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Computer Games That Defined RPGs In the 1980s
adeelarshad82 writes "The 1980s were huge for RPGs. This genre was one of the most defining game forms in the computer gaming world. A recently published article strolls down the memory lane to look back at classic computer games that both defined and extended the definition of the RPG in the 1980s. The roundup includes some obvious ones like Ultima and The Bard's Tale, and others which you may never have heard of."
Nuff said. Great series...humor was great.
I played 7 out of these 10 when they were cutting edge. I wonder if this makes me old or just "classic".
Alot of those games are available for purchase at GOG.com Disclaimer: Not affiliated with GOG.. just a customer. :-)
Seriously when are they going to remake this game? As a long term fan of old school RPGs like Chrono Trigger, Breath of Fire 3, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Suikoden, ... Final Fantasy 7 was an epochal and defining moment in the whole history of video games!
It has been consistently voted as the best game of all time. The characters were stunning each deserving of games in their own right, and experienced large character arcs. The story was amazing and well ahead of any film or book I have ever seen/read. The story of FF7 can be understood on multiple levels and there are dozens of themes that are introduced throughout the game, left hanging while more are introduced and then wrapped up later.
The end of disk 1 was the saddest moment I have ever felt playing a video game. Quite how the story built up that relationship and that the unexpected twist was gut wrenching.
FF7 is a skillful masterpiece. The new generation needs this classic in an updated format. It's a shame that games are not timeless like books. They really do age fast.
Wasteland. The spiritual ancestor of the Fallout series.
Sierra Games was big back in the day, and the Kings Quest series from memory were almost as big as the Leisure Suit Larry series.
This article addresses computer games. Zelda, Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy are classics, but still console games.
See the title... Computer games.
Circumcision is child abuse.
I bet you even went to brick and mortar stores to buy such games.
My favorite was "Nybbles and Bytes" across from the Tacoma mall. I was sad when they closed.
I like how if you run away from melee range, the melee guy gets a free swing at your back. I like aiming lightning bolts in a line and bouncing them off walls. I like trying to get as many creatures in a fireball without having allies inside. I liked the initial quest to clear the slums of monsters.
Between Pool of Radience/Wasteland/Final Fantasy 1 and Legacy of the Ancients, I learned a lot about where game design can bring you in terms of successful systems.
God spoke to me
Has everyone forgotten this classic?
As a note, Wizardry 1 was really awesome - it was hours and hours and hours of fun. Trebor and Werdna ruled!
The original Final Fantasy wasn't released in the U.S. until 1990, and the original Zelda is more of an action game than role-playing.
Many of the games in the slideshow are a lot more like Shadowgate than Zelda or Dragon Warrior.
That is all.
Just because in your mind they faded into obscurity doesn't mean they weren't profoundly influential.
These games by and large predate those JRPGs. Dragon Quest, in fact, was inspired by Wizardry and Ultima. Final Fantasy also sees it's roots in those early RPGs. Both have been extremely influential, particularly amongst JRPGs, but they weren't the originators of the genre.
The Legend of Zelda is more unique because of it's arcade-like elements and reduced emphasis on conventional RPG elements. While it's been influential I don't think it's quite had the direct impact of those other games, particularly within the RPG world.
And the most important aspect of all is that this article is about COMPUTER games.
No, they had Dungeon Master there. Also, the fact that they are PCmag may be a clue as to why all their screenshots were taken on PCs.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Absolutely wrong. CRPGs were huge back in the late 80's and early 90's, with Ultima, Bard's Tale, Wizardry, Wasteland, etc. Baldur's Gate made the genre popular again but it definitely didn't create "the western scene."
NETHACK! Classic, genre-defining game. Unbelievably funny as well (where else do you get to write a spell with a magic marker(!)?)
and Douglas Adams' BUREAUCRACY. Very difficult even now, but doable.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
cause they can run dos box, its more of a bitch to get workbench for a pal machine to operate in emulation
I've never been into RPG much; but I remember playing this one. The 3D maze was somewhat cutting edge at the time and it was quite fun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Dungeons_%26_Dragons:_Treasure_of_Tarmin
Wearing pants should always be optional.
I used to play telengard on my Atari 800xl. Great oldie!!
