starting RoA - Blade of Destiny or Star Trail?

[Azrael the cat]

Heya folks,

I've finally succumbed to the positive hype given to Realms of Arkania by all the modern gaming site...um I mean Codex basement dwellers. Should I start with Blade of Destiny or Star Trail? I know BoD is the first chronologically and I've given it a spin, but I'm realising that it will take serious work to master the mechanics of this series, and I don't want to force myself through BoD if all the good stuff is in Star Trail and the 3rd one. Complex mechanics per se aren't a problem - I cut my teeth on the Wizardry series as a kid. Bad graphics aren't a problem - I cut my teeth on Wizardry I: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord as a kid. But I think I'd struggle if I had to relearn Wizardry mechanics today, say if I had to play Wiz 8 with no knowledge of the earlier ones (the good thing about the Wiz games is that the changes to mechanics between games were quite gradual and sensible, sudden nerfing of multiclassing Wiz7-Wiz8 aside).

So, should I start with BoD or skip straight to Star Trail?

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Well, while I'd suggest Blade of Destiny just because its the first in the series, my heart really wants you to do Star Trail because it's so much better. BoD isn't bad but compared to ST it's like... meh.

Edit: On second thought, I think you actually should do BoD first just to see then how fantastic Star Trail is.

 

[afewhours]

Yeah. Use Star Trail to get a feel for the franchise, and then start from BoD if you must. That's what I'm doing right now! After absorbing the knowledge of the Codex, and learning a bit from my Star Trail playthrough, I've made a party with the intention of ploughing through the whole trilogy! 1 Dwarf, 1 Warrior, 2 Elves and 2 Mages. 13 in every stat! Come on, you Orcish slags!

 

[Longshanks]

I'm about to start BOD for the first time as well, couldn't go past chronological correctness. Heard from many that Star Trail's the superior game, but many also recommend playing Fallout 2 before or instead of Fallout 1 .

 

[Andhaira]

Yeah, all 3 games are great, but Star Trail is just....AMAZING!

However, I suggest you start BOD first; you can then import the party forward into star trail, then into SoR.

You get to keep all your items when you import, as well as stats and stuff. It really cool because there are very RARE unique items in each game, that can help you TONS in the other games. (such as a magic waterskin in Star Trail...so you never have to worry about dying of thirst or drinking poisoned water again!)

 

[Claw]

What's with all the RoA topics all of a sudden?

Just be sure you look into the other threads where somone lists all the prerequisites to finishing the games. You'll need certain spells and stuff.
Mind you, I managed without knowing in advance, but that is my natural genius at work.

 

[sheek]

RoA1 is the better game, plus it's easier to get into. Do Star Trail afterward and import your characters. Starting brand new characters in ST will have lower levels and make the game more difficult than it should be.

If you find RoA1 boring you can always look up a walkthrough, when you know what to do it shouldn't take long to rush through it.

 

[Andhaira]

In star trail you do get the level jump from 1-3 when you rescue that preistess. I guess that is for people who haven't imported a party from roa.

Lol, the AMAZING thing about roa2 is that you can actually ignore helping the priestess, and thus not get 2 auto levels and play the game witha level 1 party. I wonder if anyone ever did that...must have been tuff.

 

[EvilManagedCare]

Definately play BoD first. It gives a nice sense of continuity from using the same party in ST. That, and it makes progressing through ST much easier.

The worst part of BoD is there seemed to be multiple potentially gamestopping decisions, so save fairly often despite the XP penalty. And for whatever reason the PC speaker will chime when you activate some windows or make certain selections. All other sounds are through the sound card.

Start from the very beginning. I may have to replay this myself with all the RoA talk that's abound.

 

[sheek]

Don't save during combat or dungeons, that'll ruin the experience and make it like any other RPG. The save penalty is there for a reason and it's good game design.

 

[undead dolphin hacker]

Don't save during combat or dungeons, that'll ruin the experience and make it like any other RPG. The save penalty is there for a reason and it's good game design.

 

[Nedrah]

I almost decide to play the trilogy whenever a thread like this comes up.

But, as mentioned before, it seems like one can make decisions that are real show-stoppers and would require one to restart or reload an older save. Now, hardcore or not, that just sucks and would take a lot of the fun out of the game for me.

Is "you made the wrong decision and now you can't finish the game, SUCKER!" at least immediately apparent, or might one lose a few hours of playing before noticing a mistake has been made?

