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Help me choose my next game in my RPG backlog.

themazingnessthemazingness Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 702
edited June 2020 in Off-Topic
This is pretty straight forward. What should I play next?

The Shadow Sun
Drakkhen
Baldur’s Gate II: The Throne of Bhaal
Dark Sun: Shattered Lands
Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager
Temple of Elemental Evil
Curse of the Azure Bonds
Secret of the Silver Blades
Pools of Darkness
Gateway to the Savage Frontier
Treasures of the Savage Frontier
Champions of Krynn
Death Knights of Krynn
The Dark Queen of Krynn
Eye of the Beholder
Eye of the Beholder 2
Eye of the Beholder 3
Neverwinter Nights (OC)
Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide
Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark
Neverwinter Nights: Kingmaker
Neverwinter Nights: Pirates of the Sword Coast
Neverwinter Nights: Shadowguard
Neverwinter Nights: Witch’s Wake
Neverwinter Nights: Wyvern Crown of Cormyr
Neverwinter Nights 2 (OC)
Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer
Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir
Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate
Final Fantasy IV: The After Years
Dragon Quest 2
Earthlock
Beyond Oasis
Phantasy Star II
Phantasy Star III
Phantasy Star IV
Shining Force
Shining Force II
Titan Quest
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2
Might and Magic
Might and Magic II
Might and Magic III
Might and Magic World of Xeen (IV-V)
Might and Magic Swords of Xeen
Might and Magic VI
Sin Slayers
The Banner Saga
The Banner Saga 2
Torchlight
Tower of Time
Ultima Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire
Wizardry 6
Wizardry 7
Wizardry 8
Post edited by themazingness on

Comments

  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Phantasy Star IV. Its one of the better 16 bit rpgs in my opinion, and tends to get overlooked in favor of all the final fantasies and chrono triggers out there.
  • themazingnessthemazingness Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 702
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    Phantasy Star IV. Its one of the better 16 bit rpgs in my opinion, and tends to get overlooked in favor of all the final fantasies and chrono triggers out there.

    Does it make much of a difference to play those out of order? I've played the first one and loved it.
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,371
    If you haven't played it before (and if you can get it to run on your computer) I highly recommend ToEE. I wouldn't play it without the Circle of 8 mod though. It fixed a bunch of issues and adds quite a bit of good content.
  • deltagodeltago Member Posts: 7,811
    Well I'd eliminate anything you played and beat previously. In order, I'd go:

    If you haven't played BGII yet, then that one. It's consider one of the best RPGs ever for a reason.

    Same with the KotORs. I haven't played the second (like you it's on my backlist) and only dabbled with the first but allegedly they are solid if you are a Star Wars fan.

    Tower of Time is unique and is worth a try if you haven't played it already. For an indi game, it's very beautiful but the story and characters are lacking and combat is extremely unique for an RPG. It is more of a tower defense game. Out of everything on your list it'd probably be the one I'd recommend trying.

    If it's on PC, the first Banner Saga gives Win10 users issues sadly. It's sitting in my library waiting to be played but I get frequent CTD on the loading screen and not that interested in attempting to find a workaround. However, if you do get it working, it is a great game with meaningful choices. And I'd play the first before the second because progress and characters carry over but isn't necessary.

    NWN:SoD is good starting point for that series. Canonly, you are suppose to bring that character in HotU so you can probably scratch two off at once if you get into the game. NWN2 is also good if you can get past the camera - I never could. NWNoc is below par and the DLC quests are short don't really introduce you well to the mechanics as the expansions do, but are worth a play after HotU.

    Torchlight is too cartoony for me but a decent Diablo clone.

    I personally wasn't a fan of Earthlock, however I didn't give it enough time.

    I didn't like ToEE as combat was the only thing it had going for it even after the fan patches.

    The rest I have no clue about truthfully.
  • themazingnessthemazingness Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 702
    deltago wrote: »
    Well I'd eliminate anything you played and beat previously.

    That's been done already. That's why stuff like the Ys games I own, Pool of Radiance, Phantasy Star, NWN:DoD and TotM, and all IE games except the BGII expansion aren't on there.

  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,371
    themazingness wrote: »
    deltago wrote: »
    Well I'd eliminate anything you played and beat previously.

