I’m realizing more and more how much creativity was happening in the 90’s, in all entertainment. Early survival mechanics, Egyptian horror, open-world? And there was so much more. They really tried a lot with western RPGs.
(spoiler-free comment, don't worry...) There was this magical moment when I was playing Elder Scrolls Daggerfall for the 1st time ever... I was a few hours into the game, nothing significant happened, and then I find this letter, written by someone that has been missing for a while, that his kidnapping was in fact (...spoilers, can't write here...) I still remember how MAD I was for what they did to this guy... And then the game leaves it as an open choice if you will help him or not... It's crazy, Daggerfall has like 6 or 7 story paths and you can end up with 4 or 5 different endings, I don't even remember the total amount, some of them overlap... Glorious game... Must play... 10 out of 10 standing ovation
@@FeelingShred i has moments like this in morrowind. Also "the large rock near the strange tree" type letters were fantastic and silly. So many things I couldn't find but still had an amazing time exploring and murdering every single guard i came across.
part of the problem is creativity is risky. And with games made more and more to please stockholders, risks and creativity is increasingly discouraged, resulting in a market increasingly overwhelmed with remakes and remasters of recent releases and basic derivatives, especially outside the indie community
"everything blends together, it stretches on endlessly" sounds like they made you feel the same way people lost in a desert feel. one more point to the devs great video
Ravenloft alone has multiple Desert/Egyptian themed domains to choose from. Sebua is one, with the heart consuming beautiful mummy Tiyet in command, or .... crap, can't recall the domain, but one came from Dark Sun.
@@Babbleplay Yeah, the Dark Sun setting in general was the one thing that came to my mind. That, and also desert dungeons in Daggerfall. Climbing down a massive, convoluted web of tunnels only to get some deadly disease from a mummy was something else, lol.
It's not the whole game, but one of the chapters of the DoS game, Waxworks (which is a horrifically gory first person adventure RPG) takes place in one of the pyramids during the ancient Egyptian times.
The real horror that those familiar with the ravenloft setting will hit is that while the vistani woman withering into nothing at the beginning is horrible, the real horror is that those who die in ravenloft are never free. Their souls are trapped and are reincarnated into one of the people born their. You die in ravenloft, you go from visitor to native in a realm of nightmares.
@@gustavofinkler1229 It's fully playable from start to finish, both main quests and side stuff with most mechanic working as intended. But no, it isn't completed yet, probably never will be.
You didn't need a notification for quicksave/quickload when you originally played it; there was a visible freeze and hard disk clacking sounds as the data was written. All these new fangled faster-than-33mhz cpus and speedier disks got rid of the physical feedback. :P
Wow, you sent me back to the past when CPUs would 'whirr' and discs would spin and stop over and over. Phewh, I was terrified of it (I was a weird kid) but it was clear physical feedback from your digital actions. Something missing today!
Well, now you have 4.5% female viewers. This game looks really cool. I've recently got into playing text based rpgs. This game for 1995 has a few things ahead of it's time. The mouse turning would drive me absolutely insane though. Also creepy sounds really get me too. The digital noise adds more creep factor to it imo. I can totally see myself sitting in front of the computer in the dark playing this as a kid.
As a kid playing this back in the day, it was one of the most engrossing experiences I ever had. Even better than Ultima Underworld! It could use a few quality of life changes, as you said. You should absolutely give this one a shot. Also, I'm pretty sure he's playing this on a laptop, because the numpad works a lot better...Mice were becoming increasingly common, but they had a DOS version back then, mine is.
5:15 Yea, it took me a while to learn that the people who give advice on the internet don't always have the same goal you do. I have ruined a few play experiences by following build recommendations that require you to suffer for the first 90% of the game in order to do something broken for the last 5%. The STRONGEST build is rarely the best for a casual playthrough. Great Video's BTW. I really enjoy your content!
Oh hell yeah. Just reading build guides for Pathfinder games, They pronounce nearly every companion utterly crippled by the starting stats the devs gave them (16 strength instead of 17! Forsooth!) and tell you to min max everything, even respec characters far away from what the character might ever do. The games… aren’t that hard It’s so silly
I was told when playing Diablo 2 that if I didn't follow a specific build I'll be screwed for the whole game which kinda sucked the fun out of it for me.
@@fefyfona4318 lol I had the battle chest, the guide inside said druid was weak. I had a small army of animals and took very little damage the entire run. Functions the same as an Army of Darkness Necromancer build. Kill things make more soldiers replace as they die
@@joearnold6881 never played pathfinder so I can't really talk about it but I have some of the craziest 5e builds that make sense only to me. Like running a Blade pact warlock to level 3 and spending the other 17 levels into fighter. You can effectively never be disarmed and you can summon any weapon that you have seen. So essentially running a Strahd campaign with a high enough bluff roll you could fool Strahd into thinking you already have the sword that can kill him, before you even get it IF you can catch a glimpse of it. c:
This was the first time I ever saw a computer game in 1995~ish. I knew it as “lost in the desert”, a family friend was having a cookout, me and younger kid were same age and watched his older brother. The ambient sounds and monster noise is truly scary on the old crackly duo speakers mounted to the CRT monitor we had at the time. We kept comparing it to the desert level in super Mario 64 (the only video game I had played at the time) 😂
I really liked how you combine a cheerful disposition with a touch of swearing, ridiculous podcast excerpts and other little pop culture references/video edits & not to mention making this game super interesting. Can't believe you don't have more subs so I figured you definitely earned my sub. Can't wait to watch the other one you were talking about in the game.
@@asimplewizard Wizardry VII was recognized by everyone as one of the greatest RPGs of all time, but good luck finding any modern gamer that will even try it.
I consider myself a purveyor of anything "classic crpg" related and yet, somehow, all I knew about those games, was that they existed but barely anything else. Thanks for the enlightening trip (and so comprehensive one at that!). I really enjoy and appreciate your unique approach. The seed was sown and I'll sure as hell try them out as soon as I get through currently played (and being unfairly put on hiatus since 2016) "Hand of Fate". Yours Sincerely New subscriber
Haha, same here. For years, sometimes the word "Menzoberranzan" would pop up in my head, and I could never tell where I'd heard it. I guess I must have read that game's title in a gaming magazine a long time ago. Only later I learned that it's a drow city and all that. Anyways, I like channels that introduce me to games I've never really knew about.
