Amiga, Apple, Atari and Commodore Exclusive Must Play RPGs

[Deuce Traveler]

By the end of this year I think I'm going to be able to complete nearly every old school, pre-1997 IBM PC-compatible RPG that I never got around to tackling.

However, I know very little about non IBM PC games from the same era. Are there any must play games that Codexers would recommend? The title of the thread I made mentions the Atari (ST/XE particularly), Apple, Amiga and Commodore systems, but if I missed others let me know. I found the following helpful threads:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/amiga-commodore-and-creativity.35895/
Haba started a great thread for discussions on games, though it covered a large gambit and wasn't really focused on best games of the Amiga and Commodore systems.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/amiga-rpgs.33731/
Blackadder also had a good discussion going, but his Amiga games weren't exclusive.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/good-commodore-64-rpgs.60986/
Wyrmlord started this one, but it seems from the reading that there isn't much of note for the Commodore 64.

So far this is what I have so far from reading the above threads and discounting games that may only be mediocre:
Commodore 64
Centauri Alliance?

Z/X Spectrum
Lords of Midnight (C64, too)
Doomdark's Revenge (C64, too)

Amiga
Ambermoon
Amberstar
Captive
Hired Guns
Perihelion
Black Crypt
Evil's Doom
Fate: Gates of Dawn

Apple
Deathlord
Silvern Castle
Tower of Myraglen

Edited to add games as mentioned.

 

[Mortmal]

There's more than that man, ask your local oldfags... hmm well the few still alive like luzur and crooked bee.
On amiga add Blackcrypt ,one of the best dungeon master clone ever.
Fate gates of dawn, how could you possibly forgot this one ? Read your elder's thread carefully they are full of wisdom.

Also worth mentioning even for non exclusive titles amiga versions are clearly superior until Ultima 7 era wich is the end of amiga supremacy.

 

[octavius]

Amiga:
Black Crypt. IMO the best Dungeon Master clone after DM itself and Chaos Strikes Back.
Evil's Doom, maybe? Another DM clone that was started in 1996 and only recently was completed. Overwhelmingly the best graphics I've seen on any Amiga game, but I haven't actually played it, just taken it for a test ride.

Apart from that I can't think of any non-DOS games that are essential (meaning found worthy of a place on my own chronological play list).

Some games are clearly superior on the Amiga, and should be played with an emulator, best example being the excellent Starflight games.

 

[Mortmal]

On atari :
remember FTL

 

[Excidium]

Some games are clearly superior on the Amiga, and should be played with an emulator, best example being the excellent Starflight games.

The Amiga version of Dragon Wars seems a whole lot better than the DOS one too

 

[:Flash:]

Fate: Gates of Dawn is an obvious addition to the Amiga list:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/fate-gates-of-dawn.27067/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpRPc2SkJww

 

[Flux_Capacitor]

I grew up on the Apple II, so here's a few from that era:
- Dark Designs trilogy - good, but short, blobbers; most famous for being developed by John Carmack
- Deathlord - a large world with several continents, each with their own culture; you start on the Japanese one
- Silvern Castle - a Wizardry (1, 2, 3) clone, but with a lot of extra bells and whistles
- Gemstone Warrior/Healer - a pre-Diablo Diablo; not sure how RPG this really is, as I played it many years ago
- Questron/Questron II - decent, but easy, solo RPGs
- Tower of Myraglen - only for the Apple IIGS

 

[Crooked Bee]

^ Nice list.

I definitely second Deathlord, Silvern Castle, and Tower of Myraglen. Deathlord is essential to play, in my opinion; Silvern Castle is a very good Wizardry-like; and Tower of Myraglen is just a nice little gem of a dungeon crawler/RPG lite.

EDIT: Also Dark Designs is not a pure blobber but rather a Gold Box-like; the combat is top down iirc.

 

[HiddenX]

I love the Amiga games Ambermoon, Amberstar and Hired Guns.

Amberstar and Hired Guns exist for the PC, too:

Amber Star:
http://thalion.exotica.org.uk/games/amberstar/credits/credits.html

Hired Guns:
http://www.squakenet.com/download/hired-guns/1553/

Hired Guns 2:
http://theisozone.com/downloads/pc/windows-games/hired-guns-2-unreleased/

 

[Scroo]

Why have so few people played Fate: Gates of Dawn ffs! Even if they had an Amiga most people haven't played the best RPG for this system.

 

[Flux_Capacitor]

EDIT: Also Dark Designs is not a pure blobber but rather a Gold Box-like; the combat is top down iirc.

I haven't played it in a while, but that's not how I remember it. While technically, in combat you see all the action from above, there isn't a combat map and you can't move anyone around. It plays out much like combat in the Phantasie series.

 

[octavius]

Why have so few people played Fate: Gates of Dawn ffs! Even if they had an Amiga most people haven't played the best RPG for this system.

It never tempted me back then, and it didn't tempt me when I considered it a few years ago.
Is it really that good, or is it just Amiga fanboyism and nostalgia speaking?

 

[Crooked Bee]

EDIT: Also Dark Designs is not a pure blobber but rather a Gold Box-like; the combat is top down iirc.

I haven't played it in a while, but that's not how I remember it. While technically, in combat you see all the action from above, there isn't a combat map and you can't move anyone around. It plays out much like combat in the Phantasie series.

Yeah, I just watched a video on Youtube and you're right. The most you can do is advance a character to the front row or retreat him/her to the back row, it seems.

 

[Mortmal]

Why have so few people played Fate: Gates of Dawn ffs! Even if they had an Amiga most people haven't played the best RPG for this system.

