Help me With my Unfinished List of cRPGs

The PC versions of Dark Queen of Krynn and Pools of Darkness look better than the Amiga version, but the earlier games are better on the Amiga. The main difference is that the sound and music is much better in the Amiga version before Soundblaster became standard.

EDIT: I have the "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: Collectors Edition" which contains the Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, and Savage Frontier epics. It was released in 1994 but can still be found in some obscure shops. The games run fine in Dosbox after some tweaking of paths in config files.
 
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Zaleukos said:
The PC versions of Dark Queen of Krynn and Pools of Darkness look better than the Amiga version, but the earlier games are better on the Amiga. The main difference is that the sound and music is much better in the Amiga version before Soundblaster became standard.

EDIT: I have the "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: Collectors Edition" which contains the Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, and Savage Frontier epics. It was released in 1994 but can still be found in some obscure shops. The games run fine in Dosbox after some tweaking of paths in config files.
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Actually, the Amiga had a superior color palette and graphics resolution, which is why the games looked very superior, compared to the inferior PC versions.

But you're right, I guess the very last Goldbox games might have had VGA graphics which was 256 colors - and as such, it'd win out over the Amiga even despite the lower resolution.
 
I thought the Amiga mostly used the same 320x200 resolution as VGA (or EGA for that matter) in games, or is my memory playing me?

Pools of Darkness definitely looks much better on the PC, and Dark Queen of Krynn (which I havent tried on Amiga) also uses VGA graphics. On the other end of the spectrum you have Pool of Radiance and Champions of Krynn which look far worse on the PC. The real kicker for the early games is the sound though, the Amiga versions had proper music while PC users are limited to speaker bleeps.

EDIT: IIRC the PC version of PoD also has more fancy wall tiles and the like compared to the Amiga version. The assets used in PoD and DQK look very much like Unlimited Adventures.
 
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Zaleukos said:
I thought the Amiga mostly used the same 320x200 resolution as VGA (or EGA for that matter) in games, or is my memory playing me?

Pools of Darkness definitely looks much better on the PC, and Dark Queen of Krynn (which I havent tried on Amiga) also uses VGA graphics. On the other end of the spectrum you have Pool of Radiance and Champions of Krynn which look far worse on the PC. The real kicker for the early games is the sound though, the Amiga versions had proper music while PC users are limited to speaker bleeps.
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Amiga resolution was 320x240 if I recall correctly. It might not sound like much, but it actually makes a significant difference. But pre-VGA color palette was like 8 or 16 colors (EGA or CGA - can't really remember), and this coupled with the lower resolution really made the games look like crap in comparison. But you're right about sound, that also makes a pretty big difference.

I remember when I first saw some of the modern VGA graphics on PC, and I couldn't figure out why it looked so blocky. Turns out it's because of the lower resolution, but I'm not sure how noticable it would be today - especially not with DosBox and those fancy upscaling filters.

That said, it should be noted that you generally hooked up your Amiga to your television or a similarly "imprecise" screen - and that tends to make low-res look a lot better as well.
 
DArtagnan said:
Amiga resolution was 320x240 if I recall correctly. It might not sound like much, but it actually makes a significant difference. But pre-VGA color palette was like 8 or 16 colors (EGA or CGA - can't really remember), and this coupled with the lower resolution really made the games look like crap in comparison. But you're right about sound, that also makes a pretty big difference.
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EGA used 16 colours, CGA 4. Amiga games usually used 32 which made a pretty big difference. COK with the CGA palette looks pretty dreadful, but then I dont think the Amiga version uses 32 colours for the "city view" interface either. The non-interactive still screens looked a lot better on the Amiga though.

Amiga resolution depended on the TV standard. 320x256 on PAL and 320x200 on American NTSC. A lot of American games had black edges on the top and bottom when played on PAL systems.

That said, it should be noted that you generally hooked up your Amiga to your television or a similarly "imprecise" screen - and that tends to make low-res look a lot better as well.
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I think this is a significant factor. I subscribed to an Amiga mag and I always found their screenshots relatively blocky looking compared to the reality on my 14' TV. :D

At any rate I think the minor interface differences between the versions between the games can be pretty annoying too. On the PC one has to re-memorise cast spells after use (pretty darn annoying) for all but the most recent Goldbox titles, but on the Amiga I only recall having that issue with Pool of Radiance. A minor but tedious detail...
 
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Zaleukos said:
EGA used 16 colours, CGA 4. Amiga games usually used 32 which made a pretty big difference. COK with the CGA palette looks pretty dreadful, but then I dont think the Amiga version uses 32 colours for the "city view" interface either. The non-interactive still screens looked a lot better on the Amiga though.
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City view? You mean the step-by-step engine where you walk around? I don't know - but I think they DO use 32 colors for that, but it's been so long I can't remember such details :)

Amiga resolution depended on the TV standard. 320x256 on PAL and 320x200 on American NTSC. A lot of American games had black edges on the top and bottom when played on PAL systems.
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I actually thought it was higher res for NTSC than x200. Sure it wasn't 240 for NTSC and 256 for PAL?

