18th July 2003, 11:25 AM
Yeah, a few hours with any BG-style RPG and you'll see what all RPG combat should be like... and why while I can tolerate menubased combat I'll never fully accept it as a good gameplay idea.
Forgotten Realms: Baldur's Gate/Tales of the Sword Coast
Forgotten Realms: Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn/Throne of Bhaal
PlaneScape: Torment (my favorite RPG. Ever. And it really isn't close.)
Forgotten Realms: Icewind Dale/expansion I forget name of (Heart of Winter?)/2nd expansion free online (Trials of the Loremaster?)
Forgotten Realms: Icewind Dale II
Neverwinter Nights (one-character (with NPC henchmen like Diablo) variant of the engine, not as good)/2 upcoming expansions
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Why is Torment my favorite RPG? As I've said before... sheer story depth. Torment has OVER 100,000 LINES OF TEXT. That's more than any RPG ever, I'm pretty sure. And I can see disliking the game if you don't like deep stories and lots of detail about pretty much every character you can talk to in the game... or somewhat deemphasized combat... but for me its perfect. Yes, you do less fighting than most RPGs. But thats good... it isn't short by any means, and is by far one of the weirdest and most unique games I've played. And if you really want combat there is a randomly generated dungeon you can fight, with 3 difficulty levels, as much as you want. But that really isn't the point of the game... yeah, you do have to do a bunch of combat. But conversation is at least to more important in this game... and the variation of what can happen based on your stats (this is probably the only D&D game where both Wisdom and Intelligence are REALLY VERY USEFUL SKILLS, because without good scores in those things you'll never even SEE most of the more sophisticated or explanitory or 'avoid-combat' dialog options...
Forgotten Realms: Baldur's Gate/Tales of the Sword Coast
Forgotten Realms: Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn/Throne of Bhaal
PlaneScape: Torment (my favorite RPG. Ever. And it really isn't close.)
Forgotten Realms: Icewind Dale/expansion I forget name of (Heart of Winter?)/2nd expansion free online (Trials of the Loremaster?)
Forgotten Realms: Icewind Dale II
Neverwinter Nights (one-character (with NPC henchmen like Diablo) variant of the engine, not as good)/2 upcoming expansions
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Why is Torment my favorite RPG? As I've said before... sheer story depth. Torment has OVER 100,000 LINES OF TEXT. That's more than any RPG ever, I'm pretty sure. And I can see disliking the game if you don't like deep stories and lots of detail about pretty much every character you can talk to in the game... or somewhat deemphasized combat... but for me its perfect. Yes, you do less fighting than most RPGs. But thats good... it isn't short by any means, and is by far one of the weirdest and most unique games I've played. And if you really want combat there is a randomly generated dungeon you can fight, with 3 difficulty levels, as much as you want. But that really isn't the point of the game... yeah, you do have to do a bunch of combat. But conversation is at least to more important in this game... and the variation of what can happen based on your stats (this is probably the only D&D game where both Wisdom and Intelligence are REALLY VERY USEFUL SKILLS, because without good scores in those things you'll never even SEE most of the more sophisticated or explanitory or 'avoid-combat' dialog options...