First Person Dungeon Crawlers

[breremarer]

Replying to this thread reminded me of how much I liked the remake of Wizardry: Proving Grounds, so I broke out the graph paper and made it to level three before my first party wipe. Had a ton of fun, gearing up to go save that party, and wanted to share it here!

Happy hunting, everyone, in whatever dungeons you choose delve!

Spoiler: Dungeon Maps

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

Replying to this thread reminded me of how much I liked the remake of Wizardry: Proving Grounds, so I broke out the graph paper and made it to level three before my first party wipe. Had a ton of fun, gearing up to go save that party, and wanted to share it here!

Happy hunting, everyone, in whatever dungeons you choose delve!

Spoiler: Dungeon Maps

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Genuinely awesome. I want to play Wizardry now, and I feel like you’re some sage that has given me maps of lost lands for me to explore.


Games are funny like that. No matter what, I need to get graph paper for my own home, as I’ve been playing these games from memorizing certain locations on the maps and just kinda winging it lol!

 

[Cu-Neo]

The blood mechanic in this game is pretty unique.

 

[breremarer]

Genuinely awesome. I want to play Wizardry now, and I feel like you’re some sage that has given me maps of lost lands for me to explore.

Honestly I kinda felt that way when I was sketching them out. Haha! It's such a cool interactive thing to have a pencil and paper component in a game. Oddly kind of made it more immersive.

 

[DanCalibur]

Honestly I kinda felt that way when I was sketching them out. Haha! It's such a cool interactive thing to have a pencil and paper component in a game. Oddly kind of made it more immersive.

You are right, I've finished Dragon Knight 2 today and mapping on paper can be quite relaxing and therapeutic

 

[thetwaz]

Also throwing in for the Ultima games - specifically Ultima Underworld.

I'd also recommend some of the earlier Elder Scrolls games, which definitely have some good dungeon crawling in, specifically Daggerfall.

Also - controversially - technically the first System Shock is just a dungeon crawler in space. If you haven't played it, I would massively reccomend it.

 

[FrootyLoopsSamurai]

Not sure if you're looking for PC recommendations, but Might and Magic 3, 4, and 5 are some great first person dungeon crawlers for DOS. There are mac versions that look and sound better but are a bit harder to get running on emulator. I haven't heard anything good about the console ports. For how old they are, they feel really fast and smooth to play. There's built in automapping as well. The mainline Might and Magic series feels overlooked and forgotten these days, but they're really solid experiences. There's nothing else quite like them imo.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

I remember a more modern example of that game genre before indie games started bringing it back

Okay, it's almost 15 years old so not that modern.

 

[Stolas_SMT]

SMT Devil Summoner: Soul hackers is SUCH a guilty pleasure of thee- the setting almost this cyberpunk world mixed with the occult… Truly Wonderous I decree!!! And yes- my beak is not spilling a lie. You CAN allign yourself with the Jersey Devil. Simply demonic- I LOVE IT. The postgame dungeon is super tough but fun.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

SMT Devil Summoner: Soul hackers is SUCH a guilty pleasure of thee- the setting almost this cyberpunk world mixed with the occult… Truly Wonderous I decree!!! And yes- my beak is not spilling a lie. You CAN allign yourself with the Jersey Devil. Simply demonic- I LOVE IT. The postgame dungeon is super tough but fun.

Shame this game is stuck on the Sega Saturn and an ageing 3DS.

The first Devil Summoner is also stuck as a Japanese only Saturn and PSP game...

 

[GardeniaSky's icon GardeniaSky GardeniaSky]

☼Arx Fatalis: This game has some seriously cursed vibes, but I think it's what you're looking for. Definitely patch it up with some community mods for QOL and stability.

☼Daggerfall: The dungeons aren't terribly interesting. The world is MASSIVE. However, the community for the Unity build of the game is always adding new content, patching it up, and making existing content more interesting. The world building and immersion are pretty damn good.

☼Barony: It's neat a cheeky. It's a rogue-lite[rogue-like? idfk] that's a first-person dungeon crawler. You have classes. It's interesting and fun for a bit. Definitely get it on sale. It's more fun with friends.

