Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[Saxon1974]

Honestly? MM1 is very inferior to MM2. MM2 has a great story, neat combat, cool graphics, lots of great ways the clues are tied in to the story.

In MM1 you basically have to hound for the plot which I could express in one, short sentence. That said, it's still fun, in the same way Wizardry 1 is fun: mapping dungeons, figuring out obscure puzzles, fighting tough battles. Also, the final puzzle requires you to be level 13, which can only be reached by TONS of grinding. At the very least you'll have to fight a few 30 or so gold dragons, or 60 red dragons, or 100 times the fixed battle against liches in the swamp.

If you want to play it, I HIGHLY suggest using a walkthrough if you do not have much free time. Mapping the game's 64 I think maps takes time and the puzzles can be very difficult if you miss a single clue.

For a more smooth experience that you could do without maps and a walkthrough, the NES version of MM1 is interesting. It looks great, combat is WAY more forgiving, you can pick your fights and there is an automap.

If you want the hardcore oldschool experience though, you'll need to play the Apple, Mac or PC version. I recommend the former for the authentic feel and the second for user-friendliness and great mouse support. Forget the PC version.

tl;dr: MM2 is way better, MM3 is pure gold. At least so reviews make me believe. I can't wait to find out myself!

Interesting, thanks for the comments!

I think I will stick with MM2 right now. I have been having a hard time deciding whether I want to play MM2 on the PC or use the amiga version. Amiga version graphics a bit better but other drawbacks like for some reason dungeons are gray and you have to do a small bit of diskswapping and full screen is a bit smaller. So will probably stick with PC version.

As far as MM1, if I ever play it, it will probably have to be on PC since I dont have an apple or a MAC. I think I have a NES still somewhere around here....

I played MM3 for a while. It's a good game, but there is something about it that is missing and I cant figure out what it is. Graphics, interface and sound are all better than MM2 but I still enjoy playing MM2 better.

 

[Sir_Brennus]

Whoa! Stop right there...

1. Critizing the Gold Box games for not being Ultima is like critizing a man for not being a woman - it misses the point! The Gold Box games are clearly modeled after the Wizardry games (with better grafics) and the tactical TB combat of the older SSI games - they are loved for not being about the esoteric mumbojumbo that is the second Ultima trilogy (the worst of the three IMHO).

2. It's fun that you can't save outside an inn in MM2? I don't know what you guys are smoking, but it must be illegal in Germany :wink: No, honest - I can't stand any game that has no save-everywhere options and automapping available (at the same time). Doing the same dungeons over and over again, with respawned monsters and all, is what turned me off Bard's Tale 2 and MM1-2 in the end. BT3 & MM3 were major improvements in this departments.

3. If everybody is in good-ol'-days-mood, I'll join the fray. I just fired up AMBERSTAR this weekend and got myself playing several hours of it. Damn, what a fine game! Everything is stolen from other games, yeah, fuck that. It is so cleverly reassambled, that it is tons of fun - even if you have to play with the standard character, because noone managed to get the character creation tool to work, yet.

The more I play it, the more I am saddened by the fact, that the other games of the Thalion team had so much problems: It is such a pity that Dragonflight has such a bad GUI, the awesome Ambermoon never made it to the PC (although I completed it on the Amiga in its day), Amber Worlds never got made and Albion always felt more like work than fun.

 

[Jasede]

Honestly? I think Ambermoon is way better than Albion, and Albion is already pretty good, but just too much "work" that isn't fun. As opposed to RoA where work is actually fun.

Saxon, I could help you set up a Mac emulator. It's what I spent my Sunday on. It was a bitch to get working. Also, in conclusion, old Macs suck.

 

[Sir_Brennus]

Honestly? I think Ambermoon is way better than Albion, and Albion is already pretty good, but just too much "work" that isn't fun. As opposed to RoA where work is actually fun.

Was that meant to be as a contradiction? But I am so totally of your opinon.... :

 

[Jasede]

No, it was just shitty English.

 

[Drunken Irishman]

Whoa! Stop right there...

