Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[gimlet]

Gearhead 1 & 2?  Free, didn't see it listed so thought I'd mention it in case you had missed it...  http://www.gearheadrpg.com/   A few years old, but looking at his blog entries it appears he will be getting back to make another one...

[DJ]

Icewind Dale I & II.

[PrimusRibbus]

Hey buddy!

I recently read a little bit about Disgaea, which is apparently considered to be on of the THE most complex RPGs ever made. It has a ton of different complex mechanics. Even the weapons you wield apparently have entire dungeons inside them that you can vanquish in order to get things, and you can grow your own creatures for battle, and mate them or something.

It's probably worth checking out for the sheer complexity of it all. I'm pretty sure you can... ahem... get it somewhere on the internet, along with an emulator?

I am surprised to hear Disgaea described as complex. The ones that I've played (1 & 3) were simpler than other games in the genre and OUTRAGEOUSLY GRINDY. The weapon mechanic that you mentioned is actually fairly simple compared to crafting in other games, except that you have to grind through dungeons for hours just to enhance one weapon (or armor, or item, or piece of candy).

^{_{Also, Disgaea is mentioned three times by OP}}

EDIT: Grammar fixed. Need more coffee.

[Farce]

I will second the above, Disgaea is grindy, not complex.  Potentially LUDICROUSLY grindy.  And not too complex,either - definitely not on the level of FFT (which is my favoritest Tactical RPG ever).  It's pretty and it's funny, are it's two only real good points, IMO.

The Last Dream was on a recent video for Extra Credits - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn9vK3uPYig - and apparently it's a good JRPG made in Game Maker, but I've also heard conflicting opinions - the crafting system means you never get any good loot, just crap with which to make loot that may or may not be good, the open world format (and that you get a boat really early) means you've got little direction, I think there was also that he couldn't find an inn or anything to revive with?  There was also that you can assign your levelup stats yourself and stuff, but that's terrible unless you use a guide/manual, but minmaxing that is also pointless unless you're on hard, or something?

You can get it on Steam for 10 bucks, though I think it went on sale within the last few days for 5 bux, which may or may not still be going.  There's also a demo, so.


The Child of Light came out recently too - it's a cute little thing.


If we're talking about Minecraft mods, I totally recommend TerraFirmaCraft.  In general terms, it makes resource acquisition MUCH harder, so it's more rewarding, and is sort of a 'realism' mod.  To begin with, you knap rocks (which now spawn all over the place on the ground) to make toolheads, instead of PUNCH TREE TO MAKE WOOD PICK and whatnot.  There's kiln-firing of pottery, food decay, the addition of a thirst bar, nutrition variety, deeper forging, metallurgy (alloys!), and mining/prospecting, lots of fun stuff.
http://terrafirmacraft.com/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYyCMAQsW5s

[Infuriated]

If you like FFT you may want to check out Agarest, Agarest: Generations of War being on Steam and I think there might be an earlier one (or the same?) on the 360. (NO IDEA)

[Sonlirain]

Online i'd suggest trying Mabinogi if you are capable of stomatching the chibi animu graphics... the game is more or less the thing you'd get if Ultima Online was hit by a truck full to the brom with causuals with both ending in the kids section of a Japanese comic store after plowing through a shelf full of dark themed adventure comics.
As a bonus it has a somewhat active B12 guild... at least wen i last checked... sadly timezone differences didn't let me play much with B12ers unless i was willing to stay till midnight to meet the first ones logging in and  3 AM to actually get to talki with guildies.

However character customization is pretty damn deep skill wise and you should check it out.

Note however that its a F2P MMO.

[day6reak]

I recommend Inquisitor http://www.gog.com/game/inquisitor its full of story and lore, difficult combat, rewarding gameplay.  Its not everyones cup of tea but I like it.  Its also a massive game, easily over 100 hours.

Some also consider Space Rangers 2 to be an RPG set in space. http://store.steampowered.com/app/214730/

[DeKaFu]

I have to suggest the Etrian Odyssey series for DS/3DS. It's pretty oldschool, with good character/party customization and a pretty harsh difficulty curve for a turn-based RPG. I've only played the first one, but it involves diving into a (huge, non-random, grid-based) dungeon and mapping it out by hand on the lower screen, trying to push further with each dive before running out of resources and having to return to town. Expect to get TPKO'd by harmless-looking butterflies and bunnies early on. The story is present but minimalistic, and there's no preset characters in your party (the 3DS remake changes this). They also have item/monster encyclopedias to fill in and tend to have ridiculously brutal postgames.