☼Morrowind: Yes another Elder Scrolls game. Use the OpenMW build and auto-install whichever mod list sounds tasty.

 

[PhaseJump]

Wow, that looks so cool. I did not know about this game before. Probably because I didn't have a Saturn, but fortunately there are emulators these days :)

It can't be overstated enough.
Shining the Holy Ark is the best traditional, lighthearted JRPG you can officially get on Saturn in the west. People who played Playstation and know the ins and outs of the JRPG library there, who also haven't played Saturn can look at that game as something high-quality but overlooked by other hyped up games. That's where it stuck. It's like the biggest sleeper hit that a whole generation of JRPG fans don't know about.

It's a first person game, but a traditional and above average JRPG with awesome music. Like a Wild Arms or a Legend of Dragoon from Sony. Overshadowed by other games like Panzer Dragoon Saga or Final Fantasy 7.

It is absolutely still the best first person dungeon crawling JRPG, despite Etrian Odyssey and it's story-mode remakes trying to take the top spot.

After breaking off from Sega, Shining the Holy Ark's development studio would eventually turn their Shining games into the 3 Golden Sun games on GBA & DS. If you played those games, you know what you're in for in terms of the overall story and vibe.

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 8:58 PM

Shining THA's soundtrack is pretty good.

Different tracks in different dungeons. One dungeon is a throwback to the first game, Shining in the Darkness.

 

[Stolas_SMT]

Shame this game is stuck on the Sega Saturn and an ageing 3DS.

The first Devil Summoner is also stuck as a Japanese only Saturn and PSP game...

Much agreed, tis a shame- seems Altus is TERRFIED of having their games translated OR available on current platforms! Shame I say- SHAME!!!!! Maybe it's because of their expansive game library... I hadn't a clue personally.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

Much agreed, tis a shame- seems Altus is TERRFIED of having their games translated OR available on current platforms! Shame I say- SHAME!!!!! Maybe it's because of their expansive game library... I hadn't a clue personally.

We could digress into a talk about Atlus' lack of faith in the older SMT (while doing yet another port or remaster of Persona 3 and 4 for modern platforms).

They even had an officially English translation for SMT 1 on iOS yet never bothered porting it to PC and other consoles...

 

[Stolas_SMT]

We could digress into a talk about Atlus' lack of faith in the older SMT (while doing yet another port or remaster of Persona 3 and 4 for modern platforms).

They even had an officially English translation for SMT 1 on iOS yet never bothered porting it to PC and other consoles...

RIIGHHTTTT??? DRIVES me just MAD enough to start plucking myself to death! OOohhh what I'd kill to have Bael from SMT1 on my phone whichever I go! Honestly- how much WOULD they lost from just... porting that translation and making it available again back on the app store?

 

[moonbits]

Much agreed, tis a shame- seems Altus is TERRFIED of having their games translated OR available on current platforms! Shame I say- SHAME!!!!! Maybe it's because of their expansive game library... I hadn't a clue personally.

or maybe you are terrified of learning japanese.

 

[Stolas_SMT]

or maybe you are terrified of learning japanese.

(Ooc: Actually, if you don’t mind me going out of character for a second- what is like the best starting point to learn Japanese? Course classes are always a thing- but if there’s a good site or two that’s good for beginners- I wouldn’t mind hearing it! A lotta of the cool megaten stuff is untranslated, and I would kinda want to understand it!)

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

RIIGHHTTTT??? DRIVES me just MAD enough to start plucking myself to death! OOohhh what I'd kill to have Bael from SMT1 on my phone whichever I go! Honestly- how much WOULD they lost from just... porting that translation and making it available again back on the app store?

Even re-releasing Persona 1 PSP with the ability to swap the music type could be a good starter.

On a side note the Repo thankfully has the english translation directly from the iOS release in the GBA port (sadly not the SNES one)

Shin Megami Tensei (J+English Patched) GBA ROM - RGT Repository

Shin Megami Tensei (J+English Patched) GBA ROM Languages: English Patched, Japanese. For the GameBoy Advance.

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