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Recommend a turn based, isometric/overhead, full party RPG for me

Nikanuur

Arbiter
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Mar 1, 2021
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Ngranek
From the recent ones, you may want to try Caves of Lore.
Or experiment a bit with lightweight stuff like Pathway (which is not a full-fledged RPG, but it does have a party, builds, items, EXPing and levels, exploration, etc.)
And, of course, there are still the Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire with TB combat. A game that was said to beat BG3 at several occasions, muhheheeheh. Help to long-tail those sales, I dare you!
 
Last edited:

roshan

Arcane
Joined
Apr 7, 2004
Messages
2,499
What's the best Spiderweb game to play, if I want to try just one? Not one with too bad graphics please.
 

Gibson

Savant
Joined
Jun 23, 2019
Messages
423
Expeditions: Conquistador. Best expeditions game[period].

dungeon of naheulbeuk. Fun game and nice combat; since you love larian you won't mind or rather you'll delight in cringe writing and "humour". combat is fun though.

edit:

Kingsvein looks nice. that'll probably be my next game to waste time on.
 

Ladonna

Arcane
Joined
Aug 27, 2006
Messages
11,322
I vote for Dark Sun if you haven't already played it. Lot's of other good options here, but this way you can move forward into your chosen timeline after that, and the game is great.
 

Terenty

Liturgist
Joined
Nov 29, 2018
Messages
1,467
Paradise Cracked is one of the best turn based RPGs I've played, so highly recommend. But it's a Russian game with an awful English dub I heard (a lot of the game's atmosphere is lost in translation) so not sure how playable it is for non Russian speakers.
 

Serus

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Small but great planet of Potatohole
BTW, has anyone ever managed to mod turn based combat into Infinity Engine?
Never heard of that. However in case of PST it wouldn't add much. Not without changing half of the game. However in Baldurs or Icewinds that could be interesting and I wish someone did it instead of those inane "Oblivion in Skyrim engine" and similar stuff.
 

Erebus

Arcane
Joined
Jul 12, 2008
Messages
4,850
The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk : the Amulet of Chaos. Turn-based and you control a party of eight characters. Combat is very tactical and fun.
 

Spike

Educated
Joined
Apr 6, 2023
Messages
975
My two cents about your prospective picks:

- Pathfinder: wrath of the righteous - if you like Owlcat it's more of the same, but with probably worse companions than Kingmaker.
- Divinity: Original Sin - You can skip this one if you've already played DOS2, unless you're a hardcore Larian completionist.
- Knights of the Chalice / Knights of the Chalice 2 - very much recommended by the codex but allegedly painfully hard, and also probably hard to get used to after 5e
- Solasta: Crown of the magister - basically BG3 but much cheaper and worse at everything. I would now only recommend it for one reason: a campaign editor you can mess around with.
KotC games difficulty is overstated:
a) Much of it comes from KotC 2 beta/ea/whatever-it-was and people who played it. A commendable achievement but the game is different now.
b) KotC 1 is not that hard except one battle. It happens after main story has ended and is an optional challenge.
c) There are those silly, unused things called difficulty settings in KotC 2. Your computer won't tell Codex that you didn't play all the most hardcore options.
and
d) Is not difficulty related: 3e > 5e, at least when it comes to computer gaming.


Solasta, don't forget, also lacks bear sex! Truly, BG 3 is a masterpiece.
Regarding KotC 2a (difficulty), what do you mean? Is there a way to set the difficulty back to what it was during the early access era? Or is the fact it is different okay and even good?
 

Crispy

I feel... young!
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1,877,270
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Future Wasteland
Strap Yourselves In
What's the best Spiderweb game to play, if I want to try just one? Not one with too bad graphics please.
They all have bad graphics. You learn to like it. Geneforge or Escape from the Pit.
There's a brand-new demo for Geneforge 2 - Infestation (the remake of the original GF 2) out now on Steam.

