Together Retro: First-Person Dungeon Crawlers

[MrPopo]

So I started noodling around with Lands of Lore 2 last night. It's interesting just how much of a departure it is from the first one and from the EotB series that spawned it. Instead of a party you have one character, it's not grid based, but it still uses the click sword/click magic system and auto targeting. It feels like they wanted to go to an Arena style game but didn't want to fully let go of that Dungeon Master heritage. It's also much more linear than the first game; each time you go to a new area you're pretty much locked away from the old one, whereas LoL1 had some criss crossing and dungeons off of a couple of hubs. And there's a bunch of bad FMV for no good reason.

[BoneSnapDeez]

In the final Trials cave in Shining in the Darkness. Almost a comical difficulty spike at this point. Enemies are much harder now, and there's one-way doors and pitfalls galore! According the the internets I'm not even halfway through the game. Yikes!

[MrPopo]

So the layout is you do floor one, the four caves, then floors 2-5. There's a mechanic in the upper floors that lets you skip through them, but it is clunky as hell; after beating the second floor you get an item from the minister that you can drop into a pool at the end of each floor and then warp to that pool. But you have to pick the item up if you want to move it to a different floor. So you would have to do the following:

Get through floor 2. Egress.
Get to the end of floor 2 again, drop the item. Now you can Egress to freshen up for 3.
Warp to the end of floor 2, and slowly do floor 3. When you can beat floor 3, egress.
Warp to the end of floor 2, pick up the item, do floor 3, drop it at the end of floor 3. Egress to fresh up for 4.
Repeat.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Sounds like the most irritating thing ever haha.

[Exhuminator]

Yeah I'm just not a fan of Camelot FPDCs.

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Edit:

In WTotFL, after three hours tonight I made it past the 4th level cemetery and to the 5th level, which consists of a massive waterfall with spiraling caverns all around it. I'm hoping there's a shortcut in the 5th level back to the 1st level, because presently I have to work my way from level 1 all the way to level 5 every time I warp back to town. Which means I have to re-traverse the undead infested 4th level all over again; albeit quicker now that I know where the pitfalls are. Still the encounter rate is a bit high there and that slows me down.

Has anyone else around here played or beaten Wizardry - Tale of the Forsaken Land?

[dsheinem]

So I have been playing Skyrim (PSVR) pretty consistently this month, which I suppose counts for TR if Morrowind does. I beat Skyrim some years ago, but never played the DLC or did much more than the main quest. This time I am hoping to clear out all the main story content (including the DLC) and experience a good deal more of the game. It is fantastic in VR - it almost feels like I am playing a different game in some respects and the sense of immersion is unreal.

I have also been meaning to get around to Orcs & Elves for some years, and am glad to see that it is a short title. I will try to squeeze that in some day between now and the end of the month.

[noiseredux]

Okay so as mentioned earlier, being two weeks behind when the game finally showed up has definitely taken a bit of a bite out of my motivation with Morrowind (combined with the fact that I've been insanely busy w/ IRL stuff). That said, if someone can point me to a solid fast-track walkthrough - something that's totally "hey if you just wanna plow through the main quests as quickly as possible," then that could at least possibly get the ball rolling enough for me to pick up steam.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Yeah I'm just not a fan of Camelot FPDCs.

I like both of 'em well enough but can understand why others wouldn't. The biggest issue with this game (and Holy Ark) is the same issue I have with the Deep Dungeon series. It's like playing a Dragon Quest title but in first person. Just grind, grind, and progress a little at a time. There's no real "hook." Wizardry comes with the constant sense of impending doom. Megami Tensei has all the weird demonic aspects. Might and Magic has massive varied fantasy environments. And so on. Shining is a super stripped-down repetitive JRPG, just in first-person. I think the great Camelot visuals and art style manage to save it, but its certainly not in the upper echelons of this genre.

[Exhuminator]

Shining is a super stripped-down repetitive JRPG, just in first-person. I think the great Camelot visuals and art style manage to save it, but its certainly not in the upper echelons of this genre.

I agree with this statement in general, although the Camelot visuals and art style aren't strong enough to hold me versus the otherwise mediocre experiences. I do think the Shining FPDCs are decent choices for genre neophytes to cut their teeth on however.



And I ran into some of that Wizardry impending doom last night. Had a ninja one shot kill one of my warriors out of the blue, insane critical hit considering a lot of factors I won't bore you with. Since dead party members don't receive experience, that really sucked. We were halfway through the cemetery level at that point, and I had to warp back to town to resurrect him. You can only resurrect in town, although ludicrously-extremely expensive revival potions exist (I can't afford them yet). I'm hoping eventually my priests can learn revive. But the way you acquire new magic in this game is so byzantine who knows when that might be (if ever). I'm not playing with a strategy guide or walkthrough, so trial and error is all I've got to work with.

[ConsoleHandheldGamer]

I've just finished reading the whole thread! Currently I'm playing Etrian Odyssey Untold, which I don't think counts for this TR, but I will follow along in spirit!