That Was the Game That Was

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Apr 12, 2001 9:10 am

I thought it might be fun to reflect back on some great game from the past, here. Let everyone know what fascinated you most in a great (or at any rate, interesting) game of the past.

One catch: the game has to be at least 5 years old. Otherwise, we're just rehashing games we've talked about recently.

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Apr 12, 2001 9:21 am

My first nomination for this hall of fame is Betrayal at Krondor. A remarkable game in many respects, it still holds up well (despite aging graphics). It was the first game to make use of 3D landscapes, and one of the first to use 3D animated figures in combat. It established the convention of telling a story through "chapters," and varied the content and challenges dramatically between the chapters.

Everything within BaK had a reason for being there or happening. There were no battles simply to provide a challenge. If you were on the road, and encountered a series of small pirate bands along the way, it was because (as you discovered from gossip at one inn) the pirates had suffered a loss at the hands of another maritime force, and accepted the gold of another party to prevent traffic along a particular route.

As time passed, the same areas you covered before would provide different challenges, too, reflecting new elements in the various plots and sub-plots. And the plots themselves were very cleverly woven, with the final confrontation proving to be with a friend you'd never suspect, who had a major philosophical disagreement with the powers-that-be which led him into using several other powerful factions.

BaK didn't stint on puzzles. Unlike the simplistic riddles in BG2, the riddle chests in BaK were both more sophisticated, and offered tumblers you needed to reset to form the word or phrase solutions. There were also 3D physical puzzles that involved moving objects to get past electrical and fire fields.

Alas, BaK provided two successors that were inferior to the original. The VP at Dynamix fired the game's original lead designer, grabbed a small handful of the programmers, and had they generate a quickie called Betrayal at Antara that was larger, terribly written and plotted, and boring as hell. Meanwhile, a newer engine was developed by third parties with Ray Feist's contributions, and released by Sierra. It was far too linear, very predictable plot-wise, something of a Monty Haul, and extremely dumbed-down. A shame, really. But still, BaK remains around to view...and play.

Craig · Post by **Craig** » Thu Apr 12, 2001 9:33 am

Only good old games i can think of is ufo (other simply old games include lemming(goodish) pong and pacman(try that on a fast pc

))

[ 04-12-2001: Message edited by: craig ]

[ 04-12-2001: Message edited by: craig ]

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Apr 12, 2001 3:31 pm

Craig, thanks for your post--but just RPG games, please!

RudeDawg · Post by **RudeDawg** » Thu Apr 12, 2001 10:14 pm

Ultima IV, V
I should include VI, since it was a trilogy, but 4 and 5's stories were MUCH better, IMHO.
Back in the day, the former glory of Origin...

Robin_Hood · Post by **Robin_Hood** » Fri Apr 13, 2001 2:21 am

Well, the only old even near RPGs I've ever played were those three Forgotten Realms/Dragonlance games: Hillsfar for FR and Dragons Of Flame and Heroes Of The Lance for Dragonlance. They were about the first games I've ever played so they have left a nice impression. Really liked those ones, a shame I have lost them.

Anguirel · Post by **Anguirel** » Fri Apr 13, 2001 10:00 am

Seiken Densetsu 3 (Basically Secret of Mana 2)...only came out in Japan, but you can pick it up on a rom site and play it on zsnes. Definetly one of the best rpgs ever, with Lufia 2 coming in a nearby second.

fable · Post by **fable** » Fri Apr 13, 2001 5:19 pm

Anguirel, can you give a little background on these games? I've honestly never heard of 'em, before. Are they PC-based? Realtime, or turn-based? When did they come out, etc?

Weasel · Post by **Weasel** » Fri Apr 13, 2001 11:14 pm

Secret of Mana 1 was for the SNES a console. The fights were turn based but the rest was in real time. I believe it came out in the early 90's.

As for Secret of Mana 2 I believe it was about the same way. I never got it...can't read Japanese.

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » Sat Apr 14, 2001 2:48 pm

Well my all time favorite has to be Darklands. I know that this game suffered from a whole lot of bugs, but it was huge fun to play. The two most enjoyable parts was the options that you had during character creation and the enormity of the world.

Are there any other people out there that really loved to play Darklands?

fable · Post by **fable** » Sat Apr 14, 2001 7:07 pm

Buck, Aklabeth was released as part of one of the Ultima compendium series by Origin, a couple of years ago, along with Ultimas I through V.

I agree with Flagg that Darklands is truly a classic. I *still* break out that game and play it occasionally. It was the first game to include realtime + pause directed isometric combat, as I recall, and remains the only one to find an interesting variant on wizard and priest spells (in its prayers to saints and alchemy formulae). Damn fine game.

Anguirel · Post by **Anguirel** » Sat Apr 14, 2001 8:46 pm

Heh, sorry for my lack of description. Well I'll try to conjure up my faint memories of these games (most of what remains is nostalgia

).

Seiken Densetsu 3:somewhat lacking story-wise(you fight the typical "mysterious" big-bad enemy at the end but that is in all games isn't it?...one for each storyline, 3 in all), but innovative in its use of three different story lines (six characters with a unique beginning for each character, 2 of the characters share each story line), class "changing" (sorta like choosing "kit" paths later on), and the real time fighting is fun (for most people the combat is fairly easy, but still very fun), and two people can play it on the same keyboard! (hehe). Since this game only came out in Japan, you have to use the super nintendo (or super famikon, your preference over the name) emulator to get a translated version of the mod (um..uh...make sure you have the original imported version of the game before aquiring any such "mod" or delete after a period of 24 hours--end official banter

).

Lufia 2:very story based (im not going to say a thing about the story

). I can't really remember the combat style, although I do remember it was fun at the time. One thing that does stick out in my mind was the "mags" that you had, sort of like familiars I guess, very neat to level them up. This one might be out in the U.S., but I could not ever find it, so I just used the mod on an emulator (its super nintendo as well).

