• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

best old school rpg?

i'm talking action, turn based, whatever. what was your favorite rpg of the olden days? mainly talking about snes/genesis era. (in my opinion the heyday of videogames and especially rpgs)
 
i'll go first. mine was terranigma. unfortunetely never released in america, but man i loved that game! worth getting on an emulator! they have it in english.
 

Black Dragon

Staff
Administrator
My favorite is a PC RPG from the same era: Baldur's Gate.

In fact, the default avatars that we use here are all from that game.
 

Legendary Sidekick

The HAM'ster
Moderator
#1 = Secret of Mana: first time I played through - Christmas vacation 1993 (4 days)
Last time I played through - 2002 (2 days)

My wife and I started a file a couple months ago, but I'm not sure how far we'll get. I think you need 3 players to really get into it, otherwise it's two players and a third wheel (AI/follower). No one plays Secret of Mana alone!


#2 = Diablo II: I had the best level 50+ amazon you'd ever see. "Robo_Barbie" could ALMOST have survived as a hardcore character. She only died the one time I played solo. In multiplayer games, she would often be the sole survivor while level 75+ allies dropped like flies. Her lv.22 Lightning Fury was fondly remembered by all except that group that invited me to the cow level. Well, how was I supposed to know you weren't supposed to kill the Cow King?

I never did get to the hell difficulty, which was probably just as well since Robo's skills would've been useless vs. lighting/physical immune monsters.

(Looking forward to Diablo III!)


#3 = Baldur's Gate: whichever version allowed you to add images and sounds to your characters. My character was a samurai (kai-something... whatever the D&D equivalent of a samurai is). His name was Kikuchiyo, and his critical hits, critical misses, death and other battle cries were voiced by Toshiro Mifune himself!

My friend who owned the game also liked to have "evil runs" using hacked characters. My evil character was Elmer Fudd, a dwarf with a spear and magic helmet. Yes, magic helmet. He would sing "Kill the Wabbit" as he charged into battle... and you really could kill rabbits in-game, so he wasn't bluffing!
 

Telcontar

Staff
Moderator
All in all I think Arcanum was my favorite RPG. Immense variety, great premise and story-telling, lots of humor. I played through it something like four times, and that's not counting all the little characters I made just to explore various skills and role playing possibilities.
 

SLTE

Dreamer
I'm split between Final Fantasy VI, the game that really got me into RPGs in the first place (I'd played others before it, but they didn't grab me) and Earthbound, which is just so wonderfully quirky.
 

CharlieDay

Scribe
Baldurs Gate would have to be my favorite as well. Though a game I remember from back in the day that I absolutely loved was Dragon Warrior for the NES-Amazing game!
 

SLTE

Dreamer
Baldurs Gate would have to be my favorite as well. Though a game I remember from back in the day that I absolutely loved was Dragon Warrior for the NES-Amazing game!
I am CONVINCED that my copy of that game glitched when I was a kid. I played it with my brother and a friend of his, and we got stuck just before getting to the Dragon Lord's castle. We had every item you needed to make the bridge thing, and confirmation that we'd collected everything we needed, but it WOULD NOT WORK. So vexing.
 

CharlieDay

Scribe
Yes, SLTE, you are correct. There is a glitch. There is a certain square on a forest area (I believe) near the dragon lord's castle that when you walk on it the game freezes up. It is very annoying and you just gotta remember its there and avoid it. It is one of my only complaints with dragon warrior.
 
Top