Really Obscure RPGs

[lukaszek]

Found Gorasul PL
https://archive.org/details/gorasul_pl

Sadly i get black screen on startup, which hangs up my pc so i have to unlog with alt+ctrl+del. Tried fixes from pcgamingwiki and it does not work.

Did you got it to work later? On version that i found, i had to use Gorasul_noov.exe instead of Gorasul.exe and then it started. Sadly menu was a bugged mess but you could progress further to character creation, then it crashed on the second page.

grabbed it from above source. Win11, installed via gorasul_Instalator.exe
Booted from mounted cd1 afterwards. Menu is ass and see the same. However 'narodziny' takes me fine to character creation and game boots fine(relatively, a lot of flickering around other windows on multi screen setup, but it stabilizes).
However performance is quite bad(10-15fps?). Would need to resolve it, didnt try anything yet. I think I recall same thing from other isometric rpg of past

 

[lukaszek]

win xp compatibility fixes menu screen. However, this low fps thing remains. Oddly it is proper when you click attack a rat, then goes back to shit when combat is done.
Both regular launcher and noov performs same.
Looking at https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Gorasul:_The_Legacy_of_the_Dragon
sounds like I might need directx wrapper

 

[Dorateen]

Finally you probably should not try Tower of Fortune because it'll make you sad, what you can play of this one is by far the best I got from these but I'm almost sure you can't get past the first dungeon.

I just found this on InternetArchive, and was able to play a little in the browser. Someone needs to complete making Tower of Fortune. What a great MM2 clone.

 

[GamingConnoisseur]

I remember hearing about this one Polish Fallout 1 clone made by someone related to The Witcher franchise (one of the composers?). Anyone knows what I'm talking about? This might be hard to find, since I only heard about this game second hand from someone who played it/only heard about it too. It was some kind of post-apocalyptic RPG set in Poland released sometime in the 90s.

 

[GamingConnoisseur]

Holy shit, look what I found while looking for the aforementioned game: https://www-gry--online-pl.translat...=pl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=pl&_x_tr_pto=wapp#pc
Not sure if this is the game I was looking for, but it sure is a gem.

https://www.myabandonware.com/game/...-nieznane-przygody-franka-dolasa-dxs#download

 

[Lord_Potato]

Holy shit, look what I found while looking for the aforementioned game: https://www-gry--online-pl.translat...=pl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=pl&_x_tr_pto=wapp#pc
Not sure if this is the game I was looking for, but it sure is a gem.

https://www.myabandonware.com/game/...-nieznane-przygody-franka-dolasa-dxs#download

This is a sequel to Another War which I played and reviewed in this very thread. For some reason (most likely publicity) they tied this one to a popular comedy tv series "How I started WW2", but it also acts as a sequel to the previous game, in which WW2 is already in full swing.

 

[Baron Dupek]

IIRC it's all about finding broken mechanic to breeze through the game. And would be surprised if Dolas adventure was buggy mess.

 

[JarlFrank]

Holy shit, look what I found while looking for the aforementioned game: https://www-gry--online-pl.translat...=pl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=pl&_x_tr_pto=wapp#pc
Not sure if this is the game I was looking for, but it sure is a gem.

https://www.myabandonware.com/game/...-nieznane-przygody-franka-dolasa-dxs#download

This is a sequel to Another War which I played and reviewed in this very thread. For some reason (most likely publicity) they tied this one to a popular comedy tv series "How I started WW2", but it also acts as a sequel to the previous game, in which WW2 is already in full swing.

This game had a German and a French translation. The French is available on abandonware sites, as is the original Polish, and Russian.
The German wasn't available anywhere so I bought it on DVD from Amazon (they only had one left in stock!), copied all the DVD's files to my hard drive, and uploaded it on my mediafire. You can get a link by sending me a DM.

It was never translated to English though, so unless you speak Frog, Kraut, or Vodka (west or east) you're shit outta luck.

 

[Cyberarmy]

I think I tried to play German version of it but I'm not really sure. I played many Euro jank RPGs, tactical games in early 2000s and they really look alike, except horrible looking late X-Coms...

 

[Modron]

Holy shit, look what I found while looking for the aforementioned game: https://www-gry--online-pl.translat...=pl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=pl&_x_tr_pto=wapp#pc
Not sure if this is the game I was looking for, but it sure is a gem.

The only reason that one is obscure is they were planning on releasing it in English but never did, I remember playing the demo for their previous game for example: https://www.mobygames.com/game/11667/another-war/

 

[Catacombs]

https://www-gry--online-pl.translat...=pl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=pl&_x_tr_pto=wapp#pc

What in the hell is that URL?

 

[dark_savant]

Holy shit, look what I found while looking for the aforementioned game: https://www-gry--online-pl.translat...=pl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=pl&_x_tr_pto=wapp#pc
Not sure if this is the game I was looking for, but it sure is a gem.

https://www.myabandonware.com/game/...-nieznane-przygody-franka-dolasa-dxs#download

This is a sequel to Another War which I played and reviewed in this very thread. For some reason (most likely publicity) they tied this one to a popular comedy tv series "How I started WW2", but it also acts as a sequel to the previous game, in which WW2 is already in full swing.

This game had a German and a French translation. The French is available on abandonware sites, as is the original Polish, and Russian.
The German wasn't available anywhere so I bought it on DVD from Amazon (they only had one left in stock!), copied all the DVD's files to my hard drive, and uploaded it on my mediafire. You can get a link by sending me a DM.

It was never translated to English though, so unless you speak Frog, Kraut, or Vodka (west or east) you're shit outta luck.