Wow this really takes me back. I had forgotten about all these games, but really did love them back in the day. I'm glad you're preserving the memories.
@@Empowerless thank you so much!!! Yeah this is basically research for me so since I don't have much time to play games myself at the time, watching awesome content like this is the next best thing ;-)
@@WilliamSRD any chance you give some of the other goldbox games a go? Curse of the Azure Bond etc :-) also hope you try out Menzo... menz... menzlbemzlanzan as it's a game I'll likely never try myself 😅
I believe there's a 4th, or (0th) Ravenloft game, unofficially. It's from SSI and directly related to the 2 SSI Ravenloft games and It seems like it could and should have been official SSI had the D&D license from 1988 until 1994 (final games being released in 1995) and the output of D&D games for many settings was huge. Their 2 Ravenloft games came near the end. But before the first game, they release a non-D&D RPG called "Veil of Darkness" (1993). Veil of Darkness is an Isometric RPG. It might be the same engine as SSI non-D&D "The Summoning" from 1992. It's about a vampire lord who uses his magic powers to keep all of the people of a town trapped in his domain full of creatures of the name - the same premise as Ravenloft. Even if it wasn't from SSI it would be impossible to be a coincidence, but as a game from SSI it's very strange. Arguably the only thing keeping this from being 100% a Ravenloft clone is that the game is technically set in modern times even though most of the game could pass for the Ravenloft setting. When I see the box with SSI on it it's hard to remember it's not a Ravenloft game. The team that made this made these other Ravenloft games for SSI. Given that SSI had the Ravenloft license, did SSI plan to put the Ravenloft name on this with a couple tweaks for setting and then it didn't happen for some rason? The team was already working with SSI so it's not like they were brought in because they did a Ravenloft clone. It's also possible the team liked Ravenloft and didn't care that it was a copy, but that's just odd.
If anyone's interested in seeing what it's like, Ross Scott (who runs the Accursed Farms channel, of Freeman's Mind fame) did a review of it a while back. It's certainly an interesting game.
Reminds me of playing the "I" series modules in 1st ed AD&D way way back when. They were the introduction to the Ravenloft campaign, which I passed on for many years, but have come to appreciate it for being so well received by gamers.
Fun fact, Stone Prophet isn't based off of Touch of Death, it is in fact a SEQUEL to the Touch of Death module. When you find the undead priestess Isu in the Temple of Set the things she talks about are the events of Touch of Death - wherein a group of adventurers defeated both her and Senmet, though most of them perished in the process - Gloriantha's adventuring group.
And pro tip - the people who tell you not to take Pyotra the Thief with you are full of nonsense. Unlike Strahd's Possession, 99% of the locks in this game CAN be picked, meaning Pyotra can save you the nightmare of having to comb dungeons looking for keys. Also, there are no wizard party members that you can recruit in the game; so if you don't bring one with you Pyotra is the only character who can use wizard scrolls and wands.
This was one of the first truly large games I've properly finished in my childhood. And the most confusing thing was that I was playing a pirated copy with no video cutscenes, which made it highly cryptic in places.
This game needs a remake. Its a setting no one uses anymore (in both senses, Ravenloft doesn't get much outside of a module or two and Ancient Egypt seems abandoned as a fantasy setting) and its such a shame because Sword and Sandals is a foundational subgenre in fantasy.
At 13:14, I would argue the difference between older fast travel vs the version used nowadays is the older versions required in-universe means like magic or services while newer fast travel just somehow *happens* with no explanation at all. Like compare Morrowind's methods of fast travel versus say Skyrim's.
Growing up my step dad worked at a printing company that did word for TSR. Had a Dungeons board game I wish I still had. This took place in late 70's early 80's.
God, I never heard of this game for D&D but I can definitely say it's my favorite :0 I love how they really put horror and spookiness into the game, that's how I thought Ravenloft was supposed to be with hearing about it's monsters! also I just found ya and got to say I love your content already, it funny!
You mention "this whole town/country/area keeps faling into portals" that just means that the whole town is already *in Ravenloft* The mists never let anyone go. So we don't know WHY this town/country was absorbed, but part of their punishment is the whole portals into other ravenloft realms bit.
this was one of my favorite games of the mid 90's and not enough people played it. When I got a wavetable card the opening music changed to an epic orchestral piece that was awesome.
Stumbled on this video on my feed on old PC games! Remember seeing this game being played at a Babbage's back in the day! Love it! Your commentary is hilarious! Especially the parts with kill Sehmet!! Hitting that subscribe button to see more of your videos!
I really enjoyed your two videos on this 'trilogy' (if such it is) as well as the three games themselves. I posted this in the Strahd video too, but I hope that you do a Menzoberranzan video as well. It's definitely not horror and is more definitely high fantasy, but there is one moment in that game - I will say no more than it involves a joinable NPC - that absolutely terrified me as an adolescent. I don't have nightmares about it or any such thing, but to this day I still remember how startled I was.
Mask of the Betrayer had some of my favorite, varied companions in a D&D game. But damn does this game really go all out with companions. I would love to see more games take such risks.
some of the most unique NPC recrutable party members I've seen for sure, including a Troll with regenerating HP and one Undead lady that can't be killed and comes back to life after a few minutes
^^the undead lady is a thing that exsits in pathfinder kingmaker as well. the best solotion for disarming traps is to walk her threw the entire map and set them off. ahahahah. Becouse she doesnt die..she cant. she just gets up. The game even foreshadows this in the tutorial, you can ask her why theres a bunch of burned up dead people in the hallway..shes like..oh unlike you flesh people i am undead human traps are nothing to me. Also if you use deaths door mode which gives your party members an extra life so you dont have to reload 4000 times per battle. Threw a bug or intent im not shure. But they now get 2 extra lives if shes in the party. Becouse the game can not desern if she is dead or not..so the battle "ends" then your party gets up and fights again. But it only works once. I like to think she uses necromancy or something @@FeelingShred
One of my favorite D&D games back in the day... Are you planning on covering any of the 'Eye Of The Beholder' series? Or any of the smaller 'standalones' like 'Dungeon Hack' or 'Stronghold' or 'Fantsy Empires'?
