Old School

[filkertom]

So, in the thread below, scifantasy and I start waxing nostalgic about computer and console RPGs. What are your favorites, both current and nostalgic? Mine would include:

• Tunnels of Doom for the TI 99/4A
• Telengard for the C64
• Ultima 4
• Wrath of Denethenor for the C64
• Larn (now ULarn)
• Diablo and Diablo II
• Dungeon Siege
• Final Fantasy VII for the PlayStation
• The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind
• The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
• Neverwinter Nights

I've also got the Baldur's Gate games and Planescape: Torment, which I haven't got into but am looking forward to finally savoring.

Comments

[codevixen.livejournal.com]

Lufia (1 & 2, Super Nintendo)
Chrono Cross (Playstation)
Crono Trigger (Super Nintendo)
Lunar (Sega CD)
Suikoden (Playstation)
Kingdom Hearts (PS2)

And I'm currently playing .hack//Infection, PS2.

Of course, these are just my top, top favourites, considering I have 150 video games as of last night. ;)

[eye-ar-smaurt.livejournal.com]

I only ever really got into the Final Fantasy games. They first 7 were good, and then they just started getting worse every game after that.

[ladystarblade.livejournal.com]

LOL, just rambled in the previous thread about my love for Morrowind and FFVII...I also used to play some of the old D&D-type RPG's, like Pools of Radiance and such. And does The Sims count? I went on a kick about 5 years ago on that.

And I used to play Above & Beyond (at least, I think that's what it was called), a huge online RPG where you played with/against other players; designed your own ship and character and took off. You could join Guilds, go on missions, just roam around, etc. Met some pretty cool people doing that, though it's been years since I last played. Wonder if that's still around?

[ladystarblade.livejournal.com]

My bad, it was called Earth & Beyond. Found it on Wikipedia. :-)

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

yaoifangirl named a few of the ones I was going to, but I'll repeat them...

Most of these are SNES-era or later, because that's where I got into it. (So sue me, I'm a youngun.)

Chrono Trigger. Quite possibly the perfect RPG to this day.

Secret Of Mana. The epitome of the SNES action RPG. (The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past is a really, really close second. However, Mana had multiple characters and more RPG elements; that gives it the edge. Link To The Past still has the "epitome of a Zelda game" award.)

Final Fantasy IV (II in the US, originally) and Final Fantasy VI (III in the US), for introducing a wave of gamers--myself included--to the RPG in the first place. VII is fantastic, and deserves a mention too; but if it wasn't for those two...well, I doubt I'd even know about the others.

Lunar. I personally have and love the "Complete" versions for PS, mostly because they have the single best localizations ever accomplished by man. They're probably the funniest RPGs ever.

EarthBound. Well, unless this one is, getting points for sheer off-the-walls insanity.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

One more to mention...I have a soft spot for Final Fantasy IX; I like how it has an upbeat hero, not another angsty teenager. That, and it had all sorts of sneaky references to the earlier games (right down to the original Final Fantasy).

[melaniedavidson.livejournal.com]

EARTHBOUND :D Yes, I just started playing that one and it's amazingly fun. (I'm in the Dusty Dunes Desert, powerleveling off the Criminal Caterpillar before I head to Fourside.)

[rdmaughan.livejournal.com]

I would have to give the top place to Fallout 2, it really bugs me that I cannot get it to plan on my current machine. Others that were well worth my time would be Fallout, Privateer 2, Planescape:Torment, NWN and the BG series.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

On the "past" side, I'm still a sucker for the old Infocom text-only adventures. I've still got 'em all, and they still work just fine on WinXP.

On "current," my sweetie and I are enjoying Sacred, which was evidently developed by some people in Germany who'd worked on Diablo; it has a lot of Diablo's better features and improvements over some of the ones that annoy the heck out of me (such as the "lose all your stuff when you die" feature). And it's set in a big world. Love it.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I've heard it's really good. I've also got Divine Divinity, which I haven't installed yet. From the look of things, I'm gonna have to upgrade my desktop to play Neverwinter Nights 2 and Gothic 3.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that I'm enjoying the hell out of Kingdom of Loathing. It's an amazingly silly turn-based RPG, full of puns and random references. Honestly -- I just found a reference to Time Cube, which is about as random as you can get.

Planescape: Torment is seriously cool.

