Larian Studios Forums General Chat RPG Chat your first RPG

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/offtopic.gif" alt="" /> hey Polgara! good to see u again! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" />

My first RPG was Throne of Darkness on PC. Really cool Game! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/alien.gif" alt="" />

First one I remember is Bards Tale 2 on the spectrum 48k...or was it Dungeon Master on the amgia!

One of them.

Edit: having checked over my post ages ago in this topic I mentioned Pools of Radiance as the first!

I'm so confused.

Has to be Bards Tale 2, as thats the oldest, on the oldest system.

RPGWAtch has a similar thread : Your first CRPG. Expect to find names you have never seen before, especially the younger generation.

I notice a lot of people mention Diablo and Zelda, and to me these are not real RPG games.
To me a roleplaying game is where you roleplay as your own character(Giving you multiple choices and different ways to reach your goals).

When you play Diablo, are you roleplaying a mighty warrior or mage? Well no.. unless your roleplaying as a person with a single intent to go around and kill things for treasure, experience and gear.

Now for Zelda... Do you have choice to rescue the princess or let her get eaten by the Grue? (you Zork players know what a Grue is!) In every Zelda game I've played (and not many.. I might add...), you've always only had one choice, one path to take.

If you are playing a game where 'action' or 'combat' is the only role you assume, why not call it an action game?

Keep RPG genre for games that you can make storyline choices, eat apples, and pickpocket the local merchants!

Even though the first post asks for PC or pen and paper, i have to share the first RPG that really just made me sure that even though there were some really awesome games out there, that RPG's just really did it for me, i just enjoy them much more than other games that are too set in how you have to play it.

Ogre Battle 64 for (if you didn't guess) Nintendo 64. I had played some other really awesome RPG's up until that point but the game is just amazing in my opinion. So different than everything else that was out then, and even since then no game has come out like it that i know of, or that holds a candle to it.

The customization was what really did it for me. You make units, which has 5 slots, where if you have a Dragon or Ogre or on of the big characters it takes up 2 slots. Otherwise you can have five people in each unit. You have to have a character strong and smart enough to be the leader of unit. Then you build the unit around the leader. The leader is the unit that shows on the map. Well.. each character in each unit, you can customize their items, change their name, depending on their stats and chaos frame you change their unit type, from mages to archers to healers to paladin's, you get the idea. There are a handful of story characters that you cannot rename but you end up having way more of your own characters.

In the gameplay, you dispatch up to 10 of your units onto a battlefield, and send them in whichever direction you wish on the map, towards towns or just to explore open areas or mountains. As you draw close, and depending on which way your unit is facing, you will see the enemy unit's as they approach. When you get close enough to an enemy unit the battle begins. Another interesting part of it, that some might not like, is that the battles automatically take place. Depending on where you put the units determines how many attacks they have and even sometimes what type of attack. For example, magic units get one turn in the middle or front, or two in the back row. Knights and fighting units get 2 or later get 3 turns in the front row, in the second row they get one or two, in the back they get one. Or also, some characters will do different attacks in different rows, Valkyries will do 2 magic attacks from the back row, 1 physical attack in the middle, or two physical in the front row. Paladins will heal in the back row and attack in the front. Strategy and thinking ahead is the key. Whichever unit takes more damage loses the battle, and is pushed a distance away from where the battle took place, the winning unit staying in place. If your unit is completely defeated.. well you can imagine. There are different strategies you can use, your unit will act accordingly. They can attack strongest or weakest characters, they can target the leader of the unit, which will cancel a lot of options that unit has once the leader falls (or your own), or they can auto attack. Magic users also do really sweet attacks when you combine two or more of them and they are able to attack the same characters. They will combine doing twice the range of damage and multiples of what damage they normally do. Later in the game 2 Mage's or 2 Siren's in the back row can attack an entire enemy unit on their turn.

That's just the beginning. There is also the chaos frame to keep in mind. Which changes whether or not you capture towns, as opposed to liberating them. Doing this depends on if the unit you send to the town has a similar chaos balance as the town's. Very tricky and confusing at first but later it makes sense. Doing this, and also different story points where you make decisions, will change many outcomes in the game and give the game a lot of replay value. Multiple endings, multiple paths, it is an amazing game. Wow just talking about it i want to start it over again.

I just decided to go ahead and explain it some because it is pretty rare and i never meet very many people who have played it.

Has anyone here at least heard of if not played it? There has also been Ogre Battle, the original for SNES. Then they made Ogre Tactic's for GBA just somewhat recently. All decent but OB64 is just one of the best and most unique and original RPG's i've ever played.

Well, if we don't count these real 'RPGs' then I easily have to say that Zelda: Link to the Past was my very first RPG game... but to be honest, that was more of an action-adventure game. Still, it was my first game ever so yeah.

As for a real RPG.. well, I suppose that Baldurs Gate would be it. I would say Final Fantasy 7, but it follows kind of a linear story path, just giving you sometimes time to either level or find some super secret materia.

But man, Baldurs Gate was awesome when you were 9-10 years old, especially since we Swedish people doesn't understand a lot of English when we're that old. XD Trust me, it was epic.
"Hail fair travelers!"
"EXPERIENCE POINTS AH KILL THE CIVILIAN!"
... yeah. ^^;

And I don't have to explain Baldurs Gate, since I believe most people here have played it, yes?

... RIGHT?

(also, NWN inspired to my username, thank you very much :D)

Playing cRPG's when you're 10ish is a great way to learn English as well. Personally it started with Fallout 2 when I was eleven. And my first hero tagged melee, unarmed and small guns...

Übereil

Tell me about it! My teacher has blessed my knowledge in English time from time.
Also, you can't go wrong with the typical boring melee hero!

Well, in Fallout you could...

Übereil

Divine Divinity was my first

Mu first RPG was Daggerfall. Played it for years and years without any patch. Then I got internet, and patched it, and finally was able to finish that game.

Incredible, isn't it? A game one cannot finish without a patch...

mine was oblivion. game was great but not as spectacular as people said it was.

Good question, first rpg for me was diablo 2, great one to start with, a hack and slash classic, go and kill!, but between diablo 2 and Divine Divinity were like 5-6other rpg-s, still Divine Divinity is the best that could be. Hope i change my mind after the Divinity 2, chers

My first "real" CRPG was Icewind Dale
I have played it even before Baldur's Gate :-o
First overall Computer-Game was afaik C'n'C 95

Damn, I feel old...

Well, now... Don't be so harsh to yourself.
Here, have this warm soup, it'll cheer you up.

(jk)

Better give him a cake.

I have to think loooong about that one ... I'm not sure, but I think my first rpg experience would have been Ultima Underworld 1 ... I think ... better pass me that cake too :p

My first RPG was actually an Online RPG called Legends of Kesmai back in 98/99.

Wrote about it in my new blog . Blog!!

Also plan to write about all of the Divinity games once I play them for a bit..