The Temple of Elemental Evil | Troika Games Retrospective 2/3
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- Опубліковано 9 лип 2024
- PART 3 ► • Vampire: The Masquerad...
Support the channel! Buy ToEE on GOG (affiliate link) ► indigogaming.link/Temple
In the second of a 3-part Troika Games retrospective, I will take a look at Leonard Boyarsky, Jason Anderson and Tim Cain's RPG classic, The Temple of Elemental Evil: A Classic Greyhawk Adventure. This series will cover all three games they developed, how they innovated, what didn't succeed and and attempt at the age-old question: "What happened to Troika Games?"
Episode two is a Temple of Elemental Evil review, where I cover the historical importance of the game, the origins of its mechanics and rules systems. What it does better than Neverwinter Nights, Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate, and where it fails in glitches, mechanics and its convoluted interface and commands.
0:00 - History of Dungeons & Dragons and Its Influence
2:51 - Adapting a Classic
6:43 - Between Two Worlds
10:54 - Changing Alignment
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MUSIC CREDITS
The Temple of Elemental Evil soundtrack by Ron Fish
www.ronfishmusic.com/
'All This - Scoring Action' by Kevin MacLeod
'Healing' by Kevin MacLeod
'Lurking' by Silent Partner
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FOOTAGE CREDITS
Some Temple of Elemental Evil footage by DruidofCormanthor:
/ druidofcormanthor
Eye of the Beholder and Might & Magic footage by Elanarae:
/ @elanarae
Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager footage by Adam Bigwood:
/ @dayolight4373
Heroes of the Lance footage by ethanbubblegumtate:
/ @ethanbubblegumtate
Baldur's Gate footage by mynameisnotlilly:
/ @mynameisnotlilly
Neverwinter Nights footage by dumlepumle:
/ @dumlepumle
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SOURCES
www.giantbomb.com/the-temple-...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tem...)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Gygax
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon...
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ARTWORK CREDITS
Dungeons & Dragons and various fantasy artwork by Larry Elmore
Temple of Elemental Evil concept art by Chris Glenn
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*Drinking game:* Take a swig every time I say “Temple of Elemental Evil”.
*Suicide game:* Take another swig every time I say “D&D” or “Dungeons & Dragons”.
Support the channel! Buy ToEE on GOG (affiliate link) ► indigogaming.link/Temple
Suicide game it is. :D
Indigo Gaming you really want to kill your audience!
Easy. I'm drinking lemonade.
I'm Polish, and it's still hard. :P
Troika AND cyberpunk in form of awesome essays? Im so fucking subscribing!
For anyone wanting to try out Temple of Elemental Evil: do so with the Circle of Eight patch. Trust me, you'll have a blast.
A great retrospective, but I'd like to add one thing. The reason why it might have seemed obtuse was because the game came with a 150 page manual (basically a D&D 3.5 rule book) that players were expected to read. I did, and even as a complete newcomer to D&D, I had no problems finishing the game.
Well, that's actually a lie. Just before the final boss there was an optional side-quest that would take you into another realm or something like that. Upon finishing the quest, the portal that was supposed to take me back to the temple never spawned, so I remained trapped there. Thankfully, I had an earlier save, so I just skipped the whole thing and went on to deal with the boss.
A great game, but that did leave a somewhat sour taste. Oh well, it's Troika.
bought both Arcanum and Temple of elemental Evil after seeing your videos!
Awesome! I hope you enjoy them.
I played and finished Arcanum in middle school. Man what a time it was
Fallout 1 and 2, Gothic 1 and 2 and Arcanum are my TOP 5 best games of all time!
I love Troika games because the have always had incredible ideas for games and they knew how to put all the elements of the rpg style into their games. But saying that my favorite game by them would have to be the vampire the masquerade bloodlines series.
Man, this is quickly becoming one of my favorite channels. Your choice of subject matter is unlike any other on UA-cam. Good stuff!
The really interesting thing is that one could say that Troika has made a creative masterpiece, a mechanical masterpiece and an athmospheric masterpiece. But it never really got together.
I need to play this again so badly
I know it's an old comment, but I'm just seeing you everywhere lately, MDR
I loved that game, it's nice to see im not the only one that has played it.
