Realms of Arkania

[Harrison]

Cool. Great stuff

[Demon Cleaner]

That's looking great, good job

[Sharingan]

Ah ... I remember this was probably the last Amiga game I played on the Amiga itself (non-emulated). Really nice atmosphere, great music, great artwork, but a little bit too 'deep' for its own good (for example, I spent hours fiddling around with the character creation alone). Never got around to delving very far into the game though, even though I probably should have.

[Harrison]

The same thing happens to me in many recent games. The character creation screens are so detailed that you end up spending the first day playing just setting up your character. Oblivion was a good example of this. So it isn't until the next day before you even get to see the game.

[Teho]

In Realms of Arkania, if you haven't spent over an hour creating your characters then you haven't done it right.

It is very hard to get into though, you're right about that. At the start your character will have a hard time surviving against just about anything, and don't think the game does anything like level scaling or something to help you out. Oh no. It's one of those old, really unforgiving RPGs. The game will never stop you or even warn you against doing something stupid, like crossing a mountain mid-winter in your undies. It expects you to be clever enough to know things like that won't work, and punishes you harshly if you aren't. But it's a beautiful game if you persevere, but it does take ages to play. I literally spent months with it when I had it back in the day. There's so many places to visit, and a lot of random events that can occur when travelling around. But it does become repetitive, if not only because there's little variation in the graphics.

Too long and not enough variation to be recommended to play today, but back then this was the Elder Scrolls of its day in my opinion, in terms of scope and freedom to go anywhere in a huge world.

[Sharingan]

I don't mind a game that takes a bit of perseverance to play well. Most games nowadays literally walk you through them automatically, with literally no danger of ever dying in-game.

I'm actually kind of interested in picking up Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Haven't played a good, western-style RPG in ages.

[Harrison]

I'm actually kind of interested in picking up Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Haven't played a good, western-style RPG in ages.

If you still haven't played it then it is well worth getting hold of. Some parts of it relating to the main story do get a little repetitive, but there is so much to do outside of the main story that you can almost play the game without even progressing the main story if you wanted.

And if you do get it make sure you install one of the mods that sorts out the enemy levelling system in the game. By default all enemies level up when you do so regardless of how much you level up your skills you are never any better than you were before. With these mods it keeps the enemies at their original levels so you actually feel like there is a point your all your levelling up

I forget what the name of the mod in question is. Some of the others on here should be able to let you know and I think it has been mentioned somewhere.

Oblivion is also highly customisable with a ton of hacks and mods available to do loads of things, plus loads of extra missions, stories and items you can add to the game.