Not sure they are really dungeon crawlers but I liked wiz 8 and BG 2. However, much to my surprise Dogma had some of the most amazing areas to explore (compare to tomb raider which was a huge disappointment (with regards to tombs to explore)).
There's not a lot of Amiga gamers around these parts. Just me and maybe you, as in newdart, not you, and you don't even see that as the eternal bond of kinship we share and you probably never even had an Amiga.
Why do you think Black Crypt is the best dungeon crawler of all time?
Why do you think Black Crypt is the best dungeon crawler of all time?
N
NewDArt
Guest
Maybe you should call me DArt Souls - and you can finally obsess over me without it feeling entirely wrong
N
NewDArt
Guest
Well, Dungeon Crawlers come in many different shapes and sizes.
I guess I was mostly thinking of "blobbers" or "games like Dungeon Master" - but whatever you consider a dungeon crawler - is a dungeon crawler
Dogma has great dungeons? Ok, I tried hard looking for one - and googled it, and most people said dungeons were mostly samey and boring.
Hmm......
DArt souls! All for the chosen and the chosen for all!
Too bad you didn't think of that sooner
Did you see "Why do you think Black Crypt is the best dungeon crawler of all time? "
I really should finish posts before editing in afterthoughts all the time. Too used to chat window!
Too bad you didn't think of that sooner
Did you see "Why do you think Black Crypt is the best dungeon crawler of all time? "
I really should finish posts before editing in afterthoughts all the time. Too used to chat window!
N
NewDArt
Guest
Also, I bet you only had one Amiga
BTW, there's a fully playable PC version of Black Crypt available somewhere.
BTW, there's a fully playable PC version of Black Crypt available somewhere.
I'd offer up Wizardry 8, but I'm not sure if its a real dungeon crawler. Its kind of a dungeon crawler/crpg hybrid, the same goes for the Might and Magic series. Wizardry 6 is a really excellent dungeon crawler, and I really like the recent Stranger of Sword City. I also think Icewind Dale 2 is pretty good, and I actually think Grimrock 2 is really good, even though I don't like its realtime kind of gameplay. I've also just started Starcrawlers, which I'm enjoying so far.
edit:I've never heard of the Black Crypt, and am also curious why you like it.
edit:I've never heard of the Black Crypt, and am also curious why you like it.
N
NewDArt
Guest
Well, it's very old and outdated these days
But, at the time of release, I found it to be the best example of a game like Dungeon Master.
It looked great, had great mechanics and - best of all - had the best level variety and exploration in my opinion. It even had underwater levels!
The very first level is pretty weak and boring - but the game gets going from the second level and onwards.
It has some of the coolest boss fight mechanics and puzzles, too.
Not sure how it holds up today - but it's very dear to my heart.
Captive is another dungeon crawler gem from the ancient past
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Call me any names, but there is none I'd say it's favorite of mine.
I like the genre and I like playing through crawlers, but I can't pinpoint a title where I'd yell OMG best game evar!
Means, I'm still waiting for someone to make such dungeon crawler I'd rub noses of my friends stuck in WoW and similar garbage for decades with.
I like the genre and I like playing through crawlers, but I can't pinpoint a title where I'd yell OMG best game evar!
Means, I'm still waiting for someone to make such dungeon crawler I'd rub noses of my friends stuck in WoW and similar garbage for decades with.
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- Apr 12, 2009
- Messages
- 23,459
Also, I bet you only had one Amiga
BTW, there's a fully playable PC version of Black Crypt available somewhere.
The PC version is only the first two levels AFAIK. It was released as a demo by one of the original developers near the end of the 90s.
I loved that game. It has that crazy level full of invisible monsters, where it was advisable to get some mask in an earlier level to be able to see them, but still let you (unwisely) go there anyway. And that level with the pesky item thief. I never beat the game because the final level on my floppy disk was corrupted, and the boss looked all fucked up and I couldn't tell what was going on.
(For the record, I only ever owned an Amiga 500, but I kept it going for many years. Used it for word processing etc well after its use-by date)
Black Crypt has a special place in my heart, but my favourite dungeon crawler is probably Wizardry 8.
N
NewDArt
Guest
Nope, there's a "portable" version of the full game. It's essentially the Amiga version.
http://thecompany.pl/game/Black+Crypt
It's running in an Amiga emulator. So... it's not a PC version then...
