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Post by ommadawnyawn2 on Dec 8, 2020 14:32:38 GMT -5
Brain Lord - I really enjoyed Brain Lord. It's one of those action/puzzle RPG's that off the radar, but I found kind of charming. It's been years since I played it though. I racked my brain and got stuck at a few sections, but the solutions to those puzzles ended up being very simple. Graphically and gameplay wise, kind of reminds me of Soul Blazer and 7th Saga. Cool, I remember snesdrunk on YT being fairly positive to this one as well so I'll probably check it out soon. Thanks mainpatr and spanky. I might try Family Values with a cheat to remove that aspect if there is one, I remember trying it in the early '00s or so but getting stuck early on, not knowing what to do. But I do like the music.
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Post by toei on Dec 8, 2020 14:36:36 GMT -5
Commented a few:
Brandish 2 PC-98 - Very good, but you can also play the SNES version. The whole Brandish series consists of hardcore third-person dungeon crawlers. Equinox - this is really puzzle-heavy, and isn't really the ARPG you might think from screenshots. But it's well-made. Related to Solstice. StarTropics 2 - nice Brain Lord - Probably top 5 SNES ARPG. Shining Wisdom - Mediocre, but not awful. Biggest issue is the odd and tedious acceleration system where you have to mash buttons to run Crystal Beans from Dungeon Explorer - As pointed out, it's Dungeons Explorer 2, meaning it's RPG Gauntlet. Not bad. Legend of Oasis - Recommended. Solid all-around. Granstream Saga - I like this one a lot. Tons of atmosphere, as you'd expect from Quintet (Shade was a Quintet sub-company).
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Post by Deleted on Dec 8, 2020 14:42:04 GMT -5
Just commenting on the ones I'm most familiar with.
The King's Field games are all wonderful once they click. Doing a replay of 2 now (it's retr0gamers fault) and loving it all over again. Highly recommended.
Blood Gear is very nice, but there's a language barrier. It shouldn't stop you progressing since structure is simple, but I haven't played right to the end to be sure.
Blood Omen is absolutely lovely also.
I thought Yoda Stories was a whole lot of nothing. I played it as a kid though so maybe I missed something (the entire point of the game).
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Post by ommadawnyawn2 on Dec 8, 2020 14:58:31 GMT -5
Thanks guys!
Those Yoda and Indy games do seem pretty rough and rather dated with their tile-based movement, but have some sort of early windows charm to them that made me curious.
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Post by spanky on Dec 8, 2020 15:14:12 GMT -5
Totally get what you're saying about the early Windows aesthetic thing. I think Yoda Stories is meant to be short, procedurally generated levels. The kind of thing you play when you need 10 minutes to kill. Sounds like it might be kinda fun and a reprieve from modern time wasters (i.e. scrolling social media on your phone)
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Post by dsparil on Dec 8, 2020 15:26:43 GMT -5
The Runes of Virtue games are very borderline leaning towards not being action adventures or action RPGs. The site used to have an article, but it didn't get moved over with the other Ultima articles for some reason. They're very vaguely reminiscent of Zelda but nearly all dungeon with a heavy emphasis on puzzle solving. I've only played the first game which I did like.
The Summoning is a regular RPG with realtime combat. I guess it gets at whether you intend to include "PC style" action RPGs which would basically be anything realtime that uses a mouse and doesn't play like an RTS e.g. Baldur's Gate. You already brought up Al-Qadim, but Quest for Glory IV and V have something closer to console style action combat when using the keyboard although it's only good in V.
It’s been a while since I’ve played Ecstatica, but the weird ellipsoid-based models might be the most notable thing.
King’s Field is fun once you get over the slightly clunky controls.
I just want to note that Ladystalker doesn’t have any kind of released fan translation to the best of my knowledge. AGTP has had it as an official project since at least ’08 (the website doesn’t link to older updates).
I like Blood Omen a lot, and it’s a nice Zelda clone. I have had a lot of trouble emulating the PSX version in the past or getting my Windows version of it to run. Those might not be problems today. Soul Reaver is better though.
The IJ Desktop Adventure and Yoda Stories are simple randomized “coffee break” games. It’s been a very long time since I’ve played either, but they are exceptionally slight. If you have easy access to them, you can basically see all there is to see fairly quickly, but they aren’t worth going out of your way to play.
I really don’t like Lands of Lore 2. I always thought it was fairly boring. The RPG aspects are further diminished from the original game which itself is even lessened from Eye of the Beholder which is also not as good as genre creator Dungeon Master. You can kinda play it like an FPS, so it feel a little less questionable than some other games of the type.
Same FPS-esque combat goes for Battlespire. I’ve always been meaning to replay it as I haven’t played it since the 90s despite having it on GOG. Performance was too rough in DOSBox, but I was using 2008 mid-range hardware. It’s probably fine on newer hardware. It has a bit of a bad reputation, but I think that has more to do with the fact that it wasn’t what people expected from the Elder Scrolls series rather than the game itself.
Sub Culture isn’t an action adventure game. It’s an Elite-esque game set underwater and doesn’t have any real ability gating. I do like it though.
Edit: I meant to only include what hadn't been mentioned, but since I took long…
Brain Lord is good Equinox isn't in either genre StarTropics II is fun, but basically more of the same
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Post by windfisch on Dec 8, 2020 19:04:45 GMT -5
Brain Lord
Yeah, go for it. It's not as polished as A Link to the Past or the SNES Quintet-trilogy, but there is a lot to like. I really love the funky music, featuring some neat fake bass guitar. Another cool aspect is that it allows for different playstyles due to many weapons and items to choose from. Just expect to deal with some heavy slowdown if you want to use the little helper creatures (called "fairies", I think). There are also some pretty complex dungeons and the puzzles and mazes can be real headscratchers, requiring some fair amount of trial and error. They didn't call it "Brain Lord" for nothing.
Blood Omen
I liked it back when I first played it on PC. But these days it's hard for me to get a lot of enjoyment out of it, it simply hasn't aged that well. Controls are rather clunky and it looks fairly ugly. However, from a historian's perspective it's still worth checking out, as the story is interesting, even if (or rather because) the grittiness feels a bit too forced. While the constant voice samples during gameplay get annoying quickly, the main dialogue/monologue is enjoyable and brought to life by delightfully hammy voice acting.
Mageslayer
This I remember as being a pretty straight-forward action game, a top down Quake/Gauntlet hybrid if you will. Probably not what you're looking for.
edit: Ultima Runes of Virtue 1 and 2
I haven't played a lot of either (a bit more of the first one). As far as I can tell neither is super-polished, but I found the combination of simple yet effective graphics, mischiviously designed dungeons with deadly traps around every corner and tongue-in-cheek dialogue rather charming.
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Post by ommadawnyawn2 on Dec 9, 2020 5:01:40 GMT -5
Thanks to you both, looks like it'll be one of these next: Brain Lord, Blood Omen, Runes of Virtue or Dungeon Explorer 2/Crystal Beans, then perhaps KF1 or KF2. Well, first I wanna attempt to finish Radia Senki. Nice, thanks for considering those aspects too. The Summoning and Veil of Darkness seemed interesting as Diablo precursors of sorts, and CRPG addict had typed a bit about one of them.
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Post by ommadawnyawn2 on Jan 30, 2021 9:39:47 GMT -5
I finished Brain Lord yesterday, which was pretty good overall. Not really a fan of most of the last two dungeons but it ended on a good note. Just added a page to my site to try and document the various subgenres of AA and ARPG: worldsunraveled.weebly.com/subgenres-key-aa--arpg.htmlLet me know what you think and if something should be added or perhaps removed.
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