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19orFewer
Jan 1, 2010

Samurai Sanders posted:

Well, I should have said that I am a pussy and have yet to play an ACTUAL Wizardry game, just games that are like that.

Back in the day Might and Magic: World of Xeen and Anvil of Dawn were my favorites.

Wiz 8 going 3d took away a lot of the Wizardry feel and if you are after a Xeen style game then Wiz 7 is probably going to be more something you'll enjoy. Personally I preferred Wiz 6 but lack of in-game mapping and the seriously dated UI make this something I'm not sure I would recommend to any but the most devoted. Wiz 7 has automapping, divergent plot lines and plays differently to an extent since NPCs are also competing with you in the main mission. The trading/fighting as you come into contact with these competitors was a nice touch but can lead to frustration.

Wiz 8 is still a decent game but the initial road section after the tutorial is really vicious. The devs' stated intention was to make this part demonstrate that you should be avoiding encounters and taking advantage of the fact that scenery blocks LoS and the like. Unfortunately the net effect was to discourage a ton of players.

I'd really love a continuation turn-based game along the lines of Wiz 7 but can see that the lack of in your face action is not exactly popular as a mass-market seller at least in Western markets. I can hope that as the games market ages we'll see more turn-based games simply because arthritis and slowing reflexes will increase the market. Something like Dragonage would be in many ways better in full turn-based mode by elimiating the collisions and such that cause some fights to become complete abominations.

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19orFewer
Jan 1, 2010

Levantine posted:

Last Remnant did a lot of things well but please don't play for the story. Of all things in the game the story feels heavily unfinished and weird. The ending twist is so far out of left field that either I slept through the game or they just sprung something totally wild on the playerbase.

That said, the combat mechanics are great, if a little random. The greatest bit of strategy is how you build your units for combat. Having a versatile team is key but the luck of the draw on who learns abilities and what they equip can kind of be a pain. The PC version solves some of that though.

The most irritating part of the game for me was being sent on quests to the same place repeatedly and often consecutively. I finally gave up in a strop after I was sent to the same place 3 times in a row, on each occasion having to clear the same trash in order to get to the same location.

I'll agree with the mechanics being good though - it managed to balance difficulty by adding in a bit of randomness and a lot of predictable cause and effect. A ton of mechanics were really obscure so it could take a while to work out what was going on - but when you did it was certainly satisfying.

19orFewer
Jan 1, 2010

bewilderment posted:

What other games like this are there? I'm aware of X-COM but honestly it feels a little too difficult. I've played one of the Shining Force games but it didn't feel very polished. I've played a bit of the new King's Bounty but the battlefields in that game are small and not really what I want.

Although they are not strictly unique units to start (but end up that way despite having generic names) and it's pretty hard in parts if you go for the fastest kill awards

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/fantasy_wars

has grunts you build up, carrying them over with gear and xp based skills and has some pretty large and sprawling battles with multiple objectives.

or Jagged alliance 2 (particularly with the 1.13 fan patches which allow a huge amount of fiddling and removes a ton of UI and logistics irritations (and has a SA thread all to itself)

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3053233

19orFewer fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Jun 8, 2011

19orFewer
Jan 1, 2010
On the broadest level you would be able to define archetypes which are simple able to do everything - the standard versions used are, however, basic do-everythings with varying proportions of

1) Actor - Have the ability to further main aims of the character
2) Antagonist - Have the ability to hinder main aims of characters opposing the character
3) Aid - have the ability to disrupt or redress the hindrances produced by archetype 2

On a more real-world level this fits the classic fantasy "get the loot, kill the baddies, save the entire planet" archetypes of

1) People who get the loot and kill the baddies -- damage dealers
2) The baddies - do bad things to (1) -- monsters with big fangs
3) Save (1) indirectly - healers etc

but can be applied to almost any bizarre RPG you can devise (random wiki page used to create a ludicrous example)

The East Portland Branch, Public Library of Multnomah County role playing game

1) People frantically applying the dewey decimal system
2) Evil book shufflers
3) People who loudly go shh, tax payers, book producers, efficiency analysts

It also works in non conflict based rpgs, since the passage of time, logistical issues etc are all possible examples of the antagonist archetype.

Or were you after something more practically applicable ? In that case each genre varies a bit in the descriptions but the roles remain.

19orFewer
Jan 1, 2010
In that case you can pay me to licence the "The East Portland Branch, Public Library of Multnomah County role playing game"

Thief and fighter are essentially the same actor/protagonist archetype and as such are always going to be among the more popular on offer. Your classic mage type fits either aid or actor, but the poor old healers have been generally pigeonholed as aid for an absolute age. As such they are part of an archetype which is always the equivalent of a supporting cast actor in a play and will be less fun for many folk to play.

Maybe one day there will be a "World of Healcraft" where folk laugh at the fighters and thieves for only having crappy bandages and having to do menial labour rather than getting the big bucks from healing like a god. Or maybe that's just real-life.

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