This video gave me chills, great work.
One of the most underrated RPGs from that time because we were playing Bioware's games (the old good Bioware, not this current mercantile version). This game deserves to be properly known.
ToEE was one of my FAVOURITE games of all time!
(I have been playing D&D and AD&D etc for 37 years.....)
Lent it to a friend, and never saw it again! :( :( :( Shattered.
Buy it again on GoG, it's really cheap in there and it's so old nowdays it can run on a potato.
In hindsight, ToEE feels like a spiritual predecessor to OwlCat's Pathfinder games.
Fitting, since Pathfinder the tabletop game was a direct modification/revival of Dungeons and Dragons 3.5e.
I bought this game when it first came and out. Honestly, it was addictive, but tended to crash so much it became a major negative issue. This game started my life quest of having the most in-game deaths. A game you could love and hate. Thanks for another great golden oldy review.
So sad that Troika was crushed by its time. :(
I loved this game so much. Definitely one of the top D&D PC games that I've ever played (right up there with the classic gold box games, Planescape Torment, and Baldur's Gate 1-2)
I remember, when it first came out, people in our local roleplaying forums CRPG section were pretty puzzled at how to clear the first dungeon(moathouse). My recommendations to anyone willing to try it, is to slog through all the non combat quests in Homlet, that will get your party to at least lvl2.
That's good advice. They definitely drop a lot of baddies on you for being just a level 1 party.
I came across this game knowing nothing about it and it turned out to be one of the best videogames I played to this day! Yeah, besides the bugs ^^ so, many, bugs! I didn't even have internet at home to quickly check if something was a bug or if I was just missing something. Gladly some electro wizards (Circle of Eight) were already working on a community patch by the time I played it which made the game not a huge mess of waisted potential, but a great and memorable experience!
Loved your videos about Troika. I'd like to correct an imprecision in this one, though, saying this as a total D&D noob that just finished the game: The game has tool tips. Press "H" in the keyboard or click in the "?" icon in the lower right corner and then click into whatever option in the radial menu, and you'll get a usually thorough explanation of what it does via the help window, which basically contains the whole manual. My only complaint is that there is no search feature, but that can be worked around since the window has buttons to browse every entry, neatly organized in categories.
Additional tips for D&D newbies: Turn on the help tips that appear every map change. Keep the dice rolls log open so you can understand every action, even the checks that happen outside combat. You can also enter the help window through links in this dice roll log.
Very good tip, glad you shared it!
My statement was accurate, however, as tooltips are defined as a popup when you hover over something. In this case, you have to press a button to trigger the help overlays.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooltip
@@Indigo_Gaming Ah, I see! Valid distinction, but it sounded like there was no in-game mechanism to aid in understanding the ruleset.
Truth be told, I didn't know about that help key, but a discreet help key doesn't really undermine my point, which was that for people who aren't very well-versed in D&D 3.5, this game has a huge learning curve.
It does! I was still finding very basic actions in my last battles in the game (How "spontaneous casting" for clerics actually worked comes to mind), but then again, no game has really achieved a thorough introduction for rulesets as complex as D&D. Pathfinder: Kingmaker is the latest example, also a terrific game, also with a steep learning curve.
Great job, Indigo. That game has always been intriguing to me.
Not a single terrible pun got past me!
"Would this third game redeem the company and bring their designers to success they so desperately wanted to achieve? Find out in the third an final episode"
Oh stop rubbing salt into my wounds!
Always seen this game on my radar. Now I’m definitely playing it! Thanks!
I absolutely love this game despite its flaws, for its unique aspect, its atmosphere and its complex tactical aspect.
It's deeply satisfying to have such a range of abilities at hand. I wish there were more similar games. I can't find tactical RPGs so satisfying as Temple of Elemental Evil.
Ten years ago I found this game. I can't express how happy I am.
Back then I never actually play table top RPG since in my country it's not very famous back then(now thanks to 5e and crit rolle It's got more popular.) but I'm OBSESS with it. I read all the rule from 3.0 to pathfinder, read all article about people opinion on them. I feel like a cop whom trained whole life in gun fight but never got into one. It's very itchy. This game help me a lot until I find a group year after and play ever since.
