MinorityReport
Banned
- Joined
- February 10, 2014
- Messages
- 372
I was cleaning out some memory sticks today and discovered a lovely quartet of screenshots from an old Icewind Dale game. I'd used them in a thread on Gamebanshee entitled "How to kill yxunomei in two seconds". Looking at them now, they remind me of why Icewind Dale is such a fun game, and also why RPGs can be such fun games when done right.
Firstly, when a really nice weapon is found, the game has to communicate this with the correct level of graphic:
It's no good if every weapon looks awesome, it only works if the graphics extend to the correct ratio of awesomeness of the weapon and it has to be a proper in-game graphic, not just a profile graphic:
And it has to have a great write-up, a weapon with a story all of its own. And it can't just be a ROFLSTOMP weapon that's always awesome, it's just got to have that… little extra something:
And it's got to be able to actually function when it matters. There's no point having a weapon that annihilates skeletons but is then useless on the end boss, that's not awesome, that's just a fast forward button, noooo, this weapon has to be able to function with equal severity against the hardest opponent possible for it's appropriate level in the game (that yellow circle is where yxunomei was standing, the flying debris is yxunomei succumbing to the sword as she is shattered):
I got the 50/1 hit and I managed to hit the pause button just in time to record my joy for eternity!
The sword is not a guaranteed drop, it's a random drop from the Temple and it's the random moments like this that make Icewind Dale such an awesomely replayable actioner.
(please ignore the dead rogue, he was just imported in as a level 1 rogue to remove some traps prior to the big fight).
So what's your favourite weapon ever in an RPG? And what made it so special?
Firstly, when a really nice weapon is found, the game has to communicate this with the correct level of graphic:
It's no good if every weapon looks awesome, it only works if the graphics extend to the correct ratio of awesomeness of the weapon and it has to be a proper in-game graphic, not just a profile graphic:
And it has to have a great write-up, a weapon with a story all of its own. And it can't just be a ROFLSTOMP weapon that's always awesome, it's just got to have that… little extra something:
And it's got to be able to actually function when it matters. There's no point having a weapon that annihilates skeletons but is then useless on the end boss, that's not awesome, that's just a fast forward button, noooo, this weapon has to be able to function with equal severity against the hardest opponent possible for it's appropriate level in the game (that yellow circle is where yxunomei was standing, the flying debris is yxunomei succumbing to the sword as she is shattered):
I got the 50/1 hit and I managed to hit the pause button just in time to record my joy for eternity!
The sword is not a guaranteed drop, it's a random drop from the Temple and it's the random moments like this that make Icewind Dale such an awesomely replayable actioner.
(please ignore the dead rogue, he was just imported in as a level 1 rogue to remove some traps prior to the big fight).
So what's your favourite weapon ever in an RPG? And what made it so special?
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2014
- Messages
- 372