The full title is Weird War: The Unknown Episode of World War II

There is an English demo available on the net and the game got retail release in German, Polish, French, Italian, Russian and Czech.

Actually it was also fully translated to English but never released due some publishing problems. Fortunately I got the full English release file directly from one of the developers some time ago. The game is perfectly playable on windows 11 machine with full English text and cutscenes with English voice-over.

 

[Modron]

You can't just say things like that and not provide a link.

 

[lukaszek]

turns up windows comes with tools that can enable games to be ran with lower directx versions.
Problem is that it can go down to 9, while gorasul wants 8. And 9th doesnt solve fps issues

 

[Baron Dupek]

Randomly stumbled upon this - a "medieval/fantasy" game with sci-fi aesthetics.
And guess what - it's getting re-released. Developed by P.M. Studios (original) and AgeOfGames (Re-release). edit - they're the same studio, but with name changed in the meantime.
Was it worth it?

https://twitter.com/game_obscure
Etrom is an action RPG set in a futuristic medieval dystopia named Syghundia. You play as the eponymous hero Etrom, a former HWD (Human World Defense) soldier who became a fugitive after being summoned by a so-called Astral Essence.

 

[SpoonFULL]

Gamespot gave Etrom 2/10 when released.

 

[vitellus]

Randomly stumbled upon this - a "medieval/fantasy" game with sci-fi aesthetics.
And guess what - it's getting re-released. Developed by P.M. Studios (original) and AgeOfGames (Re-release). Was it worth it?

https://twitter.com/game_obscure
Etrom is an action RPG set in a futuristic medieval dystopia named Syghundia. You play as the eponymous hero Etrom, a former HWD (Human World Defense) soldier who became a fugitive after being summoned by a so-called Astral Essence.

it looks like what would've been if they made kotor in the vanilla wow engine

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Looks like some proto E.y.e. divine cybermancy without all the brozouf

 

[Bad Sector]

I wrote about the demo a bit in the old thread it had. It is buggy but TBH i think it'd be interesting if the bugs were fixed. Or at least judging from the first level where i decided to kill everything on the map despite the game telling me to ignore the enemies and run to the first objective - and then ended up walking in space because of weird bad pathfinding that somehow decided that walking in the sky is the way to walk around obstacles (which, ok, in a way it makes sense, but the idea also needs gravity to work :-P).

 

[jebsmoker]

you can buy Shadow Vault legally now - on Zoom:

https://www.zoom-platform.com/product/shadow-vault

i remember trying a pirated iso of this years ago, but i couldn't get it to run at all

 

[Lord_Potato]

I could get Shadow Vault to run on one of my older XP based laptops, but found it very unwelcoming and quickly abandonned it. I guess its one of those that deserved being forgotten.

 

[felipepepe]

I spent the past few days exploring some 90s shareware/freeware, there's a lot of cool stuff here: https://www.dosgamesarchive.com/category/role-playing?c=9&page=1 and here : https://dosgames.com/category/role-playing-rpg/1

I couldn't find these on your list, BosanskiSeljak :

Aleshar: The World of Ice (1997)​

Boboli The Mighty Knight (1996)​

​

Daymare I (1992)​

Dragon Engine (2000)​

Dungeon Explorer (1990)​

The Dungeons of Kairn (1989)​

Joyous Rebel (1996)​

The Kingdom of Syree I-III​

Lords of Doom: Part One: The Black God (1996)​

Mysterious Song (2000)​

Thor's Hammer (1995)​

Tower of Fortune (1998)​

Ultizurk III: The GuildMaster's Quest (1995)​

Winged Warrior (1995)​

Not all look great, but some like Tower of Fortune look very Codex-like:

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

I spent the past few days exploring some 90s shareware/freeware, there's a lot of cool stuff here: https://www.dosgamesarchive.com/category/role-playing?c=9&page=1 and here : https://dosgames.com/category/role-playing-rpg/1

I couldn't find these on your list, BosanskiSeljak :

Aleshar: The World of Ice (1997)​

Boboli The Mighty Knight (1996)​

​

Daymare I (1992)​

Dragon Engine (2000)​

Dungeon Explorer (1990)​

The Dungeons of Kairn (1989)​

Joyous Rebel (1996)​

The Kingdom of Syree I-III​

Lords of Doom: Part One: The Black God (1996)​

Mysterious Song (2000)​

Thor's Hammer (1995)​

Tower of Fortune (1998)​

Ultizurk III: The GuildMaster's Quest (1995)​

Winged Warrior (1995)​

Not all look great, but some like Tower of Fortune look very Codex-like:

Aleshar is a great shout, I actually added that one onto the RPG List thread already, enjoyed it myself. It's a shame the pictures for the Codex Let's Play are all broken now.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I noticed GOG has a company that is also going down the abandonware list that snagged Breach 1-2 and Paladin 1-2 amongst sone others. $8 seems high for these but w/e.

I know CRPG Addict went over this but Trs-80 had a game called Paladin’s Legacy. I don’t know how many have gotten this game to run but here are some links to try:
https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Disks/Games/

https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Disks/Games/Paladin's%20Legacy%20(Sundog%20Systems)%20(Coco%203).zip

https://www.mocagh.org/loadpage.php?getgame=paladinslegacy

https://github.com/VCCE/VCC
No links work on this old Word Press blog. You can look at sone pics and gameplay notes.

So maybe it works with this emulator, I don’t have the time to check atm.



Links to paladin manuals: HERE

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Thor's Hammer (1995)

I remember this one. It's not really a RPG as much as a first-person metroidvania. You find upgrades to your abilities rather than gradually getting higher stats. Really hard to start off IIRC, but that's true of all Wolf-clones in general.