    That's been done already. That's why stuff like the Ys games I own, Pool of Radiance, Phantasy Star, NWN:DoD and TotM, and all IE games except the BGII expansion aren't on there.

    You didn't mention ToEE. It's a great D&D game if you don't mind turn-based combat. I thoroughly enjoyed it with the aforementioned Co8 mod. Give it a shot if you like D&D games.
  • RedRodentRedRodent Member Posts: 78
    edited May 2020
    It really depends on what type of experience you're craving, but you can't go wrong with Phantasy Star IV. If you're a Star Wars fan, definitely check out the KotORs. They both do really intresting things with the mythos. Just beware what versions you get. I got both games from GOG last fall and while the first one ran ok, KotOR2 won't start properly no matter what I do. After reading up on it, apparently it's a known issue that the GOG version is unplayable and has been for quite some time (yet they're still selling it instead of fixing it, sigh).
  • themazingnessthemazingness Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 702
    edited May 2020
    deltago wrote: »

    If it's on PC, the first Banner Saga gives Win10 users issues sadly. It's sitting in my library waiting to be played but I get frequent CTD on the loading screen and not that interested in attempting to find a workaround. However, if you do get it working, it is a great game with meaningful choices. And I'd play the first before the second because progress and characters carry over but isn't necessary.

    I just tested my copy of Banner Saga and it worked fine on Windows 10. Mine is 2.60.02 on the Amazon Games platform (the free games you get on Twitch if you have Amazon Prime).
  • KamigoroshiKamigoroshi Member Posts: 5,870
    Easy choice: all of them. :p

    After them you can proceed to Drakensang, Drakensang: River of Time, Kingdoms of Amalur, ect. And if you fancy playing good ol' NES games: check out 3dSen PC. Its list of supported games gets longer and longer. There also is a free demo build on their discord if you're interested.
  • themazingnessthemazingness Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 702
    edited May 2020
    Kamigoroshi wrote: »
    Easy choice: all of them. :p

    After them you can proceed to Drakensang, Drakensang: River of Time, Kingdoms of Amalur, ect. And if you fancy playing good ol' NES games: check out 3dSen PC. Its list of supported games gets longer and longer. There also is a free demo build on their discord if you're interested.

    That's the intention in the long run :)

    3dSen looks interesting. But I prefer 8 bit games as they were made. I have to admit though, I watched a video of Mega Man 3, and it was cool you could change point of view while fighting a boss.

    Edit: You know what I would love though? I'd like to see the Gold Box games get the 3dSen treatment, especially for the camera movement.
    Post edited by themazingness on
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    themazingness wrote: »
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    Phantasy Star IV. Its one of the better 16 bit rpgs in my opinion, and tends to get overlooked in favor of all the final fantasies and chrono triggers out there.

    Does it make much of a difference to play those out of order? I've played the first one and loved it.

    Nope! One of the characters in the game is a reference to the main character of the first one, but no pre-existing knowledge is necessary.

    @RedRodent " KotOR2 won't start properly no matter what I do. After reading up on it, apparently it's a known issue that the GOG version is unplayable and has been for quite some time (yet they're still selling it instead of fixing it, sigh)."

    KotOR2 from GoG works fine for me. The only thing I have to do is turn off grass animations. It definitely can be tempramental though, it just might not like your hardware, sadly :(
  • RedRodentRedRodent Member Posts: 78
    @ThacoBell you're probably right it's a hardware issue. It's been a few months since I gave up so I don't remember the specific troubles I had, but I know disabling grass was one of the things I tried. The last few years with GOG has just been bad for me. It's been a lottery which older titles work and which don't and I've tried multiple laptops. I want to support a DRM-free platform but when I get what I want much easier through Steam, I see little reason to struggle with GOG. But I'm getting off-topic.

    Instead I'll put in a recommendation for the Banner Saga series. Fantastic games with their own brand of feel and immersion.
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited May 2020
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    If you haven't played it before (and if you can get it to run on your computer) I highly recommend ToEE. I wouldn't play it without the Circle of 8 mod though. It fixed a bunch of issues and adds quite a bit of good content.

    Honestly, Temple+ has kind of superseded the Co8 at this point (though you can run them both together). But running it just through Temple+ will give you a much more true to the original experience.

