Spiderweb The best beginning in an RPG

[HeatEXTEND]

PS:T, and its inspiration in the console Shadowrun, are both great. But I have to say that my absolute favorite is probably Lufia and the Fortress of Doom.

Best to skip 1 and just play 2.

Thank god for european releases

 

[sser]

Gothic/Risen games (at least the ones I've played). They feel like adventures where you truly start from nothing to really become a hero. Bootstrappin' type games.

 

[MRY]

PS:T, and its inspiration in the console Shadowrun, are both great. But I have to say that my absolute favorite is probably Lufia and the Fortress of Doom.

Best to skip 1 and just play 2.

Thank god for european releases

No. Lufia 2 is a million times better, but it has nothing comparably great to the intro of Lufia.

 

[Karellen]

It's a low-hanging fruit, but I honestly can't think of an RPG or even a game that could top the bombing mission in Final Fantasy VII for sheer style, momentum and expediency. The tracking shot of Midgar is more or less the single greatest FMV sequence in gaming, and I have a great deal of admiration for how the game drops you into action - a terrorist action, at that - with hardly a word of exposition. JRPGs get flak, not without reason, for being long-winded and obtustely convoluted, but Japanese developers often have these flashes of restraint where they let the gameplay and art direction do the talking, and to a large degree thanks to that the entire Midgar sequence of FF7 is probably the greatest seven or so hours to be found in any Japanese RPG.

 

[pippin]

also wiz6 is kinda funny. "You think you might get out if you feel a bit under the weather"... but then it's like fuck you fag xD

Dark Sun is great too. Killing shit in the arena and then thrown back into the pens. Better than any prisoner intro...

 

[Volourn]

FF8 and DA1 are the bets. PST is pretty solid as well.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

PS:T, and its inspiration in the console Shadowrun, are both great. But I have to say that my absolute favorite is probably Lufia and the Fortress of Doom.

Best to skip 1 and just play 2.

Thank god for european releases

No. Lufia 2 is a million times better, but it has nothing comparably great to the intro of Lufia.

Well yeah, but 1's intro might also be one of the greatest spoilers in videogame history.

Spoiler

or maybe it just seems that way for europeans

 

[MRY]

It's a low-hanging fruit, but I honestly can't think of an RPG or even a game that could top the bombing mission in Final Fantasy VII for sheer style, momentum and expediency. The tracking shot of Midgar is more or less the single greatest FMV sequence in gaming

I think you may be seeing through nostalgia lenses. I don't think it holds up well at all:

The initial part with the sparks takes way too long, the graphics don't look particularly good, the music doesn't draw you in, and the random cuts to the train wheels feel random and out of place. The transition from the CGI to the in-game is kind of neat, except that the animations and sound effects lack any oomph. I do remember it fondly, but watching it now, it seems pretty bad.

 

[Alex]

Damnit, keep the weeaboo stuff in the weeaboo forum...

 

[Karellen]

It's a low-hanging fruit, but I honestly can't think of an RPG or even a game that could top the bombing mission in Final Fantasy VII for sheer style, momentum and expediency. The tracking shot of Midgar is more or less the single greatest FMV sequence in gaming

I think you may be seeing through nostalgia lenses. I don't think it holds up well at all:

The initial part with the sparks takes way too long, the graphics don't look particularly good, the music doesn't draw you in, and the random cuts to the train wheels feel random and out of place. The transition from the CGI to the in-game is kind of neat, except that the animations and sound effects lack any oomph. I do remember it fondly, but watching it now, it seems pretty bad.

Interestingly, the long beginning with the sparks is where, in the demo, there used to be an entirely superfluous introductory captions. It's puzzling why it wasn't cut short, as it really ought to have been, but even so the sequence is better off without the captions. As for the graphics, I suppose you're right, but the key element of the sequence is the shot of Midgar, which (despite the scale of the city being entirely too small) is one of those pictures that's worth a thousand words, and I think time has been a great deal kinder to it than a lot of cutscenes from that era, including those in PS:T or Baldur's Gate, which have pretty awful character models. All that said, in a thread like this, I honestly don't think that graphical quality could possibly be the point; what I admire about the sequence is its economy of storytelling, that is to say, how straight to the point it is and how efficiently and impactfully it introduces the game and its setting before throwing the player headlong into it.

