What's the most hardcore RPG you've completed

[Rhuantavan]

I grew up with Betrayal at Krondor, and have played through it almost every year since it came out. But the biggest achievement was finishing RoA: Star Trail... I probably couldn't do it today.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

To the people talking about automaps being decline, I think you are going from one extreme to the other. Mapping things by hand on graphing paper is too much, and most of us want to play someone cool, not a cartographer. Of course on the other side, you have the other extreme, the modern mapping, which maps everything down to the tiniest detail absolving the player from any kind of thinking. The optimal answer is, as with most other things, in the middle. I personally like the approach in games like Gothic/Risen where you can purchase maps but they are fairly high level and only serve as a general guide, not as an exact representation of the world. This is what an adventurer type would usually do anyway, and it's a good compromise between exploration and streamlining. Ultima Underworld is another example of this kind of approach, giving you the general outline of areas as you visit them, but only after you visit them, and letting you make notes/labels.

Back on topic. Hardcore can mean different things. Hardcore in terms of having to think/solve puzzles/overcome obstacles, that would be Ultima Underworld for me. Arx Fatalis also, but while Arx was perhaps even more hardcore/difficult in this regard, its puzzles were nowhere near as elegant as UUW, so overall UUW. Hardcore in terms of combat difficulty, probably Gothic 2 Gold. Hardcore in terms of obsolete UI, graphics and other stuff, Betrayal at Krondor, Ultima 1-3.

 

[laclongquan]

This is a bit hard to say.

The only worthy of that category would be Icewind Dale 2, hardest difficulty, but I havent completed it yet.

BG2 got too many exploits when I played it, so I hesitate to say it belong to the hardcore game.

Hammer & Sickle, and Silent Storm Sentinels with maximum item degradation. Guns can get from perfect to 50% degraded in one battle. It's about the most hardcore form I can think of, but not what OP asked for.

Unreal World is most hardcore rogue RPG-lite but I am not sure that fit the bill either.

 

[Musaab]

Getting unbanned on the Codex.

 

[Prime Junta]

Does NetHack count? Ascended that with most of the character classes.

 

[Mustawd]

F01 and Wizardy 6.

I tend not to finish a lot of RPGs (at least in the past. Now I usually play till I'm done)

 

[Watser]

Akalabeth: World of Doom. I finished it about a year ago I think. It's a shit game and not awfully hard apart from gremlins stealing all your food. Fucking gremlins

 

[NotAGolfer]

Another notorious quitter here, didn't finish most RPGs I played since most of them are just too long and lose their initial appeal after doing the same stuff again and again and again.
But the hardest ones I finished:

Fallout 2 melee build - Wasn't fun and I don't even know why anymore, I guess I was obsessed with the game at some point.
Jagged Alliance 2 - Well it's not THAT hard since I didn't use the fan-made 1.13 patch but you can call it hardcore anyway.
Lands of Lore 2 - Not really that hard but them map layouts and puzzles made it pretty tricky sometimes.
Daggerfall - Actually finishing the game was quite challenging. Clearing some of these enormous dungeon mazes too.
Realms of Arkania 2 - ... I don't think that one counts, it's pretty easy imo. But people call it hardcore all the time so there you go. ^^


Everything else is popamole, including Fallout 1 (go for the eyes! ... I might have listed it if I chose melee there too) and Gothic 1 and 2.

Does Robinson's Requiem count?
That might be the most hardcore game I ever played and finished.

 

[Fowyr]

Does Robinson's Requiem count?
That might be the most hardcore game I ever played and finished.

Nope, no stats, but it's indeed the game that can give nightmares to entire throng of modern game developers.

 

[laclongquan]

Jagged Alliance 2 with The Counterattack turn on would be hardcore I suppose. I finish without plenty of times but never try to finish with that massive battle.

 

[Goromorg]

Baldur's Gate trilogy with sword coast stratagems mod.

 

[Trojan_generic]

Going by number of times I died, ZangbandTK or Nethack

Nethack took me like 20 years to finish, but I managed in the end. Good that there has not been a sequel.

 

[Nael]

Might and Magic I-V

 

[AetherVagrant]

Most rpgs I played in the 90s without the benefit of the internet felt pretty brutal.
Quest for glory series : games take maybe a couple hours to complete with help when you get stuck, but QFG 2 and 4 each took my preteen self a year to complete.