I combined bother Ravenloft and Stone Prophet into one large campaign back in the AD&D days along with several other short adventures. I still have the books and converting to Pathfinder 2e.
I remember I playing a Paladin that wandered into the mists. After solving mysterious muders in a village in Ravenloft, he was praised by some of the townsfolk, gained a following, and began building a church for his god. Shortly after, he got bitten by a vampire and caused unspeakable acts against his god. He then lost his paladin powers and decided to commit suicide. Very fun campaign, not so fun ending.
Your narration is phenomenal - conveys such passion and enthusiasm I felt bad for snobbing this kind of dungeon crawlers. I mean, I was almost a teenager when the game came out, and I missed the whole game and all this production value? I definitely need to check if there's any remake or mods to make the tech department a bit smoother for today's standards and should give the game another chance!
@@texsocprog3681 7 was such a step forward. A real overworld! It was such a strange world and if your PC was too fast, lock picking hard locks is about impossible. Oh and than manual should tell you to get all characters to swimming 10 first thing. The game is torture without being able to swim and at 10, you can grind it up to max by just going into a square of water over and over again.
@@hicknopunk back then with the lack of choices, it definitely was a step forward. I remember it being a choice between the gold box games, wizardry, and arena. Wizardry 7 had more replay-ability in my opinion. Then I played Doom for the first time and drifted from the dungeon crawlers until I replayed Swords and Serpents on my old Nintendo for awhile.
I absolutely love this game! I've beaten it several times. I first bought it in a TSR 6-pack. This is the first one I played from that pack and the only one I've ever beaten. Great game both then and now!
just be careful with the Quicksave/Quickload buttons (red green) Apparently there's a bug in the game it does not save how many Charges you used off a Wand... so you can reload the game multiple times and exhaust the charges you can fire a Wand at enemies... beware
@@FeelingShred agreed, it's a great game! I've beaten it multiple times with each different NPC at least once. My favorite team is a dwarf cleric, elf mage, the troll, and the wemic. Good luck with the challenge!
Actually there is one more ravenloft game. DDO which has a ravenloft focused expansion "Mist Of Ravenloft." It also has a grayhawk expansion surprisingly. It's incredibly loyal to 3.5 ruleset as well and probably one of the best one to one "modern" dnd games.
One thing I always loved about older games being clunky and counter intuitive was that it felt so much more immersive. When I played Morrowind as a kid I filled an entire notebook irl with pictures and quest logs. What a time that was.
I loved that you actually had to figure out where stuff was in Morrowind, based on clues from books and suchlike, and by actually looking at your geographical surroundings rather than the game just putting a marker on your map like modern games do.
only recent game i can think of that gave me that feeling is Lobotomy corp. Its a 2d monster management sim meets rpg. As mechanics get stacked on top of each other. Managing the monsters you need to interact with. becomes something you need to keep physical notes about if you don't want to cheat and use the wiki. Because you got monsters that game over you, if you interact with to many other monsters first. Monsters that have timers you need to manage(express train to he*l). Monsters that require you to remember who was last interacting with them in your party(The happy teddy bear) because repeated interactions in a row from one person will result in losing a character. Monsters that use the games actual physical camera, in a forth wall breaking way. where if you are looking at the monster while one of your characters is interacting with them the interaction will fail and it will breach and destroy everyone. Unless you realize that the camera machinic applies to it at all times. meaning not looking at it stops it from doing anything and it just sits there takeing damage. .a monster who is the former but in reverse and you have to always be looking at it. Armor you can equip to your agents from the last two monsters that also boosts your party members attack power..but only if you are directly looking at them fully zoomed in. and a bunch of other stuff @@Huffers2002
I love that the hydration mechanic is completely removed because of Create Water. Like as soon as I started playing my first game of DnD my friend and I started brainstorming all the ways to abuse our level 1 spells and create water was the one we discussed the most.
6:13 I Curse You for Gnoming me like this. With the Fury of a Thousand Suns and the Sheer, Raw Hatred of Satan, Ahriman, and Chernobog Combined I Curse You.
Yo can I get the song that starts when you start talking? Like a decent chip tune remix or something. Gonna have to go through these games now that you’ve covered then
What a creepy, badass setting and storytelling devices. Loving this review so far, great work. I was not prepared for @25:42. Aspirated some wasabi and cleared my sinuses. Needed that greatly, thank you. Forgot to subscribe, definitely not now! 💚
I recently started playing these games through for the first time, I completed strahds possession and have just started this. I personally went with a dwarf fighter/cleric and a half-elf mage/thief they cover a lot of the bases and make a cool duo imo
currently replaying the game for the 4th time with the challenge of going only with a party of two Mages and no NPC recruits at all (this means no Water spell available) I want to see if the game is even finishable like this 👍1st dungeon kicked my ass raw
Nostalgia. I used to play this game decades ago and loved it. One of the first computer games I played along with Eye of the Beholder. The most memorable part of Stone Prophet was the mother and son where the son was turned into stone to drag something for all eternally... or something like that (it's been decades)... it was very touching. It makes me laugh when I think of "stone prophet" as "stoned prophet".🤣 This game is where I learned the name heirophant and used it a lot for my characters on other games.
Thanks for the video. I've owned Stone Prophet for decades (got it in the D&D Masterpiece Collection) but never played it since I never got around to finishing the first one. Now I'm curious to check it out and have it running in DOSBox.
One of the first games I got for PC. Loved it. Ravenloft 2, Thunderscape and Daggerfall is what got me into the fantasy genre. Thunderscape being my favorite of the 3. It is also the one whose graphics have aged the least well. Greyish brown pixelated mess on modern computers.