This game is said to be very accurate and since I never play, just learn. I really got into it whole heartily. Tons upon tons of character idea. All build and character pooling in my head just blown into this game and it's translate so great that when I get into the ttrpg I'm crushing it.
Now I'm a GM and didn't get to play much which I didn't mind, but playing the game as pc help keep me sane and see the flaw I could did in my own game.
I loved this game back in the day. Thanks for the reminder.
I remember trying to play this game when I was about 14 and having only played one other rpg (morrowind) at this point. I had never even heard of D&D then. I got the game on one of those CDs/DVDs that were added to videogame magazines back then. Aaaand I was completely lost... after trying and failing for a little bit to play it I put it aside. Maybe I'll give it another try now. It still looks gorgeous.
Played this game so many times. Started with a physical copy on a CD. Lost it. Found it and played again. Broke the CD. Bought the game again years after, this time on GOG. Played again countless hours.
I like it so much more than Baldurs Gate and Neverwinter Nights, don't know why, but playing just feels better.
Man, you really know how to handle the pace of a narration. I wish you had more views, because your work is truly commendable and enjoyable. Godspeed.
As a teen i really learned to play Dnd with this game, before i sort of understood the basic rules from reading the 3.0 and 3.5 Handbooks, when playing this game i was truly able to mastered them.
I haven't gotten to trying this game yet. But as someone who was HIGHLY involved in D&D 3.5, I've been excited to give it a go.
I'm really looking forward to your Bloodlines episode. That was the Troika game I played the most of, and I think it did things really well, and introduced the world in a very new player friendly way. It has quite the active community even still.
It is hands down one of the best and most true to source 3.5-games out there. Other one would be Knights of the Chalice. This game, however, should only be played with the Circle of 8 mod-pack to fix a lot of the games issues.
Old game now, i've never played tabletop DND but toe was deep with so many skills and enemies also using unique attacks - those frogs!.
For instance trolls - constantly regen, i killed the trolls finally and to my surprise they came back to life because i afk around the bodies for too long.
Only ff7 tops this on my list and probably only because it was my first true rpg
I loved 3.5 Ed as well
I bought all three Troika games and honestly, ToEE has always been my favorite of the three. On the one hand it's a nice simple dungeon crawl, but on the other there's the incredible implementation of the D&D rules. I'd always wished it were successful enough for Troika to use the same engine to adapt other classic modules.
If you buy the game from GOG or whoever now, make sure to visit the Circle of Eight at CO8.org. They fixed most of the bugs and reinstated things that were censored when the game was released (the brothel, for instance).
I like Arcanum and Bloodlines, but ToEE is still my favorite.
What this guy said. Best computerized D&D ever, bar none. ToEE is a marvel that every self-respecting RPG player (past and present) MUST experience for himself.
I was almost depressed when I finished this game. I wanted more so badly. Was really looking forward to them recreating more classic Greyhawk modules using the ToEE engine. Imagine this engine with White Plume Mountain, Tomb of Horrors, Queen of the Demonweb Pits, etc.!
I've tried Circle of 8 mod for ToEE and it's really amazing. I hear there's some stuff made for the ole Arcanum too but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. Regarding Co8 mod I can say it's so bloody good it's now the only way I can replay the Temple (and I do it every year lately to be honest, so yeah - this game is the best representation of tabletop DnD in a crpg, period). Highly recommended to all veterans and newcomers willing to tackle this wonderful game
You've sold me on this game. Thanks.
Awesome. I hope you enjoy with the caveats I explained in my video.
Same
Great video man!!
Thank you, I enjoyed the nostalgia.
awesome stuff!
keep it going
Nerdslayer did a really good video on Troika Games as well, but almost completely skipped over this one. I'm glad you really covered it in full. Great video.
Thanks Jack, I've been wanting to cover Troika for a while and almost didn't after seeing NS's video. But I think enough time had passed and I have enough different about the games to merit a different kind of series covering them. Thanks for watching!
i loved this game. I love theese kind of rpgs not so much bc of context but bc of the accumulated work that makes the interaction, which is the base of all video games, so complex and yet fun to experiment and learn, just like with the contextual stories.
