Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders
When I first played shareware version couple of decades ago I simply thought of it as yet another Doom clone the market was spewing out at the time. Played a few levels and didn’t think much of it except it being inferior to Doom. So I quit shortly thereafter as was the case with half a dozen other clones and thought nothing of it for a long time. Then couple of years ago I saw a LP on YT of a guy raging like a madman because the was getting killed in epically hilarious ways. Thought to myself to give it another shot with a different set of eyes this time.
– Real player with 51.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Fantasy 1990's Games.
Ever wanted to play a game set in one of the Frank Frazzeta paintings? Then look no further than Heretic. Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders is the first game in the Heretic & Hexen series, and along with ID software games, have been the main force of evolution in the first era of first person shooters. Each game from Heretic & Hexen series have introduced a design concept that all other FPS games have followed ever since. Heretic SotSR remains the most accessible and action-packed title in the series, set in a dark fantasy universe with 54 complex levels which will guarantee you 20 hours and more of pure hectic and frenetic fun.
– Real player with 26.7 hrs in game
Realms of Arkania 1 - Blade of Destiny Classic
RoA1 is complex RPG based on Germany’s best selling pen and paper RPG “The Dark Eye”. The game is very rough around the edges with stiff controls, repetitive graphics and micro management and instant kill dreath-traps; and yet the world of Aventuria is fun to explore and RoA is one of the few game series that tried to get the pen and paper rules as closely as possible onto the screen.
With the classic RPG party of up to six heroes (plus an occasional NPC) you have to travel through and explore the viking-inspired country of Thorwal to find pieces of an old map showing the location of a legendary sword. Find the sword to thwart the impending orc invasion and save Thorwal. The story is as simple as that - but it’s not an easy task.
– Real player with 100.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Fantasy Turn-Based Games.
Realms of Arkadia series does a great job turning a pen and paper Rpg into a video game. If you’re into P&P RPG this game and series is a must have. If you want HD graghics and intense 3D battles with fast and furious leveling and rewards this is not for you. What you do get is a challenging game with a high sense of accomplishment.
Other games of the time did not go into the game management required by the Realms of Arkadia. Just covering the basic needs of food and water can be difficult if you don’t select the right characters and skills. You must then place points into your skills when leveling or allow the computer to do it for you but not always getting logical reulults. With improperly placed skill points some skills will never be successful.
– Real player with 54.8 hrs in game
Realms of Arkania 3 - Shadows over Riva Classic
Of course it’s an old game now, but classics will always be classics. Nostalgia comes to a great obstacle to review this game without being partial, but the magic and world immersion I experience when I play this game is something have never experienced in any other one.
After 17 years and tons of RPG that surely have better presentation and even better story/quests/features I’m still waiting to a game that can absorve you as much as this one does. Can’t say what is it, probably the amount of time you spend in it walking around the city, talking to everybody, suffering with and for your characters or maybe the care that was put to make each one of them human and unique (those positve/negative skills and that journal….); but sure that you end loving each one of the characters you created and feel that you shared the most amazing adventure ever with them in a world that you can believe and makes you feel that there’s even much more than what you see in the game.
– Real player with 56.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Fantasy Turn-Based Games.
Many years ago, when I was but a kid, one of my game CDs didn’t work. So you could bring it back to the shop to exchange it for four other really old retro CD games that no one wants anymore. They were not originals of course, no one could ever afford them in my country.
That was how I stumbled upon Shadows Over Riva.
This was possibly the most complex game I’ve ever played at the time. Words like tinderbox or whetstone were not in my vocabulary. But somehow I had some fun making my party spend all day at the bathhouse and improving their swimming. Here I am now, after many years, reading through manuals and embarking on this journey from the first game.
– Real player with 38.7 hrs in game
Return to Krondor
I love the game, but I don’t love the fact that there are fatal mid-game crashes that Steam cannot support (i.e., the “missing .trx file” error) and Activision (the listed game owner) refuses to support due to its age. Why Steam sells a game that has zero support is beyond me. It should either be converted and tested for people using modern operating systems or it should be taken off the store.
– Real player with 56.6 hrs in game
Yeah, I do not know how I feel about the constant crashing cannot get past jahzeera in chapter 1 keeps crashing saying .trx error. I really loved this game when I was a kid and Steam cannot get their crap together for one second why put up a game that does not work?. I tried everything from uninstalling and reinstalling to changing the .ini file with the directory to the tracks folder but no luck.
– Real player with 53.2 hrs in game
Divine Divinity
After finally finishing this gem of a game I can only but recommend this game to any RPG lover out there. Beneath the now dated graphics lies a sound game with a complex world, rich lore and funny little gameplay gimmicks that made me smile a lot.
The good:
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Rich lore, decent story (if a bit cliché by now)
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Plenty of content (Took me appr. 70 hours to finish)
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Pretty extensive and flexible RPG elements (create whatever character you like as you go)
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Easy to get into, but challenges along the way
– Real player with 74.5 hrs in game
Divine Divinity
Date of this review: 15 March 2018
Update (25 April 2018): Formatting fixes
DISCLAIMER: I would like to point out that I likely achieved 100% completion in this game. Because it is so old, there are not achivements so I can’t be sure, but I did complete every quest that is listed in online guides, and I fully explored every map.
===Notes About Me===
Graphics/Animation: I usually don’t care about; I still play NES games occasionally.
– Real player with 71.7 hrs in game
Dungeon Siege
Dungeon Siege 1 is a very simple game in terms of gameplay. Meditative action without guts covering the whole battlegroud, plus some actions with your items, such as changing your equipement, reading a few books, and walking through the game in a rather thin corridor…
…would say someone and, despite that description works, that won’t be true in placing the accents.