(spoiler-free comment, don't worry...) There was this magical moment when I was playing Elder Scrolls Daggerfall for the 1st time ever... I was a few hours into the game, nothing significant happened I was considering quitting, and then I find this letter, written by someone that has been missing for a while, that his kidnapping was in fact (...spoilers, can't write here...) I still remember how MAD I was for what they did to this guy... And then the game leaves it as an open choice if you will help him or not... It's crazy, Daggerfall has like 6 or 7 story paths and you can end up with 4 or 5 different endings, I don't even remember the total amount, some of them overlap... Glorious game... Must play... 10 out of 10 standing ovation
This reminds of the games "Wadjet Eye Games" makes (they make this games that look like those old point and click video games actually pretty neat stuff ) maybe check them out in the future they supposed to have a bunch of stuff coming out soon-ish
Funny you mention Bloodborne, I was gonna make a crack about the Menzis deep cut still getting through to Soulsborne lore bros, if for no other reason than because they wiki'd Ebrietas
I don't know how I didn't hear about you until now, but I'm glad I did. I LOVE old-school CRPGs like this. It really is amazing thinking back to when games like this were cutting edge and a huge leap forward for RPGs. Any chance you plan to give some of SSI's ancient trilogies - Secret of the Silver Blades and its games, Pool of Radiance and its games, etc - a look through?
I remember this game. I played games on PC and Amiga at the same time in 1990's. Hunter on Amiga from 1991 were the first 3D open world game. It's kind of GTA 5 in 1991. Activision did make "Hunter" and it had a very long development time for it's time and it shows in game.
Even more run down than Barovia. Oh yeah; BIG time. Barovia is one of the more pleasant domains to live in. Strahd actually gives a crap about protecting his people from outside threats. I/E, ones that aren't him. Not out of any kindness, but he sees them as his property, and he gets violent when people mess with his stuff.
U seem like a DnD fan. If you ever get the itch to doing another one of these throw back series might I recommend the SSI Dark Sun games from the same time period? I think your style of breakdown would bring those games back to life for me.
The two Ravenloft games are comfort games from my childhood. They legit scared me as a kid when I played them. You gotta play Menzoberrazan now though and finish up the engine collection, right?
Can't wait for the totally canonical fighting game sequel.
You really should try to get a fighting game UA-camr on to help explain why iron and blood is so so bad
I await the bone zone
Oh sh*t
@@yeturs69420 ssff and Matt McMuscles could assist
The goblin using his sword as a lightning rod to cast lightning is still one of my favorite moves in a fighting game.
I’m realizing more and more how much creativity was happening in the 90’s, in all entertainment.
Early survival mechanics, Egyptian horror, open-world?
And there was so much more. They really tried a lot with western RPGs.
(spoiler-free comment, don't worry...) There was this magical moment when I was playing Elder Scrolls Daggerfall for the 1st time ever... I was a few hours into the game, nothing significant happened, and then I find this letter, written by someone that has been missing for a while, that his kidnapping was in fact (...spoilers, can't write here...) I still remember how MAD I was for what they did to this guy... And then the game leaves it as an open choice if you will help him or not... It's crazy, Daggerfall has like 6 or 7 story paths and you can end up with 4 or 5 different endings, I don't even remember the total amount, some of them overlap... Glorious game... Must play... 10 out of 10 standing ovation
@@FeelingShred i has moments like this in morrowind. Also "the large rock near the strange tree" type letters were fantastic and silly. So many things I couldn't find but still had an amazing time exploring and murdering every single guard i came across.
@@FeelingShred easily the best dos game imo and one of the best rpgs period
You might wanna take a look at the Might & magic series III, IV/V are magnificent
part of the problem is creativity is risky. And with games made more and more to please stockholders, risks and creativity is increasingly discouraged, resulting in a market increasingly overwhelmed with remakes and remasters of recent releases and basic derivatives, especially outside the indie community
"everything blends together, it stretches on endlessly"
sounds like they made you feel the same way people lost in a desert feel.
one more point to the devs
great video
Someone needs to get that ghost a record contract. Really gave me a whole 80s pop rock vibe with her singing!
It no-joke will randomly get stuck in my head sometimes. It's a real banger!
We really need more spooky Egyptian / Desert themed games, especially dungeon crawlers in some dusty ass tombs
Ravenloft alone has multiple Desert/Egyptian themed domains to choose from. Sebua is one, with the heart consuming beautiful mummy Tiyet in command, or .... crap, can't recall the domain, but one came from Dark Sun.
@@Babbleplay Yeah, the Dark Sun setting in general was the one thing that came to my mind.
That, and also desert dungeons in Daggerfall. Climbing down a massive, convoluted web of tunnels only to get some deadly disease from a mummy was something else, lol.
It's not the whole game, but one of the chapters of the DoS game, Waxworks (which is a horrifically gory first person adventure RPG) takes place in one of the pyramids during the ancient Egyptian times.
I'll add both Dark Sun games and Aeons of Sands- The Trial.
Peret em heru is pretty cool
The real horror that those familiar with the ravenloft setting will hit is that while the vistani woman withering into nothing at the beginning is horrible, the real horror is that those who die in ravenloft are never free. Their souls are trapped and are reincarnated into one of the people born their. You die in ravenloft, you go from visitor to native in a realm of nightmares.
These two first games from Ravenloft series need a remastered version like the one received by Daggerfall. They deserve it.
Is the Daggerfall remastered version completed?
@@gustavofinkler1229 It's fully playable from start to finish, both main quests and side stuff with most mechanic working as intended.
But no, it isn't completed yet, probably never will be.
It's not a remaster, it's a mod. Bethesda Croftworks doesn't know how to remaster.
@@gustavofinkler1229 GOG has it, it's free, but significantly bigger than the original. A whopping 2 GB
Do they _need_ remastered versions though? Arent the retro graphics and sound part of the appeal?
I used to think that the Daggerfall skeletons were terrifying, but that giant skeleton/bone golem made noises I couldn't imagine, holy hell!
Those crypt elementals were just terrifying
Vengeance!!!
