The game got nice dungeons and some cool ideas, but it is very longwinded, and the stat creep (basically there are 20 so base stats, but there hundreds of discreet ones that gears can affect and you have to scroll litterally pages of statistics for every single piece of gear to try to math it out) just got the better of me.
The covenant are really the biggest part of the game, and you need to maintain a ton of puppets to make the best out of some of them, which adds to the micromanagement.
But the game’s balance isn’t geared toward any minmaxing: I could bruteforce through most of it, hardly changing gears.
The big thing was just to keep the encounter “combo” meter going, as when you cash it out, you’ll just get litterally tons of levels and monies.
I agree that the side task of finding ressources spread depending on their types at various dungeon floors was really not interesting in the slightest.
So it is really a weird beast: a Dungeon Crawler with lots of fluff that is just that, fluff, and a game that is mostly interested about telling a strange story, story that is mostly disconnected from the dungeon itself.
It’s tough to not like it, because of its “depressing game”, as they are called in Japan, atmosphere. It’s sad that that atmosphere doesn’t pervade the dungeon more, although it does, here and there.
I was sad that Ubi abandoned the franchise again after X. X wasn’t quite the full magic of III for me (for one, I missed those “exploration” skills like forestry and mountaineering; I think it was a better game for giving you reasons to spend your hard won lucre), but I still had a lot of fun with it. And we just don’t get games like that anymore.
The covenant system in Refrain is very reminiscent of similar mechanics NIS have put in other games (e.g. some of the Disgaeas). TBJ I wish they had sort of gone more all-in with it instead of doing it as is (or change it entirely). Like make it the big feature instead of character classes. I’m about to overhaul my roster with some I recently acquired (I finally got a couple that had multiple slots you could put people in). I’m in the troll dungeon (the third, IIRC). I am currently using two of the “caster” types that use Lamps and think I may swap one out. Although blunt damage has been pretty important of late, maybe I should make the second one more offensive (still running the first “this has a heal” covenant you get; I just recently got another that had a heal spell in it).
It reminds me of a game series they did on the PSP, where your characters and placement were themselves sort of the skills on a grid that turned your party into one character, sort of, and while the game wasn’t my thing (it was a top down action RPG, quite twitchy if I recall), I wished they did something of that sort in this one. There are just really too many systems and stats at once.
You’ll find it is extremely easy to break the system and get one overpowered weapon that wipes out whole parties of enemies, with the proper covenant.
I’d say my experience in Refrain’s battles oscillated between one-way massacres, be I on the dealing or receiving end.
Playing the Experience games, I’m very pleased at how a single solution to every encounters is impossible, and the game teaches you that right from the start.
Cladun? That was definitely interesting mechanically.
Agreed.
I’ve had the same experience in terms of difficulty swings. Occasionally something mundane seems to get a big crit and Gore one of my puppets, but combat is mostly smooth sailing with some boss fights being a bit tougher but not too bad. But I have occasionally wandered into places where I was out of depth and just gotten slaughtered.
Yep, I wanted more M&M and thought they may do another.
The aforementioned Legends of Amberland is the only recent M&M like and is charming and fun if a little simple. He is working on a sequel as well which I am looking forward to.
So as someone who hasn’t really gotten into this genre yet, what would you guys recommend as the absolute best example to play today?
I don’t mind oldies, necessarily. I know I own…
Legend of Grimrock 1-2
Eye of the Beholder 1-3
Might and Magic 1-8 + Swords of Xeen
Wizardry 8
Arx Fatalis
I might have others I’m unaware of as well. I’ve played a little bit of some of these but never really gave this kind of RPG the college try. I was just wondering what’s really considered the crème de la crème.
Might and Magic III is very good but extremely dated. Might and Magic VI is also good and also dated. Might and Magic X is somewhat less dated but not quite as top drawer as the prior two.
If I had to make a recommendation for someone new to the genre I would say M&M X.
I keep thinking I want to go back and play the World of Xeen M&M games because I had so much fun with them, but I’d probably be better off leaving them in the past.
I couldn’t get into Might and Magic III before 2015. Got into it, got into World of Xeen then. Incredible game even nowadays.
My first games into the genre were Shining in the Darkness and Might & Magic 2 on the Megadrive, which I spent a fair amount of 1992 drawing complete maps for, but I couldn’t get into the harder core PC games then.
As an introduction to the genre, I’d recommend Etrian Odyssey. It’s got everything, even a semi map making mechanics. It is that series that really got me back into the better games of the genre, so I would say it’s doing something right on the initiation front.
Arx Fatalis and Grimrock aren’t the same genre, as an aside.
Whoops! I must have misremembered. I thought Grimrock shared its lineage with the M&M style of games, and accidentally grouped Arx Fatalis into that, though I suppose that’s more of a modern Ultima: Underworld?
To me Arx Fatalis is Underworld lineage, while Grimrock is Dungeon Master one (it being grid based, with a somewhat awkward mouse realtime combat interface unlike Arx Fatalis/Underworld elegant one, and extremely focused on puzzles).
Edit: Ah, I see why I distinguish Grimrock. I play those games either keyboard only or with the gamepad, and that one like Dungeon Master required the mouse. Talk about a personal experience.
The puzzles are really the main meat of the games, though, giving them a very distinctive flavour compared to more general dungeon crawlers, probably.
Japanese blobbers are often classic Wizardry games, like 1-3. There is even Japanese remake of Wizardry 1. Hell, the whole JRPG genre is based on Wizardry combat system.
I had forgotten the world wasn’t realtime outside of the turn based combat in m&m. Heck, I think I always assumed it was realtime, and was hurrying my way around because of it!
While the influence is undeniable, they have long been their own thing, with openworldness being a very strong aspect of them, even if you can’t navigate the world openly (urh, what a description…)
Naturally, there are many different kinds. But relatively big and recent ones I’ve heard about are very by the book. Like Elminage or Stranger of Sword City. Refrain: Coven of Dusk from Disgaea devs has some unorthodox combat mechanics (mostly to make your party consist of like 50 characters) but it’s still recognizable as a grid-movement turn-based dungeon crawler with class-defined characters who live in a town and go down into a dungeon. Even some big JRPGs are very similar, like Persona series is Wizardry plus visual novel.
No, it isn’t. Persona Q and Persona Q2 are (as they’re basically Persona + Etrian Odyssey), the main series not so much. It’s much more in the other major JRPG turn-based mold, like Dragon Quest or that sort of thing. (and the first three Persona games didn’t have the VN/lifesim stuff, which people forget because it’s become a hallmark). I think you might be thinking of the core Shin Megami Tensei series, which is often first-person party-based with grid based movement and of course turn-based.
They did. It was called Dinosaur. It was awesome.
A remake was released in the early 2Ks for Windows, and you can buy it online, often for a couple of bucks (it’s 10 bucks right now, fully priced). Japanese only, as far as I know. It features both the original and remix soundtrack, if memory serves right, but is limited to 640x480 resolution or something. The gameplay is as hard as the original game, I think.
