The best Computer RPG ever?


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What would you say was the best Fantasy RPG ever made for any computer game system (PC, Playstation, Xbox, Genisis, Nintendo)?

My personal favorite: Baldur’s Gate 1&2 for PC. The whole series was awesome.
For Playstation I’m torn between Champions of Norath, and Shikoden 1.
For Xbox, no question: The Bard’s Tale. Quite possibly the funniest game I’ve ever played! I rented it for a weekend and then bought it Monday morning.

Dark Archive Bella Sara Charter Superscriber

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But there are so many good ones...

My all time favorite rpg is probably Final Fantasy VI (aka Final Fantasy 3 for the SNES). FF IV/2 is a very strong second place. The franchise has gone downhill since FFVII, but back in the day they were the only ones making good console rpgs.

The Baldur's Gate games were generally good, though I remember they irritated me because they used the 2e rules without any of the patches that a good DM would apply. I was constantly forgetting what stats were important and the constraints imposed by level limits.

I wish I could burn out any memory of Pool of Radiance. I had such high hopes for that game. At the time I bought it, I was on a tight budget and I purchased maybe 3-4 games per year. I was so excited about a 3e game that I went out and purchased it w/o reading any reviews (though I did remember previews that talked about a lot of cool features that were cut before release). I was so bitter and dissapointed that to this day I try not to buy Ubisoft games.

But...the best computer rpg ever has to be Planescape Torment. That game was the best.

Edit: I will have to check out Bards Tale for the Xbox. I didn't realize there were any good rpgs for that system. For the PS2 though, Knights of the Old Republic is probably the best rpg IMO.


Anyone anticipating the March 21 release of Morrowind: Oblivion for the Xbox 360?


Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate are the only computer RPG's I've ever played, and I'd pick Baldur's Gate only because you could run a whole party, not just one PC with a henchman.

Dark Archive Contributor

Baramay wrote:
Anyone anticipating the March 21 release of Morrowind: Oblivion for the Xbox 360?

Being one of the 80* or so Xbox 360 owners in the US, yes I am. :)

* This number is an approximation and might be too high. ;D


Have to agree with you, Sebastian, about FF VI and Pool of Radiance. FF VI is so freakin' cool - I have geeked out my computer and set it up so I can run old console games on it - 16-bit sound in 5.1 surround speakers with a subwoofer! YES! It had story, it had a plot, the characters weren't perfect - I love it to this day.

Pool of Radiance...ick. So much potential, so fatally flawed. Yeah. I wanna run around a big farkin' dungeon with no easy way to get to and fro. Yup yup.

Temple of Elemental Evil I feel the same way about it. Trying to go it solo is like going to the dentist - a long, slow wait with a painful conclusion, usually involving bits of smoking bone. I keep trying to give it another chance, but it's just not happening for me. I look at the shinies and go "Eh."

KotoR and KotoR 2 - Oh hell yeah. What a blast! Still going through KotoR on the computer and my significant other is playing KotoR 2 on his computer and we're both just jazzed about the game. Whoever wrote the storyline for those two games should have done the prequels for Star Wars.

I did like Morrowind, just couldn't really get into the story or the setting very much. The openess of it was refreshing - but it felt very empty.

There have been other games that have been labeled as an RPG, but I couldn't really call it that. "Action Fantasy" would be more appropriate, I think, 'cause I frankly couldn't see the "RPG" in it. Diablo I/II, Sacred, games like that.

I like NWN, though the campaign story was a bit weak in some areas. I also like the user creation end of NWN, but I never seem to have enough time to really devote learning all the ins & outs of it. To really make it feel like an RPG, you'd have to be really good at the Conversation editor, or had a live DM floating about (something I was never able to find).

Dark Archive Bella Sara Charter Superscriber

Lilith wrote:

Have to agree with you, Sebastian, about FF VI and Pool of Radiance. FF VI is so freakin' cool - I have geeked out my computer and set it up so I can run old console games on it - 16-bit sound in 5.1 surround speakers with a subwoofer! YES! It had story, it had a plot, the characters weren't perfect - I love it to this day.

Pool of Radiance...ick. So much potential, so fatally flawed. Yeah. I wanna run around a big farkin' dungeon with no easy way to get to and fro. Yup yup.

