RPGWatch Feature - Elminage Gothic Review

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Myrthos

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In our second Elminage Gothic review, Fluent shares his opinion on the game and concludes it is one of the best games in its genre. As it happens not everybody in the RPGWatch team agrees, but a review is a personal opinion and not a community effort.

As you explore the maze-like dungeons, the game places a heavy emphasis on figuring out things yourself and forcing you to pay attention to your surroundings. Since you only have so many maps that you can carry, you will have to manually explore the dungeon, learning it's intricacies and getting a lay of the land, only using your maps sparingly. The game makes you develop a strong sense of direction, because if you get turned around and start burning through maps, you will once again be in a lot of trouble. Managing the maps and learning the exploration system in the game is imperative to making progress. The game again gets easier in this regard when you get teleportation magic and are able to freely move through the dungeon at your leisure, entering and leaving to re-supply. But be warned; your characters age, so all that time you spent going back and forth to town could come back to haunt you much later.
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More information.
 
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Hello all. :)

I do think Elminage Gothic is an instant classic and best in its genre. I would prefer it over games like Legend of Grimrock and others. While it's not perfect, it's some of the best retro-styled dungeon-crawling we have available in a modern game currently in the gaming arena.

To those who say the interface is not up to modern standards, I would have to disagree. To get an idea of how fast or smooth the interface is, feel free to watch my latest episodes of A Fluent Let's Play of Elminage Gothic on my YouTube channel. Suffice it to say, I speed through the menus with ease. Yes, it takes some getting used to and requires an investment of the player to learn the system, but once you learn it it is great.

The localisation does have a few minor sore spots, but it doesn't greatly take away from the game experience. The rest of the game is brilliant and patterns itself nicely after classic Wizardry games.

I have to wonder, though. Had Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge been released a week ago, how many 3 out of 5's it would get. I think people will look back on the Elminage series years later and then realize how great these games were. But I digress.

Please sign my Elminage petition to Ghostlight Games to translate ALL the Elminage Games and release them on PC. That petition can be found here -> https://www.change.org/p/ghostlight-games-translate-all-elminage-games
 
Fluent said:
Hello all. :)

I do think Elminage Gothic is an instant classic and best in its genre. I would prefer it over games like Legend of Grimrock and others. While it's not perfect, it's some of the best retro-styled dungeon-crawling we have available in a modern game currently in the gaming arena.

To those who say the interface is not up to modern standards, I would have to disagree. To get an idea of how fast or smooth the interface is, feel free to watch my latest episodes of A Fluent Let's Play of Elminage Gothic on my YouTube channel. Suffice it to say, I speed through the menus with ease. Yes, it takes some getting used to and requires an investment of the player to learn the system, but once you learn it it is great.

The localisation does have a few minor sore spots, but it doesn't greatly take away from the game experience. The rest of the game is brilliant and patterns itself nicely after classic Wizardry games.

I have to wonder, though. Had Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge been released a week ago, how many 3 out of 5's it would get. I think people will look back on the Elminage series years later and then realize how great these games were. But I digress.

Please sign my Elminage petition to Ghostlight Games to translate ALL the Elminage Games and release them on PC. That petition can be found here -> https://www.change.org/p/ghostlight-games-translate-all-elminage-games
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As much as I enjoyed Elminage: Gothic, its is IMO not as good as a modern Wizardry 6 would be. The localization, is a big part of the problem. Wizardry 6 has sparse text, but it is very well done, and there is actually a story you want to follow to the end. I really didn't find this to be the case with Elminage: Gothic. I also think the pacing is better done in Wizardry 6. You find different shops and NPCs a long the way, whereas in Elminage; Gothic the town doesn't change all too much from the beginning of the game. I know you do get a new side quest from time to time, but it's just not (for me) on par. (I replayed Wizardry 6 this year, so I'm not talking from nostalgia!) And Elminage certainly falls short of Wizardry 8, which still is in my top 5 favorite games (I've played it all the way through 3 times and started it 5 times at least), even though Wizardry 8 got an average off 77 and 78 or so when it came out 15 years ago. It does desperately need a mod to speed up the phase based combat, but that is IMO the only thing wrong with it.
I think Elminage is a good game, though. The dungeon design is quite fiendish, combat feels good, and the game mechanics allow for all sorts of different party builds.
 
