Found this game onlne, Helherron, by a guy in Finland. If anyone here is a fan of what the kids these days call "old school" RPG's, it's one to check out without fail. It's probably closest to my all time favourite game of 1986, Phantasie II, itself similar to the first 4 Ultima games. Anyway, this guy did it all right, from the stats to the quests to the combat, but especially the turn-based combat. Haven't found a bug yet, although occassionally the 256 colours freak out, necessitating a save/restart. I've already played it for 20 hours or so. I'm going to donate $10 to his cause too. It's that good! http://www2.lut.fi/~akuukka/helherron/main.htm
Loved that game! Had the auto-mapping/fog stuff which was a huge leap forward for then, no more drawing maps on a bit of paper Always wanted to write a li'l game like that and release it for fun - can't check this out now, but periodically bug me to look at it.
I will be sure to give Helherron a go. I also have a tendancy to feel that some of the old stuff outshines the new in many ways. I'm currently waiting for DDO to come out, but with the new information thats coming out.................This may not be the thing for me. Moving away from all my friends that I usually PnP with has turned me on to the video game aspect of RPGs. So far TOEE is the best PC RPG I've played, hence the reason why I lurk on these forums Obviously, most of the people that frequent this forum believe the same as I do, which makes your opinions all the more of interest to me. I know I don't contribute much, but I don't want to ruin what you guys already have going. Though, sometimes I might say something here and there.
check out underdogs..they have phantasie 1 and 3 and ring of zilfin et al and many other paths and branchs along memory lane http://www.the-underdogs.org/
All great games, but none of them work properly on new OS's like XP. About 1 in 10 I can get the gameplay, but I can never get the sound. Sound card technology has changed too much.
drags bag of plentious holding from closet to tv room opens bag of plentious holding tv room fills with lots of old stuff finds Commodore 64 with 3 floppies and totals 100+ games
And I just got rid of my old Atari Computer. that sound things a pain in the ass, I downloaded a really old game cos I liked the "sound track" but I couldn't play it with the sound turned on. I had an emulator with 4600000 sega, nintendo and other old school 80s and early 90s games they were fun, metal slug, wonder boy, golden axe, spy vs spy...
get dosbox the newest version runs programs from my interplay days..(mid 90-2000) perfectly and also works with the ssi gold box games.. or you can find amiga emulators that work well.. or atari/apple 2 which will run phantasie 2.. 1 and 3 have both been ported to the pc. dosbox might direct you to some updated sound files for your particular games but.. otherwise its a wonderful thing Not as good as TOFEE or toeewb of course but .. nice and if all else fails ebay or the local lawn sale.. has some working c64s /apple2s etc.. seriously does anyone else remember when the 8" floppy came out an was amazed that you could now store 10meg of info in a fileing cabinet instead of needing a disk the size of one?? remmeber DECs 1st disk 10 meg and the size /shape of a refrigerator anyone else remember when printers were louder than trains and small aircraft?
I can vaguely remember in my youth when the 300 baud modem was released, or at least my brother got one, and everyone was greatly impressed by it and could only stare at it and say, "Wow! Look at how fast it is.". I also remember in my youth when I was the first one in the neighborhood to get the first 10 MegaByte hard drive as part of a new Tandy TL/1000 computer.
http://www.abandonia.com/ another repository of old school games each game has manuals etc... it gives compatiblity has links right on each page to the correwct emulator.. and BEST of all (attention cujoA sound blaster emulator that works on xp pro!!!! and with dosbox btw check out realms of arkania in the 80s -now its germanys answr to D&d the games are amazing considering there mid 90s publishing date the only draw back if you think it is one would be that everything is player managed including food/water distibution and intake However the story plots are amazing each of the 3 games has hundreds of hours of adventuring.. i highly recommend it.. i have a 80gig HD dedicated to pre 2000 releases..
"I would've thought everything released pre 2000 would fit on 10GB..." well remeber pre 2000 still includes thief and BG1+ToSC the first couple Elder scrolls games and the first 3 mech warrior games etc
