immersive exploration

[Anonymous No.10107636]

I just finished all the games in the king's field series, how about a thread of recommendations for the same sort of feel? games with an exploration emphasis and a dense and engaging world. combat can be present but doesn't need to be emphasized. not necessarily first person, but I feel like I find that viewpoint a bit more immersive. I just want to get lost in a world.

first person dungeon crawlers like wizardry and smt get part way there but the combat can get a bit too detail oriented for what I'm looking for.

some other games that I've found scratch the itch are the shadow tower series (unsurprisingly), shadowgate 64 and hexen. LSD gets a lot of the way there as well.

[Anonymous No.10107709]

>>10107636
Silver, Soul Reaver, Brave Fencer Musashi, Shadow of the Colossus, Sudeki, Vexx, Azurik, Raze's Hell, ToeJam & Earl 3, Nightcaster, The Hobbit, Genma Onimusha, Dragon's Lair 3D, Chronicles of Riddick, Mercenaries, Cabela's Deer Hunt, Tony Hawk American Wasteland

[Anonymous No.10107718]

when are you going to play those looking glass games I recommended to you last night tony
you wouldn't be in this situation if you just tried one of them

[Anonymous No.10107720]

>>10107718
Alice in Wonderland? that was a good platformer

[Anonymous No.10107724]

>>10107636

[Anonymous No.10107740]

>>10107636

Redguard was pretty good for this - you'll probably need an old PC to play it though if recent write ups are anything to go by.

[Anonymous No.10108254]

That's kind of the premise of Echo Night. Except for the "dense" part.
There's also Daggerfall, if you can stand it.
Cosmology of Kyoto fits that description perfectly as well.

[Anonymous No.10108336]

>>10107636
The other early Fromsoft games have great atmosphere too. Evergrace isn't very popular but I always had a fondness for it the somber autumnal vibe it has. And Shadow Tower is like if King's Field were a survival horror RPG.

[Anonymous No.10108624]

Possibly older than your parents, but Exile (1988) for the BBC Micro is an insanely large procedurally generated 2D platformer with incredibly complex mechanics for a game from 1988 that had to fit in 32k of RAM

[Anonymous No.10108951]

>>10107718
I enjoyed the original system shock a lot even if it is a bit fiddly. I should give Ultima underworld another chance one of these days

>>10108624
>Possibly older than your parents, but Exile (1988)
Jesus I would hope that's not older than the grand majority of posters' parents here

[Anonymous No.10108985]

Baroque. Saturn release just got a fan translation too

[Anonymous No.10109023]

>>10108624
Exile was such an impressive game. It had so much stuff to play around with. Cool physics with gravity and inertia and the particle effects. The teleporter. And the creature AI and interaction with both the player and other species made the world feel really alive. Plus the world was massive.

[Anonymous No.10109091]

>>10108951
I reckon that's about the average birth year for /vr/.

[Anonymous No.10109149]

>>10108985
Is that out now? Thanks for the heads up. I've been looking forward to it.

[Anonymous No.10109714]

>>10108624
this is actually really cool. to anyone on the fence about trying it, you can play it in your browser to give it a shot

[Anonymous No.10109827]

>>10107636
LGS games are an easy answer

[Anonymous No.10109834]

>>10107720
>>10107724
Oni and PN.03 was good too

[Anonymous No.10109930]

>>10107724
>>10107720
not really looking for platformers, and I've never really been able to give this game a fair chance with its edgy hot topic aesthetic. that Cheshire cat looks awful

[Anonymous No.10110318]

>>10107636
Drakan: The Ancients' Gates
Arx Fatalis

>>10108624
I might try this out at some point. It sort of reminds me of Solar Jetman, which I really enjoyed.

[Anonymous No.10110336]

the goat

[Anonymous No.10110345]

any really early console examples of this style? virtual hydlide comes to mind as a possibility

[Anonymous No.10110523]

Outcast (1999)
The original and not the remake - it needs that weird voxel/polygon mashup technology

https://youtu.be/RKkeNPcQFZs

[Anonymous No.10110634]

>>10107636
I doubt you expected defunct-but-playable MMOs as a response but Asheron's Call is one of the most wonderfully explorable games ever made. The overworld is one vast open connected continent that isn't divided up into individual "theme park" styles zones that would become the trend with later games. It is absolutely filled to the brim with little dungeons and temples and caverns and mines and lighthouses and villages and cities. So many of them have their own unique look and feel, particle and ambient effects, while the reusable component assets actually make the designs feel even more comfy. The game has a massive accumulation of content across its many years of updates. Through much of the early run, lore was present in the form of notes and journals, and rumors purchasable at bars, but as it progressed more dynamic scripting and NPC interactions became available.
While it is an MMO with leveling mechanics, much of it was streamlined over the years and the overworld and most dungeons that aren't part of major story event quests or endgame content are generally forgiving and accessible to wide range of levels, as character growth is purely stat/skill-based.

