Great party-based old-school crpgs?

screeg · Post by **screeg** » February 19th, 2007, 10:03 am

Just discovered Wizardry 8. Wow. I never tried this title because of the first person perspective, but I should have known that Sirtech would deliver.

Wiz 8 and Jagged Alliance 2 are like interactive textbooks on how to:

> deliver outstanding voice acting and interacting NPC's
> manage parties
> develop a sensible, easy-to-use interface, even with dozens of stats to juggle
> deliver massive content and quality writing
> introduce new and fascinating monsters not inspired by the D&D franchise
> keep combat interesting forever
> deliver a bug free game out of the box

The bad news is that you can only purchase second hand copies of this game. I'm not going to advocate "stealing" it as opposed to paying a 500% markup to a reseller, but keep in mind Sirtech hasn't seen a dime from this title for years, and the original distributor, EB Games, doesn't even list it anymore.

YouTube · February 19th, 2007, 12:59 pm

Wiz8 is one of the few RPGs I haven't replayed recently. I just pulled the discs out of storage and I am going to reinstall it. I remember really enjoying it when I played it a few years ago, but I don't really recall much about the game itself or the mechanics.

mytgroo · Post by **mytgroo** » February 22nd, 2007, 11:38 pm

You can purchase Jagged Alliance 2 from Manifesto Games, http://www.manifestogames.com . This might be a good distribution site for Eschalon Book1, Also gametunnel might be another site.

Grumolch · Post by **Grumolch** » August 4th, 2007, 8:14 pm

I enjoyed Wizardry 8 to an extent. But seriously, if you like Wizardry 8, I would recommend Might and Magic VI: Mandate of Heaven. I can't imagine liking Wiz8 and not Mandate.

Of course I'm a bit biased, but I'm glad I've come across this forum. There are many games I've forgotten or passed over or haven't even heard of mentioned here. Maybe my quest will finally come to an end.

Saxon1974 · Post by **Saxon1974** » August 4th, 2007, 8:19 pm

Grumolch wrote:I enjoyed Wizardry 8 to an extent. But seriously, if you like Wizardry 8, I would recommend Might and Magic VI: Mandate of Heaven. I can't imagine liking Wiz8 and not Mandate.

Of course I'm a bit biased, but I'm glad I've come across this forum. There are many games I've forgotten or passed over or haven't even heard of mentioned here. Maybe my quest will finally come to an end.

I think I would be one who didnt like MM VI mandate that much and loved Wizardy 8.

Wizardry 8 is probably the last great true RPG to be released. Only issue I had was the combat occasionally was a bit too much and took too long, even though it was very well done. Lots of times you had to fight like 25 creatures....

Iane · Post by **Iane** » August 8th, 2007, 4:13 am

Have you seen "S.C.O.U.R.G.E.: Heroes of Lesser Renown" looks nice in early development http://scourge.sourceforge.net/

Sakar · Post by **Sakar** » October 1st, 2007, 2:58 pm

My all-time favorite:

The Magic Candle

If you like old school CRPG's (think Phantasy and Ultima, not Diablo) then you would probably enjoy The Magic Candle.

Saxon1974 · Post by **Saxon1974** » October 3rd, 2007, 1:18 am

Sakar wrote:My all-time favorite:

The Magic Candle

If you like old school CRPG's (think Phantasy and Ultima, not Diablo) then you would probably enjoy The Magic Candle.

Excellent game, I have it in the original box in my collection. From what I have read the 2 sequels don't live up to the original. I do have a copy of Bloodstone which was developed by the magic candle III engine and its supposed to be pretty good but I have not had time to play it yet.

Have you played any of the sequels and if so what did you think?

Old School Gamer · November 18th, 2007, 10:17 am

There's a game called Deathlord that was only made for the Apple //e computer and I think the Amiga, and it's honestly better than Ultima 1-6 were, in similar style, with an oriental theme, and devious puzzles and dungeons.

The world is over 1 million tiles in size, the combat is very enjoyable, much exploration, puzzles, everything you could ask for.

Here's a link to it on the Underdogs site: http://209.120.136.195/game.php?id=4848

It's honestly better than any other party-based RPG that was made in those days, It's got some quirks, but once you figure the game out it's actually got quite an enjoyable interface and control scheme.

You will need the apple emulator if you wish to play it, I use applewin, it's the best one: http://applewin.berlios.de/

I'd also recommend helherron (note that the linux version of helherron is MUCH more stable than the windows version); there are many others but these 2 are some of the least well-known and also the best, and I have a feeling most of the people who visit this site will have played 90% of the party-based RPGs that are out there.

