CRPG Replay Hall of Fame

Relayer said:

If the KOTOR games were a whole LOT less linear and a whole lot more difficult

each location you visited was just tiny and straightforward. And there weren't enough NPCs to make the places feel "alive".

I really did like the combat system in both games but it was yawnfest.

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I couldn't agree more, those are the main reasons why I didn't care too much for KOTOR.

Relayer said:

They should make KOTOR 3 take place in ONE humongous city and make it a lot more open-ended, less-linear. They should also have the storyline change completely depending on which side you choose.

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Sounds a bit like Gothic 1 ...

Arx Fatalis -- Coolest casting system ever!

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I dunno about that. you ever tiltowait a kobold?

I could kill DW Bradley for getting rid of it

Gig said:

Gothic -- My very first game ever, it holds the most coveted spot for me of all the games I've ever played. I still play it a little from time to time.

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Yes, the first game on my list was my first crpg(M&M6) I honestly don't know if it's nostalgia or if the game would seem as good if it had come into my life later. Either way, it's one of those experiences that you don't forget.

Evil Islands -- Coolest weapons and armor system ever!

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Yes! One of the least played, most old school and difficult of obscure rpgs. The crafting system was fun and innovative for its time, but the thing I remember most in retrospect is how hooked I was by the linear but not always predictable
story--something about the game design and npcs just reeled me in. That was like the second game I ever actually finished back then. (First was Planescape:Torment)

I have to fall into the non-KotOR loving camp though, for pretty much the reasons listed by Relayer and JDR; I enjoyed the first few planets, but after the one where you solve the little murder mystery, I got derailed by my hatred of Bastilla and several of the other npcs...it was almost saved for me by the sarcastic robot, but there just wasn't enough oomph left by then.

It's always surprising to me how the same game can provoke totally opposite reactions...maybe the hallmark of an exceptional game is that you either love or hate it.

I'm absolutely lost as to why the KotOR games are so well regarded. Combat with all the interactivity of a screensaver, environments that are as tiny as they are bland, more bugs than an apiary. The only positives for me are the KotOR II NPCs and NPC influence system.

Anachronox, now that was great sci-fi RPG...

Evil Islands was a great game! I forgot all about it. I wish it wasn't so linear. Once you finished it, you really never have a reason to replay. I'm waiting for it to leak out of my memory before I tackle it again.

Can anyone think of an earlier game that had such a deep crafting system? I loved it. It reminded me a lot of gathering reagents for Ulitima.

magerette said:

Yes! One of the least played, most old school and difficult of obscure rpgs. The crafting system was fun and innovative for its time, but the thing I remember most in retrospect is how hooked I was by the linear but not always predictable story--something about the game design and npcs just reeled me in. That was like the second game I ever actually finished back then. (First was Planescape:Torment)

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E.I. was hard! It's the most difficult game I've ever played in fact, but having blueprints to carry around so that you could remake you weapons and armor as you found better materials was so cool! Actually, Evil Islands was so oppressively hard that it could frustrate me nearly to tears. I usually hate that to the point of abandoning a game. I couldn't seem to stay away from E.I. though and, oddly, it was the second game I managed to finish too, how interesting.

magerette said:

I have to fall into the non-KotOR loving camp though, for pretty much the reasons listed by Relayer and JDR; I enjoyed the first few planets, but after the one where you solve the little murder mystery, I got derailed by my hatred of Bastilla and several of the other npcs...it was almost saved for me by the sarcastic robot, but there just wasn't enough oomph left by then.

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I long ago stopped trying to defend the things I like -- if I like something, that makes it right for me. However, I don't mind mentioning what drew me to something. I think that KotOR and KotOR2 are much more about the story than the combat. The story is very lush and detailed and what seems black and white at the beginning, turns out to be an ocean of grey by the end. You're supposed to hate Bastilla at the beginning, she's a judgemental, arrogant, mouthy little know-it-all who has had her little butt kissed all her life because of a unique force power she possess, and she's young, very young. Bastilla has only just become a Jedi knight and this is her first mission without her master there to guide her -- she's a spoiled child. If you take Bastilla in your party often enough to get her whole story and learn about her mother and father, she grows up before your eyes, making her fall heartbreakingly tragic and her redemption as sweet as honey. There are many elements like that in the KotOR games and It's those elements that draw me to any game.

That's the reason I prefer the NWN original single player campaign to the expansions. The plague was a very powerful element for me, going out and seeing the sick and dying laying in the streets, the bodies piled up and burning and Aribeth's obssession to end it no matter what the cost made it personal for me. I desperately wanted and needed to stop the plague. After that, the expansions seem dull and lifeless with their simple stories and dungeon crawl mentalities, I couldn't even manage to drag myself through HotU and I tried three times. There was none of the desperation that was so skillfully crafted in the original campaign. Yet, I constantly see the expansions get rated significantly higher and the original campaign called ordinary and given an average rating -- it went just the opposite for me.

magerette said:

It's always surprising to me how the same game can provoke totally opposite reactions...maybe the hallmark of an exceptional game is that you either love or hate it.

