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Instead of playing Wiz4 I suggest a more entertaining and user-friendly equivalent that'll still give you a similarly enjoyable experience, like repeatedly driving an ice-pick through your foot.
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Dec 18, 2019 10:30
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| # ? Jun 3, 2024 00:03 |
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Wizardry 4 is hilarious and I'm glad it exists but I will never ever play it
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Dec 18, 2019 11:58
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It's the kind of game Let's Plays are for.
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Dec 18, 2019 12:19
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Isn't Paper Sorcerer a sane, modernized version of Wiz4? Might be worth checking out if "mediocre wizard survives dungeon by summoning monsters" sounds like your cup of tea.
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Dec 18, 2019 12:48
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Big Mad Drongo posted:Isn't Paper Sorcerer a sane, modernized version of Wiz4? Only in theme, and "sane" is relative. Do you like every fight being against a handful of massive damage sponges that taking 20+ minutes to kill? Realistically though, Paper Sorcerer and Wiz4 play really differently. Paper Sorcerer is really just a traditional RPG except your party are monsters and the enemies are adventurers. Each monster gains levels, can use different types of equipment, and acts as a specific role in the party (tank, healer, damage dealer, etc) like any other RPG. Your sorcerer is just one more party member and shoulders just as much weight (if not more) than the monsters he summons. In Wizardry 4 it actually feels like a true role reversal where you're playing as a generic random encounter from a traditional RPG. Your one actual "character" is almost completely useless until the end of the game, combat does you absolutely no good as there's no EXP mechanic and almost all loot is worthless, and all the heavy lifting is done by generic groups of disposable, nameless monsters. There really hasn't been another RPG since that really captures that feel as far as I know. There may be a good reason for that, of course. I'm not saying one game is specifically better than the other--I'm a crazy person that likes both--but they're not really comparable in most ways.
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Dec 18, 2019 16:16
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I like paper sorcerer a lot but i normally dislike first person dungeon crawl rpgs so my opinion on the subject likely doesnt matter much. The gimmick of being the "powerful evil wizard" and escaping a dungeon by summoning monsters and fighting all the heroes that helped put you away was really cool and I thought the gameplay was really fun even if the bosses were a little too spongy.
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Dec 18, 2019 18:28
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Paper Sorcerer had a great concept, but sadly only mediocre gameplay even by the standards of first-person dungeon crawlers of that sort.
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Dec 18, 2019 18:36
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Genpei Turtle posted:Only in theme, and "sane" is relative. Do you like every fight being against a handful of massive damage sponges that taking 20+ minutes to kill? Ah, that's a shame. It's one of those game that's on my radar but I never got around to playing. I figured the monsters would be static, disposable that get chewed up in encounters, which would be an interesting exercise in resource management, so it's sad to hear it actually plays like a standard dungeon crawler.
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Dec 18, 2019 18:42
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Paper Sorcerer was also quite buggy when I played it. Sometimes you'll load a save and the game will suddenly decide the door to the room you're in is now closed when the only switch to open it is on the other side, or you just wasted the last 15 minutes working on a dungeon puzzle because one of the items needed to solve it failed to spawn properly. You can teleport back to a checkpoint at any time, so you usually won't end up in an unsalvageable situation because of stuff like that, but it's still frustrating.
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Dec 18, 2019 23:26
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Paper Sorcerer is usually only a couple bucks on sale so if you are remotely interested it is worth picking up if even just to check out the cool stylized dungeon art.
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Dec 18, 2019 23:52
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The ink-and-paper artstyle is really cool and basically what Darkest Dungeon would look like if it was black and white and little less cartoonish in its proportions.
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Dec 18, 2019 23:54
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I find Wizardry 4 just doesn't feel like a CRPG to me. It feels more like someone trying to make an adventure game out of the Wizardry 1-3 engine. Way more focused on puzzles and items than combat. I still love it though! Definitely worth checking out, especially for the "grandmaster" ending.
