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Spiderweb The best beginning in an RPG

Lhynn

Arcane
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
9,825
Whats the best beginning you have ever experienced in an RPG? Where you felt the most like it was the start of something special?
What did it have you do?

My favorite start is probably the one you get in exile 2, you start in your room in a fort, tho exile 1 is also great, where you start right out of the portal after getting exiled.
Another good start is from a game i played recently, Tale of Wuxia, where you start as a useless waste of space, you can even get beaten by a chicken in the starting area and get a special game over screen if you do, and you can leave the area at any time, with all the content on it being completely optional.

I liked the start of Risen, you survive a shipwreck with a beautiful woman and have to explore an island to survive, while she keeps your bed warm for you, her hero.
 

octavius

Arcane
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Joined
Aug 4, 2007
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19,184
Location
Bjørgvin
Ultima Underworld, maybe.

Chaos Strikes Back if disregarding the Hall of Heroes (but even that was cool with the two hidden super heroes). You start in darkness, flanked by two Purple Worms and if you panic and run over a pressure plate you summon more.

Daggerfall had a good start. Too bad it didn't continue.
 

Dorateen

Arcane
Joined
Aug 30, 2012
Messages
4,332
Location
The Crystal Mist Mountains
World of Xeen

A large part of that is a richly detailed backstory in the manual, which did much for building anticipation to start a new adventure. And those vibrant maps that evoked a sense of wonder.
 

Maxie

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maxresdefault.jpg
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 23, 2005
Messages
17,978
Location
Florida
wizardry 1 and how you create your party. the way the screen refreshes when you roll for bonus points is truly epic and really gets you pumped for killing werdna!

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:Flash:

Arcane
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Messages
6,454
Ultima IV
The intro and the gypsy thing drew me in like nothing before.
I didn't even know what an RPG was. When the gypsy thing started, I thought "Oh, so that's what an RPG is like".
 

buffalo bill

Arcane
Joined
Dec 8, 2016
Messages
1,004
Darklands character creation: aging my party through adulthood and into old age before the game even begins.
CDDA on really bad day: waking up drunk, infected, with the flu and in a burning building surrounded by zombies. Death almost always soon follows, but it is so sweet when it doesn't.
Also Torment obviously.
 

AbounI

Colonist
Patron
Joined
Dec 2, 2012
Messages
1,050
Kaer Morhen in the first Weedcher was pretty enjoyable, introducing who the friends and foes are. I would say not having read the books preserved me from any spoil.

And Age of Decadence & Dragon Age Origin for their own different starting points of course too depending of the background/class of the PC.
 
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Neanderthal

Arcane
Joined
Jul 7, 2015
Messages
3,626
Location
Granbretan
I fuckin love tutorial o ToEE, perfect little intro to game, mechanics an D&D itsen.
Ultima VI, Castle British served as a great intro to new engine an its peculiarities.
Ultima VII Trinsic same, perfect place to experiment an explore before headin out into wide world.
Dungeon Siege, beautiful graphics, atmospheric soundtrack, action, shame it turned out to be so bloody shallow, potential were there to make something legendary.
Torment an Arcanum both made difficult settings an concepts easy to grasp, an more importantly interestin.
I know this won't be a popular choice but I thought village fayre tutorial from NWN2 were also pretty inspired, introduced all mechanics basically, gave you some background an set up for comin conflict an gave you a place in world.
Icewind Dale 2, defense o Targos were a real high point o game.
Severance: Blade of Darkness, each characters intro level was interestin, unique an distinct.
Freedom Force an Minutemans jaunt around Patriot Park were another good intro to a unique settin an all its gameplay.
Aleroth in Div Div were much like Trinsic though less cohesive an of a piece.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
PS:T, and its inspiration in the console Shadowrun, are both great. But I have to say that my absolute favorite is probably Lufia and the Fortress of Doom.

Obviously on any metric other than the immediate impact of the intro, it loses, but the intro is GOAT. \

(1) It has this cold open that starts when you boot the game the first time.


The music is fantastic. The visuals are solid. The first lines are themselves a masterpiece of economy: "Without warning the island suddenly appeared in the sky." You might argue that "suddenly" and "without warning" are duplicative, but aside from that, it is just perfect. There is an island, it's obviously bad (else why would you need a warning), and it's in the sky. "Four foul and wicked beings claimed it for themselves." Again, brilliant. The alliterative "four foul" is great, but it's also just sufficient to set the stage. There are four bosses you have to worry about. They're bad guys. They're not nuanced angsty teens, they are "foul and wicked beings." The rest of the text is mediocre, but the last line is strong enough to end on: "In desperation, the people called on their bravest fighters: Artea, Guy, Maxim, and Selan." Again, everything you need to know about those characters.

My only grievance is that it is slightly too slow. Each line stays on the screen for a little too long, overstaying their welcome.

(2) It then cuts from the intro to a second cold open, in media res, of those four heroes, who are highly leveled, super powerful warriors.


The music is even better than the last, and a complete mood shift from "epic but oppressing" to "epic and exhorting." The use of the black screen for the dialogue is very clever. The dialogue isn't particularly good, but for the standard of 90s jRPGs, not especially bad. The use of an in-game spell for narrative purposes is clever.

(4) You then go through the first dungeon, which is a perfectly serviceable old jRPG dungeon. Significantly, because you start very high level, the "tutorial" aspect of this is that you can do everything you'll ever get to do in the game right away, but you're strong enough that you're not getting killed by the first enemy you meet. There's no handholding, but there's a de facto safety net of lots of HP/MP.

(5) You then fight and defeat the end bosses.


But the lead two heroes are cut off and doomed in their final victory. "Thus the battle ended." The game then cuts forward 90 years, and you start as a new character at level 1. But the events of the prologue turn out to be the subject matter of the whole game -- the consequences of the past, etc.

* * *

To repeat, I don't think Lufia's intro is better designed, prettier, more fun, better written, or nicer sounding than PS:T's in the sense of some objective standard of good RPG design. But purely on the metric of an intro's effectiveness as an intro, I think it is probably the best. (Incidentally, I copied it shamelessly for the start of Infinity.) The rest of Lufia is pretty mediocre. The art and sound are fine, as jRPGs go, but it's super grindy and has a very high random combat encounter rate and a very slow walking speed, all of which combine to make it pretty lame.

[EDIT: The ending's not bad either.]
 
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Joined
Mar 29, 2007
Messages
4,548
Best:
  1. Arx Fatalis - Escape from jail cell with a bad case of amnesia
  2. Dragon Age: Origins - Multiple beginnings depending on class
  3. STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl - Dark, gritty gameworld with real Ukrainian voice-acting
Worst:
  1. The Witcher - Not technically the beginning, but the Outskirts of Vizima was terrible
  2. Fallout 2 - Awesome game, total shit beginning
 

Lhynn

Arcane
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
9,825
Ah Stalker 3, i remember the asshole on the tower shooting me down for like 30 minutes straight, i almost gave up but persevered and found another way.

Thinking back i remember really liking the start of shadowrun returns, that noire atmosphere and the whole set up, a dead friend hiring you to avenge his death is a pretty great plot hook.
 

HeatEXTEND

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Feb 12, 2017
Messages
3,929
Location
Nedderlent
Heart: FF VI - Just a great start to a great adventure.

Mind: AoD - Never got bored of the opening vignette after ?8? replays
in about 2 week-ends time:lol:
, in fact, quite the opposite, hot-diggity-damn.
 

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