1. Critizing the Gold Box games for not being Ultima is like critizing a man for not being a woman - it misses the point! The Gold Box games are clearly modeled after the Wizardry games (with better grafics) and the tactical TB combat of the older SSI games - they are loved for not being about the esoteric mumbojumbo that is the second Ultima trilogy (the worst of the three IMHO).

Read my post again. I didn't criticize Gold Box games for not being Ultima. I only criticized the statement that there was no npc interaction in RPG genre during the times of Gold Box games.

Edit: For the sake it would be easier to reread my post I'll quote it here.

since there is next to no NPC interaction or the like.

Such things hadn't been invented yet. Welcome to the origin of CRPGs. I don't just make all this shit up, you know.

You lie. Pool of Radiance came out in 88, so did Ultima 5, Ultima 5 had npc interaction and npc schedules that would make Oblivion jealous.

The rest of Gold Box game came out in 1990-1992, other games of that time were Eye of the Beholder series, Ultima 6 and Ultima 7, Ultima Underworld, Wing Commander - all featuring npc interaction (Wing Commander actually had cutscenes, but still), though Ultima's much more than EOTB II (I bring out the second part specifically because that's the one I played) for example.

Other games that came out in 88 were Might and Magic II, Wasteland and Bard's Tale III... hmm, and also Final Fantasy II.

Now this ain't anti-Gold Box post, I like those games, I'm just pointing out that they were not the superior games of their time.

 

[Saxon1974]

Whoa! Stop right there...


2. It's fun that you can't save outside an inn in MM2? I don't know what you guys are smoking, but it must be illegal in Germany :wink: No, honest - I can't stand any game that has no save-everywhere options and automapping available (at the same time). Doing the same dungeons over and over again, with respawned monsters and all, is what turned me off Bard's Tale 2 and MM1-2 in the end. BT3 & MM3 were major improvements in this departments.

3. If everybody is in good-ol'-days-mood, I'll join the fray. I just fired up AMBERSTAR this weekend and got myself playing several hours of it. Damn, what a fine game! Everything is stolen from other games, yeah, fuck that. It is so cleverly reassambled, that it is tons of fun - even if you have to play with the standard character, because noone managed to get the character creation tool to work, yet.

As for number 2, I think its a gameplay opinion. Im not saying that i like that only save at the Inn option, I just said that it does add some excitement when your down there. This being said, I did say I don't like dungeon respawning either. I would probably choose to have a save anywhere option if available, I was only saying it does make for a bit more excitement trying to make it out of a dungeon with dying to save at the INN.

I haven't played Ambermoon or Amberstat but have heard of them. I do run the Amiga emulator. I might play one of those, which do you recommend? Is Amberstar the first one?

 

[Saxon1974]

Honestly? I think Ambermoon is way better than Albion, and Albion is already pretty good, but just too much "work" that isn't fun. As opposed to RoA where work is actually fun.

Saxon, I could help you set up a Mac emulator. It's what I spent my Sunday on. It was a bitch to get working. Also, in conclusion, old Macs suck.

That's ok Jasede, I don't really want to go to the effort for that, but I appreciate the offer.

 

[Jasede]

Well, if you have UAE running, I recommend playing Amberstar first, then Ambermoon. I think Ambermoon is the better game, but less "Codexian". It is more linear and has fewer things for the player to decide, whereas Amberstar is very non-linear and allows the player to change his class.

Really, play both. They are well worth the time. Also, the Ambermoon Amiga intro is really nice. Well, all Amiga intros are. Witnesses of better times, now long forgotten.

 

[octavius]

I played the secret of the silver blades on the amiga, it was terrible, at one point I was just going down an insanely long tunnel in the mines fighting hundreds of monsters

Silver Blades is easily the worst of the Gold Box games, IMO. The game world consists of an abandoned mine and in thet mine shaft there's enough monsters (dragons and high level mages) that they could easily sieixe control of the entire world.
The Amiga version was also bugged, in that the Displacement Cloaks made the characters wearing them totally invincible to physical attacks.

 

[octavius]

I can't remember, but, in PoR, did they implement the "1 attack / level" rule for fighters against low HD enemies so a level 8 fighter could kills 8 kobolds in a round?

Yes, it was called "sweeping". Worked against monsters like kobolds and goblins, but not orcs.

