Help me see ARPGs in a new light, Yea Forums

@472219091
don't @ me

Seems like you're only playing top-down games with diablo loot.
Why not give Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance a shot then? The second one is better but the first has a special place in my heart. The barmaid especially.

As for other games, the term ARPG is a pretty broad genre and can even accommodate titles like Tales of Vesperia and the like.
Any specific criteria you want in your A.R.G.P?

Fuck off, avatarfag.

Not familiar with Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, and I haven't gotten far enough into Norrath (second or third difficulties) to know whether it has immunities or not. It's also not well documented, so I don't know if there are legendaries with low drop rates/ways to augment drop rates/etc.

It does have actual blocking, involved combat, and potion chugging (which I honestly don't mind too much). Overall not bad, but I'm still pretty bored by it. Probably doesn't help that I have no background with Everquest.

Can I coop it?
Is it on PC?

Untold Legends was a PSP launch title. It was basically a portable alternative to the Dark Alliance/Champions of Norrath games. It's pretty fucking good, especially for an early PSP game, but don't bother with any of the sequels, they're shit

@472219227
Only one (you) for you retard.

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 1 and 2 are co-op and I'm sure you can get them on GoG.
Some of the best memories I have are playing that game with my sister.

>playing that game with my sister.
Is/was she hot?

Is it just me or do these games honestly feel leagues better to play with a controller? Normally I feel the opposite, but the Gauntlet/twin-stick style suits them better I feel.

Pic related is something I plan on coming back to sometime. Played it on a friend's computer in elementary, always confused the title with "Fable" so people would have no idea what I was talking about when I tried to ID it for years.

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EQ knowledge helps a bit, but it's not super necessary.

Define hot?

big tits
cute face
innocent personality

>Is it just me or do these games honestly feel leagues better to play with a controller?
Honestly I agree, but only because it feels more responsive with a controller with sharper input as opposed to having to use a mouse.
Unpopular opinion I'm sure.

You've played so many different games and couldn't get into it. Sounds like you just don't enjoy them. I don't know why you have to force yourself to try. People like different things and it's fine.
If you didn't enjoy D3 which is the most approachable and casual version of the genre it's probably just not for you.

At the time we were eight (me) and nine (her) so no, she wasn't hot.

I went back to play Fate as an adult and I don't think it holds up. Very basic gameplay, no story to speak of, monster and level generation are both random enough to be completely meaningless. Even the loot treadmill is shallow enough to not give that crackhead appeal. Only really worth it for the nostalgia trip.

Dark Alliance is actualy good game. Wish game was open world. Still on of best co op games on ps2.

Same reason character action games intimidated me when I was younger before hitting my stride and having them become one of my favorite genres.

Same reason I used to enjoy 3D platformers substantially more than 2D, but now the gap has been narrowed.

Same reason I'm still dipping my toe into the water for shmups every now and again with Gradius, R-Type, Einhander, and Thunder Force. With these in particular, I can see and understand the appeal, but don't have the proficiency to do more than survive.

I like improving and trying different things.

was she atleast kind and friendly?

That's been my impression as well. I only have plans to play the first game (accidentally posted the wrong cover), but it was developed by WildTangent so honestly none of it comes as a surprise.

Don't indulge his incest fantasies, his incest folder is big enough.

Thanks for the reminder that we'll never get Champions 3 or really any game like this ever again.

Dark Alliance and Champions of Norrath are tied for my favorite videogames. I would kill for an HD remaster or even port to PC.

Yeah. Had no idea how to play the game and developed arachnophobia as a result but once she learned how to sustain the fire wall she hada good time.
Being nine we laughed out assess off at the frosty bastard sword.

Is champions 2 good?
never played it

I hate clicking too play dark souls and dragon's dogma

Dark Alliance games were never on PC.
You can emulate them though

I really wish there was some convenient archive of all the noteworthy WildTangent games. I'd like to crawl through the catalogue for the nostalgia but I know I'm probably not going to play any for longer than half an hour and I don't want to hunt them all down individually. The whole catalogue can't be more than 20 gigs.

PCSX2's performance is still pretty rough for Snowblind games, I'm having to play Norrath with software rendering and I don't have enough overhead left over to be able to toggle a full 2x speed when backtracking.

8700k at 4.7GHz. The dev builds are pretty active, so I'm sure it won't be too much longer before at least something like DX11 HW rendering is viable.

>I would kill for an HD remaster
Its a possibility.
I hear that some companies are planning to experiment with older games.
Might mean a HD remaster or a reboot.

It doesn't have the same soul as the first. The story and geography isn't organic like the first one, IIRC it's hubworld connecting to different areas.

Gameplay is legit but it's relatively unmemorable.

Thanks user, was looking for some PSP just now.

I'm honestly looking forward to it at least a little bit because I've heard dual-wielding is overpowered, I'm playing Barb, and you can import your character.
I already enjoy those games.
If you can filter out hidden object and match 3 games, and by genre in general, it doesn't sound like it'd be too bad honestly. If you ever do follow through, please share what you find. Doesn't need to be comprehensive, but it's a publisher that (rightly) noone talks about.

>Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
Made by the same guys that made Norrat

It sounds to me like you don't enjoy the core gameplay of the diablolike. You don't like the clicking play style or the grind or the procedurally generated levels. I'm not sure what there is that you could be missing other than not fully understanding the games which you don't need to enjoy them

Another game that flew under many peoples' radars but isn't isometric and not too much of a true ARPG that I still surprisingly found enjoyment in.

The story is purely surface-level, but the world and gameplay loop falls firmly in that Twilight Zone between mediocre and experimental so you find yourself coming back for more.

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It's pretty strong. Barbarian and Berserker can breeze through difficulties pretty easily.

