What are your favorite dungeon crawler/fantasy themed games? GO!

PrairieDillo

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What are your favorite dungeon crawler/fantasy themed games? GO!

I'm going to go for the top 5 with Pros Cons and Memories.

1) Golden Axe: Revenge of Death Adder
Pros: IMHO all of the best dungeon crawlers have 4P goodness. This game had awesome balance where w/ some skill you could pretty much play to the end. One of my best friends is a pro player and he was able to take 3 other guys to the end w/ 1 quarter each. As this game came toward the end of the Silver/JAMMA age of games, it pretty much was packed with everything from great art, a nice dedicated 4P cab to pretty stylized characters w/ nice special moves.
Cons: No level up system and pick-up weapons

Memories: Finishing it with 1 quarter the first time I was introduced to the game.

2) Dungeons and Dragons: Shadows of Mystara
Pros: A highly crafted use of the D&D license for the arcade. Using the Final Fight format of character art and SSBemUp game design, they added everything from a leveling up system to an in game use of Treasure collection.

Cons: Boss fights often turned into a quarter sucking session.

Memories: Paying about $5 per game to finish it to the end. WTH is up with the Red Dragon's difficulty!

3) Cadash
Pros: 2 + 2 linked cab play allowed for 2 separate wandering groups. This game had 4 separate characters with varied design. It's pretty well designed and was about $5 to finish for an average skilled player.

Cons: The dungeon design was static and lacked replay. Getting lost pretty much sucked.

Memories: 4 Players taking it all the way to the end for the first time was pretty awesome. Building a linked pair for CAX was a moment of pride.

4) Gauntlet 2
Pros: The one that pretty much started it off is still high on the list. Elf SHOT THE FOOD!

Cons: Freeplay now breaks the desire for me to own one.

Memories: Meeting someone that could play indefinitely was pretty cool. Playing this one on and on with friends wondering (Gauntlet 1) if there was an end.

5) Magic Sword
Pros: Great design, and artwork. It gives the illusion of a big party with the NPC characters.

Cons: crowded screen. It's a bit hard and costly to keep on playing.

Memories: finding the lizard man and or the knight NPC
 
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In no particular order...

Gauntlet.
No brainer. Potions, keys, secrets, joint play, multiple players, teamwork, strategy, and a badass assortment of ghouls to fight. Cons: repititive maybe? Also, you always lost health. That pissed me off.

Magic Sword.
My favorite as a kid. 2-player beat'em up. Build up your character's strength, use magic spells to clear screen, plus you could choose any number of secondary characters that you'd find along the way to aid you in your quest. Each one of the secondary character's weopans and skills were either a blessing or skill depending on where you found them in the tower. Mini bosses, lots of variety of goons. Great graphics and colors for the time. Cons:none!

King of Dragons.
Three player co-op. You could choose between the Elf, Wizard, Fighter, Paladin, or the Dwarf to run thru the hack em and slash em levels. Colorful graphics which Capcom was well known for. Power ups, potions, bosses that took up the entire screen. Great stuff. Cons: somewhat poor hit detection.

Cadash.
Never heard of this game before KLOV, in fact I've never even played it. However based on reviews here and given it's gameplay structure, it would have to be on this list as it defines the very essence of the genre.

Golden Axe.
Mostly just fond memories of playing this early on in my arcade days. The potions, the main characters, the elfs that you could kick for power ups. Great stuff. The music was iconic for me, even though now it is deemed a little slow and boring. The fact that you could hop on creatures to help you was cool. Liked seeing the cross-character usage in Altered Beast too.


Oh, and my favorite Dungeon Crawler from earliest memories (about 5) was Dragon Fire for Atari 2600.
 
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What are your favorite dungeon crawler/fantasy themed games? GO!...

I'm going to go for the top 5 with Pros Cons and Memories....

Only five quarters for five different games, AARRRGGG!!!!! There are sssooo many good ones to choose from. But, today these guys would get my queartes:

Shadow_over_Mystara_sales_flyer.png


Pro: Same as the first, but more of everything!
Con: Still a long game.

Tower_of_Doom_sales_flyer.png


Pro: 4 players. Pick-A-Path. Great Graphics. Hard!
Con: Long game.

250px-GhostsnGoblins_flyer.jpg


Pros: Good theme. Fast action. Fun run and gun. Neat levels. Hard bosses.
Cons: HARD! HARD! HARD!--Even easy is HARD!!! Level(s) can be frustrating sometimes.

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Pros: Graphics look--AMAZING!
Cons: Frustrating level(s).

Gauntlet_game_flyer.png


Pros: 4 Player fun! Power-ups. Cool Music. And funny comments.
Cons: Finding the exit. And beating the game.
 
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Gauntlet Legends since you can save your progress. I agree with all the other games listed here. Also, Crystal of Kings for its awesome pre-rendered 3d graphics.
 