It never tempted me back then, and it didn't tempt me when I considered it a few years ago.
Is it really that good, or is it just Amiga fanboyism and nostalgia speaking?

In size its bigger than wizardry 7 , largest party ever with many many classes you can recruit from hundreds of npc wandering in the wilderness, ton of spells 200+ . I dont know if its fanboyism but it feels like a huge living world, the excellent ambient sounds and vastness to explore contribute to that.

Small hint : The german version is clearly superior

 

[Mortmal]

http://dungeony.rpghry.cz/fate/index.html

 

[octavius]

In size its bigger than wizardry 7

That may have been a good thing back in 1991...

I'm looking forward to CRPG Addict playing it; should give me a better idea about the game. But his recent playthrough of the prequel to Fate - Legend of Faerghail - confirmed my suspicions about that game.
Fate is supposed to be an improvement, though, so maybe it is worth playing after all.

 

[Scroo]

Why have so few people played Fate: Gates of Dawn ffs! Even if they had an Amiga most people haven't played the best RPG for this system.

It never tempted me back then, and it didn't tempt me when I considered it a few years ago.
Is it really that good, or is it just Amiga fanboyism and nostalgia speaking?

It really is that good. Pretty much everyone who played it praises it as one of the best RPGs ever created. You've got up to 4 different parties, an incredibly large game world, huge dungeons, difficult puzzles and you can recruit pretty much every NPC that you encounter.

It's the Amiga's Wizardry VII, seriously.

BUT it is hard as hell to get into and you really have to read the manual. Even then you can fuck up gloriously. So if you don't want to start over again after 50 hours or so, I recommend reading some resources.
And the game literally takes hundreds of hours to complete.

And it has absolutely NOTHING to do with Legend of Faerghail, don't make the mistake to assume that. LoF is a Bard's Tale Clone and it is not a prequel to Fate.

 

[Excidium]

Sounds like the kind of game you never bother finishing

 

[Scroo]

Well, yes, if you have ADHD you probably shouldn't play it, that's true. Or any oldschool rpg for that matter.

 

[:Flash:]

I'm looking forward to CRPG Addict playing it; should give me a better idea about the game. But his recent playthrough of the prequel to Fate - Legend of Faerghail - confirmed my suspicions about that game.
Fate is supposed to be an improvement, though, so maybe it is worth playing after all.

As Scrooge said, the only relation between the two games is that they were published by the same company. The were created by completely different people.
Olaf Patzenhauer, the creator of Fate, was not a big fan of LoF.

Random Info: Fate: Gates of Dawn sold about 5000 copies world-wide (most of them in Germany). It was a flop even back then.

 

[neilsouth]

Eye of the beholder

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Found this review of Centauri Alliance on Home of the Underdogs, and I'll admit it has me excited:

Spoiler

An excellent "hard" sci-fi game from the creator of legendary Bard's Tale, Centauri Alliance unfortunately remains relatively unknown-- in sharp contrast to that classic series. Calling the game "Bard's Tale in space" is not unaccurate, since Centauri Alliance is also a first-person, multi-character real-time RPG, and designer Michael Cranford evidently put as much effort and love into the game as his best-known creations. The result is a thoroughly captivating space RPG with a lot of polish and innovations that deserve to be on every gamer's shelf.
There are many great things about the game, but let's start with one of the more mundane aspects: the plot. It is the 23rd century, and the galaxy is at war, divided into dozens of alliances. The Centauri Alliance was formed between humans and 5 alien races as a rebellion force that strive to bring about a peaceful coexistence among all the races. As a member of this rebellion, your job is to assemble a team of adventurers chosen from this coalition, locate a dangerous renegade in the Omicron VII and "neutralize him at any cost."

Sounds like your typical day-time sci-fi channel flick? It is. But it's the gameplay that counts-- and Centauri Alliance has it in spades. At the beginning, you can choose members of your adventuring party from a pool of applicants, or transfer existing characters from the Bard's Tale series, or even Ultima and Might and Magic games! Centauri Alliance intelligently alters or drops fantasy items and spells that would be out of place in its sci-fi gameworld, and makes appropriate adjustments. If one of your Bard's Tale characters is a wizard, he will be in for a big surprise (Hint: magic does work, to a certain extent). This wonderful linkage with other RPGs is a great innovation that should have been emulated by latter-day RPGs, but sadly the game was too unknown to affect that change.

Once you finish assembling the adventuring party, the plot thickens as soon as you begin space exploration outside Lunabase, and never lets up. I can wax nostalgic for pages on end for outstanding gameplay features, so here is a small sample: the hex-based, turn-based combat interface that emphasizes tactical planning, excellent overhead automap that you can even move in, creative psionics abilities (the equivalent of "spells" in fantasy RPGs), skill-based puzzles similar to Wasteland.... the list goes on. Suffice to say that if you are a fan of sci-fi RPG, Centauri Alliance is a must-have. With a well-written plot and character interactions, huge worlds to explore, and a number of innovations, Michael Cranford has created an undiscovered masterpiece. Two thumbs up!

 

[Flux_Capacitor]

I just remembered another rather obscure Apple RPG - Xyphus.

 

[Excidium]

Well, yes, if you have ADHD you probably shouldn't play it, that's true. Or any oldschool rpg for that matter.

#cool #oldschool #monocle

Eye of the beholder

What's the difference from DOS version?

 

[Scroo]

Well, yes, if you have ADHD you probably shouldn't play it, that's true. Or any oldschool rpg for that matter.

#cool #oldschool #monocle

That has nothing to do with hipsterdom, but when you're an unpatient person playing games like Wizardry VII or Fate just seems like a stupid idea.