Why were first-person dungeon crawlers always specifically party-based?

Is that the one where you play as a shapeshifter? I remember playing it a long time ago but I forgot the name.

yeah, it's a nice concept

while OP is wrong, yeah this is why multiple people parties are more common

it makes combat more engaging and lets you design encounters around a balanced group instead of having to account for every character's playstyle

So what are you guys playing?
>Wizardry 2
>Elminage Gothic

"mdoern" dungeon crawler with puzzles, good story and a nice class/character customisation?

Puzzles? Legend of Grimrock.

Currently playing Starcrawlers. It was better than I expected. I was afraid it would get boring quickly but playing on Hardcore + Ironman helps and I like the fact it is Sci-Fi.

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Goes back to the RPG genres roots in tabletop games. Stuck around because it makes combat and character progression (or rather, adding the element of party composition) more interesting.

Don't play Labyrint of Refrain: Coven of Dusk. The puzzles are annoying fetching quests, the story is good but really, really fridge unsettling and the character customisation is Disgaea.

Are there any good first-person anime dungeon crawlers on PC?

I fucking love blobbers

D&D nigger

Refrain is technically good but I am just trying to avoid other people becoming traumatised too.

If you don't count emulators, then no.

play fuckin GRIMWAH YOU SAPE

Going through Demon Gaze 2. It's been a few years since I played the first one, but this feels like a step down in a lot of ways. I'm only a few hours in though, so maybe it's too early to just write it off.

Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy kind of counts. Stranger of Sword City too. It is all up to how much of the teenage stuff and generic anime stuff you can handle. Outdated and clunky mechanics/menus are par for genre.

>design encounters around a balanced group
>bring 3 warriors and 1 red mage

would be simple and boring otherwise

Etrian odyssey.

They weren't store.steampowered.com/app/613240/Stonekeep/

>Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy
>Stranger of Sword City
He asked for good games.

Because crawling with friends makes the crawling half as bad

Stuff your shit banal boring as far up yours as you can, lad.

>t. seething incel weeb with shit taste
Post your steam page and prove me wrong.

Time to shill some Warriors of the Eternal Sun
>Top-down outside with turn-based combat
>First-person inside (dungeons) with real-time combat
>Set in the D&D Hollow World
>Music by Frank Klepacki (C&C Red Alert & Dune)
youtube.com/watch?v=_618ufTWiRA

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>using Steam

Keep on digging, digging, digging
Keep on digging that sweet grave

reminder that ishar collection on GOG is absolutely unplayable and you should get amiga ports instead

thecompany.pl/game/Ishar 3: The Seven Gates Of Infinity

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I enjoyed Etrian Odyssey but didn't like Grimrock and dropped it after 20 minutes.

Are there any good modern games in this style for PC?

The more customization and shit the better

What's the general consensus on Elminage Gothic? Can you upload use your own portraits in the Steam version?

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interesting, I've never heard of it. the outworld looks rly well made, i expected something much simpler.

I'm up to B3F of the noob cave and it's a blast
using default portraits so far, haven't tried the image replacement thing if it's possible on the PC gothic version.

>Portraits
Yeah.
>OST
Also a yeah if you want to add in your own. A bit more involved, but totally doable.

If you played and liked Original on the PSP, then you'll like this one. Make sure to look up the mod that allows infinite maps and the high-contrast map mod to make it easier to read.

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Didn't Dungeon Master have a party? I swear it did.

Lands of Lore 1 is to me still the most beautiful VGA game of all time. Sound, music, animations. Absolutely unbelieveable how much effort that must have been.

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>infinite maps
not cool
draw maps yourself if you must but don't cheat

Yes and no. Technically you could pick only one character but I do not know why you would as most of them are specialised.

Vaporum is a good modern one with a single party member

Is the Dungeon Master mod for Grimrock good?

Based. Lands of Lore is still Top5 dungeon crawlers, and it's 25 years old.

