Spurned RPGs That are Masterpieces Today

[Nifft Batuff]

"Chasm: The Rift" was made by hacking the wolf3d engine, but was considered a Quake clone.

 

[Harthwain]

Yeah, "doom clone" was used as a pejorative in the 90's. And with good reason, FPS was the hot genre, let's of clones were being shoveled in, and it was a genre people with no intention spans that just wanted to blow stuff up could easily get into.

A lot of modern garbage will be considered "classics" in a few years. Not even classics, but hardcore. But the fact that everyone excuses the garbage they grew up with isn't just an indictment of recent "classics", but older "classics" as well. Pretty much any area you look at (80's, 90's, 00's, etc.), there are tons of fanboys who ignore the poor design of the games they like.

I am much more forgiving for "doom clones" than I am for "quake clones", because 3D visuals in general aged poorly, whereas sprites withstood the test of time better. It doesn't help that 90's (with their goddamn FMVs) were followed by 2000, which was the height of ugly early 3D games. I would take pixel art over that any day of the week.

 

[Beans00]

And even so Wolf 3D still manages to be a better shooter than most modern day ones.

Have you actually played wolf 3d?

It was the first, so its hard holding anything against it. Playing it is complete garbage though.

 

[NecroLord]

And even so Wolf 3D still manages to be a better shooter than most modern day ones.

Have you actually played wolf 3d?

It was the first, so its hard holding anything against it. Playing it is complete garbage though.

Of course.
And I like it.
There is something appealing to be found in its simplicity.

 

[Lemming42]

Wolf3D is okay but definitely does feel very lightweight. I remember liking Spear of Destiny a lot more than the base game, the map design is a huge step up over Wolf3D itself which feels pretty half-assed at times.

 

[NecroLord]

Yeah, I know what you mean.
It was definitely a good expansion.
Wolf 3D is all about wall humping to find those secret areas.

 

[JarlFrank]

Yeah, "doom clone" was used as a pejorative in the 90's. And with good reason, FPS was the hot genre, let's of clones were being shoveled in, and it was a genre people with no intention spans that just wanted to blow stuff up could easily get into.

A lot of modern garbage will be considered "classics" in a few years. Not even classics, but hardcore. But the fact that everyone excuses the garbage they grew up with isn't just an indictment of recent "classics", but older "classics" as well. Pretty much any area you look at (80's, 90's, 00's, etc.), there are tons of fanboys who ignore the poor design of the games they like.

I am much more forgiving for "doom clones" than I am for "quake clones", because 3D visuals in general aged poorly, whereas sprites withstood the test of time better. It doesn't help that 90's (with their goddamn FMVs) were followed by 2000, which was the height of ugly early 3D games. I would take pixel art over that any day of the week.

Early 3D is utterly fascinating to me. I can forgive terrible visuals for the sheer ambition of getting fully 3-dimensional architecture to work smoothly on the hardware of the time. It adds so much to the level complexity and makes exploration better.

 

[Lemming42]

I still find a lot of early 3D very attractive, especially when it's abstract. Games like Tomb Raider, Crash Bandicoot, Half-Life, Daggerfall, the first System Shock, Descent, and Heretic look really good IMO; it works great when it's meant to act as a representation of a fictional world rather than a 1:1 realistic recreation of it. A lot of games of that era used to use really bright colours too which helps a lot.

Most of the awful-looking early 3D games I can think of are on PS1 rather than PC.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

The nice thing about well executed early 3D is that the graphics have clarity and character. The lines and colors were cleaner, making things easier to read. Some features also needed to be exaggerated slightly because details were too demanding. Crash Bandicoot's model famously took a significant portion of the game's memory. Higher contrast with brighter colors helped, and they hadn't yet approached the uncanny valley, so we are unintentionally more forgiving. Most of the best examples are on the play station, like Spyro The Dragon. Some of them look truly terrible today though. Try playing any Twisted Metal older than Black.

 

[Harthwain]

Early 3D is utterly fascinating to me. I can forgive terrible visuals for the sheer ambition of getting fully 3-dimensional architecture to work smoothly on the hardware of the time. It adds so much to the level complexity and makes exploration better.

To be clear: I am talking about full 3D games, not the early 3D games that used sprites for enemies/NPCs/objects (and it is true that you could find some examples of good 3D games, such as Gothic 1 or Bugs Bunny: Lost in Time). While I can - to some degree - appreciate what Gabriel Knight 3 tried to do, I still loathe both Gabriel Knight 2 and 3 when I compare both to the amazing Gabriel Knight 1.

Daggerfall, the first System Shock

I am pretty sure characters in both of these games are sprites, so I don't count these as 3D games (as I explained above).

Heretic look really good IMO

Heretic 2 looks shitty, which is entirely my point. And Hexen is way better than Heretic, too.

