CRPG Addict - Review Roundup (Part Five)

Sorry I haven't been updating my Review Roundup. I blame Terraria and Frayed Knights for my lack of updates. Those two games had me hooked for the past few weeks.

So let's get started with one of the best games I played as a child and still replay to this day:

Starflight (1986) - Game World. Absolutely top-notch. You have an entire galaxy to explore with a fascinating backstory that is sketched out in the manual but only fully revealed as you explore, find artifacts and messages, and talk to various races. The lore is unique and interesting, the final twist is amazing, and some mysteries persist even after you've won. Unlike almost every other game of the era, your actions measurably affect the game world and your relationships with the various alien races. I can't think of many games that do it better. Final score: 9.

Final ranking: 53. This puts it with Ultima IV but not quite as high as Might & Magic I. I don't know how well this reflects the game. Perhaps I need to add an "addictiveness" handicap to my rankings, because there's just something ineffably compelling about Starflight. From the moment I started playing it, I played it for a few hours every night.

Sword of Glass (1986) - Gameplay. If it wasn't for that damned permanent paralysis and sleep [Later edit: wrong about this; see here], I'd rate the game pretty high. Although it's "linear" in the sense of being a single-dungeon, multi-level game, it doesn't restrict where you can go in the dungeon. It seemed to have a good balance in terms of monsters, you level at a good clip, and the cooperative multiplayer is quite impressive. It's not replayable except to the extent that any roguelike is replayable. Score: 5.

Final score: 27. That puts it on par with Rings of Zilfin and some of the roguelikes for enjoyability. It's worth a rainy afternoon but not a week.

Tera: La Cité des Crânes (1986) - Look, I'm man enough for a challenge, like playing a game without any instructions, or playing a game in a foreign language. Just not together at the same time. And here's the other thing: I'm not entirely sure that Tera isn't really stupid. I mean, like Ultima II stupid.

So I'm going to move on to Wizardry IV for now, but I'll think about giving Tera another try if someone comes up with a manual (one that doesn't require telechargement, thanks, Murlock) or if any reader who has played it can give me some advice.

Wizardry 4 (1986) - The difficulty of the game is one thing, but what really killed my enthusiasm for Wizardry IV is that it doesn't include any of the elements that I like about CRPGs. Oh, it has an interesting back story, I grant you, and a very original approach. But there's virtually no character creation or development: you start off as the same Werdna every time, and you only "develop" by visiting successive pentagrams; there are no experience rewards for your eons of combat. There are no meaningful NPC encounters, no economy, only one pathological main quest, extremely linear gameplay, and an overall experience that's exasperating instead of challenging. It features some of the tactical combat intensity that I liked about the original Wizardry, but limited in that you can only control one character. The graphics and sound are an insult at this stage of CRPG development.

I'm giving it a 30 on my GIMLET scale and moving on to 2400 A.D., but I do so with some remorse. Actually finishing this game, without cheats or walkthroughs, would have felt like a real accomplishment. Unfortunately, I just don't have that kind of patience.

2400 A.D. (1987) - 2400 A.D. takes place at some unspecified point in the future on a planet technically known as XK-120 but called "Nova Athens" by the residents. Colonized by earth for its mining potential, it became a major center for learning and culture, but over the course of a few decades it was conquered--along with many other earth colonies--by an alien race called the Tzorg. To keep order among the human populace of Nova Athens, and in its capital city of Metropolis, the Tzorg staffed the planet with robot patrols. Although the planet still nominally functions, it has gone to seed, and an underground Resistance network works to find and deactivate the robot's control center.

Gameplay. Within the world, gameplay is fairly non-linear, allowing you to go wherever from the start. But the world is small and confining, so it's not as if you can use the non-linearity to really wander and explore. Overall, it is too easy (you cannot die!), too quick, and not in any way replayable. Final score: 2.

This gives us a total score for 2400 A.D. of: 34. That puts it in the range of Shard of Spring, which I once described as "meh." That's pretty much how I feel about 2400 A.D.