Ultima VII was arguably the peak of the Ultima series, which was never again surpassed, and its world modeling puts even many modern RPGs to shame (is there today any RPG out there that will allow you to bake bread, from harvesting the wheat to the finished product?). It was also the beginning of the end, as you say. Ultima VII was produced at around the time Origin was in the process of being acquired by Electronic Arts, and there are many allusions in the game to how none of them were very happy with that state of affairs. The square, sphere, and tetrahedron generators used by the Guardian in his plot to take over Britannia are a rather transparent reference to the old Electronic Arts logo used at the time. Ultima VII also abounds in ways to kill Lord British, more than any other Ultima before or since, and one of the more interesting ways to do it would be to click on a sign above the doors leading to his throne room during a time when he is standing right below it. The sign falls on his head and kills him. This is said to allude to an incident where Richard Garriott was similarly beaned by a falling sign while Origin relocated corporate headquarters at EA's behest (it was not fatal though).
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
READ THE FUCKING TITLE if your confused
Heh. And somehow we expect people to RTFA.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Wait till you get your fair share of "Pong" ... then you can call yourself "Old" or "Classic"
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
You tried to RTFA?! You must be new here...
There were too many good games to name them all. EOB was one of them. What about Akalabeth? Truly classic. What about some of the early MUDs? Many an hour was lost (when i should have been studying).
http://desli.de/3ZZ for one ugly web page with all showing. ;)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
A series of articles I enjoyed:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132024/the_history_of_computer_.php?print=1
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130124/the_history_of_computer_.php?print=1
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/129994/the_history_of_computer_.php?print=1
Not a top ten list, and pagination defeated by print mode.
I'm almost pushing mid 30s and this list is "before my time". Sure, I was around during the 80s, but home computers with any decent amount of processing power (for their time) were horrendously expensive. Today, my outdated (not getting an official update to Ice Cream Sandwich) smartphone runs DOS programs under DOSBox faster than my first PC ran actual DOS.
That really makes me feel old. Though, I suppose for a bit of false nostalgia, I could run some of the games on this list - on my phone.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Ultima, Bards Tale, how many of these games are franchises bought by EA which sits on them and doesn't develop the franchise?
Nope; 7/8/9 had 3D elements (eg the character models, and battles), but the bulk of the explorable world was made of unique 2D backgrounds - 6 and earlier were repetitive 2D sprites, 10 and later are repetitive 3D textures. Though come to think of it, replacing the low-res 3D character models with nice 2D sprites would be an improvement too...
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
TOEE is still going strong. For a game that's still closed source, the amount of fixing and extending that has gone on is incredible.
http://www.co8.org/forum/index.php
It's based on core D&D 3.5, although lacks prestige classes and a few things are broken.
There was a discussion somewhere about why TOEE and Jagged Alliance are better than Dragon Age/2/Origins. One of the games' designers said that it's all about turns -- without them there's no proper rhythm.
The graphics are decent in TOEE too.
The new Jagged Alliance might get fixed up yet. The new XCOM might have awesome turn-based combat.
Indeed, the early Ultima games were fairly big in Japan, and the first Final Fantasy game was an attempt to cash in on that by a company which was taking one more throw of the dice before it expected to go out of business (hence the title).
Acknowledging your point about this being a list of computer games rather than video games - if there was a Japanese RPG that deserved a place on the list, it would be the second Final Fantasy game. That's where you start to see the elements that would define JRPG storytelling (as opposed to the Western equivalent) introduced.
This guy is playing through all of the computer RPGs ever released in chronological order and gives them a critical, but fair review from a modern perspective in addition to interesting observations while he's playing them. He's currently at the end of 1988. It's definitely worth reading if you're interested in the history of CRPGs.
Duke Nukem Forever is more 90s.
The question is, which 90s?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
bulk of ff7 is rendered backgrounds.. imho xenogears had a nice system, bit of a mix'n'match.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
a game spanning only two 360K disks that had hundreds of stars and planets, Easter eggs, and a great story, really hasn't been equaled. Even with just two diskettes they were able to know where you had been on planets. You could move the story for the most part at your own pace and some of the conversations with various races were down right hilarious.
Starlight 2 while not as good had some great ideas as well, especially a race which had three distinct personalities.