DUUUUUUUUUUUUDE THAT INTRO WAS SO DAMN SICK MAN
You didn't need a notification for quicksave/quickload when you originally played it; there was a visible freeze and hard disk clacking sounds as the data was written. All these new fangled faster-than-33mhz cpus and speedier disks got rid of the physical feedback. :P
Wow, you sent me back to the past when CPUs would 'whirr' and discs would spin and stop over and over. Phewh, I was terrified of it (I was a weird kid) but it was clear physical feedback from your digital actions. Something missing today!
Well, now you have 4.5% female viewers. This game looks really cool. I've recently got into playing text based rpgs. This game for 1995 has a few things ahead of it's time. The mouse turning would drive me absolutely insane though. Also creepy sounds really get me too. The digital noise adds more creep factor to it imo. I can totally see myself sitting in front of the computer in the dark playing this as a kid.
4.7 c:
As a kid playing this back in the day, it was one of the most engrossing experiences I ever had. Even better than Ultima Underworld! It could use a few quality of life changes, as you said. You should absolutely give this one a shot.
Also, I'm pretty sure he's playing this on a laptop, because the numpad works a lot better...Mice were becoming increasingly common, but they had a DOS version back then, mine is.
the game has also one of the most MEMORABLE CAT MOMENTS IN VIDEOGAME HISTORY 🤣🤣🤣fuck yeah 🤘
@@FeelingShred cat moment? which is that?
NPC
5:15 Yea, it took me a while to learn that the people who give advice on the internet don't always have the same goal you do. I have ruined a few play experiences by following build recommendations that require you to suffer for the first 90% of the game in order to do something broken for the last 5%. The STRONGEST build is rarely the best for a casual playthrough. Great Video's BTW. I really enjoy your content!
hard agree, using guides is one thing but using builds? That can either kill your experience or kill your want to continue the game.
Oh hell yeah.
Just reading build guides for Pathfinder games,
They pronounce nearly every companion utterly crippled by the starting stats the devs gave them (16 strength instead of 17! Forsooth!)
and tell you to min max everything, even respec characters far away from what the character might ever do.
The games… aren’t that hard
It’s so silly
I was told when playing Diablo 2 that if I didn't follow a specific build I'll be screwed for the whole game which kinda sucked the fun out of it for me.
@@fefyfona4318 lol I had the battle chest, the guide inside said druid was weak. I had a small army of animals and took very little damage the entire run. Functions the same as an Army of Darkness Necromancer build. Kill things make more soldiers replace as they die
@@joearnold6881 never played pathfinder so I can't really talk about it but I have some of the craziest 5e builds that make sense only to me. Like running a Blade pact warlock to level 3 and spending the other 17 levels into fighter. You can effectively never be disarmed and you can summon any weapon that you have seen. So essentially running a Strahd campaign with a high enough bluff roll you could fool Strahd into thinking you already have the sword that can kill him, before you even get it IF you can catch a glimpse of it. c:
The black pants legion podcast is the only podcast you need
Miners, don't die!
This was the first time I ever saw a computer game in 1995~ish. I knew it as “lost in the desert”, a family friend was having a cookout, me and younger kid were same age and watched his older brother. The ambient sounds and monster noise is truly scary on the old crackly duo speakers mounted to the CRT monitor we had at the time. We kept comparing it to the desert level in super Mario 64 (the only video game I had played at the time) 😂
I really liked how you combine a cheerful disposition with a touch of swearing, ridiculous podcast excerpts and other little pop culture references/video edits & not to mention making this game super interesting. Can't believe you don't have more subs so I figured you definitely earned my sub. Can't wait to watch the other one you were talking about in the game.
Games like this, Ultima Underworld and ES1&2 were extremely impressive for the time
Wizardry 7 is the most impressive DoS RPG imo. Incredible game
@@asimplewizard Wizardry VII was recognized by everyone as one of the greatest RPGs of all time, but good luck finding any modern gamer that will even try it.
@@frankhalgas3798 tbf Im a modern gamer and I tried it.
Retro gaming is actually REALLY popular with a lot of people in their 20's.
Excellent review, brings me back to the 90s watching my older sister play it on our old computer
I consider myself a purveyor of anything "classic crpg" related and yet, somehow, all I knew about those games, was that they existed but barely anything else. Thanks for the enlightening trip (and so comprehensive one at that!). I really enjoy and appreciate your unique approach. The seed was sown and I'll sure as hell try them out as soon as I get through currently played (and being unfairly put on hiatus since 2016) "Hand of Fate".
Yours Sincerely
New subscriber
Haha, same here. For years, sometimes the word "Menzoberranzan" would pop up in my head, and I could never tell where I'd heard it. I guess I must have read that game's title in a gaming magazine a long time ago. Only later I learned that it's a drow city and all that.
Anyways, I like channels that introduce me to games I've never really knew about.
Not much of a "purveyor" then, if you missed these, i've played them all since the start, way back in the 80's
@@SwedishEmpire1700hahaha bullying for not being nerdy enough 😂 the Internet is crazy
@@SwedishEmpire1700
No TRUE Scottsman! Lmfao, you are the epitome of that fallacy!
Wow this really takes me back. I had forgotten about all these games, but really did love them back in the day. I'm glad you're preserving the memories.
I totally remember this game now that you're bringing it back up.
Hands down, you make the best dnd crpg content on YT! I LOVE it and hope you keep it coming! Amazing work!
Awesome to see that crpg devs also watch these types of videos. Can't wait for your game!
Thank you so much!
@@Empowerless thank you so much!!! Yeah this is basically research for me so since I don't have much time to play games myself at the time, watching awesome content like this is the next best thing ;-)
@@WilliamSRD any chance you give some of the other goldbox games a go? Curse of the Azure Bond etc :-) also hope you try out Menzo... menz... menzlbemzlanzan as it's a game I'll likely never try myself 😅
@@HighNorthStudios yep! At this point I'm hoping to eventually cover EVERY DnD game! Should keep me busy!
First video about a "forgotten game" that I already knew and had already played. Excellent video, this game deserves to be more publicized.