OP would do well to at least check it out.
 

raeven

Educated
Joined
Aug 29, 2020
Messages
306
Have you considered some tactics-style games? Kingsvein which just released is very good IMO, and Triangle Strategy is also pretty good if you like those sort of games.
- Pathfinder: wrath of the righteous - seems like it's more polished than Kingmaker, plus it was designed from the get-go with a turn based mode. Maybe that doesn't matter, idk. It's more recent and reviews seem to say it's a big improvement over the original in terms of polish and such.
I would highly recommend Kingmaker over Wrath, at least initially. Wrath has... issues, and the complexity of building characters is much higher than Kingmaker.

I have a Kingmaker modlist that makes it a much more enjoyable game in my opinion.
What do you mean by 'issues'?

I looked through your modlist. The only ones that seemed relevant to an initial playthrough were the autobuff and loot checklist mods from what I could tell, though neither seemed all that necessary.
 
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https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/a-list-of-rpgs-a-codex-collaboration.146323/

Search for all those tagged party-based+Isometric play every single one, and maybe you won't have shit taste anymore
Go fuck yourself, asshole
Watch the language around your superior, little boy.

I pointed you to a resource with ~950 games you can search by turn-based on front page+last 2/3 pages of the thread, with more info and links to Codex threads.

Go educate yourself and move on from only knowing about BG3 and Disco Elysium.
 

Bastardchops

Prophet
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Joined
Nov 4, 2015
Messages
2,231
Looking to try out a new game after beating BG3's honor mode. The game was such incline I doubt any could ever top it (I mention this just to trigger the codex), but I'm in the mood for another turn based RPG where you control a full party of characters.

I've tried most of the RTwP games and i just can't get into that system, so I'm just gonna stop trying. I played BG1 when it first came out but couldn't finish it because that mode just isn't for me, and all the subsequent times I've picked it (or similar games) up have not changed my mind.

I love many single-protagonist RPGs, such as Fallout 1 and 2, but right now I'm more interested in fully controlling an entire party.

First person RPGs have never been my thing, I much prefer a top down perspective. Isometric, oblique, or overhead - doesn't matter.

My RPG experience started on Mac with Realmz (Gold box era, but on Mac), and as such I never got used to the blocky graphics / text and 8-bit sound of the DOS era. I'm only really interested in games made after that time period. Let's say after 1995 to make it simple. Don't kick me off the codex, pls.

Games in this vein that I've loved:

- Jagged Alliance 2 and 3 - one my all time favorites, and one of my recent favorites.
- Realmz - Gold box style design with a ruleset shamelessly ripped off from AD&D, simple overhead graphics and tiles, but very crunchy and combat heavy.
- Divinity Original Sin 2 and Baldur's Gate 3 - the codex's favorite games to hate. Too bad they're both such great games. Love the combat & encounter design of these games, despite the silly armor system of D:OS 2
- Shadowrun trilogy from HBS - simple, basic, but fun. Good times
- Wasteland 2 and Wasteland 3 - loved both of these. Fallout style setting and C&C, but with a full party to control? Yes pls.

Games that I didn't like so much:

Idk what it is, but I find it really hard to get into spiderweb software's games. There's just something about them that doesn't 'click' for me, and I can't seem to put my finger on why.

Games I'm considering picking up next:

- Pathfinder: wrath of the righteous - seems like it's more polished than Kingmaker, plus it was designed from the get-go with a turn based mode. Maybe that doesn't matter, idk. It's more recent and reviews seem to say it's a big improvement over the original in terms of polish and such.
- Divinity: Original Sin - played the 2nd one, but never got too far into the 1st one. Not sure why. I could give it another go though, especially if the general consensus is that it picks up after the first few hours of gameplay.
- Knights of the Chalice / Knights of the Chalice 2 - looks pretty fun. I dig the graphics and the overall design.
- Solasta: Crown of the magister - looks like it could be fun. Don't know that much about it.

Open to other codexian suggestions so long as they meet the requirements I've laid out above and are in english. If you just want to bash my shitty taste in games and tell me I'm the reason why everything is decline, do it in one of the game specific threads I've posted in.
Have you played BG 1 & 2, or Icewind Dale?
 

Bastardchops

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Nov 4, 2015
Messages
2,231
Looking to try out a new game after beating BG3's honor mode. The game was such incline I doubt any could ever top it (I mention this just to trigger the codex), but I'm in the mood for another turn based RPG where you control a full party of characters.

