Old school RPGs and memories

[chupon]

My taste for RPGs is seemingly always moving backwards. The stuff I heard about when I was between 7 and 10 was too complicated and difficult at the time for me. The stuff I tried to play like Might and Magic II on the C64 would destroy me. I'd replay the beginning where you make your party over and over only to be destroyed mere steps from leaving the first town. Sometimes I'd even get destroyed before leaving. It was just too overwhelming and nothing like jumping on a goomba head that I was used to. Nintendo always pulled me away but now 20 years later I'm going back.

I'm talking about Ultima Underworld: The stygian Abyss for PC, Dungeon Master for Amiga, and Rogue for UNIX, and maybe Might and Magic II is I can muster the courage.

Anyone got any great stories or memories about these games? Help bring me back!

[dedalusdedalus]

I have very fond memories of Wizardry, which has as old-school a pedigree as the other RPGs you listed.

My first exposure to Wizardry was with the SNES port, Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom. That game actually succeeds, more than most survival horror games, in creating a sense of dread. Your party's strength didn't always compare favorably to the random encounters, plus there was always a chance that your characters couldn't be revived. Death was very real in that game.

[Hatta]

I do love the old school PC RPGs. I had Ultima Underworld back in the day. Pretty spectacular for it's time, and you can see the influence it had in pretty much an RPG today.

One you didn't mention that I loved was the Bard's Tale. Another one of those RPGs where you'd spend a bunch of time rolling up a party you liked, only to be killed in the first 10 minutes. I had the construction set. That was pretty neat. Make your own dungeons, towns, characters. All that stuff is lost now.

If you like old RPGs, you should check out the Apple IIgs. It's got the great old RPGs like Ultima, Wizardry, Might & Magic, Pool of Radiance, etc. And it's got the slightly more advanced ones like Bard's Tale and Dungeon Master.

Oh, and you should definitely check out Dungeons & Desktops by Matt Barton. Just about every computer RPG ever gets a mention in that book. You'll never run out of stuff to play.

[onemanfilmcrew]

I remember playing D&D Pools of Radiance on an old Acer computer (behold the glory of 16 colors!). It was a big deal because my mother had seen an episode of Oprah or Donahue or Maury about how some kid in California who played D&D killed his neighbor, so my mother was convinced that if I played them that I would go crazy and start hacking people to bits. I was only able to play it after a recon mission where I had to convince my parents to stop by the Wal Mart on the way home from dinner (I was like 14 at the time). From there I had to go into the store alone, buy the game in electronics, then make my way to the magazine isle and pick up a video game magazine and buy it so that when I got back into the car I could hide the game under my arm inside my jacket and have the attention be focused on the magazine. Then came the master stroke of my plan when I was able to have a sick kid cough on my at school the next day so I could get the flu and stay home the following week and play it while my parents were at work.

I don't really remember much about the game itself however...

[Bikeage]

Not the oldest school game, but my first RPG was Ultima Quest of the Avatar for the NES. I started playing it in September of '91, and beat it during Christmas break in '92. I remember taking over 20 pages of notes, I don't think I have done that for any RPG ever since. I took a few months hiatus from play during what I thought was near the end of the game, and when I came back it took another six months of regular play to beat. Played it all on a tiny B&W screen too. Wish I still had those notes for a FAQ...

[J T]

I remember playing D&D Pools of Radiance on an old Acer computer (behold the glory of 16 colors!). It was a big deal because my mother had seen an episode of Oprah or Donahue or Maury about how some kid in California who played D&D killed his neighbor, so my mother was convinced that if I played them that I would go crazy and start hacking people to bits. I was only able to play it after a recon mission where I had to convince my parents to stop by the Wal Mart on the way home from dinner (I was like 14 at the time). From there I had to go into the store alone, buy the game in electronics, then make my way to the magazine isle and pick up a video game magazine and buy it so that when I got back into the car I could hide the game under my arm inside my jacket and have the attention be focused on the magazine. Then came the master stroke of my plan when I was able to have a sick kid cough on my at school the next day so I could get the flu and stay home the following week and play it while my parents were at work.

I don't really remember much about the game itself however...

So you didn't sickly hack people to bits because of D&D, you let some kid hack sick bits on you.