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forgottenlor said:
As much as I enjoyed Elminage: Gothic, its is IMO not as good as a modern Wizardry 6 would be. The localization, is a big part of the problem. Wizardry 6 has sparse text, but it is very well done, and there is actually a story you want to follow to the end. I really didn't find this to be the case with Elminage: Gothic. I also think the pacing is better done in Wizardry 6. You find different shops and NPCs a long the way, whereas in Elminage; Gothic the town doesn't change all too much from the beginning of the game. I know you do get a new side quest from time to time, but it's just not (for me) on par. (I replayed Wizardry 6 this year, so I'm not talking from nostalgia!) And Elminage certainly falls short of Wizardry 8, which still is in my top 5 favorite games (I've played it all the way through 3 times and started it 5 times at least), even though Wizardry 8 got an average off 77 and 78 or so when it came out 15 years ago. It does desperately need a mod to speed up the phase based combat, but that is IMO the only thing wrong with it.
I think Elminage is a good game, though. The dungeon design is quite fiendish, combat feels good, and the game mechanics allow for all sorts of different party builds.
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The town doesn't change, but you get so much variety in the dungeons that it really doesn't matter. Elminage Gothic is meant to be experienced by diving through fiendish dungeons, all of which are unique and interesting. I'm playing Wizardry VI now and it's quite good, but they are two different games. Elminage has such bizarre and insanely wonderful monsters to fight, each with unique skills that makes combat a blast to play. Of course, Wiz 6 probably has some of this as well, but again, they are two different beasts.

The pacing in Elminage is great in my opinion. You are always finding a new dungeon to delve into with many new traps and monsters to overcome. Some dungeons require huge time investments to get through, which makes the gameplay all the more fun for those who invest in it.

The story is bare-bones, yes, but the game isn't meant to be a BioWare story and cutscene game. It's sort of like a Dark Souls that allows you to slowly piece together the story as you uncover more of the dungeons. There is still a huge incentive to play because it is a gameplay-focused game that does not rely solely on story to keep things interesting. The bits of story you do uncover are interesting and keep me wanting to play more to see how it all unfolds, so that is good enough, imo.

It is a great game, not just good, but it probably won't be realized for years to come yet. If Wiz 8 got 77s and 78s when it first released, that sort of proves my point. Elminage got lower review scores than that but it's every bit as hardcore and thrilling as any game in the dungeon-crawling subgenre of RPGs.
 
Elminage was a fun game, and I'll sure I'll replay it at some point since I completed it almost a year ago now, but I'd place any Wizardry game ahead of it for initial and replay value. I found Elminage to have positioned itself very nicely between the Wizardry and Bard Tale's games, and I think that added to my initial enjoyment a great deal.
 
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Speaking of Bard's Tale, I can't wait for the new one, Bard's Tale IV, to come out, but I think I'm even more excited in getting enhanced versions of the first 3 Bard's Tale games done by none other than Burger Becky herself! Hopefully they come sometime soon-ish. :)
 
Hey! Here's a video review version, narrated and written by me, for those who don't want to read! :p

 
Just out of curiosity have you ever done a review which did not result in 5 out of 5 ?
 
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Yes he did. For example Mars: War Logs was rated on the low side by Fluent.
 
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I see nothing wrong with giving any game a perfect score if that is what the person thinks. Though personally I don't think any game has ever been perfect...

Also when reading a persons review and you have read other reviews you know should know how they review games.
 
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CelticFrost said:
Also when reading a persons review and you have read other reviews you know should know how they review games.
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The problem with pure subjectivity when doing reviews, as I see it, is that people can't and shouldn't be expected to know that the reviewer doesn't care about objectivity.

Lots of people have no idea who Fluent is and how he approaches games. As such, they have no idea that a perfect score really means a potentially deeply flawed game that Fluent just loves.

But that's me, and I've always thought a reviewer who wants to be taken seriously should strive for objectivity - even if the goal can never be reached.
 
Just to clear something up. I feel like Elminage Gothic is this generation's Wizardry series. That props it up quite high in my book.

Let's put it his way. If Wizardry 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8 released today, they would get huge critical acclaim, right? They are all-time classic games.

Well, Elminage Gothic is basically a modern Wizardry game. It has so much going for it. It retains the old-school philosophy through and through, does not try to cater to casual gamers, is difficult, brutal, even hard work at times. But it is one of the most rewarding games I have ever played.

I think of it as a turn-based Dark Souls. It's got the amazing artwork, the treacherous and diabolical dungeons and death around every turn.

You know how some people love Dark Souls and place it on a pedestal for those reasons? Well, that is what Elminage Gothic is to me.

So yes, I absolutely stand by my 5/5 rating. It is a modern Wizardry game with incredible artwork and true dungeon-crawling RPG mechanics (with no hand-holding).

Try the game and see for yourself. If you don't agree, that's okay, but my opinion shouldn't be lessened because I hold the game in high regard. :)
 
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