The forgotten games of yore

[JemyM]

I spent several hours trying to find the name of a game I played on Amiga just to tell you about it. Right now 2 days later when I thought I would just ask if you knew the game with a description, the name suddenly popped into my mind; Evil's Doom (SE). I remember that the name sounded like another game and DOOM clones were popular back then.

Unlike regular Amiga games, this was produced in high resolution with quite good artwork. It was also only released on CD which was uncommon for Amiga back then. The sideeffect with Amiga "high" resolution was that the in-game graphics was limited to 16 colors, which you can probably see on the in-game images.
I remember my friend took issues with the main character looking like Conan. I played it for days but reached a place I got stuck so I never finished it. By the screenshots you can probably figure out that it worked very much like Dungeon Master / Eye of the Beholder.

 

[SirJames]

The first RPG I played, as far as I can remember at least, is "The Faery Tale Adventure" back in 1987 or so. I have fond memories of that one because it was the first game I actually bought (I'll have to admit that back in the very early days PC games were something you got a copy of from a friend). I remember reading through the manual as bed time reading, looking at the map etc… and then of course playing the game. I remember it as a fairly huge open-world kind of game - don't know how impressive the size of it would be today

Then I played games like "Heros Quest 1", "Might&Magic 3", "Betrayal at Krondor" and "Lands of Lore 1".

And then of course I discovered the Ultimas…

Hey, that was my first RPG too! Played it on my amiga 1000. I was about 5 years old at the time and i got to play it 1 hour after dinner with my dad every night. Was one of the best gaming times ever.

 

[Relayer]

I've only played the first few hours of Skies Of Arcadia ( I have the Gamecube version), but I didn't think it compares to Phantasy Star at all. I would love to see a direct sequel to the old Phantasy Star series, but I'm not holding my breath.

You have to get beyond the first few hours. And I'm mostly speaking of the story, which while a pretty generic "evil empire" story, is still well told and has a memorable (and loveable) cast of characters.

Gameplay wise, the main negative for me was too many random battles AND the fact that they were very easy. In fact, the random battle frequency is pretty comparable to Phantasy Star games - every few steps - but where PS battles were over in seconds, the ones in SoA dragged on and like I said, very easy. So that was the low point.

Everything else in the game was great. The skill/magic system was good, the game world was well designed, exploration was well done, and the airship battles were a nice touch as well.

And like I said, great characters. None of that mopy, depressed, teen angst. The main character was a very cheerful, outgoing explorer/adventurer type.

I'll just say that even with it's faults, I still played it to completion and was sad to finish it because I'd grown to love the cast so much - one of the few games that brought that bitter-sweet feeling out of me (the other one I can think of right now is Lunar, the PSone remake/special edition).

So it's not exactly the same as Phantasy Star, it wasn't cutting edge or took RPGs in a new direction, it was just a well done old school style RPG. I meant to say the overal quality was comparable.

 

[JDR13]

Now you've got me wanting to play it.

I was just looking at some youtube videos to remind me exactly what it's like. (I'm far too lazy to actually walk into the next room, pull it out of my game cabinet, and insert it into my Wii.)

I do like the setting, and I like the fact that it emphasizes exploration. I remember not liking the simplistic color based(?) magic system though.

Have you played the Gamecube version, or just the original? The Gamecube version evidently has a less frequent random encounter rate, as well as 24 "discoveries" that weren't in the original. There were also several new characters added to the plot.

 

[Relayer]

Now you've got me wanting to play it.
Have you played the Gamecube version, or just the original? The Gamecube version evidently has a less frequent random encounter rate, as well as 24 "discoveries" that weren't in the original. There were also several new characters added to the plot.

I only have the original DC version - reducing the encounter rate was a good idea, the GC version has been on my list since it came out, waited for the price to drop and then could just never find a copy when i happen to be in a game store (which isn't too often these days).

That's another game Sega could definitely make a sequel too. Same with the Shining Force series, those were good games!

 

[JDR13]

If you're still interested in getting it, a quick check on Ebay shows a lot of copies in the $20 range.

I loved the Shining Force games also, especially the original, which was the best one by far imo.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Uh, where to put this ???

The game of the 90s called "Humans" have experienced a remake : http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/humans/

I have seen the box very sparsely, and I had almost forgetten about it.

I own a specimen of the "Humans III", which is said to be very bad, I once read.