OT: a nice RPG-ish game?

[Alneyan]

Ultima VIII isn't a bad game, as long as you do not expect it to be the same as Ultima VII (or any other Ultima I know of for this matter). It should have been released under another name I guess though. So while Ultima VIII isn't exactly what you would call a game as the previous Ultimas, it is a fine game on its own (not the better I have ever played however).

Well, I gather RPG is only a convenient label to stick on anything that has a character and ways of "changing" this character (either her behaviour or various statistics). For this matter, you could probably roleplay in Minesweeper. Sure, there are easier things in the world, but if you have too much time on your hands... It would even be an exciting adventure.

"I stood here, at the crossroads of fate. On my left was a barren land, a suitable place to lay a trap for the unwary. A grove could be seen to my right, a pleasant place to look at. I was left to wonder at which direction to take, and where was the Last Mine of Power I sought. While the waste seemed a cliché place for an ambush, nobody with her wits would even think of crossing this place. On the other hand, the forest was a welcoming place, but a trap would be difficult to set up there.

These many questions came to my mind while I stood there, contemplating the various options at my disposal. And suddenly, the answer occured to me: why, I but had to cast this spell of Detect Hidden I found after disabling the Seventh Mine of Power. And so I understood; there was no trap either in the wasteland or in the grove, for I had already discovered where was the Last Mine. I was standing right over it, and did not have the time to consider this particular pattern of thought before being sent to the closest afterlife that could be found for me." Make sure to seek our exciting sequel next time, "The thoughts of a leaf of bread left under a dusty desk for two weeks"!

Hmm, back to our original scheduled programme...

[Karacan]

deccan said:
I agree that Planescape: Torment is a great game. But surely it's more adventure and less RPG?

For me, it's the ultimate roleplaying game because you can play your role. One thing that really annoys me in most other games with dialogue is that you always only have the three classical ways to answer any question: The utterly holy good knight ("Yes, my lady, of course I will help you, it will be my greatest pleasure, the fulfilling of my destiny, and I'll do it for free!"), the neutral mercenary without any diplomatic instinct ("Too bad your husband was killed gruesomly. Let's pay me.") and the unspeakably evil bastard ("Yo, babe, I don't care about your husband, let's kill you too.").

These stereotypic choices usually annoy the hell out of me when I am faced with them in a game, and that's true for all of them out there, be they FallOut or Baldur's Gate.

Torment had this brilliant dialogue options that allowed you to choose between "Truth: Yes, I'll help you" and "Lie: Yes, I'll help you". And they made a difference. I was in roleplaying heaven.


Enough fanboying for me today, though.

As an afterword: I love Daggerfall as well, as can be easily seen by my avatar (the Underking). Tamriel is my favourite fantasy world, and I'll gladly scrap any D&D-material for campaigning on Tamriel.

[deccan]

Alneyan said:
I must say my view is closer to Deccan. Torment is based on dialogue, its universe (which is borrowed from the pen and pencil RPG of the same name), but has little else to its name.

Yeah, that's what I meant. Torment is really good, but it's so linear, even down to how the battles are supposed to go. That's why I say that it feels more like an adventure game, with RPG (as in computer RPG) elements tacked on.

[Lex]

Daggerfall.. what a great game! I still keep the original holographic gamebox on my shelf!

[Cainehill]

Beorne said:
I started playing Bard's Tale, Ultima IV, V, VI, then I approached Diablo. I remember the pure Hack&Slash of Diablo, and I didn't liked it. If I go for H&S and dont' bother the story I want a very deep system

I didn't care for the original Diablo myself - ugly and tedious and shallow. The sequel, especially after the expansion, has been a different matter - I know I've gotten at least a couple thousand hours out of it.

Vagrant Story (not really an RPG but beautiful) (PS)

Vagrant Story was amazing. The atmosphere and attitude they managed to put into a game on the original playstation was ... incredible. The intro and cut scenes were great, and gameplay was very good and deep too. I still remember some of the bits of spoken dialogue though: "Reinforcements? I _am_ the reinforcements."

Final Fantasy Tactic (PS)

Another great one - definately not an RPG, but quite the turn based tactical battle game, with a tiny bit of RPG flavor mixed in.

