Together Retro: First-Person Dungeon Crawlers

[BoneSnapDeez]

Hello ladies and gerbils,

It's your May curator:

Time for first-person dungeon crawlers!

I'll probably flesh out this first post when I have the chance. As for now, go!

[Erik_Twice]

Ooooh, I've been meaning to play Wizardry and this is a great excuse!

[noiseredux]

My copy of Morrowind hasn't arrived yet. As soon as it does, I'll get cracking.

[Ack]

I have already slain many Born Losers in Dragon Wars. It's hard to give an estimate as to how far I am due to how open-ended the game is, but I have just gotten the Golden Boots and acquired one piece to fix the statue in Mud Toad.

Currently I have the full party of 7:

1. Ack (PC) - Party healer and tank. Uses swords.
2. Popo (PC) - Tank and druid, uses Two Handers. Popo wrestled a god to become a druid. Seriously.
3. Elkin (PC) - Tank and flail user. Elkin's narrower specialization means his weapon skill is massive.
4. Bone (PC) - Archer and high magician. Bone has a quiver with infinite arrows and can nuke enemies who get close.
5. Ulrik (NPC) - Tank who uses axes. Unfortunately, axes suck in Dragon Wars.
6. Louie (NPC) - Thief and backup tank.
7. Valar (NPC) - Sun magician.

Because Dragon Wars puts only the first four characters in the front row, I have it stacked with tanks, with Louie in reserve followed by Valar and Bone. Skills are also spread throughout, so Elkin has Tracking and Bureaucracy, while Popo has Lockpicking. Lores are evenly distributed. All of the PCs have Low Magic as a precaution, since it is required to gain access to the higher magics. I wanted to make sure I could potentially train others, just in case, though the skill point cost for doing so is prohibitive. I also made sure everyone has a point in Swim as a precaution.

I'm steadily knocking out the first "continent", or at least the group of islands all connected by bridges, and many enemies I used to have a tough time are getting easier, but I still have a long way to go for some of these nasty buggers. Murk Trees can flat out kill party members, and that means I have to quit and reload, because there is no way to resurrect anyone that I have found yet. Thankfully, I usually just get stunned, and even with everyone stunned, characters still get experience so long as you killed at least one enemy in a group. Dragon Wars can be tough yet forgiving at times. But drop the wrong item, and you are forever screwed....so don't drop items.

[Exhuminator]

My initial FPDC I've already started two days ago; Mazes of Fate DS. I've got about 7 hours in it now. A couple screenshots:


(Those aren't my own screenshots, I'm playing this on an actual DS, not emulated.)

Mazes of Fate DS is a 2008 remake of the 2006 original Mazes of Fate on GBA. Lots of changes were made, and I like the changes, hence DS version for me. The DS version barely got any "professional" reviews when it released, and the few it got were negative. I disagree with those reviews, as I've been having a good time with Mazes of Fate DS. This is a straight up classically designed FPDC, no crazy frills or gimmicks. Explore dungeons, kill things, level up, get loot, slowly unravel a story... it's all there. Pressure plates? Teleporters? Switch puzzles? Illusionary walls? Check, check, check, and check. My only complaint currently is Mazes of Fate DS has been a bit of a pushover so far. Hopefully it will get tougher by the end. However, an easy FPDC might be a boon for a novice dungeon crawler. So if you're such a novice and looking for a good entry point into the genre, consider Mazes of Fate DS. It's been fun thus far. I hope to knock it out this week.

Other FPDCs I plan to play are on DS, Famicom, mobile (retro J2EE), PS2, and PC. This is one of my all time favorite genres, I'd love to beat a bunch of FPDCs for this TR. That's a lofty goal considering it's only a month VS how long these games can be. Folks I've got the gusto, the available free time remains to be seen.

I'm intrigued to see what everyone else chooses to play. Let's all crawl, fight, and die together!


(Don't forget the grid paper.)

[BoneSnapDeez]

I love the GBA Mazes of Fate. "Low" MetaCritic score but I think it's rad as hell.

Is the DS game persistently first-person? The original alternates between first-person and top-down.

[Sarge]

Yeah, I played a good amount of the GBA game, and it is quite fun. I've also got a legit copy of the DS game.

Me, I put in another late night playing Orcs & Elves. If anyone has any trepidation about the genre, start with this! The core gameplay is rather simple, but it's an elegant simplicity. Seeing this distilled down to the basics with almost DOOM-like pacing has been a blast.

[Exhuminator]

"Low" MetaCritic score but I think it's rad as hell.

Generally speaking, FPDC and mainstream reviewers don't mix well.

Is the DS game persistently first-person? The original alternates between first-person and top-down.

The DS game is persistently first person while you're crawling dungeons. If you're in a town or on a world map, it goes to a more isometric overhead view. In that view, you move your character around to interaction points like shops or dungeon entrances. The key differences between the GBA and DS versions are; GBA version's dungeons are faux-3D and node based, you click from spot to spot on a grid, and the enemies are 2D sprites. In the DS version, the dungeons are legit 3D, and you have free movement and free look (FPS style), plus the enemies are textured mapped polygonal affairs (you tap on enemies with the stylus to attack). I find the DS version more immersive personally. It's worth noting the DS version fixes some bugs from the GBA version too.

[ElkinFencer10]

Hell yeah, I'm a tank!!

I'll probably end up sitting this month out as I have everything except my PS4 and Switch currently packed up to move in a couple weeks, and that move will be a process over the course of a few weeks in itself. =/

[crazythink4]

Yup, that sums up my experiences with the original Wizardry trilogy (played the old DOS ports in good ol' DosBox) . The original 3, of course, were basically the same engine with new mazes and the odd incremental improvement.

And they're rat bastards! If a party member got killed, you only had a couple of attempts to raise them. Subject to the random number generator's whims, the resurrection could fail and your character could be permanently lost. I, of course, was having none of that. I found a save game editor and if my characters died permanently I raised them through, ahem, other means. (I'm envisioning a lot of people in the early 80s with backups of their disks with a "reload" mechanism if the RNG was mean.)

I heard the next couple got even worse. On a lark, I took a look at some of the maps and... wow. An entire area of rotating plates which would spin you right round (like a record). Due to engine limitations, there was no indication that you were facing a new direction, so the only way to know what was going on was to cast a locator spell (Dumapic) at every step to see if you shifted. I still plan to play them from Wizardry 4, but man it's going to be a slog!

But for me, as mentioned in the other thread, I'm doing something much simpler. I never broke in to the Shining series and I'm a stickler for playing games in order when possible. So, I'm starting with Shining in the Darkness. I played the first bit on Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection and it seems much simpler than its hardcore brethren. Besides the introduction, it doesn't seem too text heavy, so I think I'm going to plow through it in Japanese. As such, this will likely be my sole entry for the month, but I'm totally stoked for some light FPDC action!