your favourite cRPG/console-RPG-engines and why

[Lord_Santa]

what are your top favourite console/computer RPG-engines?
and why?

I'll list mine:

Knights of Legend

I first discovered Knights of Legend in the early 90's
't was my second Origin game
my first one being Ultima V
I quickly got used to the way the game worked and having spent a huge time of my teens sinking into that game, I've grown to love it's engine more-so than many others out there

the pure simplicity in displaying your party with a rotating helmet on the overmap with a huge gaming-world and vast forests, etc. to traverse, which all felt that much bigger due to precisely that
you were represented in this huge world, with a simple icon

towns have sufficient people to make them believable within the constraints of this universe

as per the Ultima games before it, you had to specifically keep notes on the side for this game, as characters would tell you that you should go to talk to *insert name here*, but kept no form of auto-journal, leaving you to play the game whilst taking notes on the side

this truly adds an extra deep to the sensation that you are are playing the character(s) in the sense that you are active, beside just playing the game

your party consists of six different characters, which you can choose between a variety of races

the Keldar is a game-specific character, whom can fly and looks quite like a demon

then comes the class-system, which is completely brilliant with a multitude to choose from, per example a Dwarven Spiderguard

and you will have to read up on all these classes and races in the manual

there are male and female-specific classes

upon entering a town, the view will change to "zoomed" perspective, as you can make out buildings, trees, etc.

there you enter buildings, whereas the inhabitant(s) will show up in a graphical image, with a background and suitable varieties of characteristic personalities

upon all that, the very backbone is within this games combat-mechanics and battle-mode

upon (randomly) encountering enemies, you will switch to the city-kind of view, only now it is on a battle-field, consisting of slightly varied terrains

all characters on screen had an individual representation, hence every member in your party was displayed with a nice icon, as well as the enemies

but the interesting part, was that you could aim your blows, choose how to defend yourself, as well as if you wanted to jump, or duck

the way that battles unfold is a true glory to behold

all-in-all I think this is my favourite engine for 3 reasons:

1.) The perfection of the mid-Ultima engines: this was just before Ultima VI, with it's "isometric" view came and changed all that, as well as the simplicity of the way battles unfold, as well as a familiar engine, for the mid-Ultima fans

2.) The world was huge and believable enough to truly suck me in, both through it's hugeness, as well as it's towns and their locations; with a very special saving-system (you can only save at inns, within towns) and a whole lot quirky characters (some Ultima references as well, as a fine nudge towards the era's cRPGers

3.) Combat.
it is the most glorious strategy mix into the the battle system which truly makes this game shine

give it a try, might be worth your time

and with that, I open the question; which are you your favourite engines?

I started with this one and will try to post the other ones later on, right now I'm curious to listen to others

:edit
on a further note, I seem to recall the question been asked before, so feel free to merge, as I couldn't track it down

:edit 2
hard to limit yourself to only three

[jp1]

Grandia 2 for me. I just love the battle system. Grinding is much more fun than any other game I've played. It might be a bit easy but at least it is fun.


Record of Lodoss War for an honorable mention. You can kill a lot of time on this game with all the options for weapon and armor customization. If it didn't have so much slowdown when the hordes of enemies start coming for you it would be near perfect.

[dsheinem]

I've never seen "c" RPG written before. JRPG, WRPG, TRPG, etc. Is this your own term, or something I should know about?

[Lord_Santa]

I've never seen "c" RPG written before. JRPG, WRPG, TRPG, etc. Is this your own term, or something I should know about?

cRPG originally stands for Computer Role Playing Game
but I use the abbrevation here, a bit on my own terms as Computer/Console RPG

hence the c

sorry for confusion, English isn't my natural language, hence I don't know grammar, etc. very well

[Opa Opa]

sorry for confusion, English isn't my natural language, hence I don't know grammar, etc. very well

You write better than a lot of people who supposedly know English as their first language.
________________

I like the Chrono Cross system. It has a very unique battle and leveling up system that I haven't seen anywhere else. Also, while it isn't unique to Chrono Cross, I like how you can walk/run around to avoid enemies.

[Lord_Santa]

sorry for confusion, English isn't my natural language, hence I don't know grammar, etc. very well

You write better than a lot of people who supposedly know English as their first language.
________________

I like the Chrono Cross system. It has a very unique battle and leveling up system that I haven't seen anywhere else. Also, while it isn't unique to Chrono Cross, I like how you can walk/run around to avoid enemies.

thank you; I try, although sometimes the occassional odd word will slip
I am used to four different languages, hence I sometimes mix up how you are supposed to pronounce stuff ^^

[J T]

I've never seen "c" RPG written before. JRPG, WRPG, TRPG, etc. Is this your own term, or something I should know about?

In some circles it is meant to distinguish computer rpgs from table-top rpgs.

