The game where entering the wrong place meant a painful and extraordinary death. A game that has as much atmosphere and style as the main character herself - Elvira. The problem with these very old RPGs is that it is quite difficult to find the cons, especially when in their heyday virtually no one noticed them. From today's point of view, one minor downside would be perhaps a little more complicated control, and worse orientation in space between rooms. But now for the story. Elvira has a little problem. In a way, she discovered a great castle, and she would like to remake it to her image - a cozy home is always a good idea. But it is Elvira, and so she inadvertently awakened Queen Emalda, who was rotting there for hundreds of years. And hundreds of years of rotting queens will not go to the beauty salon after waking up. No. Such queens, when woken up, think of nothing but world domination. The only way to stop it is a special scroll hidden somewhere in that castle. But there is one small problem ... the castle has 800 rooms full of dangerous traps and wonderful creatures. But who wouldn't help dear Elvira, just look at her eyes and you must fall in love!
Once upon a time, deities fought over the continent of Icarus. The benevolent Tetheus has won, and the evil Ercanet was banished. However, things only got worse afterwards, as Ercanet was unable to forgive the humans for supporting Tetheus. He corrupted the souls of people and populated the continent with terrifying beasts, acting through his emissary, the wizard Colias. The Coshark mercenaries tried to oppose Colias, but only one of them, a young man named Dreus, survived. Together with his fiancee Helena, Dreus embarks on a quest to stop the evil and restore peace.
Like many Korean RPGs, Icarus: Sanctuary of the Gods has many elements from Japanese-style RPGs. The narrative is character-driven; various characters join the party over the course of the story, playing their own parts in it. Story advancement is quite linear. The game's visual style is reminiscent of Japanese manga and anime. Combat is turn-based, taking place on large screens, on which the player navigates the characters and assigns commands to them.
Set in the year 2030, following the collapse of nation states, the world of DataJack is run by megacorporations who recognize no rule of law beyond sheer military force. The game follows the career of a corporate mercenary who hires out his abilities as assassin, hacker and gunslinger to the highest bidder.
Game features:
28 unique, modifiable weapons: from crude shotguns to railguns
Gadgets including remote explosives, EMP grenades, shurikens, and more
Three factions and three different endings
Cybernetic limbs and implants which give stat bonuses
Guard AI which investigates, engages and pursues suspicious persons (you)
Isometric pixel art graphics
Destructible walls and terrain
30 planned missions
After successfully graduating from the Hermetic Academy, the young magician Cornelius returns to his uncle Lucan, with whom he wants to continue his studies. However, his uncle's lab is mysteriously abandoned. Cornelius therefore decides, in a flying machine and with the help of the raven Hermes, to find Lucan. The young magician "lands hard" on the island of Avalon and encounters enemy magicians there. The next chapter of the story is up to the player. From an isometric point of view, you control the magician Cornelius, who with his spells must defeat all enemy mages on the map and complete all important tasks. Magical energy is rare, so there are portals on the map that complement the mana when cast. Magic & Mayhem contains an original magic system from ingredients. Cornelius has several spell slots, divided into good, neutral and evil. Each ingredient in a given slot will produce a different effect. You can mix spells between locations as needed. Over time, you can improve your character for the experience gained, you only gain by completing tasks.
Many popular RPGs were inspired by real board games and so was the game Hero Quest. Hero Quest is a combination of RPG and strategy game where you control a total of 4 characters and you always have a limited number of moves that are assigned by random - roll of the dice. You control a total of 4 heroes (barbarian, dwarf, elf and wizard), but you do not have to choose all four. However, a larger number of characters will increase your chances of winning battles. The gameplay is a classic. You go through the various rooms, have to avoid pitfalls, try to equipp your characters with higher quality weapons and fight against different fantasy enemies. The game had great ideas that creators managed to pass from board to the PC gaming world, but the game also contains a number of rather illogical errors, that sometimes make the gameplay worse. For example, your character can not sell and change the weapons between themselfs. Once you take the weapon, you can not lay it down. Despite the many shortcomings that can be found in the game, the game is very entertaining combination of strategy and RPG game format and I recommend it to every RPG fan out there.