    But yes, ToEE is 3rd Edition transferred to the screen almost word for word. After playing this game, I highly, highly recommend Knights of the Chalice, which may be even MORE true to 3rd Edition nooks and crannies. It's loosely based on Against the Giants and Scourge of the Slavelords, and uses the 3e open license.
  • themazingnessthemazingness Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 702
    jjstraka34 wrote: »
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    If you haven't played it before (and if you can get it to run on your computer) I highly recommend ToEE. I wouldn't play it without the Circle of 8 mod though. It fixed a bunch of issues and adds quite a bit of good content.

    Honestly, Temple+ has kind of superseded the Co8 at this point (though you can run them both together). But running it just through Temple+ will give you a much more true to the original experience.

    But yes, ToEE is 3rd Edition transferred to the screen almost word for word. After playing this game, I highly, highly recommend Knights of the Chalice, which may be even MORE true to 3rd Edition nooks and crannies. It's loosely based on Against the Giants and Scourge of the Slavelords, and uses the 3e open license.

    I have Knights of the Chalice on my Steam wishlist. Could you post a link to Temple+? I am already familiar with Co8.

    The first time I played ToEE, I had a hard time getting into it. I was playing Co8. I wonder if I'd like the Temple+ mod better.
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited May 2020
    themazingness wrote: »
    jjstraka34 wrote: »
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    If you haven't played it before (and if you can get it to run on your computer) I highly recommend ToEE. I wouldn't play it without the Circle of 8 mod though. It fixed a bunch of issues and adds quite a bit of good content.

    Honestly, Temple+ has kind of superseded the Co8 at this point (though you can run them both together). But running it just through Temple+ will give you a much more true to the original experience.

    But yes, ToEE is 3rd Edition transferred to the screen almost word for word. After playing this game, I highly, highly recommend Knights of the Chalice, which may be even MORE true to 3rd Edition nooks and crannies. It's loosely based on Against the Giants and Scourge of the Slavelords, and uses the 3e open license.

    I have Knights of the Chalice on my Steam wishlist. Could you post a link to Temple+? I am already familiar with Co8.

    The first time I played ToEE, I had a hard time getting into it. I was playing Co8. I wonder if I'd like the Temple+ mod better.

    https://www.moddb.com/mods/temple1

    All Temple+ is is an executable. It installs itself for the most part. There are some "home brew" options in the launcher, but otherwise it's simply performance and bug fixes. The makers of this mod had much greater access to the code of the game (Co8 is 12 years old at this point). Basically, it allows you to play the game as intended. Co8 adds alot of shit to the beginning of the game to allow you to skip the time spent in Homlet, which was not the design of the original module or the game.

    My recollection of Co8 was that the tutorial didn't work right, and the beginning of the game was a shopping spree in a modded shop.
  • CahirCahir Member, Moderator, Translator (NDA) Posts: 2,819
    jjstraka34 wrote: »
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    If you haven't played it before (and if you can get it to run on your computer) I highly recommend ToEE. I wouldn't play it without the Circle of 8 mod though. It fixed a bunch of issues and adds quite a bit of good content.

    Honestly, Temple+ has kind of superseded the Co8 at this point (though you can run them both together). But running it just through Temple+ will give you a much more true to the original experience.

    But yes, ToEE is 3rd Edition transferred to the screen almost word for word. After playing this game, I highly, highly recommend Knights of the Chalice, which may be even MORE true to 3rd Edition nooks and crannies. It's loosely based on Against the Giants and Scourge of the Slavelords, and uses the 3e open license.

    Which setting is the Knights of the Chalice set in?
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited May 2020
    Cahir wrote: »
    jjstraka34 wrote: »
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    If you haven't played it before (and if you can get it to run on your computer) I highly recommend ToEE. I wouldn't play it without the Circle of 8 mod though. It fixed a bunch of issues and adds quite a bit of good content.

    Honestly, Temple+ has kind of superseded the Co8 at this point (though you can run them both together). But running it just through Temple+ will give you a much more true to the original experience.

    But yes, ToEE is 3rd Edition transferred to the screen almost word for word. After playing this game, I highly, highly recommend Knights of the Chalice, which may be even MORE true to 3rd Edition nooks and crannies. It's loosely based on Against the Giants and Scourge of the Slavelords, and uses the 3e open license.