 

[laclongquan]

Fallout2's Temple of Trials is the best beginning. You have a small area for testing all your skills, notably combat. If you can not even win over ants and scorpion in there, you know you are going to have trouble ahead.
I know it's the hip thing nowaday to trash ToT but that's mostly because people been playing that area to death~

Fallout1's beginning area is a bit subtle. The combat testing area, aka rat cave, is obvious. But the Vault 13's quests for beginners are a bit too hard to find. You need to go outside for half a day, then return and open the vault door to get inside. The quests are nice and you get some early equipments.

PSTorment fall to third place by default. F1 and 2 get the testing nature, aka you can test your various build in the beginning. But PST jump you right in and you have no idea about your build.

 

[Lhynn]

Fallout2's Temple of Trials is the best beginning.

Its legendarily shit. Fo2 picks up later on, but the first hour or so its fairly boring and the temple of trials is painful to go through. There are better beginnings that let you explore your combat skills on top of other skills.

 

[pippin]

temple of trials was put there due to higher up pressure. at least it's shorter than irenicus' sex dungeon.

 

[Lhynn]

Yeah, but irenicus dungeon is actually good, its just that the game gets replayed so much that it tends to get old. It has a lot of cool encounters and its worth exploring. It has a ton of foreshadowing too.

 

[thesoup]

Well, VtMB starts off by establishing that you're not an incel.

Then how is the game supposed to represent me? Immersion ruined.

 

[hellbent]

Actually, no, not Skyrim. Arx Fatalis and Gothic did the prisoner intro better. I love the sense of starting a game from nothing and working your way out.

Also liked Geneforge's intro - text heavy, but really gave you a sense of being in a different world.

 

[Eggs is eggs]

It's RPG-esque, but Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is one of my favourite intros. You start off playing the final level from the previous game and kill Dracula, and then it brings you up to speed on what has happened since and introduces you to the new main character.

Also, Wizardry IV has a cool intro. The whole backstory to that game is great, but it's all in the manual. Still, after 3 games of the same type of gameplay, you get to do something completely different in that game. Being the bad guy and summoning monsters was cool and it also had that puzzle in the first room. Too bad the game itself is crazy difficult.

 

[coldcrow]

Arx Fatalis. Short and to the point.

 

[laclongquan]

So you prefer eight hours of BG2's Irenicus Dungeon over 30 minutes of Temple of Trials...?
BG2's beginning area has only one feature that save it: the levelup and configure at the beginning. It allow unmatch builds testing. That is its major draw. But that's feature over content and intent.

 

[boot]

It's RPG-esque, but Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is one of my favourite intros. You start off playing the final level from the previous game and kill Dracula, and then it brings you up to speed on what has happened since and introduces you to the new main character.

 

[Lhynn]

So you prefer eight hours of BG2's Irenicus Dungeon over 30 minutes of Temple of Trials...?

Wut? irenicus dungeon takes like 15 minutes, if that. temple of trials takes like 5 minutes, and probably less than that. The fuck are you smoking?

 

[MRY]

You know, as I think about it, the Buck Rogers Goldbox game -- the one that starts with your base being under attack -- had a pretty great intro.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

I'd go for the arena and slave pens of "Dark Sun : Shattered Lands" and probably Daggerfall's starter dungeon.

Also, when you play it for the first time, Chateau Irenicus is pretty entertaining. Having to slowly re-equip yourself whith whatever gear you find is very cool.
Now, when it comes to replaying it...

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Party creation in Realms of Arkania.

 

[Lady_Error]

The first 30% or so of Wizardry 7 are pure heavan, especially when playing for the first time. Perfect beginner dungeon, mysterious encounter, ambush, city gate fight or figuring out what to say. The city design is the best in any RPG in my opinion, just as much of the rest of the map. Great races, competing NPC's, best character and magic systems, I could go on and on...