I am approaching the final boss fight (I think!) in Shadowrun Dragonfall: Director’s Edition, and gosh it’s good. Dated, obviously, but it still scratches that old “Might & Magic” or “Pools of Radiance” or whatever turn-based RPG itch that I had from being a kid.
You know, back when the video game would say “You enter the Inn. Read passage 35 in your Adventurer’s Guide,” and if you didn’t own the Adventurer’s Guide because you received your copy of the game totally legally in very legal ways, then you would just shrug and wander around until you found more goblins to stab.
Man. I musta spent months wandering around the various M&Ms. Eventually I discovered one of the Wizardry games (fantasy and guns!?)… Wizardry 8, I think… and then played that right up until I got Baldur’s Gate, which was basically the pinnacle of the “Unforgiving RPG With Story” gaming that I did.
Anyway. Enjoying Shadowrun a lot more than I worried I might. It’s good! Not sure it’s good enough to warrant another run through it, but good. Definitely worth whatever I paid for it ($5? $7? Something like that).
Was Baldur’s Gate unforgiving? I do not remember it that way oO but I may suffer from lack of contemporary comparison of these games. I only played that and #2 and Planescape Torment. The next one I played after those was Neverwinter Nights which was not the same style. I was much younger and far more time on my hands… which reminds me I have not found the time to check out Baldur’s Gate 3 which I bought during Early Access (so early it was not playable when I had it on my computer for a few months)
Also: I played Might and Magic IV Clouds of Xeen to death…
Yeah, BG1 is pretty hard. You really need to know the (3.5 ish?) system really well and use it at all times.
BG2 is more forgiving, much bigger, and if Bioware could just produce something as epic as that again every couple of years they’d never, ever run out of money. Solasta wishes it was as good as BG2. Pick up the remastered version if you want to try it again.
Okay, if both of you say so It’s been such a long time. I feel like Planescape was the complicated one in my memory. But as I said it’s been a while and I never returned to these games later. I have never played any version of D&D on paper. Just those games. Still, very fond memories. I think I rebought them on GoG a while back just so I could have a look at them at some point (which I didn’t). I do not have my original games anymore just an empty box of Neverwinter Nights. And even if I had CDs… I don’t have a drive anymore.
These days I very rarely play such big RPGs anymore. For a while there it was the only thing I would play. (Besides Civ).
Then Diablo pretended to be an RPG as well and changed my gaming habits.
I seem to recall the game pitting you up against a dragon pretty early on? Or some other similar eff-off baddy we’d have run crying from in a real game of D&D at that level. An ice giant, maybe? I dunno, whatever, my primary issue with it was that it was just a dungeon crawler using the BG engine and (D&D) ruleset.
BG1 was 2nd edition AD&D. And you lost the entire game if your main PC died. Which when you factor in them being the main target for loads of assassins and starting at level 1…yeah.
I think I played a Thief and tried to sneak around a lot. I am not quite sure. I liberally used the pause button and was paranoid about saving the game and fumbled my way through it.
I mean, it is also distinctly possible that I was just bad at the game. I remember a buddy told me that he managed to kill Drizzt and I thought he was insane.
(Something to do with summoning dozens of low-level monsters around him, and then pelting him with arrows? Something like that. You do get Frostfang and Twinkle, apparently)
Finished Shadowrun Dragonfall (I finished Hong Kong prior to starting this one). Neat ending. Unexpected in some ways.
Now, to figure out what to play next… maybe I should dive back into Hades. Never did finish it.
On holibobs is played through Return of the Obra Din, which is bounced off a few times befjre. This time I didn’t bounce off, the opposite in fact. I stuck to it? Bounced on it? Rubbed it off? Something like that. Anyway I played it over four nights and really enjoyed it, very satisfying and interesting, even if the interface and problem solving mechanism left a bit to be desired. No spoilers but recommended.
I heard that story, and somebody assured me you could kill Drizzt, but you had to be well prepped, and needed that million summons, which he went through critting left right and centre. I never tried it. I don’t kill my heroes…
I think Baldur’s Gate 2 I found more challenging on earlier levels, but I agree that the real deal was Icewind Dale. I even got the expansions and ID 2 on Stream. Never finished any: I think they ramped up the difficulty because you could build your gang from scratch, but they went nearly bonkers. Some Yuan-Ti and Mummies that cursed you were a real pain, and it was quickly becoming a grinder game, so I lost interest.
Story was the main attraction for me. Well, that and the fact that anything fantasy back then was right up my alley. But the formula got boring quick as soon as I got an easy access to them. Same as Diablo, actually. When a game becomes a grind, I soon lose interest.
I think one of the reasons I bounced off it before was the level of hype around it. Going in with lower expectations and playing it on its own terms, it’s a great little game.
I played Baldur’s Gate 2 so often because I like the combat system so much. At least twice we finished it on a LAN party, everybody controlling their own character.
A group of 6 unique characters in paused real time. That’s my favorite setting. Also the reason I disliked the later Bioware RPGs because they cut down on group size.
Baldur’s Gate itself was very difficult because you started on lvl1. You were very weak in the early game and had to be pretty careful. In the second game you were already lvl 7 which made everything more forgiving. Other design decisions helped in that regard too