Still the best implementation of D&D mechanics in a video game to date.
This channel is golden.
Great work!
that kind of graphics look better and age better.
3d looks dated a few years later, while stuff like baldur's gate still look awesome.
I played this game as someone who is thoroughly familiar with D&D 3.5 and with a reputation as a power gamer in that system. I still haven't beaten the Balor in the Water Node. Apparently, the only surefire way to survive a lot of the late game enemies is to have a Lawful Good Cleric with Craft Magic Arms and Armor, and the Law/Good Cleric Domains, to make the party Holy Axiomatic weapons.
Excellent part 2. I also have this game and i love it because it isn't a breeze to get to the end, which is how any game should be. No more need be said. Be well and keep safe, regards Gary.
I wanna say that I just found your and you are now my favorite channel
Awesome! I'm glad you've enjoyed my work.
And once again, while I was about to get some sleep, my inner Troïka fanboy keeps me away from Morpheus.
TToEE is the game I played the least, simply because I've never been as fond of D&D as I am with WoD and original settings. Plus, I played it much later than Bloodlines and Arcanum, and hopefully by that time I had run a Pathfinder campaign with friends and was a bit knowledgeable about how how D&D 3.x works (not counting, of course, having played a lot of Baldur's Gate 2 and Icewind Dale 2 back in the day). I must say I like the fact that you could do pretty much anything you can do in the P&P game, combat wise. It's all about choice and building your characters, which I like a lot. In fact, since D&D settings are generally a bit too focused on combat to my tastes, I tend to get most of my fun in the character creation screens and theory-crafting. Those are games I often only play halfway through but have much fun starting anew with different options to try out.
Also, you make a very interesting point when you talk about the difficulty of the game. We don't always realise, indeed, how the GM generally adapts the encounters so we, feeble players, don't get annihilated prematurely. So when the rules are played "by the book" and your GM is a soulless computer, well, you got it: Unforgivingly hard XD
Yeah it's called "fudging". Not all DMs do it, but if you're empathetic to your players, have people who are just learning or want to keep your friends, DMs will fudge rolls here or there or simply use less aggresive tactics to tone down the difficulty. It's apparent in a computer simulation like ToEE though that SkyNet don't give a damn about your feelings.
"Computer simulation" is a good choice of words here. Troika's philosophy isn't far from immersive sims like Deus Ex or System Shock 2, they give you tools and a setting to express your play style. At the same time, you can feel the research and appreciation of RPG systems. They're the guys that made SPECIAL from GURPS for Fallout after all. Apart from the cringe from budget and planning hell that transpires from the programmers' notes, you can feel love and understanding of the base material in Bloodlines.
Arcanum was basically my fist RPG game , I fell in love with it and to this day it fuels my fascination with the genre. Oh, how excited I was to buy Temple of Elemental Evil, from the creators of my favorite game! and how disappointing was I that this game was so confusing and beat the shit out of me that I had to delete it because of frustration suffered. I tried to get back to it, but those rules were so alien and combat so hard, that I could never handle it. Plus, even though it was very pretty, setting, atmosphere and lore of Arcanum to this day remain unbeaten for me.
You're one of my favourite youtubers. I would love to watch a video about the Crusader series or the gold box games made by you. Keep up the great work.
I played both Crusader: No Remorse/No Regret a little bit. Really technically impressive at the time and is the spitting image of Fallout at times (though preceding it). Interesting gaming artifacts I'd like to cover some day.
I actually really like the radial menu
I also grew up on 3.5 dnd, so I understand how most of those actions work inherently, but the help menu for this game is incredibly detailed, and I can find just about anything I need
I loved this game and played it through to the end. That Temple is huge and seems to never end.
This game could have been infinitely better, had it not released utterly broken. It's absolutely awesome these days with fan made patches, and it's disappointing to not have seen more AD&D games of this nature be made.
I was truly shocked at how accurately the game emulates D&D 3.5, which is the system I've played the most. The game was practically broken on launch, though, and the UI was a mess, so it doesn't surprise me that it wasn't overly successful.
@@Indigo_Gaming Having seen your video, has prompted me to install it and going play through it again. Been a few years since I've gone through ToEE. Was nice to be reminded just how awesome it was.