But 320x256 for PAL - Yeah, that sounds about right. Of course, there was also that "interlace" resolution - but only a handful of games used that.

I think this is a significant factor. I subscribed to an Amiga mag and I always found their screenshots relatively blocky looking compared to the reality on my 14' TV. :D
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Hehe :)

At any rate I think the minor interface differences between the versions between the games can be pretty annoying too. On the PC one has to re-memorise cast spells after use (pretty darn annoying) for all but the most recent Goldbox titles, but on the Amiga I only recall having that issue with Pool of Radiance. A minor but tedious detail...
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Yeah, I think different teams did the conversion jobs.

Pool of Radiance was definitely not the same "conversion" as Champions of Krynn. I seem to recall Champions of Krynn and Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday being the best versions.

The Savage Frontier games were kinda slow and clumsy, or maybe I just don't remember anything ;)
 
DArtagnan said:
City view? You mean the step-by-step engine where you walk around? I don't know - but I think they DO use 32 colors for that, but it's been so long I can't remember such details :)
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Yeah, the "3D" view. I didnt know what to call it.

I actually thought it was higher res for NTSC than x200. Sure it wasn't 240 for NTSC and 256 for PAL?
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200 according to Wiki, not that it matters much:p

But 320x256 for PAL - Yeah, that sounds about right. Of course, there was also that "interlace" resolution - but only a handful of games used that.
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Didnt interlace look pretty darn awful with heavy flickering unless you had a monitor built to support it? I recall some late flight sim that used it and it was godawful to play that game on a TV. I think palette, sound, and ease of use were the strengths of the Amiga and it took the trinity of VGA, Soundblaster, and (this is a controversial point:p) Windows for the PC to catch up...

Yeah, I think different teams did the conversion jobs.

Pool of Radiance was definitely not the same "conversion" as Champions of Krynn. I seem to recall Champions of Krynn and Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday being the best versions.

The Savage Frontier games were kinda slow and clumsy, or maybe I just don't remember anything ;)
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I only played PoR, PoD, CKK, and DKK on the Amiga, and of those the Krynn games had slightly smarter menus on the Amiga. PoR had some music that was absent in the PC version and Pools of Darkness simply looked worse.

The savage frontier games might have been slow on contemporary machines, but since I've only played them on Pentium 2's and faster machines I never encountered that:p There are some weaknesses in the scripting that make it possible to accidentally skip parts of the plot though, which made the first Savage Frontier game a very confusing experience to me. I also hate the endgame of that one where you have to walk through a labyrinth without resting:p
 
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I have decided that after Gothic 3 I will play Jade Empire, then follow that up with Mass Effect. If nothing new has been released, I will most likely delve into Arcanum.
 
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I originally played Treasures on a 386. In fact, it was my first Gold Box game I played, though Champions of Krynn was the first I beat.

Both games worked at about the same speed, though generally Treasures looked better.

I think the issue with Treasures is that it can be hard to know where to go; whereas in the older FR games it was pretty straight forward. Gateway and Darkness were both similar to Treasures in that respect; I never have figured out what to do in Darkness.

On the Amiga, games generally looked better on it, and it's sibling the C64, than PC up until the late '80's and early '90's when VGA started in.

Take a look at Phantasie III for the PC and for the Amiga to see a huge difference. Both actually use the same assets, but the Amiga has so many more colors and is so much brighter and easier too look at. You can also compare the C64 Phantasie III, which has a slightly clunkier interface but looked worlds better than PC PH3.
 
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donjn said:
Baldurs Gate Series
I may go straight to Baldurs Gate 2 and skip the firs tone. I played these a bit a while ago but never got too far. Again, the camera thing drove me nuts.


You can't play BG series because of camera and you finished NWN2?! That truly amazes me. I can't finish MotB because the camera setting NWN2 is enough to drive me nuts.

By all means, do play BG series. It is definately worth your time. I personally think it doesn't matter as much if you skip BG1 and go straight into BG2.
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I'd play through BG1 first using Tutu or Baldurs gate trilogy. I find that they are different enough for it to be worth trying out both. The reason to use Tutu/BGT is that the interface changes in Baldurs Gate 2 are very nice to have. Item highlighting is for instance very useful in the city of Baldurs Gate. Without it you are likely to miss all the doors that the devs decided to place on the "back side" of a 2D object! Having a few extra "pause on event" options is also nice...
 
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