I've tried most of the RTwP games and i just can't get into that system, so I'm just gonna stop trying. I played BG1 when it first came out but couldn't finish it because that mode just isn't for me, and all the subsequent times I've picked it (or similar games) up have not changed my mind.

I love many single-protagonist RPGs, such as Fallout 1 and 2, but right now I'm more interested in fully controlling an entire party.

First person RPGs have never been my thing, I much prefer a top down perspective. Isometric, oblique, or overhead - doesn't matter.

My RPG experience started on Mac with Realmz (Gold box era, but on Mac), and as such I never got used to the blocky graphics / text and 8-bit sound of the DOS era. I'm only really interested in games made after that time period. Let's say after 1995 to make it simple. Don't kick me off the codex, pls.

Games in this vein that I've loved:

- Jagged Alliance 2 and 3 - one my all time favorites, and one of my recent favorites.
- Realmz - Gold box style design with a ruleset shamelessly ripped off from AD&D, simple overhead graphics and tiles, but very crunchy and combat heavy.
- Divinity Original Sin 2 and Baldur's Gate 3 - the codex's favorite games to hate. Too bad they're both such great games. Love the combat & encounter design of these games, despite the silly armor system of D:OS 2
- Shadowrun trilogy from HBS - simple, basic, but fun. Good times
- Wasteland 2 and Wasteland 3 - loved both of these. Fallout style setting and C&C, but with a full party to control? Yes pls.

Games that I didn't like so much:

Idk what it is, but I find it really hard to get into spiderweb software's games. There's just something about them that doesn't 'click' for me, and I can't seem to put my finger on why.

Games I'm considering picking up next:

- Pathfinder: wrath of the righteous - seems like it's more polished than Kingmaker, plus it was designed from the get-go with a turn based mode. Maybe that doesn't matter, idk. It's more recent and reviews seem to say it's a big improvement over the original in terms of polish and such.
- Divinity: Original Sin - played the 2nd one, but never got too far into the 1st one. Not sure why. I could give it another go though, especially if the general consensus is that it picks up after the first few hours of gameplay.
- Knights of the Chalice / Knights of the Chalice 2 - looks pretty fun. I dig the graphics and the overall design.
- Solasta: Crown of the magister - looks like it could be fun. Don't know that much about it.

Open to other codexian suggestions so long as they meet the requirements I've laid out above and are in english. If you just want to bash my shitty taste in games and tell me I'm the reason why everything is decline, do it in one of the game specific threads I've posted in.
Also Temple of Elemental Evil is good.
 

Bastardchops

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Nov 4, 2015
Messages
2,231
Knights of the Chalice / Knights of the Chalice 2 - very much recommended by the codex but allegedly painfully hard, and also probably hard to get used to after 5e
The first isn't that hard, more enjoyable challenge. The second is punishing.
 

raeven

Educated
Joined
Aug 29, 2020
Messages
306
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/a-list-of-rpgs-a-codex-collaboration.146323/

Search for all those tagged party-based+Isometric play every single one, and maybe you won't have shit taste anymore
Go fuck yourself, asshole
Watch the language around your superior, little boy.

I pointed you to a resource with ~950 games you can search by turn-based on front page+last 2/3 pages of the thread, with more info and links to Codex threads.

Go educate yourself and move on from only knowing about BG3 and Disco Elysium.

I've been playing CRPGs for 30 years. If you had read my original post you'd see that some of the games I cited as personal favorites in the party based / turn based niche included Realmz (a crunchy, obscure gold box era game) and Jagged Alliance 2. I played both of these games when they were released, not that I usually feel the need to point that out.

Liking some games you don't like doesn't mean my taste is shit, nor does it mean I only enjoy popular games. Those are just assumptions you've chosen to make for your own reasons based on limited data.

You're not my superior, you're just another person who likes this genre of games, and I've no problem telling you to go fuck yourself when you decide go around calling yourself anyone's "superior". In fact, I'll do it again - get off your high horse, and go fuck yourself. Ah, that felt nice actually.

P.S. would love to hear any recommendations within the criteria I gave, if you're wiling to share them :)
 

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