11:33 I notice that a lot of those old school rpgs have some of the best monster sfx too!
51:54 "I don't have a plan, but at least I've got momentum, you know"
Words of wisdom
I believe there's a 4th, or (0th) Ravenloft game, unofficially. It's from SSI and directly related to the 2 SSI Ravenloft games and It seems like it could and should have been official
SSI had the D&D license from 1988 until 1994 (final games being released in 1995) and the output of D&D games for many settings was huge. Their 2 Ravenloft games came near the end. But before the first game, they release a non-D&D RPG called "Veil of Darkness" (1993).
Veil of Darkness is an Isometric RPG. It might be the same engine as SSI non-D&D "The Summoning" from 1992. It's about a vampire lord who uses his magic powers to keep all of the people of a town trapped in his domain full of creatures of the name - the same premise as Ravenloft. Even if it wasn't from SSI it would be impossible to be a coincidence, but as a game from SSI it's very strange.
Arguably the only thing keeping this from being 100% a Ravenloft clone is that the game is technically set in modern times even though most of the game could pass for the Ravenloft setting. When I see the box with SSI on it it's hard to remember it's not a Ravenloft game.
The team that made this made these other Ravenloft games for SSI. Given that SSI had the Ravenloft license, did SSI plan to put the Ravenloft name on this with a couple tweaks for setting and then it didn't happen for some rason? The team was already working with SSI so it's not like they were brought in because they did a Ravenloft clone. It's also possible the team liked Ravenloft and didn't care that it was a copy, but that's just odd.
If anyone's interested in seeing what it's like, Ross Scott (who runs the Accursed Farms channel, of Freeman's Mind fame) did a review of it a while back. It's certainly an interesting game.
Somehow, the Elusive Ghost's song felt genuinely unsettling, despite being well... a musical number, and exposition. That's commendable.
Silent Hill 2
Reminds me of playing the "I" series modules in 1st ed AD&D way way back when. They were the introduction to the Ravenloft campaign, which I passed on for many years, but have come to appreciate it for being so well received by gamers.
Fun fact, Stone Prophet isn't based off of Touch of Death, it is in fact a SEQUEL to the Touch of Death module. When you find the undead priestess Isu in the Temple of Set the things she talks about are the events of Touch of Death - wherein a group of adventurers defeated both her and Senmet, though most of them perished in the process - Gloriantha's adventuring group.
And pro tip - the people who tell you not to take Pyotra the Thief with you are full of nonsense. Unlike Strahd's Possession, 99% of the locks in this game CAN be picked, meaning Pyotra can save you the nightmare of having to comb dungeons looking for keys. Also, there are no wizard party members that you can recruit in the game; so if you don't bring one with you Pyotra is the only character who can use wizard scrolls and wands.
This was one of the first truly large games I've properly finished in my childhood. And the most confusing thing was that I was playing a pirated copy with no video cutscenes, which made it highly cryptic in places.
I played this when I was a child, it’s wild to see my kids generation rediscover it.
That's so sweet 😭
For a relatively small channel, you did a great job here! Thanks for the upload!
This game needs a remake. Its a setting no one uses anymore (in both senses, Ravenloft doesn't get much outside of a module or two and Ancient Egypt seems abandoned as a fantasy setting) and its such a shame because Sword and Sandals is a foundational subgenre in fantasy.
You gotta upload more videos man, just binged all your stuff and I need more
At 13:14, I would argue the difference between older fast travel vs the version used nowadays is the older versions required in-universe means like magic or services while newer fast travel just somehow *happens* with no explanation at all.
Like compare Morrowind's methods of fast travel versus say Skyrim's.
i respect a grinder that has replayed through the frustrating loss of progress. you have my sub for now.
Growing up my step dad worked at a printing company that did word for TSR. Had a Dungeons board game I wish I still had. This took place in late 70's early 80's.
Just downloaded from Steam. Looking forward to it. Thanks for the vlog. Cheers from Australia !
Ive played this one! It required a lot of exploration, and puzzle solving. Really tough game.
I don't think I ever managed to get past the skull tomb, but I do remember this fondly.
God, I never heard of this game for D&D but I can definitely say it's my favorite :0
I love how they really put horror and spookiness into the game, that's how I thought Ravenloft was supposed to be with hearing about it's monsters! also I just found ya and got to say I love your content already, it funny!
I really like your channel. Good on the algorithm for promoting this video
You mention "this whole town/country/area keeps faling into portals" that just means that the whole town is already *in Ravenloft* The mists never let anyone go. So we don't know WHY this town/country was absorbed, but part of their punishment is the whole portals into other ravenloft realms bit.
Hilarious style, awesome storytelling and great forgotten games covered! I've subbed. Love this, thank you!
this was one of my favorite games of the mid 90's and not enough people played it. When I got a wavetable card the opening music changed to an epic orchestral piece that was awesome.
Stumbled on this video on my feed on old PC games! Remember seeing this game being played at a Babbage's back in the day!
Love it! Your commentary is hilarious! Especially the parts with kill Sehmet!! Hitting that subscribe button to see more of your videos!
damned song stuck.. survivveee.. in my head.. to the.. mummykingggg...
I miss those old dungeon crawlers that had the thick manual and twelve floppy disks. 😅
I really enjoyed your two videos on this 'trilogy' (if such it is) as well as the three games themselves. I posted this in the Strahd video too, but I hope that you do a Menzoberranzan video as well. It's definitely not horror and is more definitely high fantasy, but there is one moment in that game - I will say no more than it involves a joinable NPC - that absolutely terrified me as an adolescent. I don't have nightmares about it or any such thing, but to this day I still remember how startled I was.
Mask of the Betrayer had some of my favorite, varied companions in a D&D game.
