I was wondering when that Silver Chalice was going to run out. What an amazing crutch/kludge to allow two PCs to survive in the dungeon. “Screw balancing the dungeon difficulty, we’ll throw in a chalice of unlimited healing or something”. Still, I’m think I’m done with LoL even though it does quite a bit right (I love the atmosphere and the full-on, Deluxe Paint hand-drawn graphics of the era). Maybe I’ll try some of the mid-number Might & Magics instead, or maybe even play the Ishars.
BDGE
6423
Again though, the chalice is gone at the end of the dungeon. It does make the back half of the dungeon pretty easy though. But there is lots of game left beyond to play yet.
The toughest part I recently hit in LoL 1 though is floor 3 of the White Tower dungeon. In the forest before that dungeon there are two gates that require ‘cube’ items to open. The first cube you get previously to open the first gate(to enter forest), and the second you find off an enemy corpse later in the same forest.
Once you find the second cube you encounter another choice: Go directly to the White Tower dungeon(next objective) or unlock the second gate leading to a town nearby. If you go to the town first, you won’t be able to spam the cube as a weapon on floor 3 of the white tower against an endless army of spirits. The cube kills the spirit horde very handily, and also refills magic after each use(so you are essentially able to heal constantly between cube shots). The spirit horde is TOUGH and I can’t fathom how people will easily survive that floor without it. The town does offer some extremely helpful weapons to boost stats, but that goddamn floor really demands cube spam.
There is no hint in the game that the cube can even act as a weapon against the horde(only works on those spirit enemies BTW), and most players are likely to immediately just unlock the gate near the white tower entrance to the town first. (Sort of a beginners trap)
Great game, but little details like that kind of show the age and era to which this game stems from. I imagine most players quit out of frustration at that point.
Oh and apparently LoL 2 made it so that Kieran(the cat dude) in LoL 1 is actually the canonical hero. So I went with playing him. he also starts with the suckiest stats, but his innate ability is a high dodge rate, so at least attacks do seem to miss regularly. I think. I can’t imagine anyone really ever chose him way back given how obviously poor his starting stats are comparatively to the other three.
Chalice? White Tower? Sounds like a marginal update of Atari 2600 Adventure.
Ravenloft was that grindy, because there was a huge honking castle filled with “zomg did I touch you? Thanks for the 2 levels dude!” vampire packs. Oh dear god I still have nightmares.
EoB was not, as best as I recall. The thing is, this is more obnoxiousness than difficulty to me. It’s not that I am per se against stuff like worrying about my armor condition. It’s just that a number of games that used it would probably have benefitted from just forgetting about it alltogether. Yeah, it made some of those games harder. But it really just made them more obnoxious.
I haven’t played Lands of Lore though. I have purchased it and will try it soon.
So I never played Darkstone. I tried to play darkstone. I tried to play darkstone on something like 2.7 computers (that’s two separate mobo/CPU combos, and I think a GPU swap out on both to boot). It never fucking worked. I am gonna buy it though.
And Sim Hospital. Sweet.
There are lots of reasons for this, almost none of which seem to be the fault of GOG. For example, several of us have requested Warlords III: DLR there, and I am pretty sure Steve Fawkner would be all for the game being available on GOG. However there is the matter of his losing his source code for the latest patch(and the game without that patch is seriously diluted) and also that the game is next to impossible to get running in Windows 7 or Vista without going the VMware route(Gog seems to only use DosBox for these things).
Other games are not making it to GOG for a variety of other reasons such as the rights-holders not liking the DRM-free model or the rights themselves being effectively held by two or more different parties(the case with System Shock IIRC, in that one guy owns the name “System Shock” and someone else owns the game design(which is why “Bioshock” was made).) or some such mess.
We will likely never see a Lucasarts game(including the oft requested “Monkey Island” and “Outlaws” games) because Lucasarts as extremely pro-DRM.
I did, because the fighter was boring, the mage was ugly, and my brother was using the all around guy. I recall not beating the game with him though, because it was really very hard.
Pretty good synopsis there. My only ‘almost disagreement’ is that I am unimpressed by HoMM V, save for the “Tribes of the East” version(the sole reason for me buying the Heroes V bundle with Assassin’s Creed included(which I will never download or play) and even that version I can only play so much, whereas Heroes III, with all it’s balance and design issues, I can play all day long for some reason.
BDGE
6429
Just made it to the final dungeon in LoL 1. The second to last dungeon was a bit brutal and weird. Essentially out of nowhere(and likely in an attempt to just prolong the game) two bickering alien races appear -literally- out of nowhere and ask you to choose a side. Each offering a reward for siding with them. Whichever side you choose(and it’s a blind coinflip unless you look up the rewards via a faq) forces you into a big dungeon tasking you to exterminate the opposite species.
The race I chose to fight was another ‘acid’ spitting enemy type that destroys armor. Meh… Fortunately the enemies are fixed and there are no respawns, but each fight was brutal enough that a quicksave and rest was necessary after each kill. So thankful that is over.
Will clear the final dungeon this weekend.
Razgon
6430
I love Theme Hospital. Inflated head? Get me a needle and some air,stat!
BDGE
6431
Lands of Lore 1 finished. That final labyrinth had some serious bullshit to contend with. Giant toads that unequip your weapons and armor with each hit, as well as sap your magic. A REAL irritating section that removes your automap and forces you to sluggishly guess which direction to go and feel for hidden walls to exit the room(while avoiding pits). I have no idea how some people would have guessed through this stuff without a faq or guide.
Final boss was kinda bullshit too. Tiny window of opportunity to use a specific item to make her vulnerable. Once that is done, no problems though.
Good game, took twenty years to finish.
Thanks for playing it for me :) I’m futzing around with M&M 3 right now.
Hmmm. Since this appears to be the “playing old RPGs I got off of GoG” thread, I just started playing M&M 6 in earnest and…hey. This is pretty good. Surprising, actually.
It’s not surprising! How many times must I sing that game’s praises before people listen? It’s one of my 5 favorite RPGs of all time. If you like 6, you should play 7 as well. They are both excellent games.
6 was actually the first and only one I’ve played, and I loved it.
Ninyu
6436
Wing Commander 4 has not aged well. ugh. So much for that six bucks. We actually thought those movies and combat model were good?
I will rip your heart out, eat it, shit it out and then shove it back down your throat for saying such lies! ;)
BDGE
6438
Might pick it up myself. Never played the M&M games, but was so fascinated with the Xeen games back then, particularly how they merged into one giant world if both installed. Just never tried them out.
Sounds like 6 would be the best starting place?
I dunno, I never played 1-5, but only 6, and I had a blast.
Keeping in that vein of thought I started Arcanum after buying it along with Fallout 2. I’ve attempted Fallout 2 about three times and it never took, but I’ll give it another shot. Arcanum has been pretty good though despite hearing it has a slow start. My character kind of sucks though, might reroll. The fatigue mechanic is weird and last night I got kicked in the head to death more times than I can count.
I’m joining in the GOG RPG parade, by starting and restarting Starflight for the past 4 days. The joys of single save slot…