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Dec 19, 2019 04:15
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Wizardry 4 feels more like a rogue-like set in the Wizardry universe before roguelikes became popular enough to be an entire subgenre of games. Paper Sorcerer has a nice papery-visual FPS mode tied to a "early NES rpg" backend/combat system. Going through all the menus in Paper Sorcerer is way more difficult than it should be for a game using the Unreal Engine(or maybe I'm just mis-remembering seeing the Unreal engine logo during game bootup).
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Dec 19, 2019 16:45
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quantumfoam posted:Wizardry 4 feels more like a rogue-like set in the Wizardry universe before roguelikes became popular enough to be an entire subgenre of games. Wiz 4 definitely isn't a traditional RPG in almost any sense. It turns so many genre tropes on their heads, which is pretty impressive for a game that came out in 1987. Not just "being the bad guy" but stuff like no significant character advancement, combat being a complete waste of time, 95% of loot being worthless, lack of persistent party members--it's a fun experimental game that's really interesting, even if it's not necessarily fun for most people. Also Paper Sorcerer is using Unity. I poked around in some of its assets using Unity viewer, there's a good amount of stuff that I don't think made it into the final game that's still sitting around in there. Also the Paper Sorcerer saves are trivially easy to edit, and you can do things like edit in dummied-out skill manuals that improve your stats. Poking around in the saves I was able to compile a list of all the items in the game and uh...there's not a lot of consistency or organization. It's a fun game to pick apart.
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Dec 19, 2019 19:06
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FuzzySlippers posted:Paper Sorcerer is usually only a couple bucks on sale so if you are remotely interested it is worth picking up if even just to check out the cool stylized dungeon art. It's at 80% off in the steam sale now, which drops it to practically free.
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Dec 19, 2019 21:51
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Paper Sorcerer is also for sale on GOG at the moment with a similarly heavy discount. I've heard the GOG version has a couple of extra monster types that were originally meant to be Kickstarter exclusive, while the Steam version doesn't.
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Dec 19, 2019 22:26
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Thuryl posted:Paper Sorcerer is also for sale on GOG at the moment with a similarly heavy discount. I've heard the GOG version has a couple of extra monster types that were originally meant to be Kickstarter exclusive, while the Steam version doesn't. Yeah the GOG version lets you use the Succubus and Dryad which I believe the Steam version doesn't have. The Dryad is the best healer in the game IMO and I don't think I would have ever beaten 80s difficulty without the Succubus. You probably don't strictly need them as they're mostly just better versions of the Witch and Imp respectively but they're nice to have.
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Dec 19, 2019 22:57
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Did Underworld Ascendant ever get better? I remember when it came out, it was so unready Rock Paper Shotgun refused to review it. But that was a year ago, did they ever improve it.
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Dec 20, 2019 00:32
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Paper Sorcerer was made before Unity had any kind of decent UI system (it's all IMGUI) and I don't think the dev was very experienced. So I can understand how the UI is pretty rough. It is somewhat old for an indie game. Hell, it was before UE4 released and I don't recall UE3 had much in the way of stock UI systems either. This is was back when you saw Scaleform UIs everywhere in AAA games. I don't think there was much to make life easier for an indie dev with UI.
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Dec 20, 2019 00:59
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I enjoyed playing Paper Sorcerer immensely, and the optional goblin-thief NPC shrugging at all locked doors/puzzles never got old for me. Each boss fight in PS was unique-ish, but none of the boss fights put as much fear in me as whenever I encountered vorpal bats in Paper Sorcerer. Those things would gently caress you up HARD so many ways in-game . Back to Grimoire: the Cleve Blakemore RPG. Grimoire is currently on sale at both GOG & Steam right now. -50% Grimoire discount on Steam, -25% Grimoire discount on GOG. Consistency isn't Cleve's style. https://steamcommunity.com/games/650670/announcements/detail/1431434136007141225 quote:Mon, July 24, 2017 @ 6:43 am EDT Grimoire still feels overpriced somehow, waiting for a -75% discount before buying in. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Dec 20, 2019 |
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Dec 20, 2019 01:59
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Some people in the GOG forums for the game seem to think it's a better game now than when first released. I'm still not buying it tho.