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I feel exactly the same about that, taste is a fascinating thing. Sour cream makes me wretch, my best friend loves it so much that she'll eat spoonfuls of it right from the container. I always wonder what she tastes, it can't be what I taste -- if it was she'd wretch too. It's not just games and food either, for anything you love, their is someone who can't stand that thing and vice-versa. Where does that defining individuality come from? It's just amazing

Relayer said:

If the KOTOR games were a whole LOT less linear and a whole lot more difficult (the game even on the hardest setting was a cakewalk)

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The combat can be as hard as you want it to be, if you think it's too easy take it out of turn-based mode and play it in real-time. Still too easy, don't use combat pause. Still too easy, play light side, dark side is the easy setting, you can max out your DS points very early and walk through as a fully powered Sith, light side progression is much slower. Plus, all the boss battles are plenty harrowing and those are the only battles that are supposed to be that hard. It never ceases to amaze me how many SW fans seem to miss this fundamental point; you are a Jedi knight! You're supposed to be a walking nightmare to everything standing between you and your goal. I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to all six of those films and even I managed to get that point.

Gig said:

I long ago stopped trying to defend the things I like --

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Especially on the Internet:lol: There seems to be a professional class of trolls who have an automatic knee-jerk reaction that has to justify why they don't agree with you, which is usually tiresome though it can lead to some interesting discussions. That's one of the things I appreciate about this board; people are mostly secure enough to accept that everyone has their own slant on things.

I won't re-quote your whole post, but I appreciate you sharing your experience with the game. I now understand exactly what you mean, and you made the reasons why so many loved it much more understandable. You also brought some of the newer games into the mix, which is good. After a bit, I will do a recount and see where we stand.

You know what's good for replay for the crafting system alone? Seal of Evil.

Its a Chinese Action RPG that follows up on Prince of Qin. Its linear but its fun. It has a good story. The translation are pretty good for Chinese but the voice acting on the main character is atrocious. And oddly enough the voice acting on some the party characters is really good.

The crafting system is wild. Each type of craftable item is patterned after one of the 5 Chinese elements and you can come up with all sorts of combinations and even surprises with the right resources.

I bet writing a recipe book for it could be akin to mapping out old dungeons with graph paper.

Yeah, it's a enjoyable game, if you like that style. I reviewed it in depth back at the Dot!! (Someone else can provide a link )

magerette said:

Especially on the Internet:lol: There seems to be a professional class of trolls who have an automatic knee-jerk reaction that has to justify why they don't agree with you.

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You've seen 'em too!?

Good crafting can keep me in a game forever. I still putter around fairly frequently in Morrowind for that very reason. I've never managed to get more than a third of the way through the storyline, but I love enchanting, alchemy, and the armorer skill. So that's what I do in Morrowind -- I go all over the place, steal everyone's clothes until I have everything, make potions, enchant stuff, and fix everything.

Jaz is big on collecting the lights. I must admit I enjoyed that part, too. I always go for the alchemy skill--mixing potions and collecting herbs appeals to the hedgewitch in me. (Either that or it's a holdover from the 60's )

@Lucky Day--I have almost bought Seal of Evil several times, but have never seen it in the price range I feel the reviews (mostly not good) would warrant--when it comes to the bargain bin I plan to give it a try.

Ahhhh the memory. All those pretty paper lanterns...!
Mention it just one more time, and I'll reinstall my Morrowind GotY. I've been itching to do this for weeks, anyway.

I've been thinking about Morrowind a lot lately. There's never been another game that I spent so much time on and didn't finish. I know I spent close to 200 hours on that game before I got burned out. I never even touched the expansion pack areas!

Just noticed that I've got Evil Islands - it was once a bonus of a gaming magazine here.
I had always thought it was a crappy action-RPG.

Should I give it a try ?

Should I give it a try ?

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Yes - Challenging in the tradition of Rage of Mages - this game has some unique features.

EI is definitely not an action rpg. And Alrik, it's got pretty bright graphics --certainly not a "dark" type game. Should run fine on your machine, too. It's not a super long game, so give it a shot and see what you think.

E.I. actually has a pretty artistic visual style. It reminds me of my uncle's model train set from when I was little. It had little miniature trees, people, buildings, bridges, a mountain, a river, and they all looked a certain way. Evil Islands kind of looks like a computer simulated version of that world of miniatures, at least to my eye.

I was visiting the official web site.

It has the far weirdest way of navigation I've seen EVER !

You have literally menu-points, well, more or less , and you have to place each one in the mouth of a monster on the far left side !

Weird.

If that's typical for this game, then it might be some kind of fun.
You can try it out yourself : http://www.evil-islands.com/eng/

What a fun site!! That really takes me back. I know I spent time on the forums way back when I played E.I., I got frustrated once in particular with the ogre bug. I know that this wasn't this site at all, it's completely redesigned. Then again, I haven't been there in about five years.