You have disappointed me you cad.
You have disappointed me you cad.
N
NewDArt
Guest
It's an integrated emulator that handles every setting for you, including sound and mouse setup. There's literally no difference between that and a faithful PC version.
Chaos Strikes Back - really dig its take on level design - the game starts at a middle level with 4 different paths going down or up (openness ftw), at another middle level there's a crammed-with-puzzles-room where all these 4 paths converge (and separately continue afterwards), the paths also intersect here and there; I remember accidentally killing a dragon by falling at it through a hole (I did the same in Dungeon Master, though there it was intentional through a sorta time stop item IIRC), also finding a key after killing a thief who stole it from me about 4 levels higher (played on Amiga 500+ btw )
Wizardry 7 - probably my joint all-time favourite - despite limited tileset variety, the game manages to present seriously colourful set of locations thanks to distinct text descriptions, NPCs, enemies, puzzles and level design, comes with very solid character progression + itemization and sports to this day not quite matched (AFAIK) rival adventurers element, it's also very open and personally I really dig that some of the puzzles require items/knowledge found in a completely different part of the world, all the above + addition of skills like diplomacy/swimming/climbing/mapping makes this game the most feature-complete dungeon crawler there is, in my book; if it wasn't for slow mana regeneration, way too frequent random combat encounters, random stat increases on level-ups and few puzzles being way too unintuitive, I wouldn't hesitate to call this a perfect dungeon crawler (someone put together a pretty cool map of the gameworld, btw: http://www.zimlab.com/wizardry/images/Wizardry7-Mapd.png)
Wizardry 8 - along with Wizardry 7 my favourite; compared to its predecessor it's not as rich in terms of puzzle and perhaps dungeon amount/variety, and the rival adventure parties element is severely simplified, but in my book the game quite manages to make up for it by its own specific strengths, which include really well put together character progression (easily my favourite as far as dungeon crawlers go), effective atmosphere boosters in forms of music and sound design, voiced NPCs with answers to surprising amount of topics and, at last but not least, voiced player characters (including joinable NPCs AND player generated ones, in which case the game offers a fair amount of distinct personalities to pick from); combat encounters taking generally too long to resolve, along with too fast enemy respawn rate, are the game's only real flaws I can think of; thanks to its character progression/personalities and relatively solid production values this is my go-to game when I'm in the mood for dungeon crawlers (combat density and slowness is notably less of an issue on replays), which happens about once a year
Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin - this stretches what one usually thinks of when dungeon crawler genre comes up I guess, but personally I think it's pretty much in the same ballpark as Arx Fatalis or Ultima Underworld which are both games I think people wouldn't have much problems to classify as dungeon crawlers; regardless, this is easily my favourite "Souls" game, edging out the others mostly thanks to its combat mechanics, character build + area variety and general level of what I'd characterize as playfulness (NPC summons/invaders using gestures, in-world difficulty settings including host of possible NPC summon helpers, a joinable "covenant" that makes the game more difficult across the board and a possibility to make a specific area more difficult - which occasionally includes a new enemy set up); one aspect I'd like to point out, which personally I consider genius, is that melee weapons are diversified not only by stat (damage, speed, damage type, counter damage) and physical (length) properties, but also by inherent movesets (which differ not only between weapon categories, but also within them) - "gamey" feature or not, I'm finding this to be perhaps the biggest factor making the series (and this game in particular) head and shoulders above other cRPGs featuring action melee combat; it's also the only game in the series (AFAIR) which retains full one-handed movesets for weapons wielded in left hand, which, along with "powerstance" feature (special moveset for dual wielded weapon combinations), makes this by far the best dual wielding action cRPG melee combat in my book; also, voice acting in this game is fantastic; the game's (and the series') biggest flaw is some of the mechanics being needlessly obtuse
Legend of Grimrock 2 - the first game already surprised me by not being just reliant on nice visuals, but also clearly coming with a lot of work put into puzzle design, however its successor pretty much made it obsolete - it has more diversified puzzles (including less reliance on finding small buttons), multiple dungeons along with exterior environments, underwater areas and multiple endings rewarding exploration/optional puzzle solving; I guess one might see the game as less focused compared to the predecessor, but personally I consider it to be another of the game's strengths since the relative lack of focus is mainly due to major increase in openness; also, a bit á la Wizardry 7, some of the puzzles are solved through exploration of different parts of the world, which I'm a big fan of; I think the game's biggest flaw is character progression which I found rather unengaging and it's the main reason why even though I had a great time on my first playthrough I don't really feel like replaying the game any time soon
The above would be my top 5, Wizardry 8 being number one I think.
