/vr/ - Retro Games

>>1161329
I don't think there is a "most immersive" genre. The level of immersion a person feels from a game depends on his/her personal preferences as well as how much the game grips them.

I'd put games like Snatcher up there as immersive, but those aren't dungeon crawls in the least.

the last dungeon crawl i played was shining in the darkness
pretty fun

>>1161329

Mario has the deepest lore.

I'd say the most immersive is... space sims.

Not just because space is pretty easy to represent using computer graphics. I mean it's just black with some white dots, right?

But there's also the cockpit thing. Not many other genres can, without an Oculus Rift, make you feel like you're physically inside the game world. It just takes a little bit of imagination to change your desktop to a starship console. Earth based flight sims and racing games have similar cockpit immersion to some degree, but the illusion is shattered since you have clearer idea what the cockpits for real planes and cars are supposed to look like.

Fuck yeah Wizardry!

>>1161383

Frontier was awesome. Been waiting since FFE to see a game of similar scope that isn't plain universe exploration. There's hope with Pioneer, but they'll take forever to finish it.

>>1161329
Dungeon crawl? Dammit son! Get up off you knees and walk... Fuck no! You get up and MARCH through that dungeon! And don't you take no shit from no one!

>>1161385
Speaking of these old-school RPGs, I wonder how the NES ports of those games are like. I think people said that the Ultima games, specifically the third one (Warriors of Destiny), were pretty damn horrific ports, but by no means bad games in their own right.

>>1163912
>Warriors of Destiny

That's the 5th

>>1163943
The third for the NES, I meant.

I think it's the party creation that draws me into first person dungeon crawlers, which seems to be almost a 100% pre-requisite of the genre. Extremely cozy stuff there.

RIP faux 3d dungeons

My favourite games are those somewhat early 3D first-person dungeon crawlers with free movement. Think of King's Field.

>>1161335

You might want to try Shining the Holy Ark, on the Saturn. Excellent dungeon crawler, with a godly pumping-tier combat music. Based Motoi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxBj9ejNuE8

>>1163798
There's a new Elite in the works, was kickstarted almost a year ago

Anything entry-level I should check out? I'm just getting into the genre more with SMT1-2/Strange Journey and Etrian Odyssey. I dislike games where luck is a huge factor, and prefer something with more balanced difficulty though.

>>1164728
Ultima Underworld
Arcana (SNES)
Madou Monogatari

>>1163912
I wouldn't call U3 and U4 on the NES "horrific", they're certainly more playable than DQ1&2 for example.

Wizardry 1-3 on the NES would've been great ports if not for one crucial flaw: there's a bug that renders your armor class useless. So even if you wear the best gear in the game you're still just as likely to hit as a naked dude. SNES and GBC ports are much better, although in the GBC one the dungeon layout has been changed somewhat (16x16 tiles as opposed to 20x20, so it's been crunched down)

>>1164728
>I'm just getting into the genre more with SMT1-2/Strange Journey
>I dislike games where luck is a huge factor
What

Anyway, you should get Might & Magic WoX + 6, Dungeon Master, Lands of Lore 1 and Wizardry 6-8 (but 1-3 and 5 are good picks too, just less accessible), which is a trilogy that you can finish with a single party.

>>1164441

That fucking game... the limitations in how it could draw things CONSTANTLY made me think there were fake-walls everywhere.

>>1164728
It's not retro but Legend of Grimrock is worth playing.

>>1164441
man, reminds me of Catacomb 3d

I miss raycasting

>>1165792
Legend of Grimrock is an inferior half-remake of Dungeon Master though.

>>1165810

All realtime blobbers feel the same.

>>1165815
Yes, that's why it's the little things that matter in their design. In DM's case, the liberal character advancement system and rune spellcasting system (which appeared in LoG only in a vastly simplified and restricted form)

>>1165818

I find it easier to use things like the rune spellcasting system when I'm more engrossed in a game -- when I play it enough to be obsessed over it, which usually means not having other games in my to-do list.

