Grimrock

Chlorinus wrote:Etrian Odyssey 1, 2 and 3 for the NDS.

Hehe, you know you`re in a PC-centric forum when it takes 6 pages to mention these classics (username relevant ;)
They love this kind of gameplay in Japan - thank God - and it`s alive and well there. There`s Wizardry on PS3, Etrian 4 has been announced, Class Of Heroes 2 being translated and on Kickstarter for box version.

Pure Dungeon Crawlers for me are strictly tied to dungeons only - so, for example, I wouldn`t call GoldBox games (my favouirte RPGs of all time) dungeon crawlers - same goes for later Wizardries, Ultimas, Ishars or M&Ms.

Eye Of The Beholder - forever number one, then maybe Captive 1, Lands Of Lore, Xenomorph. DM was too hard for me then - had no manual, plan on finally getting in there soon thou.
Honourable mentions: Bloodwych/Hired Guns for trying to innovate, Obitus - for just trying :) The Legacy: for atmosphere and Don`t Go Alone - for general weirdness.

Dungeon Master is my all time favorite. There's a couple of Amiga games not mentioned in this thread that I enjoyed a lot. They are Crystal Dragon and Black Crypt. I don't know if they were ever ported to PC, but if you have WinUAE (the Amiga emulator) you can download them from Planet Emu (a French website) http://planetemu.net/. Also there is the dungeon crawler Knightmare that was created by Anthony Crowther, the guy that made Captive. Here's a link to Return To Chaos ( http://ragingmole.com/RTC/ ) which is an excellent PC port by George Gilbert of Dungeon Master, Chaos Strikes Back and Dungeon Master 2. It also includes a level editor so you can create your own DM game. It works great with Windows XP. I don't know about Vista or Windows 7 though. That should be enough to keep you busy until the 11th.

B^)...

Dungeon Master
EoB
Ultima Underworld 1 + 2
Arx Fatalis
Wizardry

But Dungeon Master was my first love as a kid

Hands down Eye of The Beholder 2 Legend of Darkmoon, which by the way was my first rpg ever.

Greco wrote:Hands down Eye of The Beholder 2 Legend of Darkmoon, which by the way was my first rpg ever.

The next one would be Might and Magic IV - Clouds of Xeen (with V forming the world of Xeen), although it is not strictly speaking a dungeon crawler, since it has many outdoor locations as well (but is was grid based).

Next ultima underworld II labyrinth of worlds and closely behind Ultima Underwold I - The Stygian Abyss, though both they weren't grid based.

Axx! Those were the glory days, which I still remember and long to revive, through Grimrock!

Definitely the ORIGINAL Bard's Tale. Was much more D&D and sinister like than the BT2 sequel; it just felt downright evil with all the undead and other apparitions that got thrown at you, as well as the puzzles and traps. Too bad that the game simply snowballed into being too easy, if you went around creeping too much, and fighters became useless without FRFO being cast multiple times, and magic became just all powerful. But this wasn't a problem in BT1, since only a few super powerful monsters ever had an AC of -8 to -10 (greater demons, Black dragons, Demon Lords (unique), soul sucker, etc.....

BT2 was EXTREMELY buggy. What many people didnt know about BT2 was that it used the SAME "To Hit" ability as BT1, meaning monsters with a -8 or lower AC were impossible to hit without FRFO Being cast a few times. And then you had monster AC's going down to -20, so anything -10 or lower simply could NOT be hit.

But of course, harder monsters had no problem hitting your -20 L+ guys...which turned the game even more magic crazy than BT1, almost like a final fantasy game...

BF3 fixed the AC rediculousness....

I sorta recall that it would be possible to make mages crazy powerful in bard's tale - you could switch "schools" of magic with mages, stopping the development of the previous school permanently, but keeping its powers, and starting the new school from level 1.. so, to make a ubermage, just switch schools at a very high level. Or was there some mechanism to stop this?

I loved how in BT it took me forever just to get my freshly made party from The Guild to the shop (which was just few grids down the street) to get some weapons and then back to The Guild to save - being wiped out by monsters countless times on the way. Talk about unforgiving difficulty - that`s what I miss most these days.

EtrianO wrote:I loved how in BT it took me forever just to get my freshly made party from The Guild to the shop (which was just few grids down the street) to get some weapons and then back to The Guild to save - being wiped out by monsters countless times on the way. Talk about unforgiving difficulty - that`s what I miss most these days.

You know I don't mind difficulty but I do dislike repetitiveness, and doing the same 1-4 fights over and over because you died on say the 5th fight can get monotonous. I much prefer to be able to save after every fight.

Daniel.

As I remember in Pool of Radiance the beginning das also very challenging - running down the first dungeon to do a fight and run back home to save