Most noticeable part is the party work. Every character has only a little of story, but… you can play from a point of view from any of them, just as with your hero - you can even give a boot to your created character and beat the rest of the game just with your conpanions without hero! You can specify their roles, formations in groups, actions of each other like “to seek and destroy anyone” or “not to fight even when attacked”. It reveals you some interesting cases, nearly impossible in other games, such as “you are a healer, all others are stunned, so you run around, heal one, but get stunned instead, so he runs around instead, trying to rise someone else”… or “companions form a group around dragon by themselves, so you don’t need to correct their formation at all”. Yes, there were flaws, like, the big parties could not by themselves stand together on a lift, so you have to move some of them. But it’s still amazing how simple and at the same time workind that solution is, so you can imagine, how it was 17 years ago!
– Real player with 100.4 hrs in game
[My steam total is much less than I’ve actually played since you can play offline without Steam connection. EDIT: Game is of quite sufficient length. Longest mazes I’ve ever played.]
Fun game from 2002. I started as a huge Diablo 2 fan. I’m catching up and enjoying the era of now-cheap RPG/action games before upgrading my system to run more modern games. Just so I don’t spend before I really need to. (currently a Radeon X-600) This includes the Dungeon Siege series + Fallout, Torment, Torchlight 1/2, Baldur’s Gate, Titan Quest, Morrowind, Oblivion …before hitting Skyrim, D3, etc. Bottom line: In many ways, this fits in the older era. – So, those are your ganeral Action/RPG + hack/slash comparisons.
– Real player with 96.8 hrs in game
Fable Anniversary
This review is biased due to childhood nostalgia. That being said this is an excellent game. If it is on sale and you like rpg’s even a tiny bit, I would definitely recommend this.
– Real player with 41.1 hrs in game
I love to sell 4000 wedding rings/apples to just buy and sell them back again for a a large profit.
Perfectly balanced economy.
– Real player with 34.1 hrs in game
Legend of the Sword
The chronicles of Anar have long told the legend of a mystical sword, and its accompanying shield whose magical aura protected the inhabitants of Anar for many centuries. The sword and shield were supposedly guarded by the ancient Corsarians, but their existence, and possible whereabouts are now purely part of folklore.
The evil wizard Suzar has assembled a fighting force of mutated humanoids and plunged the kingdom into a state of fear. An entire army of brave warriors has already perished at the hands of the wicked wizard, and only with the combined power of the legendary sword and shield is it possible to defeat the dark forces that are suffocating the land.
Having been summoned before King Darius and the High Council of Anar, you and five other loyal men volunteer to find the enchanted sword and shield, and destroy Suzar before he is able to amass an army large enough to enslave Anar, and the rest of the world…
…and so you come to team up with motley band of hardened adventurers on your quest to seek out the sword and shield, as the chronicles have foretold.
FEATURES
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Over 350 dynamic individual illustrations, which change as new and challenging situations confront the player.
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Pointer and icon driven mode for character movement and commonly used commands.
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Innovative scrolling map feature - the map expands as you explore the landscape.
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A highly flexible interpreter with an extensive vocabulary and advanced features such as FIND and GOTO commands.
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A multitude of intelligent characters to communicate with and give instructions to.
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OOPS/UNDO commands to backtrack your previous command.
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Flexible command line editor, for correcting typographical mistakes.
Master of Magic Classic
The best game of my life came to Steam.
I’ve been playing Master of Magic since it first came out in ‘94. I was in middle school back then, I think my dad mail ordered the game for me and my brother as a gift. I played it over and over. I played it even after I got the Sega Saturn, Dreamcast, PS 2, 3, 4, signed up for WoW classic, BC, FT, got the Elder Scrolls series, and until last year, after I learned about the Caster of Magic mod.
I’ll just say that it fundamentally changed my life. I’ve developed a strong preference for fantasy themed games, novels and even board games and strategy games. I’ve read many fantasy novels and light novels, even wrote some, and went on to play fantasy-themed RPG’s and simulations like HOMM series and Baldur’s Gate series. But still, even after literally 25 years of challenge, Master of Magic is still the best game ever for me.
– Real player with 425.1 hrs in game
Unfortunately there have been severe changes to the base game. I will detail the changes I think are not in keeping with the spirit of the original game.
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Very little reward from claiming towers etc. Now all you get is mainly mana, money and some rubbish item.
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The AI can see everything and exploits that advantage whereas the player has to actually scout the terrain. The AI uses its unfair sight advantage to hunt down your units that it couldn’t possibly be able to see if it wasn’t cheating.
– Real player with 330.0 hrs in game
Realms of Arkania 2 - Star Trail Classic
Star Trail follows in the tracks of the original game released two years earlier but is still different in several ways with the graphics and general gameplay being slightly more refined. It is possible to transfer the party of the original game over to Star Trail for an easier start along with their stats and most equipment. Different bugs depending on the game version can still make this annoying though as e.g. weapon skills can become messed up and the money gathered in RoA1 is generally greatly reduced.
– Real player with 52.5 hrs in game
Hands down one of the best games of all time. Any fans of old school or pen and paper RPG’s will enjoy this immensely and I can’t recommend this game enough.
Uncompromisingly difficult with a deep skill and combat system this game has so much to offer. If you’re playing this through for the first time I would definitely suggest using a walkthrough as there are many things that can prevent you from completing the story if missed or done incorrectly which can be frustrating as these queue’s aren’t obvious or even mentioned that they have happened.
– Real player with 33.3 hrs in game