Together Retro: First-Person Dungeon Crawlers

[BoneSnapDeez]

Wow I had no idea that that game was based off a book series, nor did I know there were a bunch of related titles:
http://www.mobygames.com/game-group/fig ... t,0/so,1d/

[Exhuminator]

Yes, the Fighting Fantasy book series has been around a long time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Fantasy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_F ... _gamebooks

I've read a lot of FFs, both as real books and virtual titles (Tin Man games adapted quite a few to mobile). I still read them from time to time (there's so many), very fun stuff. The Warlock of Firetop Mountain has been adapted to video game format a few times by different studios into completely different games. iOS, PSP, PC, and DS all had unique adaptations of the original book. As far as I know, only the DS version turned it into an FPDC however.

[prfsnl_gmr]

57 floors into the madness-inducing Picdun...almost there...

Spent a few minutes exploring Shadow Tower. I was killed some bats. Started over. I did worse and was killed by a slime. Started over. Ran away from the bats. Made it pretty far. Got stabbed in the back by a skeleton. Still haven’t found a save point...

[SpaceBooger]

Based on the number of people who recommended it, I'm surprised that I seem to be the only person playing Shining the Holy Ark.
I got this game when it first came out, I thought I sold it... but it turns out I still had the disc. I have no idea where the manual is (when younger I keep all my Saturn manuals in one hollowed out game case since so many broke).

Anyway, I originally remember making it to some underground waterway, like a sewer system but that save file no longer exists. I played for a couple hours this weekend and made it through the haunted forest and took out the wraith. Instead of traveling through the tomb (3rd dungeon) I went back to town so I can travel the forest again and grind to level 6 or 7 before entering the secret path through the casket. I didn't use a map for the first, intro, level and had more fun than I did in the forest where I couldn't resist looking at the map to get every single item available. My game plan is to navigate future dungeons without a map and upon completion, I will then look at a map to see what I may have missed... I will not let my greed to find every pixie ruin the exploration nature of this awesome game.

[Exhuminator]

Spent a few minutes exploring Shadow Tower. I was killed some bats. Started over. I did worse and was killed by a slime. Started over. Ran away from the bats. Made it pretty far. Got stabbed in the back by a skeleton. Still haven’t found a save point...

Bless you for playing Shadow Tower at all in the first place. It does get easier and easier the farther in you get. The beginning is straight up brutal though, yeah. That's why I said Shadow Tower is the hardest FromSoftware FPDC. Ironically its sequel is the easiest.

Based on the number of people who recommended it, I'm surprised that I seem to be the only person playing Shining the Holy Ark.

I hope you continue to enjoy that Saturn FPDC, and it plays out well for you. I didn't recommend StHA because despite putting about 20 hours in it years ago, the bad outweighed the good for me. I'm obviously in the minority on that opinion. Most people seem to think highly of it.

[Sload Soap]

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!

[Ack]

Dungeon Hack is pretty cool, but you're missing out by not playing Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds instead. I haven't beaten UU2 myself, but I put a lot of time into it back in 1999. It was very impressive, very immersive, and significantly improved over UU. What screwed my progress is I didn't have any of the literature that came with the game (only had the installation disks). Remember when manuals and included documentation actually mattered?

Ack are you planning on beating Dungeon Master for SNES? Isn't that one of the few USA SNES RPGs you own but haven't beat yet? This TR seems the perfect excuse.

I haven't yet beaten Dungeon Master. It's on my list, but I'm still trying to focus on all the games I have on GOG.

Ultima Underworld II is in the planned rotation, so maybe once I'm finished with Dungeon Hack, I'll get through it.

Speaking of which...

DUNGEON HACK

Dungeon Hack feels like in many ways a more user-friendly take on Eye of the Beholder, but it also highlights some of the less user-friendly flaws of EotB too. For example, DH offers a built-in map that generates as I move through the dungeon. If I can see it, it appears, and enemies also appear on the map in places I've been. This is great for grinding. But I'm still faced with the food conundrum of EotB, where I'm up against a time table based on how close I am to starving to death. The counter to this is to have a Cleric, but since you are a party of one, that means I only have a Cleric.

