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Playing Elminage right now; wish it was Wiz8...

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aweigh

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my first "blobber" was Wiz8. i LOVE wiz8. my second blobber was ARCANA, a wizardry clone for the SNES (grab the rom, i highly recommend it). i mention these two games because they are the only two blobbers i've actually finished and enjoyed albeit i've played very few games in the genre.

my third blobber was Paper Sorceror but I gave it up after 1 hour or so. i simply found it too hard and too boring.

my fourth blobber is now Elminage, and unlike Paper Sorceror I'm enjoying it. in fact, I'm already hopelessly lost in the first dungeon and out of maps and considering abandoning my noob party and retreating to the kingdom so i can spend 2 hours re-rolling a second squad.

i don't really have a lot of energy left right now to type up why i like it, and what i dislike about it, but i realize that i *like* this kind of game... BUT I LIKE WIZ8 MORE. from my little exposure to this genre and from my understanding that elminage is a very close approximation of older Wizardry i've come to the conclusion that yes, i LIKE this, buuuuut this ain't as cool as Wiz8.

are there ANY blobbers out there with the stuff that makes Wiz8 so good?

- the visible formations
- the character personality templates
- the dungeons that are actually places instead of just a straight up maze
- in-depth character building and stats and stuff
- visible monsters that can be approached with tactical use of terrain in mind
- ETC ETC ETC WIZ 8 IS AWESOME

tl;dr: elminage (which I understand is a wiz6 clone) is fun, but time-consuming and repetitive and tedious. are there more neo-blobbers like wiz8 out there?

EDIT: I absolutely HATE HATE HATE the real-time combat in other "blobbers" which pollute this genre. The tango-of-death simulators like grimrock can go fuck off and die and so do the people that prefer that banal shit boring combat to glorious turn-based (or phase-based) blobber combat such as that found in wiz8 and in elminage. also tried MM: Legacy and found it stupid.
 
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I mean, the closest to Wiz8 is probably Wiz6 and 7.

But Wiz8 just has the tightest system ever. Hasn't been touched since.
 
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aweigh

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i just played about 40 mins of Wiz 7 Gold on dosbos and... well, it's not for me. it's too... old. it's nothing like wiz 8.

sorry, it's not for me. any other recommendations?

EDIT: you can't even use WASD to move... jesus.
 

k0syak

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You could try the infinite maps hack if it's too tedious.

EDIT: Generation XTH and Labyrinth of Touhou are better, but animu as fuck, look at screenshots first to see if your sanity can handle it.
 
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aweigh

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the limited maps aren't a problem for me. I rather like that feature; gonna use some graph paper once i re-roll my second squad.

i don't find that sort of stuff tedious at all but rather the slow leveling and the inability to increase stats meaningfully.

the vancian casting system also does not compliment the dungeon-delving either, and the constantly trapped chests and everything being unindentified.

that's the stuff i find tedious.
 
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aweigh

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i can handle animu. i'm a grown man with his priorities in order: i.e. SAY NO TO FALLOUT 4 AND DECLINE.

i already went thru the anti-Jap phase every consolefag goes thru when they evolve into a pcfag. been there done that.

now i just want good gameplay. i could care less about how many desu desu desu's are in my face ne.
 

Suicidal

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Gonna second Labyrinth of Touhou. Really fucking good game with interesting mechanics, and probably the best JRPG I've ever played (I didn't play many tho). It's not really in any way like Wiz 8 (doesn't meet most of the points you mentioned) but it's entirely its own thing and if you like blobbers (and don't mind animu) it's definitely worth checking out. Elminage I didn't like myself. I can see the appeal if you're a fan of old wizardries but the randomness and lack of control over leveling up and grind just killed it for me.

Didn't play Generation so can't comment on that.
 

Grauken

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i just played about 40 mins of Wiz 7 Gold on dosbos and... well, it's not for me. it's too... old. it's nothing like wiz 8.

sorry, it's not for me. any other recommendations?

EDIT: you can't even use WASD to move... jesus.

Wait, you can handle Elminage but not Wiz 7 :retarded:
 
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aweigh

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my second Elminage squad just got wiped and I didn't know this game was pseudo-Iron Man.

LOL

i got wiped, game says my party members were sent to the temple, and they're still "alive" but recuperating, which means I have to create a NEW squad in order to progress (the time doesn't progress i.e. they don't recuperate unless days pass, and days only pass inside dungeons).

i immediately said, oh well i'll just reload my last save from inside the dungeon before getting wiped... NOPE SAVE FILE'S OVERWRITTEN haha

i love it!

and of course i can handle Elminage over Wiz 7 Gold. No WASD movement, incredibly limited character development, old graphics, and very slow to do anything. It is absolutely nothing like Wiz 8.
 