The game had fucking Patrick Stewart as a voice actor

Not him, but I find the non-CD version better. I think the voice acting, while very well done for its time and still better than a LOT of western dubs of Japanese games, is still a bit discordant with the game.

Who ever did the art/graphics for this game is insane

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>What's the general consensus on Elminage Gothic?
You like 1-5 Wizardry?
You REALLY FUCKING LIKE 1-5 Wizardry?
If you do then there's nothing better, it's a fantastic game, although they took out most of the puzzles from the previous games and nerfed some classes, but it's a fantastic dungeon crawler, great depth, loads of options, lots and lots of content, batshit fucking insane post game dungeons that will stimulate your Wiz4 PTSD real nice.
>Can you upload use your own portraits
Officially, no, because they fucked up the port so you technically can't use either custom portraits or music, but you can still hard mod either of them in with some patience.

I'd like to get to the next floor TODAY grandpa. I don't want to sit there while you draw your stupid map of this godforsaken place.

Besides, who the hell makes a magic map that can break by using it just a few times? I just don't have the patience to draw my own maps anymore unless the dungeons are small like in King's Field, but I still recommend the high-contrast mod if you ever use the in-game map..

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Second best RPG the megadrive/genesis ever got. It's a good one if you don't mind the whole being a 16-bit console game thing.

What if I'm bad at drawing?

Which one is the best? I want to you say Buck Rogers, my all-time favorite Sci-Fi RPG even though the music and to some degree graphics suck ass, but no one except me has played it. So I'm guessing Phantasy Star?

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Graph paper. Even you can't fail at drawing simple straight lines when the paper's already showing where the lines go.

you teleport into a rock wall and your party fucking dies.

I tried it after beating Wizardry 1 today, used Malor to trap myself in a rock. Pretty damn funny.

Any tips? Downloading right now

I've never played that game, but what do you mean by magic map and infinite maps? The game doesn't have a auto-map feature or something?

i thought Gothic was the shit one and Original the good one. Pls help

>The game doesn't have a auto-map feature or something?
nope
It's like the SNES version of Wizardry 1, where you use limited spell charges to briefly show a map of the places you've already explored. Each time you wanna look at the map again you need to cast it again.
In Elminage Gothic you also have a consumable item in addition to the spell.

>Eye of the Beholder
>turn based
You shouldn't talk about what you don't know, sonny boy.

Phantasy Star IV specifically. II is good too but not top tier, and III is an interesting trainwreck that's nice to read about but miserable to actually play.
Also Buck Rogers' console port kind of sucked. Cut out a lot of stuff and it never got the Matrix Cubed sequel.

This poster is a stage 3 ECG. Do not believe his lies.

I'm only level 10 so far, but if you play on Hardcore, which I recommend, I definitely suggest you make one of your characters a tank that can taunt or somehow protect the other members.
To get a special party-member, make sure that you don't scrap the AI core when you're given the choice.

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>hk 47
heh

>i thought Gothic was the shit one and Original the good one.
Uh? They're different entries.
Original has a few different things regarding balance, like completely broken thieves and brawlers and has a few more puzzle quests and quirky real time events on the maps with roaming NPCs, it's also fairly light hearted for most things. The post game is also not as bullshit as Gothic due to again, broken balance that makes you easily stroll through it shitting gorillion damage combinations with your brawlers.

Gothic has better balance, as in not completely gamebreaking classes like the aforementioned thieves/brawlers, better customization, much tougher dungeons and general difficulty and more mechanics like EX skills, it's also a more serious story all around, could really be mistaken for a Wizardry game. Unlike Original and the other entries you also do not have an automap in Gothic, which adds quite a lot to the difficulty and why a lot of people cheat unbreakable magic maps, because the dungeons are sadistic bullshit starting from the very first one.