Today AC exists playable on emulated servers updated and maintained by dedicated fans, I recommend the GDLE builds or public servers.

[Anonymous No.10110651]

>>10110634
Jeez, of all the dead Turbine MMO’s to recommend, at least choose LOTRO, which is actually still fully online. It’s probably even better in the exploration department.

[Anonymous No.10110654]

>>10110651
Fuck off hobbit spammer, you already ruined the wow thread.

[Anonymous No.10110661]

>>10110654
>you ruined the wow thread
Meds anon. Asheron’s call died years ago, there’s like a few dozen people at most on the fan servers

[Anonymous No.10110671]

>>10110651
it was their only good mmo. the others arent worth recommending at all

[Anonymous No.10110678]

what about TES: Arena?

[Anonymous No.10110832]

>>10110671
I think the sequel was alright and DDO continues to be good.

[Anonymous No.10110856]

>>10110336
worlds of xeen is also really good

[Anonymous No.10110887]

>>10110654
You mean I saved your shitty thread from certain destruction. You know, I actually posted Asheron’s call in that thread. You could have also posted about it instead of whining like a little bitch.

[Anonymous No.10110891]

drakensang 2. it's a very comfy rpg.

[Anonymous No.10110896]

>>10107636
already a lot of good suggestions in this thread. try these:
Metroid Prime
Shadow Tower: Abyss
Gothic
Morrowind
Planescape
Ico
OoT and TP
Myst, Riven
Rune
Vagrant Story
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

not retro but here:
Portal
Zeno Clash
Demon's Souls
Dark Souls
Fallout: New Vegas
Outer Wilds
RDR2
INFRA
Infernium
BABBDI
Pathologic, or Pathologic 2
The Void
Northern Journey, it starts rough but I guarantee it's worth it

[Anonymous No.10110964]

>>10107636
I was surprised to find that Megaman Legends has some good exploration elements. It kinda feels like a 3D metroidvania. It has an interconnected world and backtracking.

[Anonymous No.10111058]

gothic 1, 2
stalker shadow of chernobyl

[Anonymous No.10111113]

>>10111058
>stalker shadow of chernobyl

Yes definitely. This autumn will be soc time again.

[Anonymous No.10111169]

>>10110634
this is a really cool suggestion, thanks I'll check it out. I remember seeing it for sale when GameStop actually had boxed PC games and really wanting to try it

>>10110896
I forgot to mention in the original post that Myst and Pathologic are great examples of what I'm looking for, particularly the latter and the former especially in its updated mouselook form. I appreciate the non retro suggestions. Zeno clash is good too but it also kind of makes me sick, weird waking fever dream of a game

>>10111058
I should give gothic 2 another chance, I immediately got filtered by flying insects the time I tried it

[Anonymous No.10111225]

>>10107636
Ultima underworld

[Anonymous No.10111253]

Think I've posted this on /vr/ before but early 3D RPGs and/or adventure games with super low draw distance really hit that for me. King's Quest 8, Summoner, Ultima 9 weren't great games but I loved just exploring the worlds

[Anonymous No.10111618]

>>10111253
>Summoner
this is janky like you said but a good one

[Anonymous No.10111858]

seconding Drakan, the presentation is wonky ameritrash but the world's pretty cool

[Anonymous No.10112332]

>>10107636
Any Elder Scrolls game

[Anonymous No.10112634]

>>10111169
>I should give gothic 2 another chance, I immediately got filtered by flying insects the time I tried it
Until you join a guild just focus on doing quests. you can go off the trodden paths but there is a 95% chance you'll eat shit. Try familiarizing yourself with the mobs and if you feel they are too tough just come back later. The game/map was designed to be this way, you can access most of the world map from the beginning but you gradually explore it as you progress your character.
Btw maybe you'll be better off trying it without the Night of the raven expansion. It's way more forgiving, in the expansion version if you don't know what you are doing and don't plan out your character in advance you can make a shit tier build that will make progression basically impossible.

