Which PC RPGs of 1997 have you played? [top 100 voting thread]

[IncendiaryDevice]

Same rules as before, this time for 1997.

Notes:

Blades of Exile and Exile 3 are both just for these specifically titled games, Avernum games are voted for separately.

Battlespire doesn't really scream RPG like other games in the series but it is adamant that it is an action RPG hybrid.

As the polls now start going back to pre-windows dominance era with regard to PC gaming then these polls become harder to compile as titles are referred to with greater platform variety than just WIN, such as DOS & etc combined with increasing numbers of shareware titles that don't necessarily get mentioned in commercial lists. The mid 90s were also another era of strong console domination and its sometimes irritating trying to find out what platform something was initially released on.

Please also feel free to highlight any games I might have missed.

 

[octavius]

X-COM: Apocalypse?
Haven't played it, but I'd consider the original X-Com a CRPG.

Birthright: The Gorgon's Alliance?

Aleshar: The World of Ice.

Anyway, 1997 was a poor year for CRPGs. The only CRPGs I bothered with on my chronological play list was Fallout, Hellfire and Aleshar: The World of Ice. Tried A&A and Dink Smallwood, but disliked them.
OTOH Fallout did herald the beginning of a new era of CRPGs.

I haven't even heard about the Vantage Master games, though.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

X-COM: Apocalypse?
Haven't played it, but I'd consider the original X-Com a CRPG.

Birthright: The Gorgon's Alliance?

Aleshar: The World of Ice.

Anyway, 1997 was a poor year for CRPGs. The only CRPGs I bothered with on my chronological play list was Fallout, Hellfire and Aleshar: The World of Ice. Tried A&A and Dink Smallwood, but disliked them.
OTOH Fallout did herald the beginning of a new era of CRPGs.

I haven't even heard about the Vantage Master games, though.

I added Aleshar: The World of Ice. Interestingly, the first google result that showed me anything about what the game is beyond Youtube videos was Haba's Let's Play on these very forums.

The other two are a no. X-Com because X-Com is X-Com and does not ask for nor need an RPG umbrella, it's just X-Com, and the other game I did find in my brief research but its a Strategy game, heck, you compete with other heirs on a world map to turn everything your colour, using diplomacy, warfare and etc, pretty much the definition of a Strategy game.

Also, in future, could you be kind enough to put a link to the relevant descriptive information about a game you're volunteering, cos, you know, that'd be helpful, ta very much.

Thanks for the suggestions though, World of Ice should get a few votes if the thread on this very site is anything to go by.

 

[curry]

Dink Smallwood was fun back in the day

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Dink Smallwood is one of those games I hear mentioned but only because it has a very memorable name. What's the thing that makes it so memorable beyond a very memorable name?

 

[Fowyr]

I added Aleshar: The World of Ice. Interestingly, the first google result that showed me anything about what the game is beyond Youtube videos was Haba's Let's Play on these very forums.

Because it's too good for normies. Seriously, it's a great game with cool ideas, but obscure and hard as nails.
Haba is a great man to finish it, write walkthrough and raise all skills to Unearthly.

Played everything besides Dink Smallwood, LoL2 and Vantage Masters.

 

[Hellion]

Dink Smallwood was an extremely fun, satyrical hack-slash isometric RPG in an era when not many games of the kind were being released. Rather simplistic and outdated by today's standards, but I remember having lots of fun with it back in the day.

Betrayal in Antara, too. Not having played Betrayal at Krondor first (it was common for fans of Krondor to lash out at Antara because it was a different story in a different world), I enjoyed it immensely for what it offered at the time.

 

[Fowyr]

Quick search also brought Yendorian Tales: The Tyrants of Thaine (aka Yendorian Tales 3) (very fun game for M&M3 clone) , Halls of the Dead: Faery Tale Adventure 2 and Descent to Undermountain.

 

[V_K]

the other game I did find in my brief research but its a Strategy game, heck, you compete with other heirs on a world map to turn everything your colour, using diplomacy, warfare and etc, pretty much the definition of a Strategy game.

Birthright is a Strategy/RPG hybrid. You do all of that, but you also take a 4-characrer (IIRC) party on short adventures in various dungeons. It actually beats BG to the title of the first RTwP D&D RPG.
It's not terribly good as RPG (much better as a strategy), though, and your polls a insignificant anyway, so whatever.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Quick search also brought Yendorian Tales: The Tyrants of Thaine (aka Yendorian Tales 3) (very fun game for M&M3 clone) , Halls of the Dead: Faery Tale Adventure 2 and Descent to Undermountain.

Nice finds, have added all 3. I take it you missed my request to provide links when you nominate a game? Or would that invalidate your claim of "quick search"

the other game I did find in my brief research but its a Strategy game, heck, you compete with other heirs on a world map to turn everything your colour, using diplomacy, warfare and etc, pretty much the definition of a Strategy game.

Birthright is a Strategy/RPG hybrid. You do all of that, but you also take a 4-characrer (IIRC) party on short adventures in various dungeons. It actually beats BG to the title of the first RTwP D&D RPG.
It's not terribly good as RPG (much better as a strategy), though, and your polls a insignificant anyway, so whatever.

The objective of the game is world domination via strategy game norms. Would you say these short adventures comprise the main meat of the game? Or are they just something to do because the strategy element didn't provide enough content? When playing it, do you think its an rpg with strategy elements or a strategy game with rpg elements?

Also, really no need to slag off the polls, you don't get an achievment for it...

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Infinitron or whoever manages these things, can someone remove the faery placeholder, I had no idea you can't edit poll choices (though it does make sense, of course).