Had Troika maybe had just a little more time to flesh out problems with their games, they could have filled a niche market in the industry.
They had awesome ideas and commitment. It was their execution that was a little sloppy, sadly.
Temple of Elemental Evil!! I put my hands in this gem in... 2005!! (so many years...) and yes, it was hard, heavy, buggy and unforgiving... dont remenber exactly how far I reached but I didn' t finished it, still loved it anyways. Next serious gameplay was in 2013.... didn´t finished it again but I went farther into it. When will I put my hands on it next?? Not sure, but certainly I will if I can!!!
It looks like I already have this game due to a GOG D&D sale, but now I'm itching to get into it after seeing this look at it. Greyhawk was never one of my favorite D&D settings so maybe that was why I wasn't really ever intrigued by this game but the super faithful mechanics and colorful graphics have won me over to try it.
I have had this game sitting in my library for years, but have never played it. Now, I'm actually a little intimidated to try. Years of more modern RPGs have seriously atrophied my gaming skills, and I remember that I was only able to beat many of Baldur's Gate 2's harder encounters by abusing high level demon summoning combined with Protection from Evil to simply hide and let the fiends do their work.
Pressing the "h" key and then clicking on something brings up the in-game manual. It works on most things, including the radial menu and the spell book. There are many ease of use options the game provides that allow to grasp mechanics easier.
6:25 Whenever I think of this game I remember dying to frogs in a swamp and that is it. Glad to see my memory wasn't fuzzy and that was exactly what happened.
If you're new to this game make sure when you create a party have at least one fighter use halberds/spears. Later you can get a perk called whirlwind attack. This perk is devastatingly effective when used with a halberd/spear.
I like this video very much !.
nice review. i also never heard of this one!
Great video
I love TTOEE. And i remember reading old TSR books like crazy... ☺
It is the most accurate version of D&D made, especially the combat, while the monsters look like they stepped straight out of the original Monster Manual.
I understand the radial menu isn't considered user friendly and the issues with crashing even with C of 8 patches are always there.
Still it felt more like the actual game than Neverwinter Nights ever did imo.
If you've any interest in trying this (which you should, it's excellent) be sure to take a look at the Temple+ and Co8 mods.
Also, the game has an extremely in depth in game encyclopedia of dnd rules. It is a shame that no tooltip comes up when mousing over abilities/spells in the main UI, but opening the spell book in the inventory screen lets you get detailed information on most things by right-clicking, IIRC. And that feedback thing in the bottom right gives you more detailed information on all highlighted terms if you click them. You don't need a bunch of knowledge about dnd 3.5 going in, the game has it all there.
Nice upload.
best video game channel on youtube
Most valid points about the game. Personally, it's my only experience other than neverwinter nights 2 with Dungeons and Dragons, and I played this first when i was about 12 years old. So i didn't know D&D ruleset and was quite young, but I did manage to figure out how to play and beat this game so it is possible.
I loved this game! :D
Never heard of this game. But it looks a lot like 2 of my favourite games ever: Baldur's Gate 1 & 2. Maybe I'll try it out :)
amazing video! i remember trying this game in 05 really wanting to get into it.. but i just couldnt understand a thing.. now i see why this was.. i've never played D&D and the game didnt explain anything!
Yeah if you're not familiar with the complex rules of D&D 3.5 specifically, this game is quite the punisher.
My first D&D-based game was Neverwinter Nights... and I also could not get into it because I did not understand how it works :)
The game definitely had some nasty bugs and progression issues. Dead enemies often wouldn't let you pick up items until after their bodies despawned, leaving the loot on the ground. Fortunately, the excellent Circle of Eight mod fixed a LOT of bugs and added new low-level content that helped your party level to a point where the Temple was less brutally punishing.
It was also a pain in the ass to rest or get spells back. Only the hidden stairwell offered a place to rest without fear of monster attacks.
Even so, I have yet to beat it. I get to one of the last big boss fights and get my ass handed to me every time by hordes of giants, bugbears, and casters. Your video showed a clip from just outside that fight. Maybe I'll go back to it later when a more optimized party.