Grauken

Gourd vibes only
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Character development is pretty much the same in W7 and W8, sans a few element, WASD is for retards, and graphics in W7 are pretty much perfect (also don't play the Gold version, that's just stupid)
 

Gregz

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i can handle animu. i'm a grown man with his priorities in order: i.e. SAY NO TO FALLOUT 4 AND DECLINE.

i already went thru the anti-Jap phase every consolefag goes thru when they evolve into a pcfag. been there done that.

now i just want good gameplay. i could care less about how many desu desu desu's are in my face ne.

Try Dragon Quest VIII for PS2 (emulate using pcsx2). I played it a month ago and enjoyed it, and I'm a big Wiz 8 fan.

 

eric__s

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You should check out Wizards and Warriors. It's a lot like Wizardry 8, it's got flexible, phase-based combat, open, non-linear environments, a strong character development system, but it's a lot better in some regards too. Its maps are way better, its combat is so much faster, the way it introduces new classes is really smart, it's a very charming and fun world to explore. I personally like it more than Wizardry 8, but they're both good games.
 

Dyskolos

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Seconding Wizards and Warriors. Sadly forgotten game.

Try some of the Shin Megami Tensei games if you haven't already. Strange Journey is the best blobber of those, but you'll have to emulate since it's only for DS. Not sure if there's a 3DS emulator yet but SMT IV is also worth checking.

Then there are all the Etrians if you want grindy animu.
 

CryptRat

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my second Elminage squad just got wiped and I didn't know this game was pseudo-Iron Man.

LOL

i got wiped, game says my party members were sent to the temple, and they're still "alive" but recuperating, which means I have to create a NEW squad in order to progress (the time doesn't progress i.e. they don't recuperate unless days pass, and days only pass inside dungeons).

i immediately said, oh well i'll just reload my last save from inside the dungeon before getting wiped... NOPE SAVE FILE'S OVERWRITTEN haha

i love it!
You're wrong (if we're talking about Elminage Gothic, I haven't played the original Elminage but I assume it is the same). You can load your save game, it's not overwritten. You only missed that after loading your save game you must click on "Party 1" or something like that (the game doesn't go automatically inside the dungeon).
 

k0syak

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Hell yeah, W&W was good!
It was pretty bugged on release (I remember some shit with scrolling in town screens), did patches/mods fix it?
 
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aweigh

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yeah i noticed now that my second squad is waiting for me :D

oh well! my third (and hopefully final squad) is already up to level 8, PLUS I GOT A SAMURAI WEE.

front-line is: sammy (samurai hotlet), brawly (gnome brawler), fighty (dwarven fighter)
back-line is: maggie (elf mage), bishie (elf bishop) and alchie (gnome alchemist)

i sure am creatie with the names eh ^_^

once the honey-moon phase i'm experiencing right now with Elminage wears off I'm gonna "try out the demo" of Wizards and Warriors for sure! thanks a lot for recommending it guys. I looked up youtube videos and it looks very close to what I'm looking for.

(although i'm thoroughly enjoying Elminage at the moment. my only critique is the maze-like design of each dungeon. i enjoy a maze but it's got to have some reason to it not just be... maze-y)
 

eric__s

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Hell yeah, W&W was good!
It was pretty bugged on release (I remember some shit with scrolling in town screens), did patches/mods fix it?
No, it was never fixed. The problem has to do with how later versions of Windows (basically everything beyond 2000, this is an old ass game) processes the AVI files the towns are built on. I rerendered the files so they're readable by modern OSes, download them here and replace the files in your townavi folder.
 

Doktor Best

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What about Gold Box Games? Well they have tactical interface, but thats just an improvement imho. And they aged very well, imho better than wizardry 6+7.
 

Serus

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aweigh, really if you enjoy Elminage Gothic then you should be able to enjoy Wizardry 7. Give it a (2nd) chance, this time not the Gold version (it doesn't improve on anything, mostly replaces portraits of characters with worse ones and adds a bug or two). The interface is a bit clunky - yes, but if you can get past it with a little effort its not that bad. As a prize, a really good game awaits you, one of the best in the genre imo. It is very similar to Wizardry 8 in many ways, the world is really big, character systems are very similar (except class changing is unbalanced in w7), dungeons are complicated, some fights can be very challenging. Graphics are imho good. I say it as someone who played w7 for the first time in the 2000s, everything was "hand-made" with some little details here and there that ads to the charm but thats a matter of preference obviously. If you can't play it past the inital "interface and graphics sucks" stage and enjoy everything else then it will be your loss :D.
 
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I also really liked Wiz8, but couldn't get into the earlier ones. And even with Wiz8, feelings were somewhat mixed while playing it. How can something this good be this bad? or How can something this bad be this good? It was constantly hinting and alluding to some hidden and unrealized potential that blobbers have. "I might be a bit (a lot) rough around the edges and slightly retarded at times (often), but just wait until Wiz9! ...and for the other developers who take what we have introduced here and improve on it!"
 

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