The Magic Candle

[octavius]

I have a real boxed copy of Phantasie I but havent played it yet. Is it worth playing or should I skip 1 and 2 and just play three?

Play 1 and then import your characters to 3. 3 assumes experienced characters and is very difficult in the start without.
At least on the Amiga it's possible to import from 1 to 3, since 2 was never released for the Amiga. The same goes for the DOS version, I think.

 

[octavius]

The magic candle is a heck of a game. There is so much to do and its not filled with tons of grindy combat like alot of the classic rpgs were...at least not yet since im not that far into it. It focuses on lots of information gathering through talking to people.

It gets rather grindy after you have visited all the villages and towns, IMO.
And the ambushed gets rather tiring. Tip: make sure your best hunter always hunts when camping outside. The higher the hunting skill the less chance of being surprised, which makes the ambushed less tedious.
Sleeping is not important since you soon have enough money to buy all the Sermin plants you need.

 

[Saxon1974]

The magic candle is a heck of a game. There is so much to do and its not filled with tons of grindy combat like alot of the classic rpgs were...at least not yet since im not that far into it. It focuses on lots of information gathering through talking to people.

It gets rather grindy after you have visited all the villages and towns, IMO.
And the ambushed gets rather tiring. Tip: make sure your best hunter always hunts when camping outside. The higher the hunting skill the less chance of being surprised, which makes the ambushed less tedious.
Sleeping is not important since you soon have enough money to buy all the Sermin plants you need.

Well I tend to get bored with most RPG's after I have explored everything and stop playing. I'm mostly an exploration world lore kind of player and once I have seen everything I have a hard time finishing most games.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Why were you both just exploring the whole overworld, then doing the dungeons? Break them up and do them as you are on each particular quest. In any case, the dungeons are well designed, so spoon feed them to yourselves, don't save them all up for one mega meal.

I have a real boxed copy of Phantasie I but havent played it yet. Is it worth playing or should I skip 1 and 2 and just play three?

I enjoy them all...take your pick.

 

[MMXI]

Why were you both just exploring the whole overworld, then doing the dungeons? Break them up and do them as you are on each particular quest. In any case, the dungeons are well designed, so spoon feed them to yourselves, don't save them all up for one mega meal.

Some people just need to be taught how to have fun with a game.

 

[octavius]

Why were you both just exploring the whole overworld, then doing the dungeons?

Because it is a good idea to know as much about the dungeons as possible first. Like Teleportation codes and waking up gods before using the Pillars.
Anyway, I've decided to do a dungeon now and then when playing another game, so that I can complete this game. MC combat is not too bad as long as it is in small doses.

 

[octavius]

Grrrrr!!! I resumed Magic Candle and had played a couple of hours when I accidentally hit the V button instead of the B button while in a shop, and the fucking game crashed.

It's weird...objectively Magic Candle is much better than Knights of Legends, but I was able to finish KoL while I'm struggling with working up the enthusiasm for MC.
Maybe it's because MC is so friggin' huge?
I used about 2 and a half weeks each on Ultima V, Might&Magic 2 and Knight of Legends, but I estimate Magic Candle has about twice the game hours of those games.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

I used about 2 and a half weeks each on Ultima V, Might&Magic 2 and Knight of Legends, but I estimate Magic Candle has about twice the game hours of those games.

Yes indeed, though I don't know how you finished Might and Magic 2 in that short amount of time.

As for the enthusiasm...as I mentioned before, you should have broken the dungeons up if you do not enjoy them as much as exploration and talky. It is a bloody big game though.

 

[octavius]

I used about 2 and a half weeks each on Ultima V, Might&Magic 2 and Knight of Legends, but I estimate Magic Candle has about twice the game hours of those games.

Yes indeed, though I don't know how you finished Might and Magic 2 in that short amount of time.

As for the enthusiasm...as I mentioned before, you should have broken the dungeons up if you do not enjoy them as much as exploration and talky. It is a bloody big game though.

Since I started my little retro gaming project early this year MM2 has been the game I've enjoyed most. Unlike most of the other games of the same era, like Ultima V, Wasteland, Magic Candle and Knights of Legend, there is always new and exciting loot to find and new and interesting enemies to defeat. Also, I had the advantage of having played it before (although I had forgotten most of it) and I didn't explore all of the overworld.

Anyway, taking a break from Magic Candle did me good and I've enjoyed completing Thakass, Bedingadar and Meardom the past few days. Now I only have Shadrum, Khazan, Sargoz and raising the Sunken Isle left.

 

[octavius]

Damned, those Ogres in Shadrum have some obscene amounts of hit points!

 

[octavius]

Yay, finally!

The final dungeon was the most enjoyable one and some of the fights actually were challenging.
This game must be the biggest CRPG from the 1980s? Unless Dragon Wars (which I did not complete when I played it a long time ago) or Dark Heart of Ukruul (which I've never played) is bigger. By big I mean as in hours it takes to win it.

BTW, I recently discovered that I actually bought The Keys to Maramon 20 years ago. It was the only game in the Magic Candle series that was released for the Amiga. AFAIK I never played it, though.

 

[Morkar Left]

I think Ultima 4 would take as long as MC without a cluebook?

I played The Keys to Maramon last year for 20 minutes and it reminded me of some early diablo without the loot. Lost interest mostly because of the controls. I think you need a joystick to really enjoy this. Or I just couldn't bothered with it at the time.

 

[MMXI]

This game must be the biggest CRPG from the 1980s? Unless Dragon Wars (which I did not complete when I played it a long time ago) or Dark Heart of Ukruul (which I've never played) is bigger.

Neither of those two games are bigger than The Magic Candle. Deathlord, however, is a much bigger game.

 

[Fowyr]

Congratulations, Octavius.

 

[octavius]

This game must be the biggest CRPG from the 1980s? Unless Dragon Wars (which I did not complete when I played it a long time ago) or Dark Heart of Ukruul (which I've never played) is bigger.

Neither of those two games are bigger than The Magic Candle. Deathlord, however, is a much bigger game.

Ah, the infamous Deathlord. It is (un)fortunate for me that it was not released for DOS or Amiga...

BTW, I used about 3.5 weeks on Magic Candle, so it's not that much bigger than MM2, Ultima V and Knights of Legend, which I used about 2.5 weeks each to complete.

Bard's Tale 3 is probably one of the biggest too. I remember BT2 being very big and BT3 has 3-4 times as many dungeon levels, although they are on average smaller then the BT2 ones.
Ultima IV is one of the big ones too, since unlike U5 there is much more random encounters that suck up time and enthusiasm.