Some people hate the mapping mechanic but I found it strangely satisfying, since you get that feeling of accomplishment for each new room you successfully explore and mark down.

Edit: I also second (third?) the Exile series from Spiderweb. It's old but really quite good.

[Farce]

Agarest?  I think I tried an hour demo of that.  The sorta tarot-card-style class picking thing seemed kinda neat, but it seemed kinda derpy, atmosphere(?)-wise.  Really bland shounen throwaway-flavor.

I've heard good things about Etrian Odyssey, also.  Haven't tried personally, but as I understand it's tough and unforgiving.

[PrimusRibbus]

Agarest?  I think I tried an hour demo of that.  The sorta tarot-card-style class picking thing seemed kinda neat, but it seemed kinda derpy, atmosphere(?)-wise.  Really bland shounen throwaway-flavor.

I purchased Agarest dirt cheap on a Steam sale and that was my reaction as well. The setting/characters/story feel like otaku fanfiction written by a 15 year old, and the "sexy" cupcakeness of the game is so badly done that I was literally embarrassed to play the game around other people. I love JRPGs, but Agarest was just way too deep down the rabbit hole of anime fandom for me to get into it.

I didn't play long enough before uninstalling to get a great feel for the gameplay, so maybe it has that going for it. The battles I did play were alright but nothing to phone home about; they felt more like a puzzle game inspired by FFT than they did a strategy-RPG. At the end of the day I'll give other people's opinions the benefit of the doubt on the gameplay.

[sambojin]

UnReal World perhaps? It's a survival roguelike that's fairly sandbox'y, free to try (donation model) with a do-it-to-get-better-at-it skill system. Not so much deep as pseudo-realistic.

Basic plot is "You are in Iron Age Finland. It might get cold. Don't die." That's also the complex plot as well.

You can build your own house (or you'll freeze to death), go fishing and hunting (or you'll starve to death), cook (so you don't throw up), craft (because you don't have squat), explore (because you don't know squat), and get a snazy bearskin coat (or again, you'll freeze to death. It often results in your death just getting it).

You can get quite attached to some things in character customization and your other possessions. Then you die. Even if things go well, you will eventually take it into your head to raid a Njerp village. Then you die.

[nenjin]

I'd recommend second Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne. It's very much in the vein of "classic" RPGs. But with the sheer # of demons to capture, develop and fuse, not to mention the main character, you can put a couple hundred hours into it and still not see or get everything.

It's originally for the PS2.

Persona 4 though, not so much. SMT:N has a great theme and vibe going. Persona 4 is j-pop anime garbage by comparison. (Note: some people like it, I can't stand it.)

[Anvilfolk]

Oops, apologies for suggesting Disgaea! I remembered reading an article about it, and my knee-jerk reaction was to come post here. Didn't really have time to go through the OP!

[dwarf_reform]

Awesome amount of response, thanks to all for humoring me!! And hey, Anvil! No problem about that original post, either, its a small book.. Fallout series: I've tried and love them all Fallout 3 sucked out my soul.. Jade Empire is great too, one of the few XBOX games I did get to play :> I actually recently nabbed a copy of Arcanum but haven't tried it yet, thanks for reminder! Downloaded Mabinogi but the internet wouldn't cooperate with me enough to get a feel for it I've always wanted to try that Ultima 7 (the full 3d hack-n-slash-ish one?).. I grew up fearing leveling too high on the NES Ultima

I had Etrian Odyssey 2 for my old DS, twas a good throwback to those older games like Dungeon Magic/Arcana/Wizardry (and that mapping was fun, I've sat down with a notebook to map older games by hand before).. And once upon a time I played a good bit of Gearhead too (FREE!) Also, I can fully agree that Disgaea is less complex/more grindy :> Its hyper-grindy, which pulls me in because you can technically always go back and find a new monster or item to level up, if only for fun.. Gothic 2 is the one Gothic I played, and shamefully I'm still apprenticing with the people in town and haven't went farther..

