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Post by Discoalucard on Mar 25, 2010 23:31:15 GMT -5
I'm getting ready for PAX tomorrow so I haven't had time to properly look over it, but Derboo just submitted this fantastically in-depth look at the Realms of Arkania series: www.hardcoregaming101.net/arkania/arkania.htmAll I know about this is that I got Star Trail and Druid in a Sir-Tech pack long ago, although the only game I really wanted was Jagged Alliance. I'm not much for older CRPGs, but someone was requesting more coverage for them, so here you go!
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Post by Mr. Faptastic on Mar 26, 2010 2:04:15 GMT -5
Awesome.
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Post by KeeperBvK on Mar 26, 2010 3:23:37 GMT -5
I can't wait to read that article thoroughly. Sternenschweif was the very first PC game I've ever played besides Warcraft II and Simon the Sorceror II (I must have had some kind of strange affection for second entries...) and I still love playing it every now and then. Schatten über Riva was quite a step down, but still nice, so I'm excited to hear about Spirit of Adventure. I'm off looking for a copy for now.
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Post by derboo on Mar 26, 2010 10:58:01 GMT -5
Oh, looks like I forgot to properly mask the umlauts in some of the names. Your makeshift solution looks kinda funny They can be displayed properly with these three codes: ä ö ü
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Post by Ganelon on Mar 26, 2010 12:23:40 GMT -5
Wow, great article. You touched upon everything, even the comprehensive "online" help that Riva features, which is almost always neglected in modern reviews but was one of the most most promoted aspects of that game. But if I have to see the orc jump over the sheep one more minute... Interesting to hear about the Amiga version differences; maybe one day I can give them a try.
Personally, I prefer Shadows Over Riva (with the moodiest music) but it came out so late that it looked really outdated (compared to, say, OpenGL Quake around the same time). Still, Riva's NPC pictures are probably the best of any RPG released (surprised more weren't shown).
It's strange how Star Trail is one of the few games where the default setting don't correlate with the actual out-of-the-box defaults, at least not in the US Trilogy version. One of the settings uses fixed step and the other uses free step. I can't believe you didn't mention the brothels though; that was an important first step in Star Trail!
The games are like the Robinson's Requiem of RPGs (easy to get sick, NPCs refuse dialogue after a couple of questions, things get broken) but it's definitely a lot of fun if you approach them with realism in mind. Plus, even the US retail versions can be found for very cheap still at places that sell them (as with most CRPGs really). I think anybody interested in this series would probably want to start with Star Trail, if only because of free saving and the ability to auto-resolve battles saves a lot of time (and brings up different results if you reload).
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Post by jorpho on Mar 28, 2010 0:10:03 GMT -5
Holy crap that was exhaustive! How do you do it, Mr. Derboo?
The games do indeed sound rather punishing.
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Post by KeeperBvK on Mar 28, 2010 2:47:02 GMT -5
They sure are punishing. The last time I played Sternenschweif, I ended up in pretty much a dead end where I would have to find and defeat about a dozen of heavily armored enemies at the same time within a day, while having been stripped of my equipment. And if I remember correctly you could also screw up in one dungeon by not bringing any money with you, with the only way out of said dungeon being to drop a coin at an altar. And in Schatten über Riva you could get stuck by completely emptying a certain chest in an underwater section. I still love them, though.
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Post by derboo on Mar 28, 2010 8:57:13 GMT -5
Interesting trivia: nlt-hilfe.crystals-dsa-foren.de (maybe the best German site&forum about the games) has a count for the instant death situations in the games. It's 9 in Blade of Destiny, 19(!) in Star Trail and 8 in Shadows over Riva (that also counts 5 battles in Star Trail that are technically winnable, but only after glitching up one's heroes' magic resistance). Oh, and I probably should have written a paragraph or two about the mobile phone adventures...
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Post by ryochan on Mar 28, 2010 19:46:04 GMT -5
Nice article! I kind of hoped you'd post some of the 'kid's portraits' you mentioned for the second game, though. As annoying as it must have been for those playing, it sounds fascinating.
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Post by derboo on Mar 28, 2010 19:51:06 GMT -5
It looks like this:
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Post by ryochan on Mar 28, 2010 21:23:24 GMT -5
haha nice... the kid reminds me of the one from the Wonder Years though. Thanks
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Post by mckertis on Mar 29, 2010 16:57:08 GMT -5
What the ?! "Forgettable" ? "Diablo clone" ? And there i was, thinking you actually knew what you were talking about. My mistake, sorry.
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Post by Weasel on Mar 29, 2010 18:47:12 GMT -5
What the ?! "Forgettable" ? "Diablo clone" ? And there i was, thinking you actually knew what you were talking about. My mistake, sorry. Write an article on it. Prove the author wrong.
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Post by kal on Mar 29, 2010 19:07:03 GMT -5
Those pictures with the kids make me want to just punch them...what a cruel joke from the developers >_<
Also that Mckertis guy signed up seriously...just to abuse you for your Divinity comment?! What the hell...I could agree it's forgettable since I don't think anyone really remembers it and it's widely considered a diablo clone (which I guess is just another word for third or maybe Isometric Dungeon Crawler).
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Post by derboo on Mar 29, 2010 22:56:54 GMT -5
What the ?! "Forgettable" ? "Diablo clone" ? And there i was, thinking you actually knew what you were talking about. My mistake, sorry. Wow, are you regularly googling for the title to make sure no one talks bad about your game? Well, I had forgotten it, which makes it forgettable in my book (duh!). But I'm ready to admit that I "didn't know" what I was talking about, as I played the game like 15 minutes years ago and quit because I was bored. In case you didn't notice: The game is hardly the focus of the article. I figured the fact that there's one sentence on it in that 10.000-words monstrosity would give that away. My mistake, sorry.
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