You play as Heimdall - a god based on Norse mythology. Heimdall's task is to protect the entrance to Asgard, the home of the gods, from all evil, including the terrible Ragnarok. Loki, the cunning god, steals three magical weapons from the gods - Thor's hammer, Odin's sword and Freyno's spear - and is about to weaken the divine forces in the coming Ragnarok, the end of the world. And so Heimdall must go to Midgard (Earth), Utgard (the world of giants) and Asgard itself to bring the stolen artifacts back. Each world has 15 islands divided into many rooms. When you start the mission, you must complete three mini-games. If you manage them well, you will influence Heimdall's statistics and the number of characters you can choose to party. Then you can roam the world, solve puzzles and kill enemies until you find each of the divine artifacts.
A devastating nuclear war had wiped out almost the entire population of the Earth. The civilization, as we know it, has been destroyed. The Earth has become a huge wasteland populated by mutated creatures. Only small number of humans survived and they formed communities living on the surface, where they mostly scavenge what remains from the pre-war civilization. Some lucky people managed to reach safety of the Vaults, huge underground dwellings, during the war. Recently, the water purification controller chip in Vault 13 broke. Without clean water, the people of the Vault cannot survive. One person is sent to find a replacement chip and ventures outside to face a dangerous world, hoping to return within a hundred and fifty days.
Fallout is a role-playing game that utilizes a character development system called S.P.E.C.I.A.L., an acronym formed from the first letters of the game's basic character attributes: Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck. In addition to having these attributes, the protagonist can also learn and improve skills, as well as acquire traits and perks.
Skill points are awarded when the player character levels up; traits are assigned during character creation, while perks are obtained every three character levels. There are eighteen different skills in the game, divided into combat, active, and passive categories. Combat skills include weapon proficiencies (e.g. small and big guns, melee, etc.); active skills are used for support or interacting with the environment (doctor, lockpick, science, steal, and others); passive skills are mainly dedicated to social interaction (barter, speech, gambling, and so on). Traits bestow various benefits upon the character while also imposing penalties; in contrast, perks are purely beneficial. By developing and customizing attributes, skills, traits and perks, the player is granted a considerable freedom in shaping the protagonist in his combat-related and social behavior.
The game has an open world which can be freely explored from the onset. Only a few quests are required to complete in order to advance the main plot; a vast amount of side quests is available. Thanks to the game's emphasis on social interaction, many problems can be solved in a non-violent way; in fact, it is possible to complete the game without engaging in battles at all, running away from enemy encounters and concluding the final confrontation in a relatively peaceful fashion. Conversely, the player can opt for a destructive path, killing everyone in sight. A Karma system is used to track the player's moral decisions during the game.
Combat in Fallout is turn-based. Participants have a limited amount of action points (AP) per turn; each action (including movement) depletes a certain number of AP, eventually ending a character's turn. The player can target specific body parts of enemies during battles. Characters may join the protagonist, traveling together and participating in combat as a party. Though the player may assign general commands to the companions, their actions are controlled by the AI, and they cannot be customized.
Lands of Lore is the first part of a trilogy and the best one (the second part was graphically better, but still did not reach the fun and good gameplay of the first part). Lands of Lore 1 is just super and the one who loves RPG, must play it at least once. The story begins with the wicked Witch Scothia, who discover a gem, which allows you to take on the form of anyone you want. After she finds out the real power of this gem, she decided to declare a war against the king and his kingdom. So the king is forced to choose a hero, who will deal with Scothioa and will bring peace to his kingdom. Of course, the hero is you!