But damn does this game really go all out with companions. I would love to see more games take such risks.
some of the most unique NPC recrutable party members I've seen for sure, including a Troll with regenerating HP and one Undead lady that can't be killed and comes back to life after a few minutes
^^the undead lady is a thing that exsits in pathfinder kingmaker as well. the best solotion for disarming traps is to walk her threw the entire map and set them off. ahahahah. Becouse she doesnt die..she cant. she just gets up. The game even foreshadows this in the tutorial, you can ask her why theres a bunch of burned up dead people in the hallway..shes like..oh unlike you flesh people i am undead human traps are nothing to me. Also if you use deaths door mode which gives your party members an extra life so you dont have to reload 4000 times per battle. Threw a bug or intent im not shure. But they now get 2 extra lives if shes in the party. Becouse the game can not desern if she is dead or not..so the battle "ends" then your party gets up and fights again. But it only works once. I like to think she uses necromancy or something @@FeelingShred
interesting, thanks 👍
I like that your reviews don't have any spoilers in them.
glad to see Ssethtzeentach making his way in more parties. 12:00
Ohhhh man those old pixel-ly sound effects could be so terrifying. Gives me the heeebee-geebees to this day.
One of my favorite D&D games back in the day... Are you planning on covering any of the 'Eye Of The Beholder' series? Or any of the smaller 'standalones' like 'Dungeon Hack' or 'Stronghold' or 'Fantsy Empires'?
Damn i played all of that back in the day...
The Mummy Octopot. The Temple of Raw. God, the auto subtitles are a laugh riot.
I combined bother Ravenloft and Stone Prophet into one large campaign back in the AD&D days along with several other short adventures. I still have the books and converting to Pathfinder 2e.
Funny me and my crew are running a 5e 3.5e hybrid and i was thinking of converting the 2ed ravenloft modules. Lol
@maguszeal5818 those were some of the best horror mods ever.
I remember I playing a Paladin that wandered into the mists. After solving mysterious muders in a village in Ravenloft, he was praised by some of the townsfolk, gained a following, and began building a church for his god.
Shortly after, he got bitten by a vampire and caused unspeakable acts against his god.
He then lost his paladin powers and decided to commit suicide. Very fun campaign, not so fun ending.
Your narration is phenomenal - conveys such passion and enthusiasm I felt bad for snobbing this kind of dungeon crawlers.
I mean, I was almost a teenager when the game came out, and I missed the whole game and all this production value?
I definitely need to check if there's any remake or mods to make the tech department a bit smoother for today's standards and should give the game another chance!
Proktuah Spear on that zombie mummy lmao 😂
The gold box games were child’s play compared to Wizardry 7. I loved all of them but Wizardry 7 nearly broke me back in the 1990s.
Wizardry 7 is brutal until you have failed a few times, it was Wizardry 4 that really broke me. You should try 4, but you probably will not like it.
@@hicknopunk I’ve probably played it, I remember 6 and 7 the best and recently played the last one wizardry 8.
@@texsocprog3681 7 was such a step forward. A real overworld! It was such a strange world and if your PC was too fast, lock picking hard locks is about impossible. Oh and than manual should tell you to get all characters to swimming 10 first thing. The game is torture without being able to swim and at 10, you can grind it up to max by just going into a square of water over and over again.
@@texsocprog3681 oh and you should play the NES ports if 1-3. They have music and custom graphics.
@@hicknopunk back then with the lack of choices, it definitely was a step forward. I remember it being a choice between the gold box games, wizardry, and arena. Wizardry 7 had more replay-ability in my opinion. Then I played Doom for the first time and drifted from the dungeon crawlers until I replayed Swords and Serpents on my old Nintendo for awhile.
That song at the beginning is something else.
Wow. This reminds me of ultima underworld but with much more added, young me would have played this for countless hours. Ty for sharing this gem
I absolutely love this game! I've beaten it several times. I first bought it in a TSR 6-pack. This is the first one I played from that pack and the only one I've ever beaten. Great game both then and now!
currently trying the Challenge Run of completing the game only with two Mage characters, without recruiting any NPC's and no Water spell
just be careful with the Quicksave/Quickload buttons (red green) Apparently there's a bug in the game it does not save how many Charges you used off a Wand... so you can reload the game multiple times and exhaust the charges you can fire a Wand at enemies... beware
quitting and reloading the game brings back the wand to full charge though, for emergency situations
but it's weird, I think the game indeed saves the amount of Charges left if you have identified the Wand first 👍Fantastic game, love it
@@FeelingShred agreed, it's a great game! I've beaten it multiple times with each different NPC at least once. My favorite team is a dwarf cleric, elf mage, the troll, and the wemic. Good luck with the challenge!
The sound effects in this game are even more creepy than in Drakkhen!
Actually there is one more ravenloft game. DDO which has a ravenloft focused expansion "Mist Of Ravenloft." It also has a grayhawk expansion surprisingly. It's incredibly loyal to 3.5 ruleset as well and probably one of the best one to one "modern" dnd games.
Just discovered your channel and... LOVED this video! Great job
2:00 SsethTseednatch is in this game?
One thing I always loved about older games being clunky and counter intuitive was that it felt so much more immersive. When I played Morrowind as a kid I filled an entire notebook irl with pictures and quest logs. What a time that was.
I loved that you actually had to figure out where stuff was in Morrowind, based on clues from books and suchlike, and by actually looking at your geographical surroundings rather than the game just putting a marker on your map like modern games do.
@@Huffers2002 Trying to finish Morrowind for the first time and I want to say Morrowind is fun game I can't wait to play more.
only recent game i can think of that gave me that feeling is Lobotomy corp. Its a 2d monster management sim meets rpg. As mechanics get stacked on top of each other. Managing the monsters you need to interact with. becomes something you need to keep physical notes about if you don't want to cheat and use the wiki. Because you got monsters that game over you, if you interact with to many other monsters first. Monsters that have timers you need to manage(express train to he*l). Monsters that require you to remember who was last interacting with them in your party(The happy teddy bear) because repeated interactions in a row from one person will result in losing a character. Monsters that use the games actual physical camera, in a forth wall breaking way. where if you are looking at the monster while one of your characters is interacting with them the interaction will fail and it will breach and destroy everyone. Unless you realize that the camera machinic applies to it at all times. meaning not looking at it stops it from doing anything and it just sits there takeing damage. .a monster who is the former but in reverse and you have to always be looking at it. Armor you can equip to your agents from the last two monsters that also boosts your party members attack power..but only if you are directly looking at them fully zoomed in. and a bunch of other stuff @@Huffers2002
THIS is the kind of video we needed. Nice one.
