I think I played whichever one was on my Amiga waaaay back in the day, and whichever one was on PS3 for a bit. I was also a big fan of some of the Might and Magic games, which I feel were something of a bridge between the old dungeon crawlers and something like Morrowind.
Anyway I was thinking of trying one out again. Any recommendations, maybe one with modern QOL features to ease in?
I see there’s a remake of Wizardry 1(?) and remasters of the Etrian Odyssey games in the past couple years. I’m also kind of intrigued by Undernauts, which looks like it might throw a little Shin Megami Tensei flavor in?
if you haven’t, you should play Legend of Grimrock (1&2)
The Super Famicom ports of the first three Wizardry titles have fan translations available on turnip trucks out there on the interwebs. Honestly great games that completely hold up if you’re willing to forgive their willingness to murder your parties. The remake of Wizardry 1 is fantastic but it’s very faithful in a warts & all sort of way to the Apple II version, as a matter of fact it’s running the Apple II version under the hood in a similar way to that Oblivion Remaster from earlier this year. I don’t know if this is still the case but when I played during early access you couldn’t strip equipment from dead characters before the temple failed to raise them and they got dusted, which made losing geared characters that much more painful. Can’t stress enough, a fantastic dungeon crawler though, if you like Darkest Dungeon or similar ‘march these folks to their death’ gameplay loops you’ll feel right at home
Ultima, if it counts, are some of my favorite games of all time. In particular, I love Ultima 1’s bite-sized first-person dungeons that you do in between overworld exploration – the rewards you get versus the time spent make them a retro dopamine hit. Ultima 4 has you going through first-person tailor-made around eight thematic moral vices. Since the stat-boosting orbs of virtue you’d find at the end of the dungeon respawned, I had fun going back in and further boosting my stats.
Daggerfall is my favorite Elder Scrolls game. People complain that the dungeons are labyrinthine and take hours to finish, but I absolutely love that (with QoL mods). I tend to roll up non-magic characters who are good at climbing, and I feel like a proper Tomb Raider-esque explorer.
I’ve been gradually working through the old Might and Magic games. I really enjoy the “scavenger hunt” gameplay loop of that series with how you’re given riddles in the environment to figure out where to go next. I just wish they were a little shorter, so I get the feeling that The Bard’s Tale trilogy will be even more up my alley when I get to them.
I did try Wizardry 1-5, minus 4, and found them all really repetitive, even for the time they came out. You just kill a wizard and draw maps and there’s not much else going on with it. I’d love to try the later games someday, though.
For modern games, I haven’t played Etrian Odyssey yet, but I did play The Dark Spire on DS, from the same developers, and loved the dark tone and horror-esque art direction.
There’s actually a Wizardry mobile game that dropped recently that is technically a gacha game with permadeath, but is actually pretty good and I’ve yet to put a cent into it. Wizardry Variants Daphne. I wish the dungeon layouts were a little more complex, but I’m not that far
The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall was a complete mindfuck back then.
Being able to walk, ride or fly through a continent the size of Europe, in 3D first person view, with different climate zones and seasons, buy a ship, turn into a vampire or werewolf, enter any house on the map and have NPCs react to what clothes you wear…
There was nothing like it before, and its freedom and scope is unmatched till today.Legend of Grimrock and Vaporum are supposedly pretty good. World of Horror looks sick and has a Junji Itō inspired spin. And there is a new release The Secret of Weepstone that’s very much inspired by the current resurgence of oldschool tabletop games.
Grimrock is excellent. For those youngsters that dont know, its a copy of the gameplay from DnD Eye of the Beholder 1and 2. Both of those old games are awesome and have the same game mechanics as grimrock.
World of Horror is pretty awesome, but I don’t think I would ever really lump it together with first person dungeon crawlers like Wizardry or Grimrock
yes it’s more of a vibe
Ooh, I’m really digging the art style on Grimrock. It’s very reminiscent of the weird-looking old games, but so charming and slick about it.
Weepstone also looks fantastic, like playing an AD&D sourcebook. Will definitely be trying that demo this weekend.
Just finished the Weepstone demo, took about an hour. Definitely worth keeping an eye on. The art is every bit as lovely and nostalgic as I expected from screenshots, and my level-0 commoners had some entertaining and appropriately challenging encounters against a rust monster, some goblins and kobolds, and a mad priestess.
It will be interesting to see how much it improves when the party actually hits level 1 and gets classes.
Legend of Grimrock rules
Oh, and GOG has both Grimrock games for a pittance right now. That miiiight be my whole weekend now.
Its a great game!
I love the first one more than the second for some reason. Not sure why.
Games on Steam with tags Dungeon Crawler, First-Person, and Grid-Based Movement sorted by user rating.
It was literally the first RPG I ever played… in ye olden days of 1982. I stuck with the series until the end, but haven’t checked out the remake.
Too much time playing a fan remake of a DOS game from 1993, Master of Magic.
I generally don’t enjoy dungeon crawlers very much, but Barony swallowed my life for several weeks recently. I highly recommend it.
Etrian Odyssey series was all pretty interesting to me. Idk what changes the HD releases have, but I generally enjoyed playing the later ones compared to the earlier ones. Shin Megami Strange Journey and Labyrinth of Refrain/Galleria were interesting too.
Thanks for not calling them blobbers, which is an awful name.
I’ve been liking the term Dungeon RPG (DRPG) honestly