Temple of Elemental Evil I feel the same way about it. Trying to go it solo is like going to the dentist - a long, slow wait with a painful conclusion, usually involving bits of smoking bone. I keep trying to give it another chance, but it's just not happening for me. I look at the shinies and go "Eh."

I had this sick facination/obsession with ToEE and played it a lot. It was definitely a flawed game, but it's also just about the only (modern) D&D game with turn based combat (Pool of Radiance being the other). Truth be told, it actually suffered from the same problem I cited with respect to Baldur's Gate - the computer "DM" was too rigid in enforcing the rules. Moving half speed while sneaking sucks for a computer game. And not being able to identify potions w/o spending more than the potion is worth is ridiculous. I won't say it was a good game, but with a sequel it might have been worth playing.

And I'm glad to find another FFVI lover! Usually people tend to give FFIV the edge because it has the better story. Are you running an emulator to play it or did you mod your computer? I lack any sort of tech savy, so instead I buy the game for any/ever console it is released for. I own a PS1 version and will probably acquire the GBA version shortly.


Darklands - 1992 MicroProse (11 5.25" floppys)

First game (to my knowledge) to have RT combat. Consistently goes upwards to $50 USD on Ebay for cd-rom version.


Final Fantasy VI is one of the finest games ever made, I think. So much fun, so much going on. Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 (and the expansions) are hands down the absolute best D&D computer games ever made. The other Infinity Engine games are also really good, but the BG series just got everything right. Fun combat (unlike Torment), good story (unlike Icewind Dale) and memorable characters. Plus, for a game set in the Forgotten Realms they did a great job making sure the main character is the most important person in the world that we see. Icewind Dale 2 was also pretty good, but not quite on the level of Baldur's Gate. NWN was fun, but being limited to only one henchman (or two in the expansion) prevented it from attaining the depth that BG managed. Arcanum is another great game, even though combat is the least fun part and the Fallout games are excellent. Morrowind can be fun at times, but after a while it fell apart for me.


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Elf needs food....badly! Anyone remember dropping quarters like crazy into that one? You know what I'm talking about, children of the 80's!

...okay...obviously not an RPG....but almost as cool as Defender, Joust and Missile Command.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Boo-yah! Gauntlet, baby!! I was heartily amused when "Blue Warrior Needs Food Badly" showed up in Order of the Stick.

farewell2kings wrote:
Elf needs food....badly!


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I liked both FFIV and VI, but VI I beat before my brother did, so it holds a special place in my heart. Running an emulator, ZSNES, with a Logitech gamepad. Before I had a PS2, I got FFVII and VIII on the PC - now that I have a PS2, I ran and got the "Legends", "Chronicles" and "Tactics" as well.

Yes, Final Fantasy is my master and I'm in a binding contract.

Sebastian wrote:
And I'm glad to find another FFVI lover! Usually people tend to give FFIV the edge because it has the better story. Are you running an emulator to play it or did you mod your computer? I lack any sort of tech savy, so instead I buy the game for any/ever console it is released for. I own a PS1 version and will probably acquire the GBA version shortly.

The Exchange

These will definately show my age:

Tunnels of Doom on the Texas Instruments TI99-4A computer (random dungeon generation, 4 characters, turn-based combat with pixels), anyone remember that one?

Eye of the Beholder III

Might and Magic (world of Xeen) LOVED THAT GAME!!! Why don't they make turn based combat games with a full 4-6 person party, anymore? I loved using all the different spells and stuff.

Also liked Stronghold (the D&D one, with the medusas, stone golems, and spore clouds, more stategy game but I liked the empire developement.)

And yeah, can't wait for Oblivion also.
BTW I am 35 in case you wondered.

FH


Fake Healer wrote:

These will definately show my age:

Ok. For 'ooooold school' feel, I have to go with "Temple of Apshai" for the mightymighty Commodore 64. Remember loading about 3 cassettes (yes, cassettes) worth of data only to have the last one freak out and then you have to start the loading process over?

Man, I played the hell outta that game. One weekend back in '85 ,we got so jazzed on Dr Pepper we started throwing characters with 3's for stats all the way down into that deathtrap, just to see how far we could get. That Worker Ant in room 2 was usually just too much of a badass for us to get past.