I thought NVN was a very dull world with unsatisfying combat. The combat consists of clicking on hoards of identikit enemies to destroy them in one hit, wherein Baldur's Gate you had to be more strategic with even the basic enemies. Now that I've watched this video I'm going to hop onto GOG and purchase ToEE - the combat looks amazing!
Just found your channel. You're really thorough, have enjoyed these videos.
Here's a suggestion/request: Neverwinter nights. Lots of history and iterations there.
I do want to dig into that series again. Played a little bit of the first one and some of the MMO, but never really got me invested as much as Fallout or Baldur's Gate. I've heard what the multiplayer community pulled off was exceptional though.
Indigo Gaming the best part was that it was actually an online community, not necessarily multi player. For those (like me) who never really got into the multiplayer game thing much (probably because I grew up during the NES era, not the XBOX era), there were tons of community made single player modules available to download and play.
Although I guess NWN never had the lasting impact that the infinity engine games like BG did. Look at what has happened there!
This is in many ways a more accurate recreation of pen and paper gaming.
Having said that I found Neverwinter Nights too be a LOT more fun to play.
This is the only Troika game I haven't played yet. I admit it seems a bit intimidating, my knowledge of pen & paper rpgs is limited to the World of Darkness and the Myths of Cthulu. But if I must learn by trial and error, then so be it. I'm up for the challenge! Great series. I miss Troika so much.
On to VTMB!
Indeed. Quite possibly the most broken masterpiece of them all.
A game with loads of potential, but was released unfinished. It definitely had a far superior engine and D&D implementation than any of the Infinity Engine games, but it was severely lacking content, structure and technical stability. The Co8 modding community, with its dedication to a relatively obscure title years after its release, evidently saw what could be done with this game.
The turn-based system is still better than the real-time pause mechanic for D&D and party-based gameplay, although Baldur's Gate and the rest of the IE games all ended up being much better games due to polish and being completed games.
I loved the music in this game too and thought it was distinct and moody and at times reminiscent of Mark Morgan's work (composer for Fallout 1 and 2). Indeed, the graphics have also aged much better than the IE games and the awful 3D of NWN. Infact, it does not look much different from Pillars of Eternity or Tyranny, yet is more than a decade older.
Loved the game, and the only thing I had against it was the slowdown and complete freeze up (game would stop working) bug that happened in the nodes.
Again, I love the video. Please do one like this for Divine Divinity (2002).
Honestly, the only reason that I didn't buy this (and other D&D CRPGs) back in the day? They used Wizards of the Crotch rules. Sad, but true. When it came to Magic cards, been there, paid truckloads to do that. LOL No regrets. And at that time I had no problems with WotC. But the WotC D&D was just NOT the D&D that I grew up with. I even remember back then DMs (including myself) intentionally going back to FIRST edition AD&D to play our games sometimes. TSR AD&D was just different. To this day, I just don't know that I have it in my heart to give WotC D&D a fair chance. Had WotC just named their game Swords and Sorcery I might not hate them to this day for besmirching TSR's D&D and continued to give them my money in perpetuity for my next hit of crack. Sad, I know. I'm such an opinionated nerd. LOL
this is honestly the very first time I ever heard of this game. everyone always harps on about the black isle classics, or neverwinter nights etc. no one ever talks about Temple of EE. why is that? I'm gonna try this game out now!
I bought this game back in the early 2000's for 10 bucks played it for a while until it crashed and have never been able to get it to boot again even on different or newer pc's, maybe things like that are why no one ever talks about it.
Depending on your machine it can be a pain to get running. Beyond that, it's Troika, so expect an unstable mess even when it runs. Patches can help, but only so much.
That said, if you like DnD and can jump through the hoops, you're in for a good time!
this was my favourite game when i was i kid i never played dnd but i loved it
The game over splash screen is permanently burned into my brain like Silver Surfer and Zelda II
Well... ToEE is my favorite computer RPG. It showed for me that the game plays much better in a turn-based mode -- the combats are more tactical and interesting that BG. It also stretches the game out... so that combats have more weight in terms of processing the story. This said, the module itself wasn't necessarily the best. It's just a dungeon crawl. This showed off the combat system, but... 3.x was never designed for mass dungeons. The game plays better with a mixture of settings. I would love to have seen the game adapted to a new story more suited to 3.5e -- more a mixture of encounters, exploration (open areas), NPCs, and smaller caverns/buildings/etc. which you could get some sense of accomplishment from. The moat house was perfect. Tough, contained, and able to finish in a couple of hours. Once you got into the temple itself... there was nothing to interrupt the combats.
