What's the most hardcore RPG you've completed

[Mah7i]

And when did you play it for the first time?

I'm asking 'cause I cannot into old school RPG's, their UI:s just suck. People here complain about combat in NWN2 engine, yet praise Betrayal at Krondor.

Did you guys play it in windowed mode?

 

[Raghar]

Dungeon Crawl. http://www.dungeoncrawl.org/
Of course, the download is no longer available.

 

[BobtheTree]

My Masters. I played the role of someone who knew what the fuck he was talking about.

 

[Scroo]

Fate: Gates of Dawn

First completed it in the early 2000s at around the age of 12 on an old amiga

I'm p awesome

ok back to playing WoW

 

[janior]

inb4 dark heart of uukrul

 

[v1rus]

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.

So hardcore. You can even roleplay shtting by crouching next to a tree. Immersive gameplay, yall.

 

[Tom Selleck]

Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition on "Story Mode" on my iPad.

It's hard as shit to play on the bus and eat out a meatball sub simultaneously.

 

[Coma White]

And when did you play it for the first time?

I'm asking 'cause I cannot into old school RPG's, their UI:s just suck. People here complain about combat in NWN2 engine, yet praise Betrayal at Krondor.

Did you guys play it in windowed mode?

We've all played many RPGs. When you say "hardcore"; can you be more specific?

 

[nomask7]

I played Wizardry VI halfway through somewhere around 2009, mapping it myself. Mind you, I'm more a casual-fag than not, and the game got too hard at that point, or more likely my party of wannabe heroes sucked. Maybe I'll go back to it though with a different party or two and see if I get further.

The hardest RPG I've actually completed would be Dark Souls 3 in single-player, though that was with some online guidance (and would no doubt be an easier game for those fuckers who manage to get all the NPCs to help them).

 

[Wayward Son]

Fallout 1 a couple of years back.
I actually had difficulty getting into it because of the perspective, and being a millennial raised on TES and iso perspective just screwed with my head. After I got over that I had a lot of fun and finished in a weekend of hard playing. I'm hoping to add Baldur's Gate on max difficulty and Wizardry 1 to that list soon.

 

[Mah7i]

And when did you play it for the first time?

I'm asking 'cause I cannot into old school RPG's, their UI:s just suck. People here complain about combat in NWN2 engine, yet praise Betrayal at Krondor.

Did you guys play it in windowed mode?

We've all played many RPGs. When you say "hardcore"; can you be more specific?

I'm talking about RPG's that came before Bioware and Black Isle; things like Darklands etc.

 

[Johannes]

I completed ADOM in <20k turns with a barbarian.

 

[Drowed]

Fucking Manticores.

Well, it was hardcore for the 12-year old me who didn't speak english at the time.

 

[octavius]

Aleshar: World of Ice.
Played it some months ago.
You need the sisu of a Finn to complete this.

 

[Fowyr]

Aleshar: World of Ice.

But HOW.
I thought that only Haba could complete it.

When I finally understood that you need a lot of inane grind for your weapon skills, I put it on back burner again.
I'm still fair in cutting. Or weapon levels will start to accumulate faster?

 

[octavius]

Aleshar: World of Ice.

But HOW.
I thought that only Haba could complete it.

When I finally understood that you need a lot of inane grind for your weapon skills, I put it on back burner again.
I'm still fair in cutting. Or weapon levels will start to accumulate faster?

You can't rely on meleeing, due to the critical hit system and no saving in dungeons.
The key is to use magic. The most dangerous enemies are the undead in the dungeons containing the three artefacts needed to defeat the end boss. Balefire hardly ever works when you really need it in my experience, but "Whirlwind" (Air+Earth AEO spell) worked quite well.
Trolls are easy prey for Fire based spells.
If you want to melee you need to Stun the opponent first. If they get just one swing at you you run the risk of them getting a critical hit.

 

[nomask7]

Games where grinding just makes you worse unless you know exactly what you're doing is where it's at. Oblivion knew something lesser games don't.

 

[BlackGoat]

Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, I suppose, just this past week. Didn't even really feel all that hardcore. Just felt right, felt good, felt pure. Felt like what games should feel like, untainted by contemporary "good design." Felt dangerous and thrilling. It was damn fun. I made my own maps now I have a nice stack of artifacts that are better than any Steam achievement could ever be.

Automaps are a plague. What's the point. I didn't always think this but I actually resent games now that have automap. It puts you on autopilot, and/or it means the designers were on autopilot. I can't into contemporary game design that holds my hand every step of the way. It's not fun for me. Emphasizes all the time I'm wasting. I don't like turning my brain off.

I think a lot of people that are opposed to making their own maps would change their mind if they actually slowed down for a second and busted out some graph paper and just fucking did it. People complain so much about learning curves. Every time I see an article about Dwarf Fortress, it's followed by endless bitching in the comments about how hard it is to get into. I don't get it. You just gotta give it a fucking minute. Read some shit, the manual, an article or two. Dig into game history. Slow down, focus. It's fun. It's fun goddammit. More fun than most of this other shit.

 

[Krivol]

Wasteland, finished on 2003 for the first time. Those robots in LA, man...

Pretty obscure graphics, but hard to tell if mechanics and fights were hardcore. Also UI looked ugly and inconvieniet at start, but turndd to be really easy to get used to.

 

[Mustawd]

I can go either way I suppose. Making maps, can be really rewarding and fun. My first foray into Crpgs was around UO, which got me into the Ultimas and then eventually fallout, and I remember that memorizing or making my own maps was a huge part of the exploration aspect. I did the same for Avernum.

But at some point time restrictions DO play a role. I have 30-40 minutes to play sometimes. I want to get into the gameplay quickly, and an automap helps. Is it decline? Hmm, maybe a bit. Some of the fun is streamlined away, sure. But if it helps me get into all these old games, then I'm all for it.


Then again...grid cartographer looks sexy as hell...

 

[Fowyr]

Balefire hardly ever works when you really need it in my experience, but "Whirlwind" (Air+Earth AEO spell) worked quite well.

That's really useful. Thank you. These undeads are indeed pain in the ass.

Considering question, dunno what is hardcore. Just hard and unfair? DHoU and Wiz4. Yserbius and Twinion were unbelievable hard in some places due to them being MMO played as single-player games. Disciples of Steel and Nahlakh were hard too.
I first played and finished Disciples of Steel just two years ago.

 

[Ulminati]

Going by number of times I died, ZangbandTK or Nethack

 

[Bumvelcrow]

Ultimas 4-8 inclusive on contemporary hardware. Although I've always had a short attention span so had to keep looking at hints or I'd have abandoned them forever.

Ultima 7 was the easiest IMHO, and 5 the most tricky/infuriating. I never got on with 1st person dungeon crawling (although aweigh keeps making me think I'm missing something) so was glad when they did away with that in U6.

 

[oldmanpaco]

I finished StarFlight back in the day. Starflight was an RPG right? Anyway the first time I got gud and figured out how to stay alive I fucked around the galaxy gathering clues and raiding planets and Gazdroids. Didn't really believe them when said the Crystal Planet was going to destroy Arth so that was a bummer.

 

[Siveon]

By my standards... probably Betrayal at Krondor. Probably the oldest game I have ever beaten. This was about a year ago. I've never touched a DOS computer before but it was a fun game nonetheless.

Or perhaps Demons Souls would suffice.