 

[Jasede]

I don't remember many of those things. Well, granted, in RoA 1 you can completely miss crucial map pieces if you make a mistake, but not only will you know that, but also, you do not need all map pieces anyway, so there is some leeway. In 1, however, there are some "fuck you" trap that will require you to reload if you don't know about them. But there's only like two or three.

Well, and in RoA 2... oh yes, you could get stuck permanently if you steal some sacred treasure of the gods at one point - the gods punish you, see? And of course you could always use the "drop" command to drop some plot-critical item, but when I played this game the first time I was, what, 13 and had no walkthrough and I didn't get stuck, so why should you?

 

[Gladi]

I almost decide to play the trilogy whenever a thread like this comes up.

But, as mentioned before, it seems like one can make decisions that are real show-stoppers and would require one to restart or reload an older save. Now, hardcore or not, that just sucks and would take a lot of the fun out of the game for me.

Is "you made the wrong decision and now you can't finish the game, SUCKER!" at least immediately apparent, or might one lose a few hours of playing before noticing a mistake has been made?

Bright day
IIRC the decisions are mostly "you die foolishly trying to cross rapid mountain river" rather then "You shall now never find Hyggelik's sword, NEVER!"*. And if one character survives he can always try to go to temple of Tsa and pray for ressurection of his comrades.

*There is a false piece of map, but I think it is replaced automaticaly with the correct piece...


I would definetaly start with BoD, you can then do Star Trail from a much better position, plus the core gameplay remains quite the same.

 

[sheek]

I'm sorry, I don't see the point in playing an RPG, especially an old-school traditional RPG, if you're going to do the faggot save-reload routine every time something doesn't go your way. If you want everything to go the right way watch a Hollywood movie or write your own fantasy novel, don't play old-school RPGS.

If you genuinely are interested in RPGs learn to deal with the consequences of your action or shut the fuck up.

 

[Andhaira]

But to be honest sometimes events don't go as planned. Very few people, on their first playthrough, will give swim and climbing skills to EVERY partymember; so when there is a TPK because the partty attermpts to climb the mountain but falls, its not really the players fault.

 

[JoKa]

clinbing without climbing skill sounds like a good idea to me. no way the player's at fault.

 

[sheek]

I don't remember travelling taking that long... 5-15 minutes would be all you lose, 20-30 for a dungeon. If you fuck up you're going to pay a lot more attention next time and come prepared, unless you are very unlucky you won't make the same mistakes twice.

 

[Gladi]

I don't remember travelling taking that long... 5-15 minutes would be all you lose, 20-30 for a dungeon. If you fuck up you're going to pay a lot more attention next time and come prepared, unless you are very unlucky you won't make the same mistakes twice.

And what if you are twenty hours into the game and get TPK, can you load then?

 

[sheek]

Of course, unless for some reason you didn't save in any town. The idea is that save points are only in temples where adventurers traditionally meet up (and where you start the game). You can drop off or add new members at any time in a temple.

 

[Jasede]

And frankly, going into a dungeon is retarded without saving unless you enjoy iron-manning and thrill.

I think sheek has a point. See, I am stingy - even though the XP penalty for saving is really, really tiny (a single encounter, even one you already had, will give you the experience back, or if I misremember, as many encounters as you have party members) - I never saved when not in a temple. Yes, this meant the party sometimes ran into a "kill all members" trap. But that's okay! My fault for not putting the guy with the best trap-sense skills in the front. Next time I won't step into the trap. Looking back I didn't need to redo a dungeon more than three times, ever, just by being more careful when a sudden death hit me, and also, by simply enduring it when some bad things happened. Dead people can be revived, after all, equipment can be replaced.

 

[Andhaira]

I personally saved whenever I felt like it, whenever I accomplished something major, a difficult fight (the necromancer in SoR for example) or when time passed.

 

[Claw]

I'm not even sure I was aware of the experience penalty when I played Star Trail. I did try to restrict myself when I started playing BoD, though.


I think it's more fun this way, but to each his own.

 

[Saxon1974]

Im debating playing these games.

I started playing ROA I a while back and stopped due to the sheer amount of stuff you have to manage. I dont mind food and water, but eating utensils, blankets etc.....seems like a bit much.

I didnt play too much though.

Are the micromanaging details of this game too much to make it enjoyable? Should I give it another go?

 

[aleph]

the micromanagment part is the most fun part of the game. Don forget to provide your heroes with proper footwear. And take an instrument with you to be able to play in taverns for money.