Really Obscure RPGs

[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.

 

[Lady Error]

"The Survivor" (1988/89) for the Atari ST by a couple German guys. Seems to be a Dungeon Master clone with one character. The only screenshots or information about this RPG is from a a very positive review in the German ASM. That review scan is at the bottom:

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-st-survivor-_30435.html

 

[k0syak]

View attachment 42947 View attachment 42948

"The Survivor" (1988/89) for the Atari ST by a couple German guys. Seems to be a Dungeon Master clone with one character. The only screenshots or information about this RPG is from a a very positive review in the German ASM. That review scan is at the bottom:

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-st-survivor-_30435.html

Looks like 4 characters and Vokabular is pepsi

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Not the greatest translation:

 

[Lady Error]

I tried to find the ROM of it, nada.

 

[AdolfSatan]

Looks interesting. Perhaps try contacting this guy?
http://tronic-verlag.50webs.com

 

[SimTrY]

Hard to Be a God

From the store Page :
Hard to be a God is a role playing game with adventure and espionage elements.
The main hero is a graduate of a medieval secret service high school where he took the course of combat and diplomatic training. He’s strong, sly and intelligent, he is the most powerful person living in Arkanar, but his well-known world still brings surprises to him.
The highly developed Earth race governs the series of unexpected events in Arkanar. The main hero starts his new mission in co-operation with Earth forces. The agent gains access to incredibly advanced technologies. In his native underdeveloped world, he almost becomes a God.
How will it end?

From my personal experience, its a fun adventure rpg, quite ambitious for what its trying to achive. Combat is real-time action combat you can drag your sword like in Mordhau or Chivalry and you can also feint (by immediately cancelling an attack with a block, the tutorial doesn't mention this so perhaps its not really a feature lol), you can thefeint to trick the AI to open their up their defense. Do not spam LMB or special attack, they cost stamina and if you run out of stamina get stunned. Blocking will lock you from moving, so it's better to position yourself strategically during 1vX combat. Horse combat is not that great. The mixture of medieval and sci-fi is fun and campy. It plays similar to games like Kingdom Come Deliverance and Gothic in feel. The music is what ever. only the battle music and the main menu music which are notably good. that said for a game that can be playedd for 20+hours it only has about 5 tracks for exploration and non combat encounter music so it gets really repetitive.

 

[ghostdog]

Hard to be a God is a role playing game with adventure and espionage elements

It's based on Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's quite famous sf novel.

 

[octavius]

Hard to be a God is a role playing game with adventure and espionage elements

It's based on Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's quite famous sf novel.

Looks like their brother Vaselin did the graphics.

 

[SimTrY]

Hard to be a God is a role playing game with adventure and espionage elements

It's based on Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's quite famous sf novel.

yeah i forgot to mention that! thanks for the reminder

 

[Baron Dupek]

It got some nice ideas like disguise system. Some parts felt unfinished and most supernatural parts (spirits, ghosts and vision) more like an excuse for lack of ideas.
Combat is piss easy - spam attacks and cancel animations with block. Repeat for 30 hours.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

True Meteor Reincarnation:
https://magigato.itch.io/true-meteor-reincarnation

Seems like this one is just gone? Only resource I can find on it is https://www.igromania.ru/game/news/112454/True_Meteor_Reincarnation_(itch).html

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

His others are gone too.

 

[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.

this gem appears to be gaining popularity on dex, yet no mentions on how to resolve technical difficulties of running it on modern rigs.
Even more horrifying, instead of spreading the gospel, I find statements like this one:

Awful BG clone. Not worth playing.

which make me question some of the posters integrity.

Worry not though, its certainly doable to play it well on win11, however steps like those listed in here https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Gorasul:_The_Legacy_of_the_Dragon
are not enough.

While I'm not sure whats the minimum number of required steps, I do know that ddraw from dgvoodo doesnt work and is crucial to resolve low framerate.
Anyway here is what I did:
- patch to 1.6
- find noov executable, set compatibility to win xp sp3
- get dgvoodo https://github.com/dege-diosg/dgVoodoo2/releases , copy over D3D8 and D3Dlmm. If you want to use config -> copy over dgvoodo and make sure you run it in admin mode
- get working ddraw https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat and copy it over

this should get you going. I am experiencing random crashes every now and then, ctrl+s for quicksave often.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

I cannot play Dungeons of Kairn!
During battle I cannot use melee attacks.
From manual:
Magic Word of Arms - "Dubuaro" will allow the adventurer
to use a handheld weapon when his turn comes to strike a blow. You
must use one of the Magic Words of Movement to strike in that
direction. Note that the chosen adventurer must have equipped himself
with a weapon while the group rested before he may strike an enemy in
combat with a weapon.

Yes I equipped weapons. They are highlighted. What does "Dubuaro" mean? I am pressing the D key, but nothing happens.

b- shoot bow and
c- cast spell are working.

EDITED: NEVER MIND it is the 'w' key - melee attack

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

I have made 2 interesting videos about Dungeons of Kairn



Do you know similar games? (Wizards Crown, etc)

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Ho Ho Ho! I must find this game now.

 

[Sotomonte]

"Light Bolt" a.k.a. "Suffer the Power of My Swastika"

In fact the game looks good and I didn't know it. I will have to try it.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

"Light Bolt" a.k.a. "Suffer the Power of My Swastika"

LOL.
Should I rename my party members to Hitler, Himmler, Göring, Goebbels and Heydrich?

 

[octavius]

Do you know similar games? (Wizards Crown, etc)

Nahlakh?

BTW, is the full version of Kairn available now? I initially skipped it on my play list due to only the shareware version being available.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

BTW, is the full version of Kairn available now? I initially skipped it on my play list due to only the shareware version being available.

I have this version: Fourth release Version 1.2 January 1991
I can make paladin, barbarian and ashigari classes.
But I have found 1 dungeon only so far: a cemetery. (Demo contains only 1 dungeon?)
There are more cities/castles.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

The Aethra Chronicles: Volume One game is from the same developer. Is that a similar turn-based party rpg game?

 

[Sotomonte]

Do you know similar games? (Wizards Crown, etc)

Nahlakh?

BTW, is the full version of Kairn available now? I initially skipped it on my play list due to only the shareware version being available.

In myabandonware you have all the versions, including the complete one: https://www.myabandonware.com/game/dungeons-of-kairn-3xa