[lizreay.livejournal.com]

You are my goddess of the day. KoL looks like a riot. :)

[pcn065.livejournal.com]

I liked
Fallout
Fallout 2
and one i can't rember the nae of that was kinda like Fallout. You played a group of rangers in post apocolyptic Arizona.
And I have yo agree Earth & Beyond was one of the best online RPGs I ever played. I was so mad when they cancelled the game that I still won't buy anything from EA.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

"You played a group of rangers in post apocalyptic Arizona."

Wasteland.

"To heck with using these wimpy pistols, men! Let's take these crowbars and bust some heads!"

Yeah, that was some fun times.

[pcn065.livejournal.com]

THAT'S THE ONE!!
Had a lot of fun with that one.
I think I still have a copy around here somewhere....

[scruffycritter.livejournal.com]

Ultima IV.
Hack
Diablo II.
Invasion Orion (TRS-80?)
CyberBall 2072 (arcade but MAMEable)
Archon/ Archon II (Atari 800)
Star Raiders (Atari 800)
Ali Baba and.. (Atari 800)
Begin (PC based tactical Star Trek sim)
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PS2)

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

My favorites:

• Lunar on the Playstation
  
• Lunar 2 on the Sega CD (the PS version was too dumbed-down, IMO)
  
• Final Fantasy III on the SNES
  
• Breath of Fire 2 on the SNES (now on the GBA as well, whee!)
  
• Breath of Fire 3 on the PS
  
• Shining Force 2 on the Genesis
  
• Grandia for the PS
  
• Phantasy Star IV for the Genesis
  
• Chronotrigger for the SNES
  
• Fire Emblem for the GameBoy Advance

And I may be forgetting a few, but these are my favorites. These days I am playing only GBA/DS games, because I can play those in bed or in the car. I would sell my soul for a Sega CD emulator for the Mac, though.

[codevixen.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I forgot about Fire Emblem! I even have most versions. ^^;

[markbernstein.livejournal.com]

Infocom for me:

Zork I, II, and III
The Enchanter trilogy
Starcross
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It
and of course, Leather Goddesses of Phobos

[inamac.livejournal.com]

Infocom for me too. Also Lemmings

There were giants* in those days

*also trolls...

[blaisedec.livejournal.com]

Ah, the New Zork Times -- all the gnus that fit, we print!

[ruisseau.livejournal.com]

FFVII

Dragon Warrior 1-4 on the NES

Wild Arms 1 and 2 for PS1

[catalana.livejournal.com]

I am spending *way* too much time on Oblivion at the moment. Many more hours than I want to admit. yeah.

I liked a lot of the Might and Magic Games, but MM9 sucked.

I also adored Arcanum; I was sad to find out that the group that did them essentially dissolved, so there won't be a sequel. Much sadness.

[argonel.livejournal.com]

I love a bunch of the games already mentioned and have to add
1. Angband/Zangband (especailly the Tcl/Tk ports)
2. Wing Commander II (If privateer counts this does too)
3. Freelancer (What privateer 2 should have been)
4. Final Fantasy X-2 (A story with branches, how original for a FF game)

Also for Diablo style gaming you should take a look at Dungeon Runners published by NCsoft. I believe it is still in beta but when release it will be free to play, but ~$5 a month for membership which allows you to use the top grades of equipment and gives you access to a bank for extra storage. Some of the item names are ridiculously funny.

[ericcoleman]

Wrath of Denethenor for the C64

OH YES !!!

I have a 64 emulator just so I can pull that (and Ultimate Wizard) out every so often and run around)

I would have to add my favorite of all the Ultima's ... that being U5 ... not so good on the 64, but the 128 version rocked !!! Of course it helped that I had two 1571s, so I rarely had to swap discs

in which Eleri pimpeth geekery

[eleri.livejournal.com]

Blessed are those who shell out $10 a month for GameTap, for they shall have access to their old favoritest games.

Seriously, I just gave a looksee through the title list and found:
All of the Zorks
Leather Goddesses
All of the Ultimas
Baldur's Gate 1 and 2
Grandia 2
Planetscape
All the Kings Quests
several of the Prince of Persias



Shameless Plug Link: http://www.gametap.com/home/myst/signup_tryitbuyit_domestic.html

[lizreay.livejournal.com]

Curse of the Azure Bonds (first RPG I ever tried)
City of Heroes/City of Villains (my current online addiction)

[gamergeek007.livejournal.com]

Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2.

I love the fact that they actually use the D20 engine from WoTC.

[wildcard9.livejournal.com]

Philip K. Dick's Amnesia (you wake up naked in a hotel room, and the game instructions are just the personal phone book you find next to the bed. You figured it all out as you go along. Oh yeah, and it's your wedding day, a shotgun wedding at that).