Amulets & Armor is a mission-based adventure/RPG that runs on DOS. When starting a new game, you have a choice of several characters (called archetypes here) that range from warriors to ranged combat to magicians. After that, you can choose one of several missions that place you in various levels wit specific objectives. Between missions you can also visit other places: ‘Store’, ‘Inn’, and ‘Bank’. The Inn, which lets you rest to heal, has exorbitant prices and is such unusable. You can visit the Store to buy various things like weapons and potions, and the Bank lets you store any gold you’ve found – it’s useful since you lose a lot of your carried gold whenever you die.
The graphics in the game are atrocious by 1997 standards. It runs worse and looks far inferior to games such as Heretic, and in fact could be easily confused with a 3D title that came out sometime in the early 90s. The controls are slow and awkward, and don’t have any of the balance you expect from serious CRPGs, or the hectic violence found in mainstream 3D shooters. It’s a dull, dysfunctional blend of both worlds with little charm in between.
Final Fantasy: Endless Nova is a science fiction fantasy that takes you on a journey through the universe. It is regarded as one of the few Final Fantasy games that was any good and focussed instead on being true to the feel of the Final Fantasy series instead of following on the coat-tails of any of the other games. It followed the story of a young man as he quests through the universe, looking for a place to belong. With an enigmatic cast of interesting characters, the game was well-received by most people - both fans of the title series and those not.
Blue Byte Softwares Albion uses ingenuity, style, and a dash of innovation to propel the role-playing experience. The story is set in 2227, and the starship Toronto finds a lush alien planet full of juicy minerals – Albion. You’ll get around the strange world of Albion using a simple mouse interface, and most of the time you’ll view the action from a skewed, top-down perspective. You won’t be going alone. The party of characters follows the leader in single-file as you drag the mouse around the screen.
Set in the year 2030, following the collapse of nation states, the world of DataJack is run by megacorporations who recognize no rule of law beyond sheer military force. The game follows the career of a corporate mercenary who hires out his abilities as assassin, hacker and gunslinger to the highest bidder.
You play as Heimdall - a god based on Norse mythology. Heimdall's task is to protect the entrance to Asgard, the home of the gods, from all evil, including the terrible Ragnarok. Loki, the cunning god, steals three magical weapons from the gods - Thor's hammer, Odin's sword and Freyno's spear - and is about to weaken the divine forces in the coming Ragnarok, the end of the world. And so Heimdall must go to Midgard (Earth), Utgard (the world of giants) and Asgard itself to bring the stolen artifacts back. Each world has 15 islands divided into many rooms. When you start the mission, you must complete three mini-games. If you manage them well, you will influence Heimdall's statistics and the number of characters you can choose to party. Then you can roam the world, solve puzzles and kill enemies until you find each of the divine artifacts.
Lands of Lore is the first part of a trilogy and the best one (the second part was graphically better, but still did not reach the fun and good gameplay of the first part). Lands of Lore 1 is just super and the one who loves RPG, must play it at least once. The story begins with the wicked Witch Scothia, who discover a gem, which allows you to take on the form of anyone you want. After she finds out the real power of this gem, she decided to declare a war against the king and his kingdom. So the king is forced to choose a hero, who will deal with Scothioa and will bring peace to his kingdom. Of course, the hero is you!
Final Fantasy: Endless Nova is a science fiction fantasy that takes you on a journey through the universe. It is regarded as one of the few Final Fantasy games that was any good and focussed instead on being true to the feel of the Final Fantasy series instead of following on the coat-tails of any of the other games. It followed the story of a young man as he quests through the universe, looking for a place to belong. With an enigmatic cast of interesting characters, the game was well-received by most people - both fans of the title series and those not.
Blue Byte Softwares Albion uses ingenuity, style, and a dash of innovation to propel the role-playing experience. The story is set in 2227, and the starship Toronto finds a lush alien planet full of juicy minerals – Albion. You’ll get around the strange world of Albion using a simple mouse interface, and most of the time you’ll view the action from a skewed, top-down perspective. You won’t be going alone. The party of characters follows the leader in single-file as you drag the mouse around the screen.