Two games which just didn't make it would be
Arx Fatalis - atmosphere and most of the puzzles in the game rule, I also really dig the game's take on spells; some of the puzzles are fairly unintuitive/badly implemented and character progression is neither particularly interesting nor well balanced, AFAIR
Ultima Underworld - I still consider this to be the best example of a cRPG which managed to both push technological limits AND deliver a well rounded experience not reliant on production values; I've never actually finished this one - the one and only time I've played it was shortly after its release on holiday with a friend and since we were young, restless and not particularly well versed in ye olde English we had frequent compulsions to kill the game's NPCs which resulted in missing out on some vital clues, the farthest we got was standing on the game's final boss' head and hacking it for 20 minutes straight without causing any damage
I remember finding Black Crypt good overall too, but somehow I got through its second half in a day which resulted in not enough memories present. The coolest thing I remember was an early boss monster that could only be killed by a weapon found at a level below/after the encounter. I'm also pretty sure I've missed some puzzles/solutions altogether since I got through the final combat encounters by cheesing the enemies at stairs, doing 1 or so damage per hit.
)Wizardry 7 - probably my joint all-time favourite - despite limited tileset variety, the game manages to present seriously colourful set of locations thanks to distinct text descriptions, NPCs, enemies, puzzles and level design, comes with very solid character progression + itemization and sports to this day not quite matched (AFAIK) rival adventurers element, it's also very open and personally I really dig that some of the puzzles require items/knowledge found in a completely different part of the world, all the above + addition of skills like diplomacy/swimming/climbing/mapping makes this game the most feature-complete dungeon crawler there is, in my book; if it wasn't for slow mana regeneration, way too frequent random combat encounters, random stat increases on level-ups and few puzzles being way too unintuitive, I wouldn't hesitate to call this a perfect dungeon crawler (someone put together a pretty cool map of the gameworld, btw: http://www.zimlab.com/wizardry/images/Wizardry7-Mapd.png)
Wizardry 8 - along with Wizardry 7 my favourite; compared to its predecessor it's not as rich in terms of puzzle and perhaps dungeon amount/variety, and the rival adventure parties element is severely simplified, but in my book the game quite manages to make up for it by its own specific strengths, which include really well put together character progression (easily my favourite as far as dungeon crawlers go), effective atmosphere boosters in forms of music and sound design, voiced NPCs with answers to surprising amount of topics and, at last but not least, voiced player characters (including joinable NPCs AND player generated ones, in which case the game offers a fair amount of distinct personalities to pick from); combat encounters taking generally too long to resolve, along with too fast enemy respawn rate, are the game's only real flaws I can think of; thanks to its character progression/personalities and relatively solid production values this is my go-to game when I'm in the mood for dungeon crawlers (combat density and slowness is notably less of an issue on replays), which happens about once a year
Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin - this stretches what one usually thinks of when dungeon crawler genre comes up I guess, but personally I think it's pretty much in the same ballpark as Arx Fatalis or Ultima Underworld which are both games I think people wouldn't have much problems to classify as dungeon crawlers; regardless, this is easily my favourite "Souls" game, edging out the others mostly thanks to its combat mechanics, character build + area variety and general level of what I'd characterize as playfulness (NPC summons/invaders using gestures, in-world difficulty settings including host of possible NPC summon helpers, a joinable "covenant" that makes the game more difficult across the board and a possibility to make a specific area more difficult - which occasionally includes a new enemy set up); one aspect I'd like to point out, which personally I consider genius, is that melee weapons are diversified not only by stat (damage, speed, damage type, counter damage) and physical (length) properties, but also by inherent movesets (which differ not only between weapon categories, but also within them) - "gamey" feature or not, I'm finding this to be perhaps the biggest factor making the series (and this game in particular) head and shoulders above other cRPGs featuring action melee combat; it's also the only game in the series (AFAIR) which retains full one-handed movesets for weapons wielded in left hand, which, along with "powerstance" feature (special moveset for dual wielded weapon combinations), makes this by far the best dual wielding action cRPG melee combat in my book; also, voice acting in this game is fantastic; the game's (and the series') biggest flaw is some of the mechanics being needlessly obtuse
Legend of Grimrock 2 - the first game already surprised me by not being just reliant on nice visuals, but also clearly coming with a lot of work put into puzzle design, however its successor pretty much made it obsolete - it has more diversified puzzles (including less reliance on finding small buttons), multiple dungeons along with exterior environments, underwater areas and multiple endings rewarding exploration/optional puzzle solving; I guess one might see the game as less focused compared to the predecessor, but personally I consider it to be another of the game's strengths since the relative lack of focus is mainly due to major increase in openness; also, a bit á la Wizardry 7, some of the puzzles are solved through exploration of different parts of the world, which I'm a big fan of; I think the game's biggest flaw is character progression which I found rather unengaging and it's the main reason why even though I had a great time on my first playthrough I don't really feel like replaying the game any time soon
The above would be my top 5, Wizardry 8 being number one I think.