Slightly newer, is the Zelda for the Super Nintendo. Loved it! Played about 90-some hours on it solving every side quest and whatnot.

Played about 90-some hours on the FF with Squall as the main character (forget which number). Got to the third disc and found the island of the Ultimate Weapon, went down there and couldnt' beat that so-n-so and gave up. I think it is still on a memory card somewhere...

I liked the Grand Theft Auto's for PS2 better, though not this newest one...but that's another thread.

Paizo Employee Senior Software Developer

Oh my god. I was going to mention Temple of Apshai but figured no one else would remember it. I played it on the TRS-80 (Model I baybee, yeah!!), and loaded it from tape many times. Later, I ported it to load from disk. That was awesome.

Borax, dwarf, may you live forever, reading monsters and treasures from the back of the little blue manual....


If you want to talk old and sucky how about Dungeons & Dragons for Atari. Dragons looked like sea horses, your character was a stick, and you had to find the "sword" that looked like an arrow to kill the dragon. God it was awful!


Sebastian wrote:


Edit: I will have to check out Bards Tale for the Xbox. I didn't realize there were any good rpgs for that system. For the PS2 though, Knights of the Old Republic is probably the best rpg IMO.

A Bards Tale is actually an Action RPG Like Champions of Norath (Smae play engine) but it is a spoof on RPGs with Cary Ewles (SP?) (Princess Bride, Robinhood Men in Tights) doing the voice of the bard. The tag line is "A quest for coins, cleavage and carnage!"


Blackdragon wrote:
If you want to talk old and sucky how about Dungeons & Dragons for Atari. Dragons looked like sea horses, your character was a stick, and you had to find the "sword" that looked like an arrow to kill the dragon. God it was awful!

I remember another Atari game like this called "Adventureland"?!?!? I think, I remember the dragons / sea horses and a bat in a darkened section...and you could carry a bridge around for part of it. There was a veryvery early 'easter egg' in it...that we read about somewhere?!?!? Where you had to take the bridge to some area and then push it thru the bottom of the screen and then use the bridge to get to an unattainable area and there was a pixel that when you touched it with yer character, some message appeared, "Congratulations for finding the secret blabla..." or something to that effect.

It seems like there was a funky bug to it too. Where if a dragon / sea horse came at you while you had the sword, but the dragon pixel touched the character pixel w/o touching the sword, you were eaten and while goinginto the dragons belly, the sword killed the dragon...and then if you were extra lucky the bat would fly thru and pick up the dragon carcass with yer carcass inside and you would fly around the map all dead and stuff.


drunken_nomad wrote:


Ok. For 'ooooold school' feel, I have to go with "Temple of Apshai" for the mightymighty Commodore 64.

Unfortunatly I don't remember that one - but money was limited back in those days. Anyone ever play with The Adventure Construction Set? I burned endless hours on that one.


As for the best - Fallout was as good as it got IMO.


farewell2kings wrote:

Elf needs food....badly! Anyone remember dropping quarters like crazy into that one? You know what I'm talking about, children of the 80's!

...okay...obviously not an RPG....but almost as cool as Defender, Joust and Missile Command.

Ok. Do you remember this weird old coin op?

Top view of a maze...almost like 'Berzerk'. 1 or 2 player in a cooperative mode. The 'good guys' (the one you played) were displayed in side view (almost like a computer chess display). Different beasties come out from behind sliding doors. I think it was only in maybe 3-4 colors (black background/one player char one color/player 2 diff color/and maybe monsters a diff color. Had to be early 80's. Might be called "Wizards and Warlocks" or "Wizards and Warriors"?!?!?

Or this later one (about '86-'88). 1 or 2 or 3 players. very multicolored (maybe even 16 colors, wowie!) ;). Many different characters , each with a diff attack. Wizard with short burst of fire w/ hi damage. Bowman with longrange attack and can hit enemies in towers. Rifleman attack same as bowman, but better. Bazookaman, grenadier, mortars??? etc etc etc. The goal of every screen was to get from the bottom of the screen and escape out the top of the screen...but there were captured allies that you could rescue, if you could get to them w/o killing them.

I put about six BILLION quarters into these machines, and I can't think of the names of them to see if they can be emulated on the PC or on a nostalgia disc for the PS2 or whatever.