I love that the hydration mechanic is completely removed because of Create Water. Like as soon as I started playing my first game of DnD my friend and I started brainstorming all the ways to abuse our level 1 spells and create water was the one we discussed the most.
Lol that joke at the start about menses omg
6:13 I Curse You for Gnoming me like this. With the Fury of a Thousand Suns and the Sheer, Raw Hatred of Satan, Ahriman, and Chernobog Combined I Curse You.
Great job man! That was a very good video! I just love this retro nostalgic games. Nice job! :)
Your use of silly podcasts and audiobooks is something I’ve never heard. Such a fun dynamic I actually look forward to. 😂
2:30 Oh god that hip thrust attack is so busted 😭😭
GET BONED
@@WilliamSRD 🤕😰☠
Yo can I get the song that starts when you start talking? Like a decent chip tune remix or something. Gonna have to go through these games now that you’ve covered then
1.5x subs in 9 days. You're killing it!
What a creepy, badass setting and storytelling devices. Loving this review so far, great work.
I was not prepared for @25:42. Aspirated some wasabi and cleared my sinuses. Needed that greatly, thank you.
Forgot to subscribe, definitely not now! 💚
That cut scene was completely chilling in 95. Played on a Packard Bell.
I recently started playing these games through for the first time, I completed strahds possession and have just started this. I personally went with a dwarf fighter/cleric and a half-elf mage/thief they cover a lot of the bases and make a cool duo imo
currently replaying the game for the 4th time with the challenge of going only with a party of two Mages and no NPC recruits at all (this means no Water spell available) I want to see if the game is even finishable like this 👍1st dungeon kicked my ass raw
I dont know why but when I heard that song I had to listen to the whole thing that you linked before listening to the video
Nostalgia. I used to play this game decades ago and loved it. One of the first computer games I played along with Eye of the Beholder. The most memorable part of Stone Prophet was the mother and son where the son was turned into stone to drag something for all eternally... or something like that (it's been decades)... it was very touching. It makes me laugh when I think of "stone prophet" as "stoned prophet".🤣 This game is where I learned the name heirophant and used it a lot for my characters on other games.
this game also has one of the most memorable Cat moments in videogame history, full with voice acting and all... love it love it love it
Thanks for the video. I've owned Stone Prophet for decades (got it in the D&D Masterpiece Collection) but never played it since I never got around to finishing the first one. Now I'm curious to check it out and have it running in DOSBox.
Dude that desert troll was badass, his long arms can do melee attacks from the back row.
One of the first games I got for PC. Loved it. Ravenloft 2, Thunderscape and Daggerfall is what got me into the fantasy genre. Thunderscape being my favorite of the 3. It is also the one whose graphics have aged the least well. Greyish brown pixelated mess on modern computers.
(spoiler-free comment, don't worry...) There was this magical moment when I was playing Elder Scrolls Daggerfall for the 1st time ever... I was a few hours into the game, nothing significant happened I was considering quitting, and then I find this letter, written by someone that has been missing for a while, that his kidnapping was in fact (...spoilers, can't write here...) I still remember how MAD I was for what they did to this guy... And then the game leaves it as an open choice if you will help him or not... It's crazy, Daggerfall has like 6 or 7 story paths and you can end up with 4 or 5 different endings, I don't even remember the total amount, some of them overlap... Glorious game... Must play... 10 out of 10 standing ovation
never heard of Thunderscape, thanks
Harikir is a tough hood indeed. But has some really fantastic background music.
These videos are some comfort food
Thanks for the vid, had no idea this game existed!
This reminds of the games "Wadjet Eye Games" makes (they make this games that look like those old point and click video games actually pretty neat stuff ) maybe check them out in the future they supposed to have a bunch of stuff coming out soon-ish
Funny you mention Bloodborne, I was gonna make a crack about the Menzis deep cut still getting through to Soulsborne lore bros, if for no other reason than because they wiki'd Ebrietas
I don't know how I didn't hear about you until now, but I'm glad I did. I LOVE old-school CRPGs like this. It really is amazing thinking back to when games like this were cutting edge and a huge leap forward for RPGs. Any chance you plan to give some of SSI's ancient trilogies - Secret of the Silver Blades and its games, Pool of Radiance and its games, etc - a look through?
Great games! Pool of darkness and eye of the beholder were my favorite ssi games
Great vid. I laughed , I cried , I subbed.
Awesome edits and entertaining for the full 45 min. Can't wait to check out the rest of the channel.
The edit of the word fallen had me laughing so hard I fell out of my seat.
the gameplay and horror reminds me of another game called waxworks. good video dude, subbed!
I remember this game. I played games on PC and Amiga at the same time in 1990's.
Hunter on Amiga from 1991 were the first 3D open world game. It's kind of GTA 5 in 1991. Activision did make "Hunter" and it had a very long development time for it's time and it shows in game.
You start the video with the Song of the Elusive Ghost. You get the thumbs up
Even more run down than Barovia.
Oh yeah; BIG time. Barovia is one of the more pleasant domains to live in. Strahd actually gives a crap about protecting his people from outside threats. I/E, ones that aren't him. Not out of any kindness, but he sees them as his property, and he gets violent when people mess with his stuff.
U seem like a DnD fan. If you ever get the itch to doing another one of these throw back series might I recommend the SSI Dark Sun games from the same time period? I think your style of breakdown would bring those games back to life for me.
I will likely try to get on those this year since people have started chatting a lot about the Dark Sun setting online recently.
Thanks!
11:24 I can only imagine how terrifying that must have felt being seen for the 1st time ever at the time back in 1995 1996... this game is amazing
The two Ravenloft games are comfort games from my childhood. They legit scared me as a kid when I played them. You gotta play Menzoberrazan now though and finish up the engine collection, right?
This channel is amazing.
Actually published by SSI but developed by DreamForge Intertainment (yes, they spelled it that way)