 

[Erebus]

Betrayal in Antara had some flaws, but I still liked it.

I remember playing Faery Tale Adventure 2... I just can't remember anything else about it. I must have given up on it pretty quickly.

 

[Fowyr]

Nice finds, have added all 3. I take it you missed my request to provide links when you nominate a game? Or would that invalidate your claim of "quick search"

Oh! Sorry, all three games were pretty well known, even Yendor 3.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/halls-of-the-dead-faery-tale-adventure-ii
http://www.mobygames.com/game/yendorian-tales-the-tyrants-of-thaine
http://www.mobygames.com/game/descent-to-undermountain

 

[Infinitron]

Infinitron or whoever manages these things, can someone remove the faery placeholder, I had no idea you can't edit poll choices (though it does make sense, of course).

Sure you can, just delete the text and save changes.

 

[V_K]

Infinitron or whoever manages these things, can someone remove the faery placeholder, I had no idea you can't edit poll choices (though it does make sense, of course).

Sure you can, just delete the text and save changes.

Delete text where exactly? The poll options that have already been added and saved are uneditable, at least for mere mortals like us.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Betrayal in Antara had some flaws, but I still liked it.

I remember playing Faery Tale Adventure 2... I just can't remember anything else about it. I must have given up on it pretty quickly.

According to the wiki I read, the reason BiA was 'different' was because the original company that made the first game didn't have the rights to it when they wanted to make a sequel, hence they made a 'spiritual successor', and we all know what those words do to a fanbase :D

Nice finds, have added all 3. I take it you missed my request to provide links when you nominate a game? Or would that invalidate your claim of "quick search"

Oh! Sorry, all three games were pretty well known, even Yendor 3.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/halls-of-the-dead-faery-tale-adventure-ii
http://www.mobygames.com/game/yendorian-tales-the-tyrants-of-thaine
http://www.mobygames.com/game/descent-to-undermountain

Ah, so you use Moby Games, thanks, I'll take a look at that for future older polls. I'm not sure about "quick" though, unless you know what you're looking for as it gave 135 results for "1997 Role-Playing Game", I tried to research one at random, Bungmyeong, and, of course, it has no wiki and no links are immediately descriptive of it's original platform nor of it's contents. Baring in mind that I can assume no-one will be voting bungmyeon into the top 100, how much time is it worth to research all this kind of stuff? When it's mostly just the 1990s version of RPGmaker games... [hence I suggest smaller games get on the list via nomination rather than by pedantry...]

Infinitron or whoever manages these things, can someone remove the faery placeholder, I had no idea you can't edit poll choices (though it does make sense, of course).

Sure you can, just delete the text and save changes.

Thanks for that. Yeah, I was trying to add to it. Thanks for the work around, next time I'll turn it off and then on again :D

 

[Infinitron]

Infinitron or whoever manages these things, can someone remove the faery placeholder, I had no idea you can't edit poll choices (though it does make sense, of course).

Sure you can, just delete the text and save changes.

Delete text where exactly? The poll options that have already been added and saved are uneditable, at least for mere mortals like us.

If you're the OP of the thread (or a moderator like me) you have an edit button on the upper right corner of the poll. The poll option labels can be renamed. If you rename them to nothing (ie, delete them) the poll option is removed upon saving.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Infinitron or whoever manages these things, can someone remove the faery placeholder, I had no idea you can't edit poll choices (though it does make sense, of course).

Sure you can, just delete the text and save changes.

Delete text where exactly? The poll options that have already been added and saved are uneditable, at least for mere mortals like us.

If you're the OP of the thread (or a moderator like me) you have an edit button on the upper right corner of the poll. The poll option labels can be renamed. If you rename them to nothing (ie, delete them) the poll option is removed upon saving.

Nope, just tried it, VK is quite correct, us mortals, even OPs cannot alter the options in any way, even deleting.

 

[V_K]

Infinitron or whoever manages these things, can someone remove the faery placeholder, I had no idea you can't edit poll choices (though it does make sense, of course).

Sure you can, just delete the text and save changes.

Delete text where exactly? The poll options that have already been added and saved are uneditable, at least for mere mortals like us.

If you're the OP of the thread (or a moderator like me) you have an edit button on the upper corner of the poll. The poll option labels can be renamed. If you rename them to nothing (ie, delete them) the poll option is removed.

No, if you're not a mod, they can't. Proofpic from my recent poll:

 

[Infinitron]

Huh, well that's silly.

DarkUnderlord Taluntain Any way of letting thread creators have the same power to edit a poll as moderators do?

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Huh, well that's silly.

DarkUnderlord Taluntain Any way of letting thread creators have the same power to edit a poll as moderators do?

Not necessarily wise...

Example:

Do you have a big dick?

Yes 157
No 21

Edited:

No 157
Yes 21

 

[Fowyr]

I'm not sure about "quick" though, unless you know what you're looking for as it gave 135 results for "1997 Role-Playing Game",

Yep, and then I quickly scanned it, opening around 10 tabs for familiar games that were RPGs and just not re-released in 1997 as old Wizardries, for example. Checked that they indeed were 1997 games and posted it here.
Simple as that. I just played a lot of cRPGs. A lot.
Though guys like mondblut, octavius and V_K probably played more.

 

[V_K]

Well, depends on how you define "played"...

 

[Taluntain]

Huh, well that's silly.

DarkUnderlord Taluntain Any way of letting thread creators have the same power to edit a poll as moderators do?

It's all permission based so it can be done, sure, but I don't recall if changing the poll votes is a separate permission.

 

[anvi]

Betrayal in Antara
Fallout
Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny

Didn't like any of them.