Together Retro: First-Person Dungeon Crawlers

[prfsnl_gmr]

I did get a Switch last week and Severed looks pretty interesting.

Severed is pretty tremendous. It is an old-fashioned, grid-based FPDC with real-time, action/puzzle combat and spectacular art direction. I really, really enjoyed it.

[noiseredux]

Cruising along in Morrowind now. Took some time from the main quest to become the head of the Thieves Guild and loot some glass armour from some chumps guarding the Ghostgate. I've just been recognised as the Neverarine by the four Ashlander tribes so I now have to get the Great Houses to do the same.

Went with a Wood Elf archer/spearman/thief combo this time. Early on it felt like the worst choice in the world but now I've leveled enough it's really satisfying. The archery combat is obviously miles behind Oblivion or Skyrim but it ain't bad. One shotting a vampire before he even sees you is pretty cool.

Onwards to Red Mountain!

Still waiting for my copy to arrive. Sigh.

[Exhuminator]

Half-Elf Fighter/Cleric/Mage

That's some serious multi-classing man wow. I can always appreciate when FPDCs include a good auto-map.

-

I put two more hours into FF:TWoFM last night. For a while I was getting very frustrated because enemies (mostly orcs) were destroying me left and right. Then I realized I had been using the level up system all wrong. Once I figured out how to level my stats properly, things started smoothing out a bit. I'm now fairly competent (at least at slaying orcs), and have some decent gear. I'm certainly impressed with FF:TWoFM at this point (about 3 hours in), I look forward to putting more time into it. I have a hunch all the negative reviews from "professional" reviewers were because they ran into the same situation I did with the leveling system, but didn't bother figuring it out before passing judgement.

[Ack]

Half-Elf Fighter/Cleric/Mage

That's some serious multi-classing man wow. I can always appreciate when FPDCs include a good auto-map.

It's the best way I can think of to offset the AD&D power curve. Fighters start off the most powerful but are heavily gear-dependent and end up extremely weak in late game. Mages start off incredibly weak, but with the right spells, they end up almost game-breakingly powerful by the end. While Clerics remain good throughout, they aren't quite as high on the spectrum on either end (well, that is arguable. Late game Clerics are still damn powerful with someone who knows how to use them). I multi-classed in a frankly ridiculous way to try and beat the curve as well as give me the abilities, combat skill, and hit points that I'll need to survive. While it means I'll probably also have to grind due to the slower leveling...well, it's better than getting stuck because I have no means by which to proceed.

Dungeon Hack has emphasized to me why I enjoyed Eye of the Beholder 1 and 2, but it does highlight a lot of AD&D's instabilities, quirks, and flaws.

[Sarge]

I am a bit over ten hours into King's Field: The Ancient City. Not a whole lot to say yet, other than that I've adjusted to the slow movement speed, but is still often excruciatingly slow, and that the majority of the difficulty is front-loaded. It's the Kid Icarus of first-person dungeon crawlers, I guess. Not that there aren't still tough moments, but played correctly, you can exploit the often brain-dead AI. (Good thing it's not that smart, because you'd be good and dead as slow as you are otherwise.)

[Erik_Twice]

I think I'm going to stream Wizardry. I've been meaning to play this game, with the mapping and everything for a very long time but never did. Let's see when I have time and I'll report.

I'm going to start creating my classes. I'll look up a guide or something to get something reasonable out of the door and then just start playing.


For the record, does anyone know an iOS crawler that is good on short bursts?

[Xeogred]

Since people have been talking about new stuff and games like Morrowind, and I've been thinking of replaying Dark Messiah of Might and Magic anyways... I guess this month is as good as ever!

It looks like this game came out in 2006 and that's probably when I first played it back on the 360. I remember digging it a lot but never finished it. For whatever reason I only remember kicking some goons off mountains and stuff, that is the legacy of this game and its fun combat... but I think that's also selling it short. Since 2006, I've gone through the entire Thief series and have become obsessed with the Arkane's Dishonored series, it's fascinating to approach their DMoMaM again now. Dishonored is an obvious love letter to the Thief series and Deus Ex but it has its own identity, whereas DMoMaM looks like it could straight up be taking place in The City. I don't remember these mansion like levels and this awesome atmosphere at all for whatever reason, levels even layered with some secrets very much like Thief. It's far more dungeon crawler than I remembered. This is just straight up like if Arkane got to make an official Thief spinoff that focused more on combat abilities. You can still stealth but it seems kind of clunky and it's more entertaining to beat people up. I wouldn't say the melee combat is on par with Monolith Productions' Condemned which released around the same time though, but it's still fun here and there's far more you can do with the physics. I saw others name drop this game in the thread and among some of this other stuff being talked about, yeah this game easily fits the theme and is far cooler than I remembered. I'm hooked.

It's the Source Engine, holds up really well.






(careful I think Garrett is around the corner)

[prfsnl_gmr]

After sixty(!) floors and some incredibly frustrating puzzles, Picdun is down for the count. (I have a short review in the “games beaten” thread. It really isn’t old enough for TR, sadly...) Now, I am really ready(?) for some Shadow Tower!

[Nemoide]

31 hours into The Dark Spire. My progress feels slow because I wanted to boost some of my characters' stats. But I've started unlocking secondary classes, which is a little tedious (a lot of trial and error) and I have MOST of the fifth floor mapped out and am slowly figuring out its puzzles. There are still a few bits of the basement I have to explore, but I've mostly been on the fifth for the experience points.
But progress is still definitely being made. I have a bunch of items I don't know what to do with and am facing a few dead ends without obvious solutions, but I've got faith that I'll figure it out! Worst case scenario I can just check a walkthrough, but so far the game's done a good job of not making that completely necessary for puzzles.

[Sload Soap]

I started up Shining the Holy Ark last night. Got as far as Aborigine Mansion before I ran out of gear and had to port back to town. It's pretty good so far if grindy. It started off pretty tough and was nearly impossible when I entered the maze under the well but I went back and leveled up, got some new loot and it's pretty manageable now. Each are seems to have at least one bastard hard enemy type but that's fine.

The music is nice as well, it's a Motoi Sakuraba joint and sounds like other stuff from that era. The shop theme really sounds like something from Mario Golf.

Where the game is being let down is in the graphics department. I don't mind me some blocky 5th gen 3D but the weird pre-rendered NPCs and enemies over the top is a bit of a clash. The enemies do animate nicely in battle tho.

Enjoying this much more than the last time I gave it a go so that's good.