I may (or may not? Nobody seems to be able to say…) be doing the travel thing again soon and, as part of that, I’m preparing myself for the 26 hours on a plane. (Shudder.)
Given that I’m only going to be taking my N3DS, I’m doing some research and seeing that two of the most perfect games ever made will be coming out soon: Super Metroid and Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past. Download them, install them, be amazed that they still hold up. (Well, technically, I only know that Link to the Past holds up… but I’m betting that Super Metroid does. It sure as heck held up in ’94.)
Brilliant little action RPGs that have mastered game design. Here is an obstacle. Here is a tool to help you overcome the obstacle. Here is a boss to fight that requires you use the new tool. Here is a new area!!! Here is a new obstacle…
Which brings me to the games that I cannot go back to.
Having purchased Talisman: Digital Edition all the way back in 2014, I finally said “Hey, I should play that! I loved playing that back in, oh, 1992ish!”
Well, I didn’t even make it once around the board. Roll a die. Go that many spaces. Draw a card. Roll a die. Maybe roll another die. Wait for the three computer players to go. No, you can’t speed them up.
Ugh. How did we play this for hours? Well, we probably had each other. And not dating probably allowed us to sublimate frustration into something goal oriented. Also, we hadn’t really discovered *AMAZING* board games at that point. We were merely fumbling around the idea that, surely, there must be something wonderful that was possible. Something where we could throw dice and be excited about what we were doing… rather than merely doing this because, well, Metroid and Zelda didn’t have multiplayer.
So… what are you playing?
(Picture is “Untitled” by our very own Will Truman. Used with permission.)
Talisman against computer players just seems wrong somehow. A big part of the experience is having five or six of your friends around the table chanting “Toad! Toad! Toad!” when you visit the Enchantress.
It’s a terrible game, of course. It has all the mechanical flaws of Monopoly and probably more. But there’s no particular strategy, so the boardgame vets don’t have a significant advantage over the newbies. And pretty much all the rules are printed on the cards or on the board.
And as you say, at the time there really weren’t the alternatives we have today. Cosmic Encounter is the only one I can think of from that time that was fun to play with the exact same crowd, although it required more thinking. For a little different crowd, with even more thinking, there was Illuminati!Report
For a solo adventure-style digital game, have you played the Sorcery! games? Three have been released so far, and they might scratch the adventure itch, if in quite a different way than Talisman.Report
I’ve heard good things about Lords of Waterdeep, but it’s pretty much hearsay.
Now I have a copy of Tales of Arabian Nights which is supposed to be fun, but I haven’t had a chance to play it.Report
I play lords of waterdeep a lot, and it’s tons of fun. I don’t think I’d call it an adventure game, though. It has more in common with resource management games like Settlers.Report
Lords of Waterdeep is magnificent. The awesome part is that the mechanic of the game is so very elegant in its worker management.
Patrick and I made jokes about stealing the mechanic and making a vineyard/winery game and selling it to high-end booze stores a million years ago.
We should still do that.Report
Wow, that’s been one hell of a long half-a-day.Report
Oh…now I get it. I knew that song was used in a ketchup commercial, but I never got the logical connection until I saw it slowly making its way out of the bottle.
I don’t like ketchup, so it’s not something I have much experience with.Report
Packing a couple of board games turned out to be stroke of genius when we got trapped in Raton, NM, by one of the Rocky Mountain’s famous Spring snowstorms yesterday. We finally broke out the Portal board game my oldest son picked up many many moons ago. It’s based on the Portal video games (obvs). The rules are easy to pick up, the mechanics are elegant and quick to master, and it’s a lot of fun.Report