Might and Magic 6 took almost 2 years, it was my intro to blobbers and sunk my birthday money on a might and magic collection before realizing I didnt like the gameplay style. Had to beat at least one of them till next holiday money dropped.

Ultima Underworld 2 had me racking up phone charges on bbs systems, it was my first ultima and still one of the most compeling and frustrating games ive ever played.

Daggerfall I sunk over 200hours in before getting the lich king bug, didnt know there was a bug and spent maybe another 100 hours never progressing the main plot. Still have more hours in daggerfall than any other game but haven't finished it.

 

[Beowulf]

Came here to see someone mentioning UrMom.

Disappointed.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Captive. Better yet, I was playing the PC version which is bugged and gives out too little cash and XP.

After that would be either Swords of Xeen or Bloodwych (with expansion pack).

 

[Fowyr]

Bloodwych (with expansion pack).

My PC version of Blodwych is bugged.
It generates random walls and gradually corrupts entire map.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

So far Ultima 4-6 and Wizardry 6 are probably the hardcore-stest I played (at least by OPs definition, I should probably say old school-stest). Planning on playing more in the future but probably nothing older than Ultima 4 anymore.

 

[Palikka]

Ultra lawful ending in ADOM which I got last january. First played maybe 18 years ago or so.

 

[Dorateen]

Elminage Gothic

Finished the post-game dungeons last summer.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Bloodwych (with expansion pack).

My PC version of Blodwych is bugged.
It generates random walls and gradually corrupts entire map.

I remember HOTU (Home of the Underdogs) having this problem. A patched/more recent version of the game exists that resolves this problem...or at least fixes the first such problem, which comes very early on.

I've played Bloodwych on 3 systems: The Amstrad CPC (which is a vastly different game from the other versions), the PC (which I couldn't get anywhere due to the same bug) and the Atari ST (via emulator), and it was the last one that I beat.

 

[Gregz]

Does NetHack count? Ascended that with most of the character classes.

Only if you don't savescum

 

[Daemongar]

If you really like a game, it's not so hardcore its just a game. I played the original Bard's Tale games at least twice each, and out of those, I'd say Bard's Tale 2 would be the hardest to repeat, with it all culminating in the final dungeon.

Played Wizardry 8 last year with vanilla classes - that was brutal in spots, but I ended up really enjoying the game and reminding myself that "there is no point in racing to the end, I'm here to relax." If you don't enjoy combat in rpg's what the hell are you playing the game for?

I think that the most hardcore I didn't beat was MM2, but I put so much time into the game and was backed into a "not having a save game to save me" corner. Would like to try to redeem myself by playing it on a C64 emulator with save states, but I guess that would be middle-to-soft core. There was so much to discover in that game, too.

 

[eric__s]

Realms of Arkania 2 - ... I don't think that one counts, it's pretty easy imo. But people call it hardcore all the time so there you go. ^^

I still don't understand what our definition of hardcore is, but the first one is pretty difficult. You have very few leads to find map pieces in a totally open world that tries to kill you at every possible chance, if not through actual enemy encounters then through tetanus and the flu. You can also get locked in this tomb at the very end of the game if you take any treasure, which is what happened to me, forcing me to have to restart. So I'd say that's pretty hardcore.

 

[Johannes]

Aleshar: World of Ice.

But HOW.
I thought that only Haba could complete it.

When I finally understood that you need a lot of inane grind for your weapon skills, I put it on back burner again.
I'm still fair in cutting. Or weapon levels will start to accumulate faster?

You can't rely on meleeing, due to the critical hit system and no saving in dungeons.
The key is to use magic. The most dangerous enemies are the undead in the dungeons containing the three artefacts needed to defeat the end boss. Balefire hardly ever works when you really need it in my experience, but "Whirlwind" (Air+Earth AEO spell) worked quite well.
Trolls are easy prey for Fire based spells.
If you want to melee you need to Stun the opponent first. If they get just one swing at you you run the risk of them getting a critical hit.

Didn't you need melee against the final boss? I don't recall it very well, maybe you could stun him too? Against magic resistant enemies (like the demon before going thru the portal) the spell that pushes them back works still, but the final boss is so big I recall that being ineffective. But it's so long ago I can't really recall, also not 100% sure if I ever actually beat the final boss or just banged my head against the wall and gave up.