 

[octavius]

Honestly? MM1 is very inferior to MM2. MM2 has a great story, neat combat, cool graphics, lots of great ways the clues are tied in to the story.

MM2 was a great game and I replayed the first dungeon on hardest difficulty countless times. Sadly, after the first dungeon the game became unbalanced when you met Crazed Natives and other monster with the special "suicide" attack. Can't remember what the attack was called, but the monster "exploded", doing great damage and they had a very high Speed (I think) stat, that caused their attacks to go off before my own guys even had the chance to *think* about fleeing.
So your whole party was wiped out before you could do anything; not very fun.

 

[octavius]

.

I played MM3 for a while. It's a good game, but there is something about it that is missing and I cant figure out what it is. Graphics, interface and sound are all better than MM2 but I still enjoy playing MM2 better.

MM2 was much more exciting since you could find items up to +99, and anything above +8 or thereabout had Alignment restrictions. But MM3 was more balanced.

 

[octavius]

Anyone have any thoughts on Gateway as opposed to the other Gold BOX games? I really "loved" the first Pool of Radiance and only "Liked the rest of them.

My main problem with the Gateway games were the randon encounters; they were not very random and not very fun.
In every dungeon and overland map, there was a D6 chance of an encounter and there was only or or two possible monster you could meet, so you fought the same battles over and over and over and over again. I managed to finished Gateway, bit it was more work than fun and Treasures I gave up in utter disgust when I couldn't walk from one city to the other without being attack by a whole clan of Fire Giants. Then my party, almost dead, would rest and be attacked by the excact same party again.
Also, there was no Parley option. Either Fight or Flee.
The first Gold Box game was much better. It had a Parley option and a correct chance of encounters outdoors. And the dungeon encounters were actually limited!

It never ceases to amaze me how a version 1 can get most things right and then the developers of later versions ruin the things that work.

 

[Saxon1974]

.

I played MM3 for a while. It's a good game, but there is something about it that is missing and I cant figure out what it is. Graphics, interface and sound are all better than MM2 but I still enjoy playing MM2 better.

MM2 was much more exciting since you could find items up to +99, and anything above +8 or thereabout had Alignment restrictions. But MM3 was more balanced.

MM3 felt a bit cartoonish to me, maybe it was the added colors or something, like I said I don't know why but I liked the feel of MM2 much better.

 

[Saxon1974]

Someone please tell me that MM2 does not level scale your enemies....It seems like as my characters are getting better so are the monsters in the started dungeon.....god i hope not.

 

[octavius]

Someone please tell me that MM2 does not level scale your enemies....It seems like as my characters are getting better so are the monsters in the started dungeon.....god i hope not.

I'm 99% sure that enemies are scaled to the area, not to the party.
Some areas are much tougher than others, as it should be.

 

[MisterStone]

since there is next to no NPC interaction or the like.

Such things hadn't been invented yet. Welcome to the origin of CRPGs. I don't just make all this shit up, you know.

Hey, d00d, I was there, man, I'm the real old school...

Anyways, you are not entirely right. Ultima IV and V which were roughly contemporaneous with the gold box games had NPC interaction, and so did other games like Magic Candle and, uh... actually not too many. Still, I'm pretty sure that it is stuff like maps, animations, sound, music, tilesets, etc. that took up storage, not NPC dialog. Granted, having NPCs that remember who you are and what you have spoken with them about takes up storage too, but again it seems like UIV and UV had rudimentary versions of this.

You are right that most games didn't really have much dialog, but the Ultima series shows it was possible even on the old Apple II games. I distinctly remember wondering for many years as a kid why no one was making games that let you talk to the NPCs like you could in Ultima IV and V. Quite frankly, I'm still wondering even now why there aren't more...

So it was possible to have semi-decent NPC interaction, but either not very practical (compare hacking together a series of maps and encounters with the Gold Box dev tools to writing out an Ultima V-sized script!) or not a priority. Apparently that is still the case, given the dearth of real NPC interaction in most games today.

 

[mirrorshades]

Someone please tell me that MM2 does not level scale your enemies....It seems like as my characters are getting better so are the monsters in the started dungeon.....god i hope not.

