What is the best modern "old school" RPG?
It is Baldur's Gate. The enhanced versions of the original, and its sequel, are on Steam. The two most challenging RPGs I've ever played, with 2nd edition Dungeons & Dragons card game rules. IMO beating these games are the ultimate show of mastery in RPGs, the mastery of these games' mechanics are a rite of passage for any classic RPG fan. I haven't gotten into Ultima yet though; the user interface is too hard, and it's not on Steam.
BTW a 2nd expansion to Baldur's Gate on Steam is coming -- its called Siege of Dragonspear
From my library, I recommened Shadowrun: Returns, Avadon 2: The Corruption, and Wizardry 8. You'll spend a summer playing the last one especially.
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whoa, thanks for the tip, added Avadon 2 to my wishlist ^-^
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Got wasteland, divinity and PoE. Didn't finish any of them. But I guess the best on my list is Divinity. The enhanced edition is almost a new game, plus now I can play with a gamepad and the UI didn't sucks. Something about Wasteland 2 really bothers me, about how the skills and stats are completely unrelated to each other. UI for the gamepad looks terrible. It works but it can be better.
As for PoE, combat is superb but I just got this feeling that the world is empty. I played it until meet the sad mother, and then stopped because I got tired of killing things.
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I really enjoyed the remake of Avernum 1 (Avernum: Escape from the Pit) and am enjoying the Avernum 2 remake currently (Avernum 2: Crystal Souls)
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I backed all four games on Kickstarter and finished them all - I can't say each one of them is perfect, but my vote is somewhere between WL2 and Pillars, more to the first one because of the world's theme.
I played Wasteland just after the release, so there were many bugs - I hope all of them are fixed now, and I'm looking forward to play the Director's cut. I didn't like skills balance and needless separation of some of them, didn't like some routine and repeatability, but my overall impression was very good. I enjoyed Pillars, but, as BiskutMentega said, the world is empty, and the backer's NPCs/texts are terrible. Also, the stronghold and all of its buildings were pretty useless. Shadowrun is very good, too - but very straightforward and limited of what you can do in the world. I had a good time with Divinity, but it became more boring the longer I progressed, especially the story itself.
So, only the new Torment left - I think it is the most anticipating new-old-school game for me.
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I waited a bit to start WL2 because I wanted to finish a game I was already playing. By then most of the bugs had been stomped. I only ran into one serious bug, which I reported on the forum and it was patched shortly after. I'm curious to see how the directors cut balance worked out and the perks and quirks.
I backed Torment as well and really looking forward to it. If it comes out before I finish these off, it will probably jump to the top of my list.
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Hopefully it is the Shadowrun series. They get a lot of praise, especially the second and third game.
So far I only finished PoE pre-rebalance, and frankly, it was well enough. Not really a masterpiece, and it has problems (constant rebalancing, KotOR 2 style writing where the cheeriest companion is the one who is brooding the least), but I would hope that there are other games recently that are better. For example, IMO South Part: The Stick of Truth was a more enjoyable cRPG.
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+1 Yesterday I play this game for a first time, it's really amazing. Very unique. But I think Shadowrun series is also great. I only finished first one and I'm in the middle of second one, but both are very enjoyable, have good story and interesting lore. Give it a shot :).
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That's a different genre called dungeon crawlers. While there is a story, there isn't any dialog or choices, you just fight monsters and descend deeper. I enjoyed Grimrock, as I also played those types back in the day starting with Eye of the Beholder.
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I never got heavily into P&P role playing, but I did play a little D&D when I was a kid. Dungeon crawling was only part of the whole role playing scenario. Some people liked that part and would just play the dungeon crawling combat parts adding new challenges and thus created the dungeon crawling genre.
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Dungeon crawling was only part of the whole role playing scenario.
This would very much depend on what era of RPGs you're looking at. If you look at very early pen & paper RPGs, they were designed for dungeon crawling, and little else. The same holds true for computer RPGs, the early CRPGs were dungeon crawlers, and non-dungeon crawler CRPGs grew out of those. So dungeon crawlers were the original RPGs, both for P&P and CRPGs. So you got the direction of evolution wrong.
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To a large degree, yes. Original cRPGs were either console titles, like the NES Dragonlance games– which were, as you just said, almost pure dungeon crawling– or text-based adventures, which were mostly plot and choices, less combat (closer to the choose-your adventure books, only with really weird controlling). Plus there was Ultima, which was both.
Still, by the late nineties, those two sub-genres more or less completely separated, and now when we call something classic cRPG, we always mean the plot-oriented ones where combat may be plentiful, but the focus is on the story.
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The NES Dragonlance game was not really an early title. By the time it was released, Utlima 6 was already on the market. The first Ultima (and also Akalabeth) had overworld sections, but they were still about killing monsters (Garriot also decided that Ultima should be a space sim, for some reason). Wizardry, Temple of Apshai, Rogue and so on. Towards the second half of the 80's we started seeing CRPGs that had proper storylines (most were still heavily combat focused, but they at least offered more than just combat).