Some of the others (Final Fantasy I-XXVI ) and Xenosaga, Xenogears, were quite good - FF too often had lame mechanics though, but nice storylines. Hmm - you didn't mention the Vandal Hearts games, or Ogre Battle/Ogre Tactics, which are rather like FFTactics or Suikoden. Brigandine was another fun turn-based fantasy army game.

And other good console RPGs included the Wild Arms series, and Skies of Arcadia (Dreamcast, but later ported I think), and a ... hybrid, Valkyrie Profile.

All of those have stayed in my collection, even as I moved across the country in a UHaul (sold about 50 console games though).



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[Cainehill]

deccan said:

Yeah, that's what I meant. Torment is really good, but it's so linear, even down to how the battles are supposed to go. That's why I say that it feels more like an adventure game, with RPG (as in computer RPG) elements tacked on.

I didn't find it _too_ linear, but frankly - RPGs, even pen and pencil ones, _are_ linear. You don't go running into the Cave of Demons when you should be fighting the goblins first, or at least if you do - you make new characters pretty soon.

And the dialogue, sorry, but that's what RPGs are about : Role Playing. Planescape had boatloads more role playing than most, even if you didn't like the battle system and whatnot. Baldur's Gate 2, similarly, has a good amount of 'RP' in its game.

[Lex]

Got a simple question: how many hours a day to people here dedicate to games (computer, console, or otherwise).

Personally I've found that 2-3 hours a day is tough most of the time (I'd be in heaven if I had a full 8 hours a day for games... it makes perfect sense to me, since you work 8 hours, then play 8 hours.. doesn't leave much room for anythign else though .

Cos there's so many games being released all the time, its so tough to actually play all the ones you want to try.

[Beorne]

Some of the others (Final Fantasy I-XXVI ) and Xenosaga, Xenogears, were quite good - FF too often had lame mechanics though, but nice storylines. Hmm - you didn't mention the Vandal Hearts games, or Ogre Battle/Ogre Tactics, which are rather like FFTactics or Suikoden. Brigandine was another fun turn-based fantasy army game.

And other good console RPGs included the Wild Arms series, and Skies of Arcadia (Dreamcast, but later ported I think), and a ... hybrid, Valkyrie Profile.

All of those have stayed in my collection, even as I moved across the country in a UHaul (sold about 50 console games though).



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Vandal hearts 1 vas simple but very good, the second disappointed me.
The FF serie has hights and lows: IV, VI, VII, IX are beautiful (the story, the mechanic is a bit boring), the V is horrible, VII and X are controversial (but have beautiful graphics).
The Ogre games are very good, and I've never played Brigandine.
I liked very much Wid Arms 1 too, but Wild arms 2 has been ruinded by the text fonts (how one can ruin a game with the fonts???).
And Valkyrie profile ... perhaps the mastrepiece of PS with Vagrant Story, a beautiful and sad poem.
If you like these I advice you on Disgaea (for PS2).
But the SNES-PS era is almost gone.

[tinkthank]

Hey, thanks so much to everyone. Havent really had the time to try out many of the suggestions (still havent found a way to get english orig Gothic2 or Vampires), and I cant get SystemShock2 to run (argh), but I did look (way too briefly) at the spiderweb and the KOTDP suggestions -- the latter seemed most enticing but not my cup of tea (at the moment -- it is certainly a novel idea, but I didnt quick get the knack of clan-RPG), and the former seems interesting, albeit *very* old-school (I had expected something more innovative from the indies), and definately worth more time. I have yet to find Betrayal in Krondor, Knights of E-Evil, and Knights of the Old Republic.
Thank you all very much for your help (I read *all* the Posts and made mental notes of all opionions -- thanks!).

As a parting shot: I think I know what you mean by "more adventure than RPG", regarding PS:T, but I think it is because of the battle system and its fairly inflexible, never-really-fleshed-out character progression system. But I think this is inherent to the "RP" aspect of the RPG; you really *can't* just be anyone in that game, you really have to be the Nameless One. God, was I in RPG heaven. And for someone who spent 3 years researching socio-onomastics and the philosophy of singular terms, the whole name/lack-of-name business was just godly.

[Alneyan]

Beorne said:
If one loves freedom of movement (some one remembers 'Fairy tales' (or something like) on Amiga?)

Fairy Tale seems to ring a bell for me, but I have never played that game (I had my Amiga in 1993 or so, and Fairy Tale came before I think). Out of idle curiosity, how was this game? Or is my memory wrong on this one?