[Lord_Santa]

when it comes to more "modern" cRPG-engines, few if any have yet to match that of the Gothic series (culminating with Risen)

all the Gothic engines have minor tweaks/adjustments, compared to each-other
whilst I tend to favor the first incarnation of the engine, the other two are not bad, per. se, just slightly "enhanced" versions of the first

my fascination with the Gothic engines, is in particular the amount of life they seem to boom with
all NPC's have their own schedules and stuff to do, they go to bed, eat, play music, etc. much like in early Ultima V

what differes Gothic 1 from Ultima however, is that the engine is 3D with 3rd person perspective

Gothic one is near impossible to play as one would play "standard" 3rd PP games, however
it differs, in that the mouse is basically completely useless in the game, due to overly complex controls
this leads to the alternative being playing with keyboard only (or setting up a game-pad through X-Padder)

although some will be turned off by this, it is in my opinion one of the major factors to why this is my favorite of the Gothic series
being used to playing FPS's back before we used a mouse for it; I am somewhat comfortable in using keyboard only to control the camera-movement

the fighting-system implemented is what truly makes this gem shine through the vast majority of cRPG's out there
it is somewhat similar to Daggerfall, in that you pull the mouse/press the keyboard in the direction you want to swing your sword
this adds more depth to the fighting itself and if you per example swing the sword left, then you by the end of the swing, turn it the other way and swing right
thus you can come up with a vast variety of combat-combinations

this is however merely scratching the surface of how advanced the fighting truly gets once you gain a few levels
of course, this differs if you want to play as an archer/mage, but it is my opinion that the melee-combat is what is the meat and bone of this engine

the draw-distance is sufficient, as this was made approx. in the time of Morrowind
it has far greater distance and a nice variety of landscapes to show off

items hand-placed in the world and everything seem crafted by hand, adds to the uniqueness of the game's atmosphere
finding a skeleton filled with arrows (of which you can pick up) and a sword laying by his side, it's things like these, which make the whole game feel lived in

the A.I. does a fair job of keeping you on your toes and although the less experienced players will complain about overpowered creatures, it merely takes time to learn their movements and tactics

world-interaction is the key-word in any Gothic game and Gothic 1 is no different
you can create your own swords from scratch, from mere iron-bar to a finished (sharpened) sword
you need to actually cook your food on a fireplace and drink beer, etc.

and there is of course (as per Gothic tradition) weed to be smoked
going along that line, one can also start a weed-"imperium" whereas acting as a trader between the different camps that are located within the world

there is a nice variety of skills, but unlike many other cRPG's out there, enemies do not respawn, hence you are limited to creating a specific kind of character-class, which greatly enhances replay value

graphically the game is pretty astounding, with nice vistas and many details abound in the world
most things can be interacted with and there are a nice variety of plants, which can be made into potions by an alchemist-table with the right skills
the ligthing (especially in the Swamp camp) is breath-taking at night as you walk across the camp and blue lights shimmer in the night showing you nearly enough to proceed without falling into the swamps

there is the Shadowbeast, who is a creature lurking in the woods and the main reason you don't stray off the path in the beginning of the game
once again in true Gothic spirit, you are allowed to go anywhere you please at any level you might be
but as per tradition there are dangers lurking out there, far beyond your own level of expertise
of course, if you are a trained Gothic-veteran, it is quite possible to slay tough monsters in the wild, from the get-go, simply due to the complexity of the combat-system
it truly is you who's fighting and whatever stats are rolling in the background, makes little to no difference, if you don't know how to properly wield a weapon

one of the beautiful aspects of any game these days is the "console-mode" and Gothic 1 has it's share of console-commands, but one in particular comes to mind, which allows you to take control of any NPC's you point at
this gives you a different feel to the game, should you just want to role-play someone else for a while and while it may be an exploit, I still consider it to be part of the general game-play as it is built into the engine

all-in-all Gothic 1 would set the scene for things to come, as Gothic 2 rolled by and implemented a greater world to explore and slightly tweaked controls, almost allowing for the use of a mouse; I would still say that Gothic 1 is the perfect engine for these games
although I've yet to play Gothic 3 sufficiently to make a judgement, I must say that Gothic 1 laid a solid base for things to come

these days there is a Gothic 1 community patch available (as per Gothic 3, albeit not as advanced), which "fixes" many things in the game and is strongly recommended to have installed whilst playing the game

there is merely a basic amount of mods available, but they at least add some variety to the game

for mods, info, etc. I strongly recommend world of gothic

http://www.worldofgothic.com/

[ZeroAX]

I've never seen "c" RPG written before. JRPG, WRPG, TRPG, etc. Is this your own term, or something I should know about?

before this gen that's what people called Western RPGs because they only appeared on computers. So it was CRPGs and JRPGs.