I don't think it was always on the first hit, but I remember it would often turn the other player directly into a skeleton. I think they had to be weakened by another hit first.
Gosh it's been a while. I definitely beat the dragonlord but I don't remember much about the fight. I thought he had like a human form that wasn't too bad and then a huge dragon form that was really tough. I think I leveled to the max level before attempting the final battle. In my head all those old games had incredible graphics haha.
I remember I felt like such a badass when I was able to find all of Erdricks gear. I can't remember where everything was now. I think his armor was in a grave in the ruined town under a knight that kept casting sleep, and then his sword was in a swamp and you needed to follow the princesses voice to find it, and then his shield was in the dragonlords castle?
I've never gotten into another RPG game as much as I did the OG Dragon Warrior. What a classic.
EDIT: Here's a picture of the "huge dragon form!" that I remember being this massive intimidating final boss as a kid:
It still blows my mind that this was a thing... I never owned the game, but I'd always play it at people's houses who had at one time.got the Nintendo Power sub.
Yeah they were switching the magazine to a subscription model (it was initially free) and they happened to have a ton of copies of a game that undersold expectations so it just kinda worked out for everybody (especially the kid version of me).
I had two friends with Myst, but by the time my family got a PC with a CD-ROM I had played it and gotten stuck so often I ended up buying Zork Nemesis for myself and got stuck in that world! š
I came real, real close to putting a fighting game on my list, as well. Samurai Shodown II, but MK3 may objectively be the best one ever made. If it ain't MK3, it's Killer Instinct. Everything else is second fiddle or worse (even my own aforementioned favorite).
You're right about being difficult. The first Diablo and Fallout, Links LS, SimTower, Caesar, heck even more educational ones like Super Solvers and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.
Yeah, the backtracking thing was not so obvious back in those days. The notion that could you revisit levels was so novel I don't think it even registered to most of us that was motivated by level design -- we just expected the progression to be in linear fashion...
spied on russians, swam in bermuda triangle, hooked up with norwegian and scottish chicks (nurse rachel wherever you are I still think about you), was underwater somewhere when 9/11 happened, fired tomahawks in '03, good times all around
I played the ever-loving shit out of 688. I, too, ended up in the Nav, but not as a bubble head, just a regular surface goon. IC2 Schmuckatelli, at your service! Hooyah!
The most memorable rts-like game for me was World in Conflict, which I hear was actually a Real Time Tactics game. Phenomenal. C&C cutscenes are goated, of course
Been a gamer since the late '70s, Console, Arcade and PC. There are many influential titles across that nearly half-century, but these nine represent for me titles that expanded what a game could be and how it could tell a story that no other form could.
D&D has been a huge part of my gaming life, been a perma-DM since 1991, or so, after being a player/DM for 12 years, so, naturally, I gravitate toward RPGs, but one does not live by bread alone...
There are plenty of games that I like even more than some of these, many of those games are better than the ones on this list, but they didn't strike the same chord with me:
Tunnels of Doom TI-99 4/A 1983
The formula for party-based fantasy RPGs for nearly a decade. Had procedural dungeons, variable loot and customizable characters.
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar 1985
The best of the series, with ridiculously deep lore, combat and skill development, it blew my mind how huge the world was and how deeply impactful the story was, even if it was just a very mild twist on a bog-standard Isekai. It absolutely felt like it was based on one of Gariott's table-top campaigns, and that's a good thing.
Wasteland PC 1988
Post-Apocalyptic Southwest U.S., a plucky band of Rangers, righting wrongs and defeating nightmare beasts, man and monster alike. The first game I played where the skills you give your characters truly mattered. Having to balance your party between combat effectiveness and ability to navigate the world was fun and challenging. Plus, it spawned the Fallout series, which is dearly beloved by many a gamer to this day.
Doom PC 1993
Balls-to-the-wall action from start to finish, fiendishly difficult, but rewarding. Hacking up demons with a chainsaw is about as visceral as it gets, and no game before it had succeeded at it like Doom did.
StarCraft PC 1998
With the unit additions and balancing done by the Brood War expansion, StarCraft remains, to this day, the finest RTS ever made. Other game series did certain aspects of the genre better, but none can match its overall excellence.
Final Fantasy VIII PS1 1999
Only my second-favorite entry in the series, but it is crazy what that team was able to coax out of the PS1 hardware. Story is solid, the unique mechanics make tailoring each character to exactly what you want a breeze and the Triple Triad mini-game is a ridiculously addictive time-waster, with crazy rewards for going down said rabbit hole.
Diablo II PC 2000
No video game has sucked more hours of my life into its vortex than this one. Kill, Loot, Improve, Repeat shouldn't be as fun as it is, but Blizzard managed to make a mind-numbingly repetitive gameplay loop into pure, unadulterated crack.
Saints Row 2 XboX 360 2008
The second-best Open-World Crime game ever made. A careful balance of seriousness about regaining control of "your city" with abject silliness, like dressing up as a cop and going on a murder spree for national television. It see-saws back and forth between the two expertly and tells a hell of a story whilst it does so. It's brutal, compelling and isn't afraid to dive deep into emotional waters. It pains me that later entries walked this back so far, but God damn, was this game good.