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Dec 20, 2019 02:13
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Chairchucker posted:Some people in the GOG forums for the game seem to think it's a better game now than when first released. Yeah I'm intrigued and kind of want to try it as I'm a sucker for weird obtuse classic RPGs in general, but I'm not giving Cleve any of my money.
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Dec 20, 2019 03:35
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Wizardry 4 is banned under the Geneva convention
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Dec 20, 2019 03:38
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Genpei Turtle posted:Yeah I'm intrigued and kind of want to try it as I'm a sucker for weird obtuse classic RPGs in general, but I'm not giving Cleve any of my money. Some of the screenshots of it look interesting, but apart from Cleve being an rear end in a top hat, it just looks clunky and obtuse to play. I'd rather watch/read a Let's Play of it done by some had more experience with old CPRGs, and could articulate what about worked and what didn't.
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Dec 20, 2019 03:56
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And if one wants to play off brand Wizardry, I mean, the Japanese Wizardry games exist and are good. Tale of the Forsaken Land got an English release and it's seriously up there with Bane of the Cosmic Forge. The PS4 one that came out a couple years ago is okay too, but it's more in the oldschool Wiz formula
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Dec 20, 2019 04:08
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Tales of the Forsaken Land is definitely a legit good game with some neat ideas. I'd love to see a pc version with a better translation. There are also an endless number of Japanese Wizardry knock offs that are probably way more solid of a game than Grimoire. Even enduring the most wonky hyper sexualized anime harem thing is going to be less terrible than the endless poo poo that is wrong with Cleve. I bought Strangers of Sword City a while back. It actually isn't that anime for a Japanese dungeon crawler and I don't recall any creep factor, but for whatever reason I could never get very far with it. There was nothing wrong with it I just never felt motivated to continue playing.
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Dec 20, 2019 05:10
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FuzzySlippers posted:There are also an endless number of Japanese Wizardry knock offs that are probably way more solid of a game than Grimoire. Even enduring the most wonky hyper sexualized anime harem thing is going to be less terrible than the endless poo poo that is wrong with Cleve. I own a copy of Grimoire from when it showed up, discounted heavily, on itch.io. It's... well, it's exactly what it looks like, the PC game equivalent of an FRPG heartbreaker, needlessly obtuse in ways its creator doesn't see and It's fine, but you're entirely right -- there are quite a few Japanese Wiz-clones (and, in the case of Operation Abyss/Babel, actual Wizardries) and most of them scratch that itch quite well, even the ones without boobs everywhere. (I bought Moero Chronicle in a sale without looking at it too closely.) Hey, typing this out made me check, and apparently the itch copy now comes with a Steam key, so, yay, I guess?
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Dec 20, 2019 05:44
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precision posted:Wizardry 4 is banned under the Geneva convention
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Dec 20, 2019 09:36
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atholbrose posted:I own a copy of Grimoire from when it showed up, discounted heavily, on itch.io. It's... well, it's exactly what it looks like, the PC game equivalent of an FRPG heartbreaker, needlessly obtuse in ways its creator doesn't see and It's fine, but you're entirely right -- there are quite a few Japanese Wiz-clones (and, in the case of Operation Abyss/Babel, actual Wizardries) and most of them scratch that itch quite well, even the ones without boobs everywhere. (I bought Moero Chronicle in a sale without looking at it too closely.)