    Which setting is the Knights of the Chalice set in?

    It doesn't really have a setting. It's using the open license of 3rd Edition D&D, and it's clearly based on those modules, and on the developer's homepage he clearly sells it as a direct homage to ToEE and the Dark Sun games (which perfectly describes it), but it steers clear of any actual copyright issues. The story, frankly, doesn't really matter. The game is 100% focused on combat in the same way ToEE is. But it's fairly brilliant at what it does for a one-man project. Some people say the crafting feats break the game, but there is something that breaks every game.
  • themazingnessthemazingness Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 702
    jjstraka34 wrote: »
    It's loosely based on Against the Giants and Scourge of the Slavelords, and uses the 3e open license.
    jjstraka34 wrote: »
    Cahir wrote: »

    Which setting is the Knights of the Chalice set in?

    It doesn't really have a setting. It's using the open license of 3rd Edition D&D, and it's clearly based on those modules, and on the developer's homepage he clearly sells it as a direct homage to ToEE and the Dark Sun games (which perfectly describes it), but it steers clear of any actual copyright issues. The story, frankly, doesn't really matter. The game is 100% focused on combat in the same way ToEE is. But it's fairly brilliant at what it does for a one-man project. Some people say the crafting feats break the game, but there is something that breaks every game.

    Well, those modules were in Greyhawk, so I guess technically it's loosely based on Greyhawk.
  • ZaxaresZaxares Member Posts: 1,330
    And I thought I had a long backlog! XD

    I haven't played all of the games on this list, but there's a lot of good choices in there. :) I picked up a bunch of the Gold Box games from GoG back during the last sale, but to be honest, I found them a bit hard to get into, despite being old enough to have tried them out back during the original release. I can still see the appeal (the "magic", as it were) locked in those old games, but the interface and the fairly slow, plodding nature of the games (due to the technological restrictions of the time) are hard to get over after years of being used to conveniences from more modern RPGs.

    I definitely enjoyed the Dark Sun games though! It's a singularly unique D&D setting, although the 2nd game... doesn't quite live up to the standards of the first, in my experience. (On the other hand, Wake of the Ravager is the only D&D game to ever allow you to challenge the legendary Tarrasque itself, to my knowledge!)
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @RedRodent

    That really sucks.
  • themazingnessthemazingness Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 702
    Zaxares wrote: »
    And I thought I had a long backlog! XD

    I haven't played all of the games on this list, but there's a lot of good choices in there. :) I picked up a bunch of the Gold Box games from GoG back during the last sale, but to be honest, I found them a bit hard to get into, despite being old enough to have tried them out back during the original release. I can still see the appeal (the "magic", as it were) locked in those old games, but the interface and the fairly slow, plodding nature of the games (due to the technological restrictions of the time) are hard to get over after years of being used to conveniences from more modern RPGs.

    I definitely enjoyed the Dark Sun games though! It's a singularly unique D&D setting, although the 2nd game... doesn't quite live up to the standards of the first, in my experience. (On the other hand, Wake of the Ravager is the only D&D game to ever allow you to challenge the legendary Tarrasque itself, to my knowledge!)

    I had to make a few attempts to get going on Pool of Radiance, but finally it stuck. And I loved it. I started Curse of the Azure Bonds after, but lost my save. So I'm having a hard time getting back to them.

    I can't remember if I beat the Dark Sun games. I know I played a decent amount of them back in the day, but I don't think I beat them. Strangely, to me they feel like they've aged worse than the Gold Box games. But I'd still love to play and finish them.

    My current problem is I've fallen in love with the Ys games to the extent that I'm having a hard time choosing the next game. It'll be a while until I buy Memories of Celceta which is the next Ys game I plan to play. I probably should've done Baldur's Gate II: The Throne of Bhaal after finishing the main game. Now I'm just wanting more Ys.
  • ArdanisArdanis Member Posts: 1,736
    NWN + NWN MotB. It's proper 3rd edition goodness, and MotB also has a really good story.
    KotOR 1&2 are somewhat more casual and lightweight compared to e.g. Dragon Age, and make for quality entertainment that I won't consider replaying ever again but don't regret any single minute spent playing them.
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