One of my projects for 2024 (yes, I have many projects) is to play again (or, in some cases, for the first time) old computer role playing games (CRPGs). It’s something that gave pleasure for many years and I want to experience it again. I think I will be disappointed in some cases but rewarded in others.
I won’t start with games from the Ultima series (Origin Systems) or the Gold Box series (SSI) because I was never able to like them. It wasn’t because of the primitive graphics, I don’t mind that (I still enjoy playing the classic Rogue, which is just white letters and symbols over a black background). It was the clunkiness of the gameplay and in some cases the silliness of the story.
I was never a fan of the Ultima series. The whole mythology centered around the figure of Lord British (game creator Richard Garriott’s alter ego) was silly, and made even sillier by the pretentious use of Old English expressions like “thee” and “thy”. The worst part, however, was the gameplay. These games were never fun, just piling up one annoyance after another. Working on spreadsheets was more entertaining than playing these early Ultima games. The only game in the series that I had a sliver of fun playing was Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (1992). This was the first time we saw freedom of 360 degrees movement in a game. Even in that low resolution, it was impressive. The gameplay was still cumbersome, unfortunately. And the collision calculations were still primitive, making it hard to deal with enemies and obstacles. A fantastic advance in game technology but still not really an enjoyable experience to play it.
I had already played more advanced games before I got to Gold Box series (Pool of Radiance and its sequels). After that, those older graphics and interface felt primitive and cumbersome. Everything took forever, with an excess of keystrokes to accomplish even simple tasks like equipping a character. And the battles were long and tedious. There was no enjoyment. The only thing I remember appreciating in these games was that after killing many monsters in a battle the last ones would flee instead of staying to be slaughtered. I thought that was a nice touch.
So I will start my replaying of CRPGs with the first games that I really fully enjoyed: The Bard’s Tale (Interplay, 1985) and Eye of the Beholder (SSI, 1991). I won’t strictly follow a chronological order and may eventually jump to more recently titles and then jump back to the old classics. I don’t want to write a thesis about this, I just want to have some fun.