Text adventure games were another genre altogether, and it's from it that the point & click adventures grew. I would not classify textbased adventure games (like Zork) as something other than adventure games, but I claim that they occupy a sub-genre that differentiates them a bit from point & click adventure games (still same main genre though). And that's also how I would classify dungeon crawlers, as a sub-genre of CRPGs, much like ARPGs, JRPGs and so on (JRPGs split from their western counterparts in the mid 80's, but they were heavily based on Wizardry & Ultima).
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Precisely, but all this have split, and a long time ago: even by the nineties we had different games in cRPG, ARPG, and JRPG genres, which then all split into several sub-genres as time went by (especially ARPGs).
Still, like how we consider Doom a great old classic, despite being only 20 years old, the same goes for many other genres, including cRPGs: we just don't go back more than 15-20 years. Anything before that is beyond classic, it's just ancient now. :)
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I regularly go back further than 20 years when it comes to CRPGs, and I don't have any nostalgic ties to that era (I only really started playing pre-Fallout CRPGs around 2010). While there are games that have aged better than other, Eye of the Beholder, Ultima 5 & 7 (4 to a lesser degree, but I think that 5 improved upon it quite a bit), Lands of Lore and so on still hold up quite well. If anything (come to think of it), I would probably classify dungeon crawler more as sub-genre prefix, so you can have a dungeon crawler ARPG for an example, or a dungeon crawler "blobber" (blobber is a somewhat informal way of describing first person party games, where the whole party move as one big "blob", and you don't see the individual members (think Grimrock, Eye of the Beholder or Wizardry).
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I've played the following:
Legend of Grimrock 1 & 2
Pillars of Eternity
Wasteland 2
Shadowrun * (all 3)
Avernum: Escape from the Pit
Frayed Knights
Dipped my toes into:
Age of Decadence
Divinity: Original Sin
Leaning towards saying that Pillars of Eternity is the best one, though all the above mentioned were really good.
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What about Sword Coast Legends? The price on this sale was good enough to get it? Should I wait for a better one?
I've seen a lot of bad reviews, and a lot of good ones.
They say its more ARG-like than CRPG-like, is this true?
For someone who liked Pillars of Eternity and Baldur's Gate, do you guys think I will like it? Anyone here recommends it?
I actually bought it, I'm 1 hour into it already, but I don't know if I ask for a refund now and wait for a even better sale.
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Yup, thats the feeling I'm having so far...
What I loved most about Pillars was dialogue/choices/writing, so I dunno.
And its not even that don't like Diablo style, I'm a fan of Diablo series, but because Diablo is one of the bests in its style. And for that I've already gotten Grim Dawn and I can always rely on Path Of Exile, so its not like I need another action-grinding-hack-n-slash rpg.
And so far by all I've read, SCL has elements from various rpg styles, but its average in every of these aspects.
I was hoping at least good was good, exciting or whatever, but I've seen to many different opinions on this to trust.
I will probably ask for refund and get it when its with an even bigger discount. I still want to play it for the D&D universe, but I'm not trusting it worth the price atm, even on 33% sale.
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Frankly, since apparently the publisher couldn't get enough money to bribe the journalists and they seem to be getting more and more to the point where they give up and let this game and the devs sink, you can probably just put it on hold and get it in 1-2 years when the base price drops to 10-20 dollars.
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Yup, UnderRail. Played 80 hours already, now can't wait for the full release.
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Pretty much any modern take or reboot of old school style cRPG. I listed the ones in the poll because they all recently had successful Kickstarter campaigns which in a lot of ways has brought back the isometric style RPG with turn based or real time with pause combat systems.
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What about the Etrian Odyssey series on the NDS? A merciless JRPG that also embraces newer things. It is weak on story but you draw your own map, hidden things and secret passages all over, alot of freedom in strats/builds/parties, and rewarding killing in certain ways. One of them has essentially a second game in it that is sea exploration that unlocks a variety of bosses and upgrades.
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Which of the recent "old school" RPGs do you like the most, or if you don't have any of them, which are you most interested in playing? I may be missing some, but those are the only ones I own.
I backed D:OS, WL2 and PoE on Kickstarter, but WL2 is the only one I've finished. I finished WL2 before the recent Directors Cut upgrade. I've started D:OS twice, each time playing coop with someone, but both times my coop partner stopped playing. I kept the save in case we ever pick it back up, but I never played it solo. Now with the Enhanced Edition out, maybe I'll finally get to it. I'm going to wait for the last part of the PoE expansion before I dive into it. I Shadowrun Returns and Dragonfall during last winter's sale, but I have not played them yet.
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