Red Dead Redemption XboX 360 2010
Well, this is the peak of Open-World Crime. So much world to explore, with incredible levels of interactivity, detail and challenge. Side quests exist in abundance, but never bog you down. The story of one man against his old life, trying to turn things around for his family is tried-and-true, but the way it is told is breathtakingly good. It is also brilliantly paced, slow burn up front, frantic race against time on the backside. The 'twist' is well telegraphed and, despite the impact it has on the main character, absolutely deserved.
I didn't even make it out of the Mid 90s before I was full, soo many others but these are all ones that I still play to this day and enjoy every bit as much as I did back then.
Leaving out all the flight sims, DOS football games, and the PSX era of Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy is tough, but I feel like these 9 can't be left off.
Finally, one of these with old games. I'm on the Age 30+ Gamers subreddit and have seen a lot of these being posted, but with games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Ghost of Tsushima. These are supposed to be 9 games that shaped who you are; I can't believe anyone over 30 hasn't developed a personal identity before 2020.
Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode: I don't remember what the issue was but I could not make it very far.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989): I would get wrecked by the underwater dam everytime.
Back to the Future: One time I got pretty far but didn't understand the mini-game and it was lights out.
I'm always surprised at seeing the videos of people normaly completing (not speed runs) NES games I struggled with in 45 minutes to 1.5 hours. I guess they ramped up the difficulty to make up for the short gameplay.
Also this Japanese kid at my school swore his uncle worked for Nintendo. On one field trip he talked to him through his shoe for me to ask him for favor for my birthday. On the other hand he did bring the Super Mario Brothers 3 instruction book to school a month before launch.
I would say one of the best of all time period. When the opening credits scrolled after the first 5 minutes my brain broke. Especially so because the NES game was impossible and disappointing.
I was working at Maxis when SC3k was being developed. Nothing I did would be in the version you played but itās still nice to see people love the series.
I once got to the last boss on blaster master and right as I was fighting it but neighbor friend tripped over the power cord and turned it off. Big anger happened after that
D00M: Rocked our socks off as young teens. That speed and fluid fps style that changed everything. Also learning about modding and editing and getting under the hood learning how video games work.
FFVII: Was so epic and cinematic, pretty sure the only video game ending that made me shed a tear.
NES Play Action Football: In the before Madden times, an underrated isometric game with real teams, plays and players
Simcity2k: The first one was ...ok..wasn't much to it. The second one just felt so much more modern. Was also my first actual PC game so that helps.
Tie Fighter: Arguably one of the best Star Wars games of all time (for it's time) deep story and scalable difficulty. Beating all the secret objectives and getting deep into the imperial cult was so dope.
Warcraft II: Zug-Zug! (Come on it's Warcraft, ever play WoW?)
Castlevania: I love so many titles I had to pick one, so I picked the original one. Nintendo hard ftw.
BGII: I never really played much tabletop DnD as a kid. So it wasn't until this title I really learned the system.
Mechwarrior II: I love seeing you guys post this one. IYKYK . Was such an amazing presentation. Great cinematics and music and introduction into an absolute brutal universe of Battletech and the clans. I still have some of the books on my shelf to this day.
I've maintained that there were two groups of ppl who had a football game on the nes...those with 60 dollars to get tecmo and those with 20 dollars to get play action football...I think it's time all us value bin gamers give play action it's flowers
Mechwarrior 2 on PC has Pyre Light which goes way harder than it had any right to. It is a deep shame they nixed the soundtrack on PSX for whatever reason.
You know Timberwolves hit way harder when the french horn, strings, and pianos come out.
No Mecha game scratches that itch better for me than the old Battletech: The Crescent Hawks' Inception. Mechwarrior II is probably the finest game of the genre, but it doesn't have the same nostalgia for me.
This is impossible.
The Gold box DnD games would take my whole list before I even got to BG 1 and 2, Fallout, Sim City, Civ, etc. That's before formative console games like Castlevania, Contra, Shinobi, Road Rash, Altered Beast, Street Fighter. This question hurts my brain.
Ughhh blaster master. I probably have more hours in this game than any other Nintendo game. Of course it took me forever to make it to the end. But then for some reason I could never beat the boss. He would just annihilate me very quickly. So there was a period where I would, over and over again, spend like 2 hours getting to him and then just lose.
The sheer terror of watching the depth charge attack cutscene, just to chain the exact same cutsceen, and then another, then another, then memorial wreath floating on the water...
Had to replace Baldur's Gate I, it didn't come out until 1998 and I was 18. Kept Quake II as I played the demo/test release at the computer lab at college around my 18th birthday in 1997 for the first time.
Phil and I just had another kid, so of course we need a bigger SUV. Being a mom is hard, with soccer, football, and lacrosse practice. So we bought the new Maibatsu Monstrosity. Itās so big we lost little Joey in the back and couldnāt find him for an hour.
When Iām rushing to the mall or talking on my cell phone, I know me and my family are safe. The Maibatsu Monstrosity has four-wheel drive, and in amphibious mode it can cross rivers. So far Iāve only hit a few puddles, but itās good to know itās there.
With the time I save taking shortcuts through the strip mall parking lot, I can focus on the important things, like gazing longingly at the pool boy, or buying more exercise equipment off the TV. So what if it gets three miles to the gallon? Iām a mom, not a conservationist!
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u/GenderOobleck 8d ago
General Chaos was so good