Wizardry, the original wire-frame one that I played on my Apple II+

Colossal Cave (aka Adventure), which I first played at Data General while my uncle worked there in the early-70's.

HHGTTG Infocom game, that *frustrating* game!! Give me my Babel Fish already!! :-)

I liked Zork Zero (or was it Beyond Zork?), the one that had just the basic point and click interface, before they blew the story out of proportion (to the point where it was no longer Zork).

I don't think that I have played an RPG game newer than 15-20 years old, I do NOT like RPGs that include twitch-based combat, which is all of them once you get to the point where the game were released on an arcade game console instead of a PC.

[tomreedtoon.livejournal.com]

I recall one that none of you guys ever played. It was for the old Atari 8-bit system, from an outfit called Crystal, called Sands of Mars. In fact, I only played it once, on a store computer, because at the time I didn't have that most powerful of implements, a 5 1/4" floppy drive for my own Atari 800.

Crystal's oddity was that they offered cash prizes if you discovered certain secrets hidden inside the game and reported them to the company. The downside was that the games were so generally buggy, requiring endless saves and reboots, that it took forever to get that far.

So what was so great about Crystal's stuff? They had great advertising. They had lousy artwork in their two-page ads in "Antic" Magazine but beautiful, descriptive copy. They promised fantastic adventure, sights unseen, mysteries and puzzles and riddles to solve. And all of it, put together, would Mean Something. Here's a blurb recalled from my faulty memory:

"It has been fifty years since the great exploration of the Martian ruins. The Ames Research Institute celebrates its two hundreth anniversary, and you stand before the greatest technological triumph of man: the starship Paragon, its hull coated with synthetic emerald, its viewport purest crystal. The hieroglypsh from the Sands of Mars expedition have been translated and an even greater mystery lies before you. Seven candles and seven doors...seven keys and seven locks...seven whole new worlds for you to explore. There is a $1000 cash prize for the first purchaser who discovers the secret mystery hidden in the depths of this game. Ten disks included. This adventure will take you weeks to explore, longer to understand. $80."

Sounds a little cornball and "Doc" Smith, doesn't it? Still, it's better than today's game blurbs that say "Waste your life, your carpal tunnel wrists and your parents' college money as you get to kill, kill, kill."

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

Arcanum.

Bard's Tale II.

Ultima IV and V.

Almost anything by Infocom - Bureaucracy is the one exception I can think of offhand.

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

Baldur's Gate I. Hands-down, it wins the Most Awesome CRPG award from me. I will stipulate that I didn't grow up with the old, old ones which are also ridiculously awesome (the Zork crew, Ultimas, etc.).

Planescape: Torment is very close behind it, and honestly speaking, is certainly a better and far deeper game. But Baldur's Gate was a good bit less railroady than Planescape, and it did traditional fantasy very, very well.

Baldur's Gate II was a mixed bag - the sidequests were awesome, but the main quest was absolutely sucktastic. Also, the art took a major dive as compared to the first one.

Morrowind goes up there also, as does Diablo. V:tM Bloodlines was a really nifty game, but you have to get into the White Wolf "vibe" for it to work, I think. Also, the controls were sucktastic. Fighting was a PAIN in that game.

Also, the first disc of Final Fantasy 7. The Midgar portions seemed to be far and away the best bits of the game.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

You have Morrowind and Oblivion but not Daggerfall! Where it all came from, people... *g*

(Also, I blame you for me crying on the bus on the way to campus today, for making 'Take your hands off the bear' such a tearworthy song.)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Bwaha. Another one rides the bus....

I do have Daggerfall. Just haven't played it -- got it off eBay late last year.

[denali1.livejournal.com]

Well, you dated yourself. However, not as badly as I'm about to!

Old School (cause I'm an old fool) :
Colossal Cave Adventure (1976 version)
Zork I,II,III (or anything InfoCom for that matter)
Temple of Apshai (or RPG by Epyx)
NetHack
Federation (from its AOL days)
The ORIGINAL Bard's Tale I,II,III
Ultima 3 and 5 (I am a UDIC member and a graybeard at that)

New School (cause now I drool) :
Neverwinter Nights
Fable
Planescape: Torment
World of Warcraft

[camric.livejournal.com]

Wow, a Tunnels of Doom player. I logged all sorts of hours there in high school :) I heard all sorts of good things about Telengard as well as an Apple game called Quarterstaff, but never had access to a C64/Apple to try them.