Sometimes I think that game designers were far more creative early on because the constraints of the systems were so great. They could not hide behind flash effects and graphics.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
One game that isn't given enough credit but was miles ahead of everything for the time was Tunnels of Doom for the TI-99/4A. It was a framework with two games bundled (the simplistic "Pennies and Prizes" and "Quest for the King") that was meant to host further games, though no more were ever released, to my knowledge. it featured:
- 16 colour graphics
- Randomly generated dungeons
- 3D filled vector graphics for exploring, switching to overhead icon-based for combat
- 4 character classes, level progression
- Item upgrades, random effect treasure.
- In-game maps
And this was in *1982*!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnels_of_Doom
http://ridingthecrest.com/edburns/classic-gaming/tunnels/images/
Even in 2012, I still play the fuck outta Dungeon Master. I fire it up every few years and play it through. I don't know why, but ever since I discovered it in my friend's massive pile of Amiga disks, I was hooked and had to get it for the ST, and later for the PC. But then, I've never even heard of:
- The Faery Tale Adventure
- Starflight
- Pool of Radiance
- Phantasie
And yes, I've been around. I just wasn't a C64 guy, my home was the Atari. And I think it needs to be said: this top 10 list sucks! There is so much repetition in there, too many dungeon crawls that all end up being the same. DM was a real-time one, the others were turn-based, but beyond that distinction there was a staggering amount of repetition across titles. It simply isn't a genre that allowed much in the way of innovation. Walk, fight, loot, solve simple puzzles.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Now there is a game way ahead of it's time back in the early 80's. I'm surprised they didn't mention this because it was very popular back then.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
What would you call Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 2) then? I enjoyed that game because it was an action RPG, like the Zelda series. Square was never big in that genre of RPG, sad because SoM was a great game.
Those games didn't define RPG's, paper and pencils Dungeons and Dragons did that. Those games just advanced it to the masses.
I've got 101 mod points and you can't have them!
We're fighting a losing battle against the corpus linguists, mate. I fully expect "alot" to be added to the dictionary soon.
So... you mean they're trying to allot a different meaning to it?
to be a small 1 pointer at the bottom of an old thread, but in case anyone is still mining...
In addition to wasteland which was already mentioned (which finally has WL2 coming!!) I think there was another awesome RPGs not mentioned:
Alternate Reality (the dungeon)
This great game has it all - humor, great music, discovery, tons of monsters and items and a neat story. It's really hard, but worth it.
http://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=http%3A//www.lemon64.com/games/details.php%3FID%3D101
and a modern reboot:
http://www.crpgdev.com/
You can only be young once, but you can be immature forever.
A new game in the style of Dungeon Master will be out soon. The Legend of Grimrock just reached release candidate status. I am really looking forward to it since I haven't played a similar game since EOB3.
I was disappointed they didn't mention Alternate Reality. It was definitely ground break breaking technology in that game and it had so much potential if the series wasn't killed off.
I loved WC, but never got to play Eternal Dagger (nobody ever had it in stock). AFAIK, it was the first skill based RPG (you gain skill points as you play instead of levels). Still, the game was Ultima-ish in presentation. Was a relatively serious game, but had a killer rabbit "Easter egg" (quotes because it was easy to find - the big black area on the map).
As far as innovative games, I'd say the platformer Below the Root was missed - while not the first platformer by far, and certainly not popular (due to being sold as eduware) it was an RPG, gave choice of gender and race and it mattered (in 1984, nonetheless), whereas in other RPGs you may be able to choose, but it didn't make any difference (like Ultima 3's Male, Female, or Other). Most of all, it was almost entirely non-violent (and quite fun IMO) - how many RPGs can claim that?
The author of Dink Smallwood, Seth Robinson IIRC, was the previous author of a very popular BBS game called Legend of the Red Dragon. It was quite RPG like, just text based with primitive (but quite colorful and nice) ANSI graphics.
When you logged in and got the main menu, you would basically "go out into the woods" and attack some randomly spawned monsters, get some money and experience, level up, go back into town and buy weapons and armor. You could go into the Inn and chat up others or write on the wall. You could challenge other players to fight and compete with them in the rankings. Other developers could even write "mods" for the game adding new areas to explore and monsters to fight.
I would have to say this would definitely count as a groundbreaking RPG game of the 80s, considering its extreme popularity. On all the BBSs I ever dialed up, it was generally one of the most popular games.