ghostdog said:
Wolfenstein1942 said:
I think I might try Darklands and Prince of Qin first. They both look very tantalizing, mainly because I'm a sucker for historical settings.
How on earth did you come up with those? From what you were asking for in your fisrt post I'd never think to suggest those two. Of course if you're desperately looking for historical background these are pretty good... BUT as I recall about Darklands (played it a long time ago and never finished it) it's pretty unforgiving and without much substance (it's more of a sandbox game). And Prince of quin is a hack and slash game in the style of Diablo. It's better than Diablo IMO, but still it's mostly about click'n'kill and fish for items.
Yeah, you just made an ass of yourself. I know very little about Prince of Qin, so I won't talk about that much. Darklands, however, has:
An intuitive and deep, but most of all
evocative character creation system in which you choose a wide a variety of stats and also guide your characters through their backgrounds and jobs to make up a career that effects their starting abilities, age, and equipment.
Beautiful hand-painted backgrounds with text for all gameplay except combat, which, like the art in King of Dragon Pass, will never be outdated.
A reasonable and not enormously dated interface.
Unparalleled degrees of historical accuracy for an RPG.
Wonderful sandbox gameplay; together with Daggerfall, the only RPG that I can truly call a sandbox. You can explore the medieval German countryside, venturing into hundreds of small hamlets and dozens of towns, while building up your reputation or infamy and undertaking various quests.
More freedom to use your party's skills than in almost any RPG ever made. Want to get into a city? Pay the toll if you've got the money, sneak inside if you're stealthy, scale the wall at night if you have the strength, slaughter the guards, distract the guards with alchemy if you've found the right formula and ingredients, convince the guards you are allowed in with speech skills, or pray to an appropriate saint for a miracle if you have learned the proper prayers at a cathedral or religious school and are sufficiently virtuous.
Serviceable if not outstanding isometric party-based combat that is intutive yet presents a real challenge.
Fun gameplay even if you never pursue the main quest or get good at the game. Start when you want, stop when you want. Pick up your game weeks or months later.
It was my introduction to RPGs, and I don't think there's any better.