[Shannow]

I just remembered a game I had on the Atari ST: Bloodwych.
I couldn't save the games so I always just got 4-6 hours into the game (which I did nearly 20 times )
It was similar to Dungeon Master but hat NPC interaction and was concepted for two players. The sequal was Hexx, which I think I played at least a demo of.
So I had a look and it is still out there I downloaded Bloodwych and Hexx and I'll see if I can getthem to work

http://bloodwych.classicgaming.gamespy.com/
http://bloodwych.pspuae.com/

Graphics might be outdated but I prefer them to bloomoverkill as in ME for example...

 

[Elwro]

I downloaded Bloodwych and Hexx and I'll see if I can getthem to work

Be sure to get the PC patch, the game's unfinishable without it!

(in case you missed it, http://bloodwych.classicgaming.gamespy. ... /wbfix.zip )

 

[Mefi]

Bloodwych 2 player is evil - me and my brother played it as a deathmatch until we realised we were meant to actually cooperate at some points. Oops. Save game corruption was a real problem too.

 

[Ladonna]

Does anyone know if they ported the Bloodwych data disk? I had that on the Amiga.

 

[Sir_Brennus]

Does anyone know if they ported the Bloodwych data disk? I had that on the Amiga.

Nope. In similar fashion to Dungeon Master the Data Disk was only available on ATARI ST and AMIGA.

Could have something to do with Mirrorsoft crashing and burning in those days.

The remake of Bloodwych, Hexx-Heresy of the Wizard is available on PC, though.

 

[Alex]

I played Akalabeth recently and I thought it was a nice, if very simple game. I also finished the first Ultima and was nearing the end of the second one when my hardrive broke down. These games are very simple, but I thought it was nice to explore them and see what kind of surprises were there. Ultima 2 was the most mixed bag of the three, for it had the most weird surprises but also had the most annoying combat.

I don't care much for graphics and I can adjust to most UIs, although I never seem to be able to play roguelikes without some graphical interface, as I always get lost on which key does what.

 

[doctor_kaz]

The oldest game that I can play is Fallout. I played it just a few months ago actually. Everything else though is just too old. I recently tried to play the Gold Box games on an Amiga emulator and it was just unplayable. I could stand the graphics, but there are so many cumbersome interface issues. How I would love for somebody to make a decent turn-based open-ended adventure like Pool of Radiance again.

 

[Jasede]

Hey Alex, try ADOM. I find the keymapping a lot more intuitive than in Nethack or other Rogue-likes- normally I can only stand Nethack with tiles and a nice X-Windows interface, but I couldn't play ADOM with one, the ASCII just works too well.

 

[Ladonna]

I could stand the graphics, but there are so many cumbersome interface issues. How I would love for somebody to make a decent turn-based open-ended adventure like Pool of Radiance again

If you could remake Pool of radiance, what features/changes and UI tweaks do you think would make the game 'Playable'? Might be an interesting indy project.

Nope. In similar fashion to Dungeon Master the Data Disk was only available on ATARI ST and AMIGA.

That is a pity. The Data disk had insane difficulty, though I cannot remember who the bad guy at the end was. The Entity was in the first one? Or was that the guy with the weird name?

Edit: Anyone here know that they actually ported Bloodwych to the C64? True, and apart from a game killing bug where the game crashed upon swapping the disk over, it was actually quite good and playable...until then

Not sure how they coded the thing though, for 64kb of memory...

 

[doctor_kaz]

I could stand the graphics, but there are so many cumbersome interface issues. How I would love for somebody to make a decent turn-based open-ended adventure like Pool of Radiance again

If you could remake Pool of radiance, what features/changes and UI tweaks do you think would make the game 'Playable'? Might be an interesting indy project.

My ideal? Copy Temple of Elemental Evil. I think it's a crime that there was never another game made with that engine.

 

[Ladonna]

I don't think that is feasible...especially for a know nothing tick programmer.

Its taking an age for a bunch of people to do Keep on the Borderland, let alone creating a game the size of POR (Not that there is a lot of dialogue...but still, you would want to add that wouldn't you?) in the TOEE format.

Perhaps you could give some...simpler thoughts?

 

[jplestat]

Good to see some votes for Bloodwych and Dungeon Master. I still play Dungeon Master from time to time and it holds up suprisingly well.

 

[Desiderius]

BG3

 

[octavius]

Wizardry 1 (1981).

Sometimes I play it on my abacus on the subway, just to shock a modern audience.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

NetHack!

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Look at all these 2007 newfags. "The oldest I can play is Baldur's Gate!" Pathetic. Wizardry 1 is the best answer for a merely enjoyable game, but the earliest really great game is Ultima 4. I just replayed Ultima 4 a few months ago, and honestly, I could do it again. Maybe in the xu4 sourceport with its harder difficulty options. It's not nostalgia either because Ultima 4 came out 20 years before I was born and I played it for the first time just two years ago.

There's also Rogue, which is even older than Wizardry, but it hasn't really held up in my opinion. Seems way too random.

 

[V_K]

This thread is from 2007. Games released in that year are now older than many of the games named in this thread were in 2007. Now live with this knowledge.

 

[Luzur]

Hmm... prob the old Ultima's on C64

 

[tentanz]

Daggerfall.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

some older games are more playable than others e.g., starflight
ux used to be much more inconsistent

 

[The Limper]

I recently did a run through of Akalabeth, Ultima I thru V. I still enjoy it. I revisit that group about once a decade, alongside Wizardry I thru V, though I usually skip IV.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

That's a tough one. But I think one of the oldest RPG I still very much enjoy must be Ultima VII. The control scheme is still very solid and works, the overall quest design feels good and the unparalleled open world experience still stands monolithic in the RPG genre. I'm also able to enjoy Might and Magic III which is still very accessible. So my limit seems to be around 1991/1992.

 

[anvi]

I played old games through the void in the 00's and 10's but they are just too old now. I don't think there is anything earlier than late 90s that I would want to play now. And even late 90s games seem old as hell now. I still play some from that time, Syndicate, EQ, JA2, Icewinds, Baldurs, etc. But that's as far back as I care to go now, and I only play those because gaming got worse from then. I am kinda done with gaming. Need to find other hobbies...