I also put about that many into Sinistar and Joust. Loved those games!


It was Adventure, and I freakin' HATED that damn bat, stealing my stuff after I retrieved the Grails.

drunken_nomad wrote:

I remember another Atari game like this called "Adventureland"?!?!? I think, I remember the dragons / sea horses and a bat in a darkened section...and you could carry a bridge around for part of it. There was a veryvery early 'easter egg' in it...that we read about somewhere?!?!? Where you had to take the bridge to some area and then push it thru the bottom of the screen and then use the bridge to get to an unattainable area and there was a pixel that when you touched it with yer character, some message appeared, "Congratulations for finding the secret blabla..." or something to that effect.

It seems like there was a funky bug to it too. Where if a dragon / sea horse came at you while you had the sword, but the dragon pixel touched the character pixel w/o touching the sword, you were eaten and while goinginto the dragons belly, the sword killed the dragon...and then if you were extra lucky the bat would fly thru and pick up the dragon carcass with yer carcass inside and you would fly around the map all dead and stuff.

Scarab Sages

When I was younger we had a computer game whose name was, I think< Seven Cities of Gold. You basically played a Columbus like character, sialing your ships (laden with trade goods) over to explore the new world and trade with natives. You could even sail around the tip of south america and end up in California. It was fun. I guess it could be considered and ealry RPG or strategy game.

As far as modern stuff, I loved Diablo and Diable II for the computer.

For my xbox - I agree with Lilith, KOTOR and KOTOR2 kick ass. HK-47 was the best, Meatbag! The first one was just great. The second had a lot better rules and stuff you could do (like creating and breaking down items) but the story wasn't as good. I was always mad at Lucas for rushing the release and forcing the developer to cut a bunch of stuff out of the game (like the HK Factory). I also liked Fable, although the whole "Lost Chapters" thing made me mad. And Jade Empire was pretty cool, kind of an RPG with heavy doses of an action game and a fighting game.


I'll always have a soft spot for the Zork series. And the original Pool of Radiance, when it took about 2 hours to fight a room full of 50 kobolds and goblins because each one of them got a turn and moved two steps.

Legacy of the Ancients was another really good one. And Rendezvous with Rama.

Ahhh...the days of the Commodore 64/128.

These days you can't find a better RPG for the computer/console than KOTOR. Maybe the GTA series...

M@

The Exchange

Developers should make a game where you have a fully fleshed out town/city and surrounds and a blank palette for a world. Create a dungeon/encounter area, place it somewhere outside the town, click on an NPC and add the adventure hook. Online communities would guarantee that you would never run out of quests. Design characters just like the D&D corebooks with expansion packs for supplemental book's classes and Monsters. Flexibility would be needed for character creation. Paizo could have little 1/2 page write-ups for how to convert an adventure in the mag to the game, thus making Dungeon magazine essential for people playing the game, and exposing more people to D&D in general, while upping magazine sales. Level design would have to be simple to use, not like NWN. More like Dundjinni. Combat MUST be turn based and parties MUST have room for at least 4 characters in them, all controllable by the user (or if doing the online thing, by each player). Graphics don't need to be cutting edge if the gameplay is smooth, too much time is spent on trying to show that the characters face has pores and his/her armor is embossed.

That would be my perfect game, set in no specific D&D campaign world.

Any thoughts?
FH


drunken_nomad wrote:

Ok. Do you remember this weird old coin op?

Top view of a maze...almost like 'Berzerk'. 1 or 2 player in a cooperative mode. The 'good guys' (the one you played) were displayed in side view (almost like a computer chess display). Different beasties come out from behind sliding doors. I think it was only in maybe 3-4 colors (black background/one player char one color/player 2 diff color/and maybe monsters a diff color. Had to be early 80's. Might be called "Wizards and Warlocks" or "Wizards and Warriors"?!?!?

It was "Wizards of War", and I had it for my Comodore 64.

Ultradan


Speaking of Commodore 64, any of you ever played the "Fantasy" series 1, 2 and 3? I must of spent half of my highschool nights on those games. Very basic graphics, but tons of places to explore, many character types (that you could build to your own likings (you made a party of six), and tons of monsters to encounter. Not very good looking, but extemely fun.