On the plus side, remembering this game makes me look forward to BG3. The BG series should have been turn-based. The lower complexity of the 5e rules should help.
Never played this one but looks cool
Playing it right now and man is it hard. Some battles have to be played 10 times just to beat or more times even.
It's one of the toughest CRPGs I've played for sure.
The artwork of this game is outstanding, highly detailed and cleanly rendered and with good performance. Every area feels unique and reminds of many strategy games that came before it. Polygon-based graphics allow to zoom in too much and need a reserve in resolution to deliver good level of detail.
But the user interface is quite poor. It is too compact, sometimes "flat" and frequently used buttons are too small. Behavior of the mouse does not follow established conventions and feel of other software, particularly on the radial context menu: no hover delay, dragging does not bring up the menu as it is created on click not release.
The difficulty seems to be there to "stretch" the game's length. Most basic healing costs 100g when an enemy drops maybe 5-15g. Identify from the spellbook costs 100g. At times the game feels like those movies that are too faithful to a book but can't stand on their own merits.
Magnificent game, it was too short if I remember correctly.
If you like _The Temple of Elemental Evil_ or want something similar, I recommend checking out _Pathfinder: Kingmaker_ and Hsinyu's Turn-Based Combat mod.
I like the action wheel!
I'm glad!
Yeah, the wheel was a decent method to allow a full spectrum of actions. A bit cumbersome perhaps, but how else could this be implementrd save a massive amount of hotkeys or an even more convoluted series of menus & sub-menus.
Radial menu was brilliant. Very well organized and intuitive to use. No complaints.
There are the Circle of 8 (Co8) fan patches and Temple+ to fix and expand upon a buncha bad stuff in ToEE.
Push the H key to toggle help mode. That way, you can learn more of what each thing is or does.
One thing worth noting is that Toika's ToEE was actually a drastic toning down of the difficulty that Gygax's original module presented.
That said, this game is why I detest giant toads when playing tabletop these days.
I can believe it. Oldschool tabletop modules were incredibly punishing. I lost 2 people my first fight with the toads in the ToEE PC game. And that is the very first fight!
The 3-d only craze was a huge mistake.
My first pet that was mine alone was named Boo, hands down, far and away the best pet I could ever want or have.
Was it a miniature giant space hamster?
I've always loved DnD 2E much more, still run a small group that meets once every two weeks lol
ToE has flaws that's true, but Once you install the circle of 8 modpack the only flaw was that the game left me wanting for more, thank God modders finally found the map editor a couple of years back, right now a couple of guys are trying to replicate the whole first icewind dale game as a module, ambitious has hell.
Do you have any plans to make something about shadowrun Mr. Indigo? Beijos from Brasil
Pedro Henrique Souto Gueiros Definitely on the list of games to cover. Thanks for the suggestion!
Indigo Gaming thank you, i going to bed now is 2:30am here
To my shame I've never played Temple, a mistake easily rectified :)
Never could get into this one. As a 2e player until only recently I was unfamiliar with 3 or 3.5e. Also, not my setting, too linear and too "puzzley." Makes sense the original was written by Guygax, guy loved his traps and puzzles.
As I said in the video, I don't blame people who aren't avid 3.5e players for not getting into this game, it's very unintuitive.
There are issues with English subtitles from 5:05 to 5:13, there are some lines that are skipped fast that do not transcribe the current voice line.
I still play D&d 2.0. Pure survival
It is still my favorite game of all in that genre because it was turn based and actually used the 3.5 rule set to the letter! Sadly, the game crashes constantly or even refused to start up, I know of nobody that ever even finished it due to these unfix able bugs. Great game, greatest adaptation of the rules D&D, worst technical implementation(unstable crashes and bugs that break the game). It is still available on Steam or GOG.com for a few dollars.