I remember when there was all that talk about satanists playing D&D. I never would have had interest in that stuff if it wasn't for those news stories back then.

I played Ultima and Wizardry on the NES back then. I liked them at first, but they got really difficult later on, so I just gave up on them.

[Expervert]

Memories I have with Shining Force 2 can't be described by words alone. I was crazy for that game, so much that I didn't eat and sleep just to be able to play it all day long. I spent hours leveling up characters, searching for secrets trough the game, visiting towns over and over again. Shining Force 2 awakened my thirst for RPGS but remained my favorite to this day.

[Octopod]

I am currently playing through Might and Magic 1. Progress is slow as I play it in bed on my netbook for an hour or two at a time. After about 5-6 hours of playing I have only explored the starting town, the caverns under it and just inched my way into the first wilderness area. I am constantly broke and it is hard to scrounge up money in order to train to level up. My party is all level two right now but most of them have the xp to reach level 3 if I could only come up with the training funds. I am having a great time with it though.

My plan is to play through Might and Magic 1-6 but I might have to take a break somewhere in there to play some other old school RPG.

As a disclainmer I am kind of cheating with MM1 though. I am not doing my own mapping, I am using the maps from the clue book. It would be fun to map it my self but I do not want to spend that 200+ hours on MM1.

[Lord_Santa]

not my first cRPG, but the most memorable experience to me

back in 1990, I would always hang out with a friend of mine, who had an Amiga 500
we got hooked to the game Bloodwych, which essentially was a Dungeon Master clone, only it supported 2 players split-screen

we played the game until early, early mornings, when his dad used to come in and scold us for not sleeping, whereas we'd have to turn the game off

we played it for about a year, before we finally got somewhere; the dreaded "Moon Tower"
the problem here, was that we'd been playing it for a year, because we didn't know how to create a "save-disk" (we later learned that all we needed to do was format a blank disk), hence we'd spend days playing it, 'til we had to shut it down

nonetheless, we had reached "Moon Tower", when my mother calls and tells me it's time for dinner
I jump up on my bike and hurry home, with my friend coming with me
as I reach an intersection, I fail to notice a crossing car and rides straight into it
needless to say I flew over the car and hurt myself pretty badly

the last thing I remember was my friend coming up to me and saying "does this mean I have to turn off the computer?"

it would take us yet another 6 years before we finally made it through the game 'til the end, due to being stuck in "Serpent Tower", since we couldn't figure out how to solve a puzzle

the answer came, when I purchased the expansion, which included a hint-book

it may not have been the greatest cRPG of all time, but it brought me plenty of joy and endless nights, figuring out how to proceed through the game

it's definitively my nr.1 multiplayer cRPG, though

[Ack]

not my first cRPG, but the most memorable experience to me

back in 1990, I would always hang out with a friend of mine, who had an Amiga 500
we got hooked to the game Bloodwych, which essentially was a Dungeon Master clone, only it supported 2 players split-screen

we played the game until early, early mornings, when his dad used to come in and scold us for not sleeping, whereas we'd have to turn the game off

we played it for about a year, before we finally got somewhere; the dreaded "Moon Tower"
the problem here, was that we'd been playing it for a year, because we didn't know how to create a "save-disk" (we later learned that all we needed to do was format a blank disk), hence we'd spend days playing it, 'til we had to shut it down

nonetheless, we had reached "Moon Tower", when my mother calls and tells me it's time for dinner
I jump up on my bike and hurry home, with my friend coming with me
as I reach an intersection, I fail to notice a crossing car and rides straight into it
needless to say I flew over the car and hurt myself pretty badly

the last thing I remember was my friend coming up to me and saying "does this mean I have to turn off the computer?"

it would take us yet another 6 years before we finally made it through the game 'til the end, due to being stuck in "Serpent Tower", since we couldn't figure out how to solve a puzzle

the answer came, when I purchased the expansion, which included a hint-book

it may not have been the greatest cRPG of all time, but it brought me plenty of joy and endless nights, figuring out how to proceed through the game

it's definitively my nr.1 multiplayer cRPG, though

And stories like that, good sir, are why I love video games. I'm glad you're ok.