Opinion - Retro Dungeon Revival

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Spaceman
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OnlySP talks about the retro dungeon revival and cites Vaporum and Operencia: The Stolen Sun to argue the genre's possibilities.

The old-school dungeon-RPG genre never really went away, but, like a miracle, bigger names than ever are now paying attention to its crunchy allure. The industry saw, of course, the triumphant return of polished real time RPGs with Legend of Grimrock and its imitators, the constantly expanding Etrian franchise on DS and 3DS, Severed by Drink Box (developer of Guacamelee), and, arguably, the growing popularity of Shin Megami Tensei and its spinoffs.

Last month saw the console release of Vaporum: Steampunk Dungeon Crawler, which OnlySP reviewed, as well as Zen Studios's Operencia: The Stolen Sun on Xbox One and the Epic Store.

Both hearken back to the first-person dungeon-RPGs of early 3D--though with a beautiful layer of modern graphics and accessibility on top--but also approach the genre in very different ways. In the interest of exploring what is possible in grid-based retro games, here are some of the biggest ways that the two titles differ.

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Like the crowdfunded scene, zero revival of old school gaming. Products carefully leave out anything that is not bearable under current perspectives.
 
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Good genres never fade away, they just improve with age. I'm fine with the current revival, but I get most of my joy via great old games, thanks to them I can fire up plenty of games from yesterday and have my way with them.
 
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There is no determinism.

The point was that features that could be during old school gaming period can no longer be these days.

There is no revival. Dungeon crawlers never ceased to be and the current products do not take to old school gaming. Players are way too insecure to afford it.
 
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If anyone gets an old school dungeon crawling itch that needs to be satisfied, I'd recommend giving Infinite Adventures a whirl. Of course there are plenty of better, superior options if you want to go the old school route, but in terms of current releases, Infinite Adventures stands tall.
 
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Man what i wouldn't do for a blobber that had the scope of skyrim....imagine bards tale 3 with the power of current PC's that isn't a simple little adventure....I'm thinking an 80 hour game...
 
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Unfortunately, Bard's Tale four wasn't that follow-up that all us old-schooler's were hoping for, but I'm with Rune, I'd love to see a game with the scope of what he spoke of above.
 
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