Can anyone here explain to me why do younger people find these unappealing? Is it too much a product of its time? I even encounter detractors of FPDC among VN players, which makes no sense to me if their argument is playability.

ain't it fucked up how dungeon crawlers were like the most nerdshit high fantasy eurojank genra and now it's dominated by animu weebshit waifu?
not complaining, i like them all

I guess
The west abandoned them while japan loved them rong time

A lot of time take a good time until they click, you have to create your party, you don't have a lot of interesting skills at the beginning, some require grinding over strategy etc.

>dungeons are sadistic bullshit starting from the very first one
Oh I think it was because of this iirc, everyone told me to play Original because Gothic was balls to the walls hard but not like Wizardry 4 of course

Blame Ultima 7

What the fuck did I just write? I mean they usually take a lot of time until they click and you get to the good parts.

well I can't help you since I have never played Original and don't know what it's like. But why do you dislike Gothic?

But Ultima 7 played like fucking shit. I mean really, that game LOOKED fancy, but the gameplay, Jesus, fuck.

A lot of games that have innovative ideas or fancy production values get all the attention even if they play like ass.

Yeah, it is true they cut out a lot from the port but it does at least have music and real sound effects. The derelict spaceship was much more scary on the Megadrive with its eerie music compared to the completely quiet DOS version. I also found it easier to navigate with the top-down view because I don't think the DOS version with its first-person view had a auto-map feature?
It's a damn shame Matrix Cube never got ported.

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>because Gothic was balls to the walls hard but not like Wizardry 4 of course
I don't know about that, certain dungeons like Hasrana falls, the Igdra church or Ulm Zakhir's hall are pretty brutal and they're the average main campaign dungeon, post game dungeons are easily Wiz4 tier, the Caves of the Ancients and more importantly, Ibag's tower are a true ordeal, and not just because they're infested by enemy batches that can easily wipe you out in one turn even without ambushes, the layouts are absolutely insane.

On the other hand nothing beats playing as a summoner and enslaving gods to your will, not to mention turn them as legit party members if you so like instead of just summoned beings, Gothic is a real treat, you shouldn't miss on it.

Cool, gonna get it then. Thanks man

I know, doesn't change the fact that it revolutionized CRPGs and everyone started copying it to this day.

>sadistic bullshit starting from the very first one.
come on now, the noob-noob caves are pretty laid-back. Navigation is easy, the chest traps are mostly harmless (and have a high chance of missing if you do trigger them) and there's a convenient healing well.

For somebody used to dungeon crawlers, sure.
Doesn't change the fact that the layout is deliberately confusing, especially from the second floor onwards, and the third floor is worse, with a real nasty monster closet you're not really supposed to open and will get you killed if you do, not to mention that the healing well is at the entrance of the first floor, and good luck backtracking in there with all those fixed encounter tiles.
Lots of people also miss on the very first quest of the game too.

well if you put it like that, I can see beginners getting confused. I have my perception formed by my recent playthrough of Wiz1, which gleefully teleports you to a place with one-way doors and a dark zone on the very first floor.

A lot of old western RPGs attempted to replicate D&D, specifically the party dynamic and controlling multiple characters. These old games tended to have a party you designed yourself and it tended to stay that way, just being a coordinated whole for dealing with traps or talking to NPCs. Some genres, like the isometric RPG, flourished and kept changing. But others, like dungeon crawlers, tended to mostly keep the classic route and stay the same. So you have a lot of dungeon crawlers which still involve making a party of 4-6 characters and using their skills to clear a dungeon and talk with NPCs. See: Etrian Odyssey series.

The nips fell in love with Wizardry and today the people making non-above-A+ games in nipland are people who actually played and loved videogames unlike the western unholy combination or gender studies student + suit guy + idea guy + kickstarter money.

Gonna play this for the first time, anything I should know? Tips?

You shouldn't reply to a two hour old message in a dying thread in a fast moving board if you seriously expect a response. As for the game, not a faintest idea.

fine, I'll go ask /vr/