And, still on the Commodore 64, there was "Windham Classics: Below the Root", not a role-playing game like we're used to (not a single fight in the game!). You used to explore and walk around this sort of tree village and talked to the many people that lived there. You're goal was to figure out what happened to the villages' prince (or heir), whom has dissapeared. Very addictive and intelligent.

Ultradan


Ultradan wrote:

Speaking of Commodore 64, any of you ever played the "Fantasy" series 1, 2 and 3? I must of spent half of my highschool nights on those games. Very basic graphics, but tons of places to explore, many character types (that you could build to your own likings (you made a party of six), and tons of monsters to encounter. Not very good looking, but extemely fun.

Ultradan

I forgot about the Fantasy games. I had one of them, I don't remember which one though.

C64 was the shizzle back in the day.

M@


matt_the_dm wrote:

C64 was the shizzle back in the day.

M@

Yep, when 64k of memory was way more than enough! (What could we possibly do with more than 64k?)

Ultradan


We were up in Santa Cruz Last month at the boardwalk, and I found a game I haven't seen in years. It was a console game of Dungeons & Dragons in the Mystara setting that played kind of like Golden Axe. All of the monsters were out of the book, but the character classes were very basic.


Again, for Commodore 64; Does anyone remember "Impossible Mission" from Epyx?

Ultradan
(Stay a while... STAY FOREVER!!!)

Dark Archive Bella Sara Charter Superscriber

Fake Healer wrote:

These will definately show my age:

Tunnels of Doom on the Texas Instruments TI99-4A computer (random dungeon generation, 4 characters, turn-based combat with pixels), anyone remember that one?

No way! That was the original game that got me into rpgs at all. I used to play it with a friend in elementary school. He'd control the wizard and I'd control the fighter. We'd occasionally make his brother be the rogue. We always got killed by something like the vampires. I never mention that game because so few people owned TI99-4A's.

Dark Archive Bella Sara Charter Superscriber

Blackdragon wrote:
We were up in Santa Cruz Last month at the boardwalk, and I found a game I haven't seen in years. It was a console game of Dungeons & Dragons in the Mystara setting that played kind of like Golden Axe. All of the monsters were out of the book, but the character classes were very basic.

They had that game in my college rec center. It's a good game, probably the last decent arcade machine that I've seen.


Fake Healer wrote:

These will definately show my age:

Tunnels of Doom on the Texas Instruments TI99-4A computer (random dungeon generation, 4 characters, turn-based combat with pixels), anyone remember that one?

Eye of the Beholder III

Might and Magic (world of Xeen) LOVED THAT GAME!!! Why don't they make turn based combat games with a full 4-6 person party, anymore? I loved using all the different spells and stuff.

Also liked Stronghold (the D&D one, with the medusas, stone golems, and spore clouds, more stategy game but I liked the empire developement.)

And yeah, can't wait for Oblivion also.
BTW I am 35 in case you wondered.

FH

Might and Magic rocked. Especially the first one.

- Ashavan

Liberty's Edge

Talk about a trip down memory lane! Seven Cities of Gold was incredible (same developer at M.U.L.E. I believe, also a good game). Not quite an RPG, but maybe some elements. Along those lines is Pirates! (some RPG elements, and recently remade).

Another fun, old game was Wizadry. I remember a room full of "vorpal bunnies" where there was loads of XP to be earned. Probably a bug, but we were young and not above exploiting it.

More recently, I'd have to say the BG series is great for the story and control of a whole party (I played BG1 by myself, then my wife wanted to play too so we got it for her and went through it again in multiplayer, then we did BG2). NWN is nifty for the aurora toolset and all the adventures out there, but we sometimes run into bugs with quests not gettin updated properly (even official campaigns...but I think this is because they are meant for single player and we go multiplayer).

KOTOR was amazing (I have not played KOTOR2 yet). Great story, good control system, and just so much fun.

I have not played Morrowind, but played Daggerfall all the time back in its day (that is, when I could convince my wife to stop playing it). I am looking forward to Oblivion (I guess I will just do the evens in the elder scrolls series :) )

Oh, and I still play a port of Moria on my PC.


