All About Dungeon Crawlers Thread: Bust out the Grid Paper & Colored Pencils

greedostick

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For all discussion about "real" dungeon crawlers. Not that Diablo genre style shit either. The real deal, pencil on the pad, counting out squares games.

What are your favorites?

Why are they your favorites?

Any information you want to discuss about the game that you think might turn people on to it.
 

greedostick

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I have a lot to recommend, but I'll start with Shining the Holy Ark.

Such an amazing game! Has that Shiny feel to it, great music, and really stands out because your players hop into the foreground during attacks. Growing up on stuff like Shining in the Darkness, and Arcana, this game just blew my mind.
 

Kid Panda

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Arcana is broken. I ended up beating that game from just absolute over leveling. No fun. Bard's Tale is THE definitive dungeon Crawler in my eyes. Wizardry was just too ugly.
 

jro

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The Etrian Odyssey series is probably my favorite. So well made every time.
 

greedostick

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Arcana is broken. I ended up beating that game from just absolute over leveling. No fun. Bard's Tale is THE definitive dungeon Crawler in my eyes. Wizardry was just too ugly.

Arcana is nothing special. I just happened to own it growing up. I'll have to check out some Bards Tale videos on my break. I didn't realize it's a dungeon crawler.

The Etrian Odyssey series is probably my favorite. So well made every time.

I really need to check this series out, but it's kinda like Persona. No idea where to begin with all the remakes. Are the 3DS remakes the place to start?
 
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Kid Panda

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Arcana is nothing special. I just happened to own it growing up. I'll have to check out some Bards Tale videos on my break. I didn't realize it's a dungeon crawler.

The real deal is on C64, Apple II, IBM PC. Stay away from the NES version. It's trash.
 

Dochartaigh

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My absolute favorite back in the day was Eye of the Beholder – I was friggin obsessed with that game.
 

greedostick

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Shodowgate count?

That's a tough one. I would have to say no. Shadowgate is more of an interactive point and click adventure. Generally dungeons crawlers involve large mazes, puzzles, and leveling systems like RPG's.

I think this is the next Dungeon Crawler on my radar. Ambermoon on Amiga (easily emulated). German exclusive, but there was a finished English release discovered which is posted on the Thalion (developer's) website. Looks Promising.

 

radiantsvgun

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Shining in the darkness and shining the holy ark are my favorites. I don’t really have the patience to replay those anymore.
 

jro

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I really need to check this series out, but it's kinda like Persona. No idea where to begin with all the remakes. Are the 3DS remakes the place to start?
Sure, those are both good starting points. Millennium Girl is a little more interesting, story-wise, than The Fafnir Knight (that is, if you play the new mode that adds a lot of character and story), but both are well-designed and relatively straightforward.

Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan is probably considered the "best" game in the series by most measures, but I personally prefer Millennium Girl.

I have EO V: Beyond the Myth, but I haven't played much of it yet. My general understanding is that it's very similar to IV in terms of ease of use/quality of life.

edit: Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth is also pretty good. It's basically Etrian Odyssey game mechanics with Persona characters and story, though it's a little weaker than each in those respective terms.
 
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twalden

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There's a few good ones on Steam. The Quest , Vaporum, Might and Magic X, and Legend of Grimock 1 and 2 are all pretty good.
Dark Spire on Nintendo DS is hard as shit, but worth playing also.
 
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oliverclaude

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Shining in the darkness and shining the holy ark are my favorites. I don’t really have the patience to replay those anymore.

The closest I came to play a dungeon crawler was during my Jurassic Park sessions on the SNES. This game had pretty hard dungeon parts, but Doom-style, so it doesn't count here.

Anyway, today dungeon crawlers became more exciting for me, mainly because may patience is spot on now. Of course, I don't have to replay any of these games, which would definitely be a patience killer, bringing up an interesting question, though: Which crawler has the most replay value? If any.
 

@M

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I'm all about the old Wizardry series. I still have all of my old spiral notebooks with my handmade maps and notes for the NES and (import) Gameboy Wizardry titles.
 

greedostick

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The closest I came to play a dungeon crawler was during my Jurassic Park sessions on the SNES. This game had pretty hard dungeon parts, but Doom-style, so it doesn't count here.

Anyway, today dungeon crawlers became more exciting for me, mainly because may patience is spot on now. Of course, I don't have to replay any of these games, which would definitely be a patience killer, bringing up an interesting question, though: Which crawler has the most replay value? If any.

That's a good question. I would like to play Shining Ark, and Darkness again, but only because it's been like 15-20 years. As far as beating a dungeon crawler, and immediately playing it again, I can't really think of any. Maybe if there's a Crawler that exists with strong focus on "builds" like Dark Souls, that might attract me to play through once a year. Or even multiple endings.
 

oliverclaude

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That's a good question. I would like to play Shining Ark, and Darkness again, but only because it's been like 15-20 years. As far as beating a dungeon crawler, and immediately playing it again, I can't really think of any. Maybe if there's a Crawler that exists with strong focus on "builds" like Dark Souls, that might attract me to play through once a year. Or even multiple endings.

Thanks for your insights! Action-adventures/action RPGs differ here, because of their puzzles and extensive exploring parts, rather than the crawler's focus on grinding and story-driven gameplay. But allow me to draw a odd analogy:

A racing game usually has replay value, if its technical specs were top notch. Games like the Burnout series offer smooth 60fps and are overall minimalistic with their visuals. Both aspects make for a timeless game that you can revisit even today. I'd argue that a dungeon crawler's replay value also depends on such aspects. Unfortunately, most are 30fps or below, offering outdated "technical marvels" like pre-rendered graphics, an unbearable resolution or even an interlaced output.

Recently I checked all 32Bit RPGs and discovered only one(!) title that has 60fps throughout the whole game, Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure. Other games always had at least parts in 30fps (during battles for example or on their world map) or were 30 and below for the whole game. It's bullshit. You got 90% of the official american released RPG games out there with little or no tech worth.
 

BerryTogart

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Pool of Radiance - awesome game of its time. Apart from the absolutely brutal difficulty (you know what I'm talking of if "the mill" gives you shivers) it was a faithful conversion of the AD&D 2nd edition system. Partly used as copy protection/memory issues I still am a very big fan of the idea with "journal entries", having a real life brochure to read up on proclamations and quest info.
Nothing like bringing a 1st level sorcerer with meager 2 hitpoints up to a point where he becomes a ridiculous spell monster.
The other SSI games following also were great to play.

Might and Magic IV and V - the idea of combining both games to a "World of Xeen" is something that intrigued me. Also these were the final parts before "open 3d" became a thing. While Lands of Lore is more streamlined and perhaps the better experience overall, I was always intrigued by the vast world of Xeen.

Edit: I just checked GOG after replying to this thread and bought Might and Magic I-VI for $2.49 - imho you can't go wrong at this price.
 
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