[Anonymous No.10113086]

bump

[Anonymous No.10113092]

>>10110964
those MML dungeons were so suffocating playing them as a child, a core memory of mine is the feeling of relief washing over me when I exited one back into the sunny overworld

[Anonymous No.10113517]

>>10110896
Northern Journey is peak soul

[Anonymous No.10113539]

>>10107636
I actually just pulled my kingsfield and shadowtower discs out. Baroque on ps2 is scratching my itch for these kind of games right now. Its kingsfield, if kingsfield was more bleak and depressing than shadow tower, grungy industrial metal ost fueled, and a horror roguelike

[Anonymous No.10114603]

>>10113092
I was playing MML on an emulator the other day, and was thinking about how so much of the tension and excitement of the dungeons is from the tank controls limiting the speed at which you can react to your surroundings.

Made me really think hard about how modern ubiquitous third person controls / camera controls have removed so much tension and novelty to exploring 3D worlds.

[Anonymous No.10116063]

>>10110896
>Northern Journey
this is pretty zany, I wasn't expecting something quite so... low rent

[Anonymous No.10116134]

>>10107636
mind status: boggled

[Anonymous No.10116417]

>>10110887
>admitting you're the shitposter piece of garbage to ruins other peoples' threads
Unironically kys you fucking trash

[Anonymous No.10118345]

>>10108985
totally agree <3

[Anonymous No.10118383]

>>10107636
Which King's Field game would you say is "the best" or at least the best introduction to the series?

[Anonymous No.10118416]

>>10118383
I started with 2, which is called just plain King's Field in the west. I'd say it's a good starting point, it lacks some of the more obtuse bullshit in e.g. kings field iv. just remember to circle strafe enemies and stunlock them and take notes on locked places or shit you don't know what to do with. I like to make little maps too but I'm pretty retarded with directions so you might not need to.

[Anonymous No.10118440]

Shadow Tower
Virtual Hydlide

[Anonymous No.10118470]

>>10118416
ty anon, I'll check it out.

[Anonymous No.10118552]

>>10107636
have you play the Sword of moonlight fan games?

[Anonymous No.10119287]

>>10118552
I haven't, how are they?

[Anonymous No.10119958]

>>10110634
Thank you, it was interesting to read.I didn't know anything about Asheron's Call before.

[Anonymous No.10120479]

>>10108336

>Somber

Look at this meloncoly faggot. Everyone point and laugh.

[Anonymous No.10120947]

>>10107636
So no bs, what is the best kings field to start playing at? I have an modded ps2 hooked up to a sweet 21 commercial Trinitron. The only game from the "old" Fromsoft I've played is Echo Night-Beyond(no idea why I chose that specific title) and while I liked it I must say I didn't stick through the end.

[Dave No.10120951]

zoomers be like
WATCH MY 2 HOUR VIDEO ESSAY ABOUT THIS IMMERSIVE SIM!! WOAH!

[Dave No.10120961]

>>10107636

[Anonymous No.10121063]

>>10120947
see
>>10118416

[Anonymous No.10121065]

>>10120947
The first one.

[Anonymous No.10121068]

>>10118383
I found this small pastebin from like 7 years ago kinda detailing each one. Prolly way outdated now, but still might give some insight.
https://pastebin.com/G8zw0sc3

[Anonymous No.10121070]

>>10121063
thanks bud.

[Anonymous No.10121085]

>>10110523
the first game i bought when i finally got my own PC

[Anonymous No.10121086]

>>10111253
This aesthetic is just something magical, modern indie games attempting to ape it don’t do it justice

[Anonymous No.10121284]

Eternal Ring, it's a King's Field lite. With no secrets.

[Anonymous No.10122871]

>>10121284
>Eternal ring: oh god why does this game exist, please don't play it, for your own sake. it's like a king's field game made on a 15$ budget. the music is the only half decent thing about this one, you can find it on youtube.

Anon, I...

[Anonymous No.10122883]

>>10120479
Fuck you nigga, sad boys for life

[Anonymous No.10123809]

>>10107724
What's the best version of this?

[Anonymous No.10123825]

>>10123809
It was developed for pc first, so i guess the pc version.

[Anonymous No.10123857]

>>10120479
this would be funny if you didn't redditspace it

[Anonymous No.10124953]

Is shadow tower really that hard? how much trouble will i have if i beat the first 3 king's fields with relative ease

[Anonymous No.10125024]

>>10124953
No. It's somewhat more difficult than the King's Field games at the very beginning, but it rapidly becomes much easier as you progress.

[Anonymous No.10125423]

>>10107636
I really really enjoyed kinda field IV and was actually thinking of making a thread about it. How did you feel about the others? I never played them.

[Anonymous No.10125427]

>>10118383
I started with 4 and fucking loved it