I can easily say that Baldur's Gate II and Throne of Bhaal were the best video game RPGs ever made. The way the party reacted to your actions and how they would interact with you was great. Though the graphics were not end all godlike, it had the best and most dramatic music in it next to the final fantasy series. I could play the game multiple times and did many things different when I attempted the good and evil paths. Though it had 2nd edition rules which I never understood, I had great amounts of fun playing BG2 and the expansion. The ending after you beat it was even great, though it saddened me to see the series end 8'(. Easily one of the best games ever made and is my favorite video game RPG to date. It was a sad day to see Black Isle fade away into history.

P.S. I am eagerly awaiting Oblivion and NWN 2 because I just upgraded my PC. 8)


Mike McArtor wrote:
Baramay wrote:
Anyone anticipating the March 21 release of Morrowind: Oblivion for the Xbox 360?

Being one of the 80* or so Xbox 360 owners in the US, yes I am. :)

* This number is an approximation and might be too high. ;D

Hehe, add me to the list of Xbox 360 owners anticipating Elder Scrolls IV. I pre-ordered the collector's edition. That coin's going in my die bag as my d2.


Oops, forgot to add my little list of RPGs:

Wasteland (played in on the Apple IIe)
Assorted Gold Box games (Pool of Radiance is top, but my memories of it are probably scattered over a whole range of titles)
Ultima Underworld and Ultimas 6, 7 and 8
Elder Scrolls (Arena & Daggerfall, Morrowind was too glum for me)
Baldur's Gate
Knight of the Old Republic is cool, but I want to see an evolution from that and Jade Empire. I feel like Bioware is on the cusp of a great new CRPG format with those games. Let's hope that they arrive at that greatness in their next iteration of games.


I guess my taste must just be lame, but I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the Dragon Warrior (Quest) series that started on the NES. I played and owned all 4 that were released in the US, the 4th being my favorite. Then there was DQ VII for the Playstation, and I own it still and love it. And now... god, Dragon Quest VIII on the PS2 is like heroine. Just so much fun, such a fun and entertaining story, and gorgeous to look upon. The monsters and such are silly-looking, being Akira Toriyama art designs (a staple of the entire series), but still... the game is amazing.


Ultradan wrote:

Again, for Commodore 64; Does anyone remember "Impossible Mission" from Epyx?

Ultradan
(Stay a while... STAY FOREVER!!!)

That game was classic! What I remember most about those games was how I used to do that flip jump everywhere instead of running. And the music puzzles.

M@


MetalBard wrote:
Ultima Underworld and Ultimas 6, 7 and 8

Oh yeah! I have so many fond memories of Ultima VII: Serpent Isle. I still hold that to my standard of what a computer/console RPG should try to be like. You are THE Avatar, man! You uphold the Virtues, and the one Ultima where they show you in your dull life back on Earth and given the opportunity to go back to Britannia, you didn't hesitate?

I skipped school to play that game....And because I am an uber-geek, I got the "Ultima Collection" that comes with ALL of the Ultima games, up to VIII or IX, I think, but not the online game, and played them again.

On Linux. :-D


Last year, for my birthday, one of my friends bought me the box containing PC games "Dragon's Lair, Dragon's Lair II, and Space Ace". I must admit, I don't play with it much, but it's just so damn cool to own it.

(I must of spent at least a million dollars in quarters on those games at the arcade!)

Damn Don Bleuth!!!

Ultradan


While not a rpg game, microprose also was responsible for Masters of Magic, probably my favorite computer fantasy-based game. I have a spare machine with win '98 laying around the house specifically so i can play it.


I'm surprised Morrowind didn't show up more often. The first time I played that game, I felt totally lost, and I was confused by the system. Subsequently, my characters all sucked. :) Then I got the hang of it, and GOD, did that game rock! There were soooo many quests, secrets, and options available. Did I want to play a dark elf spellsword loyal to House Hlaalu, or play a crazy Telvani wizard? Trust me, take the Telvani! Although, they could have put in a damned access road to their stupid mushroom tower that they gave you.

I used a theif to sneak all the way across the blighted lands north of Suran, and fought an epic orc samurai whose last desire was to find a challenge greater than himself. I plunged into the depths of Daedric temples and discovered weapons of unthinkable power hovering over pits of lava and surrounded by demons. I summoned atronarchs to wipe out whole complexes of vapires in Dweamer (sp?) ruins, while solving the mystery of those very missing dwarves. I confronted distorted Corprus beasts, and saved Imperial forts, then worked for legal assassins guilds to take out rivals. That sounds pretty D&D to me!