But Deathlord is a true hidden diamond, atmospheric, very, very good. I rediscovered it just a bit ago, with very fond memories from around the 1980s playing it as a kid; it's every bit as good as I'd remembered.

Mr. Fed · Post by **Mr. Fed** » November 19th, 2007, 12:23 pm

OSG, agreed on both counts.

1. Deathlord was great fun -- HUGE world, really diverse character classes, good combat, and the Asian setting was a nice change from the routine. I find emulators far too limiting to use these days -- the interface just drives me crazy -- but your reference tempts me to try.

2. Helherron is one of my all-time favorites of any games, mainstream or indie. Unfortunately I think the latest build has some fatal problems later in the game that never got corrected. I'll try to dig around for some data on that. But still highly recommended.

Old School Gamer · November 21st, 2007, 11:31 pm

I've found applewin to be extremely intuitive in its use, it really feels like you have an apple computer sitting in front of you in some sense (I grew up with an apple and the program brings back that same feeling of running one).

Compared to for instance dosbox, it's very straightforward and after a few moments you'd have the functionality totally mastered; applewin has a great interface, I'm used to saying this about games, but in this case I think it applies to the program.

I haven't been able to play helherron since I got a new amd computer and installed Ubuntu 6.06LTS on it; I'm missing some critical files for running 32? bit programs, which makes helherron and my current party unplayable at the moment. All is well though, right now gaming seems to be taking a nice upturn and there are many options for games to play, and really not enough time to play them.

I also want to say, I second the nomination for Magic Candle, it's great, if you don't mind taking a lot of notes it's a lot of fun, and the time limit on finishing the game I think is one of its best features. Not many games these days give you a way to just plain lose the game, especially RPGs. I think this is oftentimes a key element in captivating gameplay.

This is part of what I liked about Deathlord; games today take a "hold the player's hand" kind of approach, while Deathlord is quite mean sometimes, and it makes you really, really want to find that Deathlord bastard and take him down. I think this is my favorite part of the game.

I think that games need to be made with different philosophies in mind, instead of just "lets make a game that the person plays and wins and that's it"; game makers seem to want to make games 100% enjoyable with no other emotion like feeling challenged or like you really want to take the big bad foozle out; for instance deathlord had level draining, which could take a lvl 6 character down to lvl 1 in no time; games these days wouldn't have that, but having it happen to me sure made me all the more want to find the deathlord and end him.

Anyway, I'm rambling, but somebody out there may find this random babble interesting. (getting the flu just before thanksgiving... fun!)

XE800 · Post by **XE800** » November 22nd, 2007, 4:30 pm

My three favourite partybased RPGs in the world (not having played Eschalon yet...) would be MM6, Wizardry 8 and Albion. I think the latter is considered freeware these days, and it runs fine under DOSBox. Great story, vibrant world, perhaps my favourite of the three if I had to choose.

realmzmaster · Post by **realmzmaster** » November 27th, 2007, 6:32 pm

What about Eye of Beholder I,II,III or Dungeon Master or Chaos Strikes Back! ? If you like a sci-fi backdrop SunDog! I also loved the gold box games! I enjoyed and still have almost all of the gold box games, Wizardry 1-8, Might and Magic 1-9 Magic Candle I,2,3. I love the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series. I cut may teeth on Ultima II-IV. I find very few commerical CRPG's worth palying now. I have had Apple, Timex-sinclair ZX-81,2068, Atari 400. 800, 65XE, 520ST, Commodore Vic-20, 64, 128, IBM PC with CGA monitor, custom built WinTel,emachines and gateways. I played CRPG's on all of time. Eschalon brings back the fun!

Fleisch · Post by **Fleisch** » November 28th, 2007, 6:21 pm

A game that no one has mentioned (and that probably reminds me most of Eschalon) is Faery Tale Adventure 2 - Halls of the Dead.

sapper_astro · Post by **sapper_astro** » December 3rd, 2007, 11:03 am

I cannot believe people have suggested Demons Winter and Death Lord...oh well, to each his own I guess. I found both to be horribly boring, not to mention buggy (C64 versions anyway) and mechanically poor, and better than Ultima 5? Yikes!

Wasteland I loved.

Dragon wars was very good.

Ultima 5, brilliant.

The Phantasy series was ok.

Knights of legend. Everyone should try this for the combat engine alone. A pity the next games planned in the series were axed.

Windwalker was an interesting romp. Another thing to try for something different, and the scene and story were pretty good. Hmm, a lot of Origin on my list here, damn EA to hell...

Apart from that, most of my faves have already been mentioned. Some of you might like Fate (on the Amiga only I think) and Legend of Fhaergail perhaps, both solid games.