I guess I'll have to put off DM until I beat most of my other games.

Are there any amazing /vr/ dungeon crawls besides the usual DM, EotB, LoL, Ultima Underworld, Wizardry, M&M and Captive? Preferably something with decent customization.

>>1166346

Have you tried Liberation, Captive's sequel?

>>1166529
What's the best (easiest) way to get Liberation working? I remember trying to play it on UAE, but running into some problems with having to install it on a hard drive image and giving up.

>>1166538

Are you emulating it with Amiga 500 specs or Amiga 1200?

>>1166529
I have, for a while. Not sure if I can get into it though. From what I've seen so far, the "dungeons" of the first one have been replaced by much smaller "apartments", the enemy count is smaller, and the mechanics are much more obscure. The controls are pretty clunky, although I can understand that some of the game's elements are definitely praiseworthy. (open world dystopian sci-fi in 1992, driving vehicles, cool and unique inventory, highly customizable and interactive interface, character advancement by swapping body parts, etc.)

One thing that I definitely don't miss from the first game is the skill system, though. Never understood the reasoning behind it, it only brought me frustration.

So lets talk about dungeons.

What do our resident dungeon crawl aficionados think are the best and worst dungeons ever designed from these older games?

>>1166606
Best: Chaos Strikes Back and Dark Heart of Uukrul. Wizardry 4 if we look away from the utter RNG masochism of it all.
Worst: Probably some of those no-name low budget dungeoncrawls of that era, such as the czech Rytiri Gralu (which is allegedly impossible to beat unless you hexedit your position at one point)

>>1164441
sega does what nintendont

that shit blew my mind as a kid

I've been playing a lot of Legend of Grimrock lately, there are a lot of good user made dungeons to explore through. I also played Dungeon Master but honestly, it cannot compare to LoG's dungeon design. DM has so many long corridors with nothing in them and dead-ends that just waste time, and the secrets are all: "find the tiny switch on the wall". I was just so bored playing through DM, the scenery in LoG changes every few levels. As for EotB, i like the visuals more than DM though i haven't played it through myself. I think i may play the Wizardry games.

>>1166729
>"find the tiny switch on the wall"
I haven't played the custom Grimrock dungeons, but the original game is mostly the same as DM in this regard really. Only different secret that comes to mind right now is the one where you had to throw a rock in a specific direction to open up a portcullis to some armor. Hell, many of the puzzles and "features" (such as the respawning snail room) in LoG are directly lifted from DM and the authors don't even hide it. Samey scenery indeed is a valid issue to have with DM1, but LoG wasn't much better really. How many sceneries were there, three? If you want colourful and varied sceneries, you should definitely give M&M: World of Xeen a shot.

>>1166729
Y'know, I really liked Legend of Grimrock for the first seven levels or so. But the game just drags on towards the end and the puzzles seem to get dumber instead of smarter. All of this is just exacerbated by the game's really, really poor combat.

I didn't hate it, however. I just didn't like it as much as I thought I would near the beginning.

>>1166753
What i can say about secrets is: I hate when it's just a secret switch on a random wall, because that makes me stare at every single wall section in the game until i find the secrets (like clicking the tapestries in Wolfenstein). It's not fun. I much prefer, for example, finding a cryptic note in a room, which leads me to a switch, trap door etc. which hides a secret.

Also side-stepping around monsters is lame, your party should be locked in place while attacks are cooling down.

>>1166950
The funny thing is, the creators of DM didn't even consider the possibility of sidestep abuse when they designed the game. They've corrected this mistake somewhat within Chaos Strikes Back, where you're generally either facing enemies in narrow corridors or there are large quantities of them in a large room. Either makes simple sidestep+swing tactics that much more tricky to do. Although the best realtime blobber combat is probably in Lands of Lore 1, where the enemy groups can split and flank you from multiple sides.