The downsides to these games is that their best traits were their being innovative (very very advanced from their predecessors Secret of Mana and Lufia 1 respectively), after several years the "innovation" of their genres isn't as striking since so many other rpg's have picked up their traits. The graphics on these games might also be considered sort of old (good for super nintendo though), but this is a discussion of games over five years old is it not?

If you have some spare time I recommend playing these two games, if you can't find the mods somewhere I could probably pick up a link somwewhere for you. And also a good snes emulator is at [url="http://www.zsnes.com,"]www.zsnes.com,[/url] its actually better than a super nintendo since it has a built in game genie (cool if you've beaten the game already), fast forward!(you will want this in all console games after you use it), and easy saving that we have all gotten use to in games (no more of those save crystal things in old games, yuck!).

Well I hope I've said something useful and not simply gone off on a tangent...(oh yeah, you don't mind if I mentioned the roms do you Buck?...some moderators get mad about those, I'll edit the post if you dislike them).

Further note: I'm playing Planescape Torment and this game is simply AMAZING, once you get past the beginning it is simply awesome.

Note to Buck:Akalabeth was never commercially published, although it was handed out to several people on disks in plastic bags.

(the actual game is similar to what one would call a beta version of ultima with a somewhat different story)

[ 04-14-2001: Message edited by: Anguirel ]

TheHellion · Post by **TheHellion** » Sun Apr 15, 2001 2:12 am

Anyone ever played the Quest For Glory series? If I'm not mistaken, Quest For Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero? was the first computer game I ever played. Even then, I was playing the revised version, but it was still a classic, and great fun. Such fond memories of trying, repeatedly, to best the court's weapon master.

I'm pretty sure I've got a floppy around here somewhere with my character still saved on it, too.

fable · Post by **fable** » Sun Apr 15, 2001 6:24 am

Sure. The Quest for Glory series was a lot more interesting and attractive, IMO, than the Sierra's King's Quest series. QfG was cleverly written, and disguised its linearity a bit better. It also had fascinating characters, and was one of the earliest graphical adventures to integrate combat and a few RPG stats into the mix.

Unfortunately, the regular QfG team (with the exception of the producer/writer) was pulled off 5, and put on another project--which ultimately flopped. The new group couldn't duplicate the mood or length of QfG 1-4, and in any case Sierra's new owners decided to kill not just the series, but everything that came out of their original studios in (of course) the High Sierras. (I visited the studio, once. They were in a small town stuck in the middle of huge mountains and aristocratic looking pine forests. I'm 5' 9 1/2" and felt like a dwarf.)

That should have been the end of QfG...except that a group of enthusiastic players decided to keep the series alive. Headed by a guy out in the Nederlands, a new QfG is about a year away.

fable · Post by **fable** » Sun Apr 15, 2001 8:03 am

Oh! I just recalled one of the neatest things about QfG 5. Before you confronted a three-headed dragon, you were allowed the option to bring back to life one of two women who cared for you, and lost their lives in earlier QfG's. One was a rather well-endowed vampiress, while the other was a sort of nature sub-deity.

Depending upon whom you recovered, progress changed a bit. The vampiress supplied attack magic; the nature deity, protective magic. And when the dragon confrontation came, the nature deity would allow you to sacrifice yourself (if you chose that way) to defeat the dragon, while the vampiress would have none of it, and initiated a big battle into which you were more or less forced to join.

fable · Post by **fable** » Mon Apr 16, 2001 9:36 am

With Tropico gone gold and nearly in the stores, I thought of another great old CRPG that never receives any publicity. It was in fact the genesis for Tropico. Phil Steinmeyer (of Poptop Software) and I discussed it at a convention about three years ago.

Both of us were enthusiasts of Hidden Agenda, a game that first showed up around 1987. In this game, you played the president of a Latino republic that had recently undergone a revolution. The situation was fluid, even chaotic; you were the great hope for everybody. The problem, of course, was that many forces were completely opposed to one another.

Let's say you agreed to distribute more land from the former dictator's reserves to the poor farmers interested in private holdings. This would piss off the major capitalists in particular and, to a lesser extent, the communists, who sided with the poor, but wanted collectives. It would please one faction of the military that had leftist leanings, but displease the rightwing element that distrusted the peasantry. The Church would be pleased; less so, the Soviets or the Cubans. The US would be extremely displeased....and so it went.

There were around 40 faction leaders (as I recall) to interact with. The kicker was that you could only interact with 3 per annual quarter, and make decisions concerning their issues. You had also to fill 4 positions in your government with members of 3 parties, each with its own agenda. And if you agreed to a policy with a faction leader that a government minister didn't like, the latter might well drag their feet.

Revolution was always on the horizon. You also had to contend with the possibilities of left wing military rebels splitting for the hills to conduct a guerilla campaign, or right wing military rebels, when displeased, forming death squads. In the end, you were evaluated as though reading a history of your realm (a really neat idea which Tropico incorporates) according to the goals you set yourself, the incidents that occured during your presidency, and how you handled them.

A successor game was planned, but never appeared. The publishers apparently got into an argument with the developers (so I was told by the PR person handling the product). A shame: Hidden Agenda was waaaay ahead of its time, and is in fact still fun to play, today, despite its infinitely dated graphics.

Robin_Hood · Post by **Robin_Hood** » Mon Apr 16, 2001 11:37 am

Pool of Radiance: I also played the Heroes of the Lance silver box games, did those come out first? My memory is ailing me...

hope that quote thing went right...

I can't remember which ones came out first, but I think there was a pool of radiance advertisement in the box. And I do remember that Heroes of the Lance came out on 88...or was it 89? Not much help I guess