Basically the fun comes from character building. It is entertaining to create a character, plan a specific build path, and work toward it seeing your power incrementally increase as you slowly work toward your goal. Along the way, you might find rare items that either work in your build's favor, or are so powerful you could make an entire build to mesh with them.
These games are boring at low levels almost universally because you're at step 0 of your build and your character can't do very much. The fun really starts to happen when you're wading into hordes of enemies and killing them by the group with your weapon or spell of choice. The simplistic gameplay actually enables that sort of thing, rather than precludes it.

I played Eldar Saga on the Wii. Probably the most powerfully dull game I've ever seen.

This and its sequel are actually alright.
I donno why but it got me to play Lord of Arcana after it too.

No idea what the fuck happened with Valhalla Knights 3 though, I think people only played it for the brothel.

You're the man, thanks..

>These games are boring at low levels almost universally because you're at step 0 of your build and your character can't do very much.
This is literally the most comfy phase

Youre right except for this

Thanks for reminding me to listen to the CoN soundtrack again. OP, this is for you, good sir.

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got more m8?
I didnt fapr for 01 days.

To be honest, Diablo II makes me a bit anxious over speccing the wrong way and not having the freedom to respec if I want to try something slightly or radically different. I don't want to end up with 5 skill points invested in something worthless, and with it taking a couple dozen hours to level and gear a character, I don't want to blow all of that time again for a new build.

I honestly agree with this sentiment. Minimal investment, feeling out a character for the first time, enjoying how new and novel they feel before gear starts limiting you in a serious way.

Patrician taste in every way.

I find that really depends on the game. Diablo 2 is fun to start over but Path of Exile isn't.

>Diablo II makes me a bit anxious over speccing the wrong way and not having the freedom to respec
Honestly D2 doesn't have a lot of freedom to try wacky things in that sense. Very few things are actually good enough to beat the game on Hell. It's not a very newbie friendly game in that sense. Trying something different without knowing what you're doing is bound to lead to a bad time.

I think I'll just try "letting go" and using Character Editor to respec on the fly. The temptation has always been there for me as well to look up ideal builds online, but I think I've just been too up-tight.

Not the greatest metric either, but I'm seeing 100% Hell speedruns in like 10 hours or so. I feel like I was probably lingering too much at lower difficulties, and if I were to shift gears to focusing on Nightmare, I'll find some renewed enjoyment.

Thanks everyone here for jostling my brain loose a little bit here. I haven't changed my opinion yet, but a few things clicked.

Played dark alliance 1 for the first time in years.
The voice acting is fantastic

Trying to tackle nightmare with a bad build, too low level and bad gear is going to be hard if you don't know what you're doing. Freeing yourself to try more builds might be a good idea though.

Precisely. That, and IIRC Character Editor (but if not Character Editor, then definitely another program) lets you stash items in an external application for use later if you find the default stash too restrictive.

I'm not interested in any of the overhaul mods, furthest I go with the game itself is a Glide wrapper because there's always some monkey's paw shit with things I don't want changed.

check out Grim Dawn. its currently the best the genre has to offer and has never been in a better place game wise than it is now. I am dead serious.

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I honestly can't tell if I enjoyed D2 as a kid or if I was just young, dumb and susceptible to the skinner box joys of killing monsters to hear rings and gemstones drop. Looking back, a lot of the fun I got seemed to come from the feeling of holding down RMB and thinking "This blob of monsters that was troubling me earlier is now melting because of how big my numbers have gotten".

Everyone I know who's reminisced about Diablo 2 makes a point of bringing up the people they played with, which makes me think it was less that they enjoyed Diablo 2 specifically and more that Diablo 2 provided enough low-level engagement to keep them occupied without the gameplay actively getting in the way of socialization, it also explains why ARPGs around that time period that failed to include co-op just did not succeed to the same degree Diablo did.

That and Van Helsing have been on my radar after seeing them on sale several times. I'll keep it in mind.

Thanks for emphasizing it.

I can't stand the fast-paced nature of D3 and PoE, Torchlight too I think but I didn't play that for long. I adore when it's slower and abilities feel "heavier", whether or not the gameplay itself is more thoughtful is beside the fact (although in this case the fights usually end up requiring more tactful thinking because you cannot spam abilities). For that reason I love the old Champions of Norrath games and Untold Legends. Wish there could be a new one like that with solid coop.

I don't really play single player but there's Plugy which allows for a fuckton of storage space and IIRC also has build reset option so you don't have to fiddle around with stuff outside the game. The only downside is that I believe it doesn't work on the newest version of the game but I'm not sure about that.

Zonfire's Hero Editor is the best D2LoD editor there is.

You can export any items you find so that you can import them on subsequent characters that can make use of them, or when such items would actually be useful (like finding great low to mid level sets a different class could use with a high level character). This is one of many great features.

PlugY doesn't work for 1.14.

GD fans always call it the best game of the genre but as someone who likes and plays a lot of diablolikes I really can't get into GD because of how crappy it is. So take GD fanboy opinions with a grain of salt.

Irelynn Dunham

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When will we be getting the Champions of Norrath games remastered?

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Right so you'd have to downgrade to 1.13 but you don't actually lose anything for doing that. Plugy also enables ladder-only stuff on single player, right?

Soon, I hope. I had a lot of fun playing theose with my bros.

As someone who still plays D2 occasionally I think there's definitely more to it than that. The game holds up remarkably well up to this day. The pre-rendered graphics are somewhat timeless and the game's design doesn't suffer from a bunch of weird shit that most old games do. The gameplay just works. It's still a lot of fun to me.
It also has a bunch of mods with fairly active communities. There's a new Path of Diablo ladder starting on aug 2nd.

post more, my fren

Return to arms is my favorite, i replayed so many times already

co-op