No such thing in MM2. It goes by map/area... you'll need to restore previous games from time to time as you discover new areas that are waaaay over what your party can handle.

Even the cities increase in difficulty (random encounters and dungeons) as you go from one to another... but if you use the inter-city transports, you go through them in the "correct" order.

MM2 is great... lots of happy memories playing that game (except for the IBM PC sound... bleagh). I got my party up to level 255... apparently that was all the game could handle. It always said they were up for another promotion, but they stayed at 255. (I still got to train and increase HP, though.) I also liked the way they did hirelings, and the ones you "found" along the way tended to match your party's level (so you could use them and level them up, or just hire new ones as you moved up).

The final dungeon sucks. Also, at the risk of supplying too much of a spoiler, there is a real-time challenge at the very end.

 

[Saxon1974]

Someone please tell me that MM2 does not level scale your enemies....It seems like as my characters are getting better so are the monsters in the started dungeon.....god i hope not.

No such thing in MM2. It goes by map/area... you'll need to restore previous games from time to time as you discover new areas that are waaaay over what your party can handle.

Even the cities increase in difficulty (random encounters and dungeons) as you go from one to another... but if you use the inter-city transports, you go through them in the "correct" order.

MM2 is great... lots of happy memories playing that game (except for the IBM PC sound... bleagh). I got my party up to level 255... apparently that was all the game could handle. It always said they were up for another promotion, but they stayed at 255. (I still got to train and increase HP, though.) I also liked the way they did hirelings, and the ones you "found" along the way tended to match your party's level (so you could use them and level them up, or just hire new ones as you moved up).

The final dungeon sucks. Also, at the risk of supplying too much of a spoiler, there is a real-time challenge at the very end.

Ok thats a relief thanks. I think I just hit a string of bad luck randon encounters. I agree PC sound stinks, I thought about playing the amiga version but there weren't really many sounds in that one either so I stuck with the PC.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I just remembered this game thanks to the jrpg thread, but it certainly doesn't qualify as such so it can't go there. Has anyone else ever played this? I brought it up because I realized it probably had the most tactical combat of any rpg I've ever played. You could use smoke grenades to counter laser pistols, chaff grenades to ruin rockets, had access to explosives which needed to be strategically placed, melee weapons which could cause frightening backstab damage, all weapons had much better accuracy from the rear. Character growth was quite cool, since there were a LOT of important skills to have in combat; ability to move in zero-g, stealth for sneaking behind enemies (Or even aiming at them after an unstealthy ally distracts them for you) separate medical skills for before and after battles, numerous weapon proficiencies (Although the needle gun was quite overpowered). Enemies were quite varied, and might be immune to laser or rockets themselves, or have nasty poison attacks. Ship combat allowed you to target engines, bridge, weapons and hull each separately, with corresponding effects.

 

[Section8]

It's on my list of games to play, and I know a few Codexers have played it, since they inspired me to seek it out.

 

[Trash]

It and it's sequell "matrix cubed" are my two fav old school rpg's. I played both to death in my wee teens. The combat was basically a combat driven dungeon crawler, but it gave the impression to be much more. You could explore the solar system, have randomn encounters in bases, planets and in space, do some side quests and make quite some stat driven decisions within the different missions (though truth be told, all decisions had definite good and bad choices often leading to huge penalty's, nasty combats and sometimes even insta death when you picked the wrong one)

Still, I loved it for what it was. A sci-fi rpg that had a distinct style, fun campaign, little suprises and lotsa stats to keep ones inner autist occupied. It may be tainted by nostalgia, but even when I recently tried it out it still managed to keep me occupied and, well, entertained.

BTW, that plasma launcher is still one of the most ridiculously overpowered weapons I ever encountered or used in an rpg.

 

[mondblut]

These two would play better without previous experience with classic goldbox games. "Plasma launcher" = wand of fireballs, "grenade laucher" = wand of ice storm, "martian" whatever = +2 whatever, etc

Skills were good though. The fantasy goldboxes would really shine with them. If only FRUA was built on Matrix Cubed rather than Dark Queen of Krynn chassis...

 

[Squeek]

It was a fun game. Even the space combat, which was about as simple as it gets, was just plain fun. And there were bar fights! (something Freelancer desperately needed).