 

[almondblight]

One thing that was terrible about Doom/Quake and their clones was the stupid "search all over the level for a switch, search all over the level for the door it opened" gameplay. It's as if the designers couldn't think of an actual way to make exploration interesting, so they just went with something that was lazy and boring.

 

[NecroLord]

I still find a lot of early 3D very attractive, especially when it's abstract. Games like Tomb Raider, Crash Bandicoot, Half-Life, Daggerfall, the first System Shock, Descent, and Heretic look really good IMO; it works great when it's meant to act as a representation of a fictional world rather than a 1:1 realistic recreation of it. A lot of games of that era used to use really bright colours too which helps a lot.

Most of the awful-looking early 3D games I can think of are on PS1 rather than PC.

Yeah, the PS1 was never known for stunning visuals.
But it still managed to have many good games.

 

[almondblight]

PS1 had plenty of games that looked good (Front Mission, MGS, Resident Evil 2, Fear Effect, Star Ocean, etc.). The problem was when it was trying to make N64 style games 3D platform type games (Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Ape Escape, etc.). N64 3D games were already ugly, and they looked even worse on the PS1.

 

[SmoothPimp]

3D is for degenerate soy libtards, who can't appreciate art due to their degeneracy.

 

[Silverfish]

3D is for degenerate soy libtards, who can't appreciate art due to their degeneracy.

I'm sorry your dad didn't get you Super Mario 64 for Christmas in '96, but it's time to let go.

 

[Infinitron]

Though not masterpieces, inXile's Wasteland games will be regarded more positively than they were on release.

 

[Modron]

Wasteland maybe but Pillars? Kek.

 

[Lemming42]

Though not masterpieces, inXile's Wasteland games will be regarded more positively than they were on release.

That's interesting, when do you expect that to happen? I like WL2 and WL3 but they seem like prototypical examples of games that will be largely forgotten - they came out, they were decent, some people liked them and some people didn't, and that's about it. Their middling production values and somewhat clunky gameplay pretty much ensure that few people will be going back to them a decade from now. At best they basically just exist as an addendum to Wasteland, which has obviously secured a much stronger place in history (even if very few people are actively going and playing Wasteland today either).

 

[Infinitron]

Though not masterpieces, inXile's Wasteland games will be regarded more positively than they were on release.

That's interesting, when do you expect that to happen? I like WL2 and WL3 but they seem like prototypical examples of games that will be largely forgotten - they came out, they were decent, some people liked them and some people didn't, and that's about it. Their middling production values and somewhat clunky gameplay pretty much ensure that few people will be going back to them a decade from now.

I guess I'm only thinking about genre fans, who are the only ones who care enough to reminisce about what was or wasn't a masterpiece anyway.

Obviously in the big picture they're pretty obscure. But for somebody writing a history of RPGs in the post-Baldur's Gate 3 era, Wasteland 2 and 3 could stand out as full-featured isometric RPGs that were post-apocalyptic rather than fantasy.

 

[anvi]

They all deserve to stay spurned.

 

[JarlFrank]

Early 3D is utterly fascinating to me. I can forgive terrible visuals for the sheer ambition of getting fully 3-dimensional architecture to work smoothly on the hardware of the time. It adds so much to the level complexity and makes exploration better.

To be clear: I am talking about full 3D games, not the early 3D games that used sprites for enemies/NPCs/objects (and it is true that you could find some examples of good 3D games, such as Gothic 1 or Bugs Bunny: Lost in Time). While I can - to some degree - appreciate what Gabriel Knight 3 tried to do, I still loathe both Gabriel Knight 2 and 3 when I compare both to the amazing Gabriel Knight 1.

To be clear, I am also talking about full 3D games, not the early 3D games that used sprites, because those usually have limited architectural complexity (Doom's engine famously can't do spaces that go above or below other spaces, and the Build engine could only do them with a lot of trickery).

Gabriel Knight 3 isn't a good example for early full 3D games that did it right, because it's still a point & click adventure with a 2D logic. Nothing is gained from it being 3D.
Games like Quake, Thief, Tomb Raider are games that benefit from being fully 3D by actually involving all three dimensions in the gameplay.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Though not masterpieces, inXile's Wasteland games will be regarded more positively than they were on release.

As if it's possible for Wasteland 3 to be more positively regarded than having won Codex GotY 2020!

 

[anvi]

I heard Wasteland 2 is decent and Wastland 3 is decline.

 

[PunchYouInTheFace]

heard

You should stop hearing ngl.

 

[huskarls]

all those kickstarters rpgs we're bad and overrated on reception (rpg renaissance el oh el). I was put off by wasteland 2 so didn't try wasteland 3 until last weekend. Its much more polished and took a more serious tone with more meaningful customization, it may be the only good game inxile ever made (could just be front loaded though). idk why people are gaslighting themselves about the 'rpg renaissance' or lumping w2 and w3 together - PoE2 bombed hard because people bought poe, pretended to like it, then stayed away from poe2 because of the first game