I loved the story; I know I've been a big proponent of the alignment system on these boards, but Morrowind lacked one, and it was awesome. When playing my rendition of a paladin, I actually had to make hard choices to uphold what I *knew* to be right, but it would be sooo much easier just to take that glass dagger and pawn it....

My wizard made rings that shot fire and allowed me to fly to unimagined hieghts in the sky. The books were full of richly developed lore; if you really get into it, the Elder Scrolls have close to, if not more, history and cannon to them as FR. The music was good, the story epic, the gods up close, personal, and awesome.

The only things I really had an issue with were the lack of challenges from random encounters so quickly, and the lack of any gained class features or abilities beyond level 1. Nevertheless, there was always the difficulty meter to counteract the first flaw, and I was able to overlook the second as I gained awesome weapons and armor, decked my character out to the max, and still got my ass handed to me by the demons on the Bitter Coast when I accidently rushed right into the center of two daedroths and a dremora lord. And I loved it!

I'm almost spastic with anticipation of the PC release for Oblivion. :)

As far as BG goes, I loved that game, too. I played a half-elf ranger all the way to the Underdark in BG2, and had my clerics and wizards casting 9th level spells. The music was good, the story was good, the subquests were good, the characters were good, and there was so much to do! I played my main file for 70+ hours; 40 of which were probably spent on sub-quests, exploration, character development outside of the main quest, and managing my stronghold. Yes, Baldur's Gate was the pinnacle of gaming when I had my hands on it. Then Windows XP murdered it for my system; it is lost and gone forever to me. (sobs).

But, mainly I'm excited about Oblivion.

I really loved NWN for the expansions and the freedom of the toolset, though it was certainly no Elder Scrolls or BG.

Oblivion will rock.

I'll also throw in a mention of a game that I haven't seen any reference to yet: The Legend of Dragoon. I played that when I was in the 7th and 8th grade. Yes, it may have ended up being little more than a Final Fantasy knockoff that was nowhere near the pinnacle of gaming from an objective standpoint, but it was one of, it not the first, videogame RPG I ever played (as it was the 6th grade before I had a system of my own, a Playstation 1; before that, all I had was playing at friend's houses. A computer capable of games came a few years later). There's something magical about the first game you get of a genre and really, really love. I'm sure all my attachment comes from that simple nostalgia, not actual greatness attributed to that game, but it doesn't change the feeling. :)

Oh, and did I mention that I'm excited about Oblivion? :P


Others are showing their age - why not me?

Akalabeth - Apple II - monochrome


farewell2kings wrote:
Elf needs food....badly! Anyone remember dropping quarters like crazy into that one? You know what I'm talking about, children of the 80's!

Heh heh... "wizard, is about to die..."

Liberty's Edge

Let's see:

The first CRPG that I played for hours on end was Ultima III on the C64. Ultima IV was a huge breakthrough when it came out (characters that would only show up at certain hours of the day, meaningful alignment, really interesting character generation), but ultimately just too much work.

Might and Magic (the first one) was huge and great fun for its time.

Hack (and its clones) probably deserve mention, if only because they were so early. Pretty mindless, nearly impossible to win, but still fun. Though the haggling over prices did get to be a bit much.

But the one that I really remember is Dungeon Master for the Amiga. I bought an Amiga just to play that game - and it was worth the money. Real time, first person view, fascinating puzzles, experience based on your actions (anyone could become any kind of character with enough work). There was nothing that came close at the time.


Considering my wizard was usually surrounded by that point, my response to that was usually rated R as I swore at the arcade machine.

kahoolin wrote:
Heh heh... "wizard, is about to die..."


"Remember; Don't shoot FOOD!"

Who shoots food anyway?

Ultradan


Ultradan wrote:

Last year, for my birthday, one of my friends bought me the box containing PC games "Dragon's Lair, Dragon's Lair II, and Space Ace". I must admit, I don't play with it much, but it's just so damn cool to own it.

(I must of spent at least a million dollars in quarters on those games at the arcade!)

Damn Don Bleuth!!!

Ultradan

I have that too, and every once in a while I'll play. For some reason I always prefered space ace to Dragon's Lair though.

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