I want desperately to like UnReal World, but for some reason can't get past the odd movement system and the use of images of real people in the game, haha.. Trivial reasons, I know :| Wing Commander, and to a lesser extent Command and Conquer, always bugged me with their real people too..

I never played Ogre Battle 64, but did play some on SNES.. Great game, especially when you realize its the format for FF: Tactics.. I've played SMT: Devil Survivor for DS and that was all the experience I'd had with those games til I recently got Persona 3 Portable (rom-cough-rom), and its been pretty good so far as well :>

Will try Arx Fatalis, and I've seen that Agarest running around too (but don't really like games I'm embarrassed to be seen playing, Disgaea pushes that line.. For anime I've watched Fullmetal Alchemist, Blue Exorcist, and now Attack on Titan).. Also, I entered about twenty giveaways for Inquisitor on SteamGifts and missed them all (no surprise there, and added that Underrail to Favorites to watch :> I've played Amalur (and then dealt with my fiancee falling in critical love with it and playing nearly 200 hours.. Solid combat, in my mind it did everything well, but nothing new, and not much for end-game).. I've got Don't Starve and the new expansion also (gifts from a friend, bless him :>), but every time I try to exit a cave it crashes :| Reported that problem and haven't really seen anyone else experiencing it.. And I bought Project Zomboid pretty early on and they've overhauled the lighting to the point that it chugs on my laptop now I check the updates to see if it has smoothed out, but no luck yet.. And same thing with Starbound, waiting on that "optimization" phase that still seems a year away.. And Sacred 2 :> I also bought the original ages ago, and while its a bit "static", that game keeps giving and giving and giving :| I've got the 2nd one for PS3 currently..

On SteamGifts I keep entering for The Witcher, if only to be told by the game itself that its too nice to run on this laptop :> Really been wanting to play it, even though someone told me something about testicle-removal, haha, but can't recall if thats in the first or second one.. Still, its the only game I've ever heard of where someone "loses the jewels" in a way other than "The king's vault has been robbed!" And sadly the only King's Bounty I've ever played was the original on Sega, though it was great :> I'm not sure if the new ones would run for me, but I've seen them around and been interested! :>

I've been watching Star Citizen for a bit now.. And Galactic Princess ( http://galactic-princess.com/ ).. And Limit Theory http://ltheory.com/ .. Timber and Stone http://www.timberandstonegame.com/ .. Star Ruler 2 http://starruler2.com/ .. Darkwood http://www.darkwoodgame.com/ .. I'm apparently keeping an eye on lots of space games :|

And lastly, I really wish there was a roguelike game creation kit, built for monkey-level non-coders like myself :> My favorite "level editor" has been TES Toolkit or whatever, that came with Morrowind Anyway, if there was a very user-friendly RL-Creator (built-in enemy AI and templates for stores and skills and equipment, random-gen stuff in place, tileset support, all that), I'd save my pennies til I could buy it :> And then I'd build, and build and build and build, and jam in every single element from all these games I love..

Overall, after all this talk, I walk away feeling more like I should work on appreciating the games I already have access to instead of hunting the white whale and wasting time :|

[sambojin]

Nah, Ultima 7 is 2d, and is probably the high point of the series. Paper-doll inventory, good customization, heaps of stuff to find, with stupidly long quest lines. Between part 1+2 and the expansions you should have fun (actually, the expansions kind of kill the power level, but it's more content godammit).

Try Ultima 4 on an SMS emulator as well. No big bad guy, just self improvement. Was the game that defined the Avatar character. They then discarded that idea and let you steal stuff and kill what you wanted for the rest of the series. Just pretend I lent you my actual copy of it or something. The SMS version is probably the best port of it, with no annoying 3D dungeons.

While you're on old console RPGs, try Phantasy Star 1+2+4 on SMS/Genesis. Just for a nice linked-in story line. It's an old-skool JRPG, so don't expect much customization, but they weren't too bad for atmosphere etc. Not only does your chick die in two games (way before FFVII), she was kick arse. I was far more bothered by it in PS than in FF. Aeris had it coming.