Two games which just didn't make it would be
Arx Fatalis - atmosphere and most of the puzzles in the game rule, I also really dig the game's take on spells; some of the puzzles are fairly unintuitive/badly implemented and character progression is neither particularly interesting nor well balanced, AFAIR
Ultima Underworld - I still consider this to be the best example of a cRPG which managed to both push technological limits AND deliver a well rounded experience not reliant on production values; I've never actually finished this one - the one and only time I've played it was shortly after its release on holiday with a friend and since we were young, restless and not particularly well versed in ye olde English we had frequent compulsions to kill the game's NPCs which resulted in missing out on some vital clues, the farthest we got was standing on the game's final boss' head and hacking it for 20 minutes straight without causing any damage
I remember finding Black Crypt good overall too, but somehow I got through its second half in a day which resulted in not enough memories present. The coolest thing I remember was an early boss monster that could only be killed by a weapon found at a level below/after the encounter. I'm also pretty sure I've missed some puzzles/solutions altogether since I got through the final combat encounters by cheesing the enemies at stairs, doing 1 or so damage per hit
.
There can be only one answer to this question, Dark Heart of Uukrul.
Some of the best puzzles of all time. Dungeon was huge and had a great save system with sanctuaries. Large selection of monsters and magic items. Great story with a great ending. Loved the character advancement.
To this day it still has the best cleric spell system and the magic user spells were also fantastic. Had to read the manual because there were clues in it to help you with the dungeon.
The character creation system was unique. Answered questions instead of rolling for stats. All these different systems make it my favorite dungeon crawler.
Some of the best puzzles of all time. Dungeon was huge and had a great save system with sanctuaries. Large selection of monsters and magic items. Great story with a great ending. Loved the character advancement.
To this day it still has the best cleric spell system and the magic user spells were also fantastic. Had to read the manual because there were clues in it to help you with the dungeon.
The character creation system was unique. Answered questions instead of rolling for stats. All these different systems make it my favorite dungeon crawler.
N
NewDArt
Guest
Chaos Strikes Back - really dig its take on level design - the game starts at a middle level with 4 different paths going down or up (openness ftw), at another middle level there's a crammed-with-puzzles-room where all these 4 paths converge (and separately continue afterwards), the paths also intersect here and there; I remember accidentally killing a dragon by falling at it through a hole (I did the same in Dungeon Master, though there it was intentional through a sorta time stop item IIRC), also finding a key after killing a thief who stole it from me about 4 levels higher (played on Amiga 500+ btw
Wizardry 7 - probably my joint all-time favourite - despite limited tileset variety, the game manages to present seriously colourful set of locations thanks to distinct text descriptions, NPCs, enemies, puzzles and level design, comes with very solid character progression + itemization and sports to this day not quite matched (AFAIK) rival adventurers element, it's also very open and personally I really dig that some of the puzzles require items/knowledge found in a completely different part of the world, all the above + addition of skills like diplomacy/swimming/climbing/mapping makes this game the most feature-complete dungeon crawler there is, in my book; if it wasn't for slow mana regeneration, way too frequent random combat encounters, random stat increases on level-ups and few puzzles being way too unintuitive, I wouldn't hesitate to call this a perfect dungeon crawler (someone put together a pretty cool map of the gameworld, btw: http://www.zimlab.com/wizardry/images/Wizardry7-Mapd.png)
Wizardry 8 - along with Wizardry 7 my favourite; compared to its predecessor it's not as rich in terms of puzzle and perhaps dungeon amount/variety, and the rival adventure parties element is severely simplified, but in my book the game quite manages to make up for it by its own specific strengths, which include really well put together character progression (easily my favourite as far as dungeon crawlers go), effective atmosphere boosters in forms of music and sound design, voiced NPCs with answers to surprising amount of topics and, at last but not least, voiced player characters (including joinable NPCs AND player generated ones, in which case the game offers a fair amount of distinct personalities to pick from); combat encounters taking generally too long to resolve, along with too fast enemy respawn rate, are the game's only real flaws I can think of; thanks to its character progression/personalities and relatively solid production values this is my go-to game when I'm in the mood for dungeon crawlers (combat density and slowness is notably less of an issue on replays), which happens about once a year
Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin - this stretches what one usually thinks of when dungeon crawler genre comes up I guess, but personally I think it's pretty much in the same ballpark as Arx Fatalis or Ultima Underworld which are both games I think people wouldn't have much problems to classify as dungeon crawlers; regardless, this is easily my favourite "Souls" game, edging out the others mostly thanks to its combat mechanics, character build + area variety and general level of what I'd characterize as playfulness (NPC summons/invaders using gestures, in-world difficulty settings including host of possible NPC summon helpers, a joinable "covenant" that makes the game more difficult across the board and a possibility to make a specific area more difficult - which occasionally includes a new enemy set up); one aspect I'd like to point out, which personally I consider genius, is that melee weapons are diversified not only by stat (damage, speed, damage type, counter damage) and physical (length) properties, but also by inherent movesets (which differ not only between weapon categories, but also within them) - "gamey" feature or not, I'm finding this to be perhaps the biggest factor making the series (and this game in particular) head and shoulders above other cRPGs featuring action melee combat; it's also the only game in the series (AFAIR) which retains full one-handed movesets for weapons wielded in left hand, which, along with "powerstance" feature (special moveset for dual wielded weapon combinations), makes this by far the best dual wielding action cRPG melee combat in my book; also, voice acting in this game is fantastic; the game's (and the series') biggest flaw is some of the mechanics being needlessly obtuse
Legend of Grimrock 2 - the first game already surprised me by not being just reliant on nice visuals, but also clearly coming with a lot of work put into puzzle design, however its successor pretty much made it obsolete - it has more diversified puzzles (including less reliance on finding small buttons), multiple dungeons along with exterior environments, underwater areas and multiple endings rewarding exploration/optional puzzle solving; I guess one might see the game as less focused compared to the predecessor, but personally I consider it to be another of the game's strengths since the relative lack of focus is mainly due to major increase in openness; also, a bit á la Wizardry 7, some of the puzzles are solved through exploration of different parts of the world, which I'm a big fan of; I think the game's biggest flaw is character progression which I found rather unengaging and it's the main reason why even though I had a great time on my first playthrough I don't really feel like replaying the game any time soon
The above would be my top 5, Wizardry 8 being number one I think.
Two games which just didn't make it would be
Arx Fatalis - atmosphere and most of the puzzles in the game rule, I also really dig the game's take on spells; some of the puzzles are fairly unintuitive/badly implemented and character progression is neither particularly interesting nor well balanced, AFAIR
Ultima Underworld - I still consider this to be the best example of a cRPG which managed to both push technological limits AND deliver a well rounded experience not reliant on production values; I've never actually finished this one - the one and only time I've played it was shortly after its release on holiday with a friend and since we were young, restless and not particularly well versed in ye olde English we had frequent compulsions to kill the game's NPCs which resulted in missing out on some vital clues, the farthest we got was standing on the game's final boss' head and hacking it for 20 minutes straight without causing any damage
I remember finding Black Crypt good overall too, but somehow I got through its second half in a day which resulted in not enough memories present. The coolest thing I remember was an early boss monster that could only be killed by a weapon found at a level below/after the encounter. I'm also pretty sure I've missed some puzzles/solutions altogether since I got through the final combat encounters by cheesing the enemies at stairs, doing 1 or so damage per hit
Great list and explanations
You're right, Black Crypt wasn't very long. I also remember completing it in a couple of days.
I loved it still, though.
You keep talking about the Souls games.
I hope, one day, I'll see the light