In fact...there is no reason I can see why I wouldn't ever want to be a Cleric, or at least some mixture involving Cleric. First, you get healing. Second, upon reaching level 5, you become self-sufficient due to the spell Create Food and Water, thus eliminating the artificial time limit imposed by steady starvation. Third, Clerics get the Underwater Breathing spell, which is critical if the dungeon throws an underwater dungeon level at you, and it likely will unless you turn off the option. Paladins get healing abilities, but not food and breathing, so they're out. Mages are useful for detection, scrying, and identify, but not as useful as Clerics. Melee classes get health and the ability to wear gear and fight.

With all this in mind, I went with a Half-Elf Fighter/Cleric/Mage, multiclassed to give me the benefits I need. The downside to multiclassing is that all of the experience I get is split evenly among the three classes, but it was the only way I could see getting the versatility I needed to survive.

Then again, maybe I won't need it all, and maybe I won't get everything else I'll need to survive. Since Dungeon Hack is a roguelike take on Eye of the Beholder, it doesn't mean I'll always have what I need to even begin approaching a dungeon floor. For example, on level 4, I encountered wererats. They only take damage from silver or magic weapons. I hadn't found any silver or magic weapons yet, so guess who might have been screwed by RNG? This guy! Thankfully, once again, the Cleric saved the day: Flame Blade hits wererats, so I summoned one and used that until I found a magic weapon, 2/3 of the way through the dungeon level.

Now to counter this, Dungeon Hack does give a lot of leeway in generating a dungeon. At the beginning, you can pick Easy, Normal, or Hard, or you can choose Custom and modify things like number of pits, likelihood of finding food, toughness of monsters, whether there is an underwater level, etc. There are a ton of options, and SSI once boasted the game had over 4 billion potential combinations of levels it could put together based on your parameters, with each generating a seed number that you could share with friends to try the same levels and see who gets farther.

I went with a slightly modified Medium difficulty, so now I'm in a dungeon that is 18 floors deep. My Cleric spells have made me self-sufficient, while my Fighter levels are for gaining HP and hopefully getting better at hitting enemies and my Mage levels are meant to give me buffs later on. However, now I'm on a level (dungeon level 5) with wights, and they can do permanent level drain, so I can potentially be knocked back below the point of self-sufficiency again. There are also Ghost Warriors wandering around that hit hard and attack fast, so I'm having to tread carefully. On the upside, Ghost Warriors give a lot of XP, so trying to pick them off one by one definitely seems worth it. We'll see how far I get.

[Ghegs]

This is a genre that I've always been curious about, but haven't really given it much of a go, largely because I don't care much for RPG-tropes like stats, grinding, turn-based combat and such. Any good entries with a more action-y approach to the genre? Other than Morrowind, Oblivion et al which feature dungeon crawling but also aren't exactly focused on it.

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

[Ack]

This is a genre that I've always been curious about, but haven't really given it much of a go, largely because I don't care much for RPG-tropes like stats, grinding, turn-based combat and such. Any good entries with a more action-y approach to the genre? Other than Morrowind, Oblivion et al which feature dungeon crawling but also aren't exactly focused on it.

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

I'd suggest looking into FPS/RPG hybrids. System Shock and Deus Ex might be good places to start, and most FPS nowadays have some amount of inspiration from RPGs, such as games like Metro 2033 or Crysis having gear and inventory management to an extent. You might also look into Hexen if you prefer more old school FPS.

[Ghegs]

I did like System Shock, I played through Enhanced Edition when it came out on GOG. I played the first Ultima Underworld some and remember liking it, but then I dropped it for reasons I can't exactly remember. Maybe it just felt too antiquated with the controls and the small gameplay window.

Don't care for old-school FPS either.