Quote:
Originally Posted by Bochi
I thought Lev's review of Dragonquest was much better and I wonder whether that was partly because the whole system was before him and he could balance one part against another to take a more rounded view.
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Well, it was TSR's fault for making 3 seperate products needed to play the damned game so why not review them as 3 products?
And as to "But you have to look at it SOLEY for what time it was released"?
Bleh.
Its being reviewed as something to be used today, not as a historical document.
Its like saying every old videogame should be looked at for how it played then, and to utterly ignore everything that has come since.
That does not happen. Sure, the original Wizardry was a landmark game for 1981. Outside of historical interest its not very fun NOW. Its a 3d lockstep RPG with no actual roleplaying, story (Kill Werdna and bring his amulet back. That's the story. And its in the manual.), automapping, and full of gamer unfun things nobody would accept today. Stuff like random character generation made as slow as possible, random stat advancement with some stats going randomly down as you level, endless exp grinding, character death being instantly saved to disk, and practically no in game solutions to any of the puzzles.
Now electronic RPGs have advanced past this. Sure its lead to dozens of other Wizardy titles. Does that mean it should get a good review by modern eyes?
NO. (And notice I am ignoring graphics. Good gameplay can help even mediocre looking games. Bad gameplay is eternal.)
But AD&D gets a pass in the tabletop realm? I don't think so. Honestly it was never that good or deserving of its levels of popularity. AD&D doesn't even do AD&D right and given the sheer volume of house rules, fantasy heartbreakers, and spinoffs/"homages" that threw most of the rules away and rewrote them even back then sort of proves this.
Some old games still hold up. Squad Leader still kicks ass. Ogre/GEV still rules. Call of Cthulhu is pretty much the same game it was when it came out. Basic D&D is still solid for "that sort of kill the monsters and take their stuff" dungeoncrawling.
AD&D in many people's eyes is not. In some folks it is.
Either way should be cool, right?