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Dec 20, 2019 09:43
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That's making the reverse mistake from the Wiz8 one. Again, Grimoire is claiming to be a Wizardry VII successor. The japanese Wizardry games and Wiz-clones are derived from Wizardry V, Bradley's refinement of the original Wiz formula: you versus The Dungeon, alternating deeper and deeper delves interrupted by having to come back for air, so to speak, in the local town. They add some bells and whistles and side activities, like the sea voyages in Etrian III, but they fundamentally never let go of that central premise, which in the japanese tradition is a pillar of Wizardry. Bradley, it turns out, wasn't interested in having it be a pillar at all: in Wiz V he added more events and interactions in the dungeon itself, in Wiz VI he got rid of the town in favor of having its services scattered among NPCs and items in the dungeon and made the plot a branching affair, and Wiz VII gets rid of the central dungeon. Instead of a linearly organized dungeon Wiz VII is an extremely freeform open world. It has multiple towns, multiple dungeons, a diplomacy system with multiple opposing factions you can ally yourself with, multiple starting points, multiple endings. Some of the quest items might have moved around to another location by the time you reach them! It's that freeform experience that Grimoire is claiming to be the successor of, which is why the japanese Wizardry games and Wiz-clones aren't substitutes for it at all, they're adressing a different niche. If you were looking for a Wiz5-style game you weren't looking for Grimoire in the first place, regardless of its obtuseness and whether it's a good game or not. The Might & Magic games would be a closer equivalent to Wiz7, although more streamlined and less experimental. So again, it depends on what you're looking for.
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Dec 20, 2019 11:41
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Yeah, I means specifically if you want an early-Wizardry-like, or really any similar classic dungeon crawler. I think they emulate what was good about them very well.
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Dec 20, 2019 13:40
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I’d add a caveat that not all the Japanese Wizardries are that good though. The Busins and the Empires are pretty good, the Gaidens are kind of hit and miss, and the rest tend to range from mediocre to kinda bad. There’s also the Elminages which are kind of an evolution of the Empires (especially Elminage Gothic)
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Dec 20, 2019 14:24
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I have Elminage Gothic somewhere but heard it was pretty mediocre
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Dec 20, 2019 15:48
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Yeah, even the Steam rating is bad, and you how those are for niche games.
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Dec 20, 2019 15:51
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:I have Elminage Gothic somewhere but heard it was pretty mediocre I thought it was fantastic, but I also played the 3DS version, which apparently has massive improvements to the original PSP version. And inexplicably the PC versions are based on the inferior PSP version, which probably explains the lukewarm reception. I mean, in one dungeon I literally stole the teeth out of a vampire's mouth mid-fight, then equipped it on a character and spent the rest of the dungeon biting enemies and draining their levels. How can you not love a game that lets you do that?
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Dec 20, 2019 16:32
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Okay, so, I'd never played a Gold Box game outside of messing with Pool of Radiance on a school friend's Tandy 1000 back in the day. The collections are on massive discount over at GOG, so I picked up a couple. (Some Eye of the Beholder, too; same story.) Pool of Radiance holds up very well, gameplay-wise; the combats are just as much fun as I remember. I am using GBC mostly for the mapping, but I'm using the party-fix and restore spell lists, too. Since I could always guarantee myself an uninterrupted rest with save scumming, I don't really see a problem with that. Anything else lurking in there I should know about? I'm currently trying to get another level for everyone since the last combat (trolls and ogres) in the Slums is really kicking my butt. Luckily, there's a lot of random encounters right next door.
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Dec 20, 2019 19:05
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atholbrose posted:Okay, so, I'd never played a Gold Box game outside of messing with Pool of Radiance on a school friend's Tandy 1000 back in the day. The collections are on massive discount over at GOG, so I picked up a couple. (Some Eye of the Beholder, too; same story.) Pool of Radiance holds up very well, gameplay-wise; the combats are just as much fun as I remember. You can do lots with GBC, but beside what you mentioned you can teleport your party which is really useful when you don't want to slog through innumerable random encounters when you're trying to get somewhere on the other side of the world. Or edit your EXP back up to normal when you get level drained because 1E/2E level drain is bullshit.
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Dec 20, 2019 20:23
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Are there any recent games like Ultima Underworld, other than Underworld Ascendant, which I heard was really bad? I'd love for something modern that can scratch the itch
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Dec 21, 2019 16:30
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Barony plays a lot like it, but with more of a roguelike take on the idea.
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Dec 21, 2019 16:48
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| # ? Jun 3, 2024 00:03 |
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Arx Fatalis was originally going to be UU2 and is very fun if you haven't played it.
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Dec 21, 2019 16:58
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