The D&D Gold Box games
Ultima VII
Ultima Underworld
Diablo
Baldur's Gate I & II
NWN (not sure yet about NWN 2)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

All is not lost (http://buildingworlds.com/telengard/).

My 0.02 cents

[yellowmouser.livejournal.com]

If you liked Ultima 4, check out the "Geneforge" series. Also, if you're playing Japanese console RPGs, you may find the original "Dragon Warrior" (aka "Dragon Quest") for the NES to be of historical interest. It inspired the "Final Fantasy" Series, and is a good, if uncomplicated, adventure RPG.

[kitsana-d.livejournal.com]

torment is teh awesome! even with a mchine that lags like hell.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Temple of Apshai - which I played off cassette tapes on isomeme's Atari.

The One True ASCII Game: Nethack. I have been playing ot for years and still find it a challenge.

The SSI/AD&D Goldbox series: Pool of Radiance/Curse of the Azure Bonds/Secret of the Silver Blades. We played this on a C64. One time I started one of the larger set battles (the final fight on Sokol Keep) and started cooking lunch. Lunch was ready before the fight was.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Zork!

[it-aint-easy.livejournal.com]

Bard's Tale
Nox
and though I haven't played them yet, I've heard only raves about:
Knights of the Old Republic
Oblivion

[melaniedavidson.livejournal.com]

Star Control 2! (http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Main_Page) [Open source (http://sc2.sourceforge.net/)]
And Earthbound, which I started playing a week or two ago and now love to death.

[fuuberry.livejournal.com]

Bard's Tale - Watching my boyfriend play through it first, I was in constant giggle fits. Haven't played the first ones...yet.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - I'm eagerly awaiting the fan-made patch for Sith Lords that puts in the ending they'd cut out because Lucas Arts didn't have the balls to let them kill off nearly the entire cast.
Warcraft - I'm a sucker for the universe they've put together.
Diablo II - Yeah, I'm a Blizzard fangirl.
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - I've spent about two hundred hours in this game, and I can still find new things.
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines - Never, ever play Malkavian your first time through.
The Monkey Island Series - Yeah, yeah.. Point and Click, not RPG, but I love them too much to not include them on every favorite games list I ever make.

Games that I expect to be added to that list:
Mass Effect - KOTOR with stunning graphics? Yes please!
Hellgate London - I've been waiting so long for this... And I doubt my comp will be able to handle it, but I want it anyway. Rawr!
Bioshock - Okay, not quite an RPG, but it fascinates me.

[fuuberry.livejournal.com]

Oh, and Fable II for the future-list.

[wizwom.livejournal.com]

Wizardry, The Bard's Tale, and Ultima for the Apple II.
Mines of Moria and Nethack (dungeon crawl games).
Of course Baldur's Gate - but hardly nostalgia, because I still play it. Pool of Radiance.
I find Morrowwind and Neverwinter Nights less satisfying. Go figure.

Wizardry...

[lizard-sf.livejournal.com]

Wizardry, the whole damn series. Dreadfully addictive, and probably killed my GPA in college, back when it was only up to Wiz 3.

Ultima, up to 6. Couldn't finish 7, and 8 was a disaster, and didn't evne buy 9.

Bards Tale I. Damn, that was hard.

Arena and Daggerfall. Sorry, Morrowind and Oblivion, for all their immense detail, lacked the OMFG HUGE!!!! feel of the first two.

Wizards Crown -- one of the most tactically intense games EVAR, in terms of manuevering your party and dealing with foes.

ADOM: Like Nethack, only a bit less silly in spots, and with just as many horrible ways to die.

Apple & Palm

[wjb3-reads.livejournal.com]

For the Apple II:
Bard's Tale (1 & 2)
Neuromancer (especially the cyberspace and multi-path)

For PDA:
Dragon Bane (1 & 2)

[victorthecook.livejournal.com]

Oh, my... in chronological order:
* Apple Panic for the Apple ][+
* Super Star Trek for the Vax
* Blue Meanies from Outer Space for the Vic-20
* Seven Cities of Gold for the Commodore 64 -- great game; took 7 minutes by my watch to load from floppy disk.
* Marble Madness for the Amiga 1000
* Patton Strikes Back on the Mac SE/IIci -- possibly the best strategy game ever. I'd buy it again if I could get it to run on anything modern.
* Star Control II for the PC.
* Escape Velocity for the Mac
* Harry the Handsome Executive -- roll around in an office chair shooting staples at evil.

Really, nothing I've played in the last several years beats any of these.