Andrew Spencer Studios‘ 1994 release, Ecstatica, is a masterpiece of survival horror.
Ecstatica is as unforgiving as it is surprising. Turning the wrong corner will often result in death – at least until you can gain a foothold in the game.
Andrew Spencer Studios‘ 1994 release, Ecstatica, is a masterpiece of survival horror.
Ecstatica is as unforgiving as it is surprising. Turning the wrong corner will often result in death – at least until you can gain a foothold in the game.
Created by Black Isle Studios using the BioWare‘s acclaimed Infinity Engine, Planescape: Torment is a classic Role-Playing Game with isometric graphics and a simple point-and-click interface.
Amberstar is a huge, sprawling Role-Playing Game that was first released by German developer Thalion in 1992. It’s a game that certainly does owe a debt or two to Richard Garriott‘s famous Ultima series, although Amberstar is unique (and good) enough to stand on its proverbial own two feet.
Chaos Strikes Back is to RPGs what The Empire Strikes Back is to movie sequels… It is simply one of the best – and toughest – real-time role-players ever made. Dungeon Master was incredible, but the sequel, Chaos Strikes Back, is just another dimension…
Developed by Chunsoft and released for the Famicom by Enix in 1986, Dragon Quest was a landmark moment in video game history.
Dragon Warrior is the American NES release of Dragon Quest, translated into English and tweaked here and there (I say “tweaked here and there” but the US version had battery back-up saves and the Japanese version used password saves, so there was a big difference there), and released by Nintendo in 1989. These grabs are from the later North American English language release.
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was first released in 2011 by Polish developer CD Projekt Red.
It is the predecessor to the smash hit The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and also follows the exploits of Geralt of Rivia – a Witcher, or monster-hunter – on a series of open-world adventures.
I remember playing and reviewing this PC MS-DOS game when it first came out in 1994.
Al-Qadim: The Genie’s Curse is a more ‘action-oriented’ TSR role-playing game, compared to many of the other ‘Gold Box’ TSR RPGs of the time (and there were lots – courtesy of SSI and US Gold). ‘RPG Lite’ you could call it.
First released in 2015, CD Projekt Red‘s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a third-person, open world Role-Playing Game that is based on a series of novels by the Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski.
Obviously it is the third instalment in the series (and last, according to the developers), and in it you play a monster-hunting detective badass called Geralt – a Witcher; a carrier of two swords (one steel, for killing humans, and one silver, for killing monsters); and a superhuman solver of problems with acute senses and no emotions.
Seiken Densetsu 3 was released by Squaresoft in 1995 and an English fan translation came out in 2000. Only five years after the game’s original release there was a fan translation… That’s unheard of. And there are various translations available now, including German and French.
I absolutely love the graphical style of Squaresoft‘s Seiken Densetsu 3. It’s a masterwork of pixel graphics artistry. Everything in it, from the characters, to the buildings, to the items, and to the magic spell effects are all incredibly well presented and thought-out. These are definitely among the most iconic 2D RPG graphics ever made. And the people who made them deserve a round of applause from the rest of the gaming world for creating them. 🙂