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Yeah, I like KOD too. Cool game. Great Color pallet. Fun Music. Lots of Characters to chose from. It's like a forerunner to D&D.

kod.png


I like the idea that you can change characters at different stages in the game so you are not stuck with one guy throughout the entire game.

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And I liked that the game has a lot of stages to pass and bosses to fight.

But, the parry (blocking) system is complicated. Never seems to work when I want it too.
 
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King_of_Dragons_sales_flyer.png


Yeah, I like KOD too. Cool game. Great Color pallet. Lots of Characters to chose from.

kod.png
Holy shit, I played the shit out of King of Dragons. I always went with the Cleric or the Fighter. I am actually very partial to Karnov and Rygar, the NES versions.
 
I'm not huge in to quarter pumpers... games that essentially REQUIRE that you pump in quarter after quarter to get further and further. I am a "one quarter play" kind of guy. That said, I used to enjoy a round of Gauntlet with friends... though when they kept pumping in the quarters I moved on to other games.
 
Gate of Doom is a favorite of mine. As for Gauntlet, the only version I enjoy playing is the NES/PC-10 version. It's much more structured than the legit arcade versions and has a sense of progression/ending.

Magic Sword is obviously a favorite as well. I admire the cleverness of the level design philosophy, which doubled as a really sneaky way of making players want to pump more quarters in. Instead of five to eight large levels, make like...100 or so short, quick bites of gameplay. The average player winds up easily going through...what? 5 or 10 floors before dying and winds up feeling like they progressed too far to quit. It's like faking them into thinking there is an investment.
 
after 2nd consideration I would bump Rastan for Magic Sword. I had oddly forgotten about MS even though I have a full kit with the intention to restored a dedicated for it.
 
Black tiger, hands down if I had to give up everything and could only own one game.. it would be black tiger.

Ghosts n Goblins, Ghouls n Ghosts. hands down amazing, but challenging.

D&D SOM, is amazing as well

Gauntlet dark legacy/legends.

Magic Sword.

thats my list.
 
Yeah, I liked the CLERIC and the FIGHTER too.

The CLERIC for leveling-up and the fighter for HP.

Never really played the other characters.

BITD, my local arcade had KOD in a 2 player cab.. And GAUNTLET type characters (FIGHTER, CLERIC, WIZARD and ELF) were the the popular choices.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE8sSkaX9w4

When my brother and I would play as little kids, I'd like being the Elf and attack from distances while he could run up and strong-hand the baddies with the Fighter. I don't think I ever saw a three player one out in the wild, they were always in some dynamo 2-plater cab when we played. My favorite though was always the Cleric. Dude just looked badass. Later on, it became one of my favorite arcade ports to the Snes, along with SSFII and TMNT in Time.
 
LMAO! When I saw "dungeon crawler", I immediately started thinking of text based games(Zork, Adventure, etc).

+1 on Gauntlet, Ghouls n Ghosts, Ghosts n Goblins

Another obscure one for DOS and C64 is Nightmare on Elm Street. Though not a "fantasy" game, I always thought it played a lot like other dungeon crawler games listed above...

 
Oh, well, if you're going to drag the C64 into it.... Realm of Impossibility is quite amazing. I believe it came out a year before Gauntlet, and is so much more interesting. You have an infinite supply of crosses that you drop in front of enemies to slow them down. You get the occasional spell to either freeze enemies, make yourself immune to damage, or confuse, which makes the enemies wander aimlessly. No hack n slash in this one!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdGBA0FG7Gk&feature=related
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realm_of_Impossibility
 
...Magic Sword is obviously a favorite as well. I admire the cleverness of the level design philosophy, which doubled as a really sneaky way of making players want to pump more quarters in. Instead of five to eight large levels, make like...100 or so short, quick bites of gameplay. The average player winds up easily going through...what? 5 or 10 floors before dying and winds up feeling like they progressed too far to quit. It's like faking them into thinking there is an investment.

240px-Magic_Sword_sales_flyer.jpg


Uggg...another really long game by CAPCOM. :D

BUT I really like the boss rooms. These rooms look way cool.

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I also liked the idea that you could pick up a fried a long the way to help you with your quest.

And that they could power up too. My favorite allies are the PRIEST, WIZARD, and the LIZARD MAN.

ms.png


I wish CAPCOM would have made the transition scenes between the floors just a bit longer

so that I'd I have a few more seconds to read the dialogue box as the guys run up the stairs.

And, I wish they would have made some hidden passage ways--back doors (or warps)--so you could skip floors--to play a quicker version of the game.

The Tower is 50 stories high!!!!!
 
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I agree with most of these--Black Tiger being my #1--hell you can beat it with 1 quarter.

Here are a few not mentioned that I love:

Rygar
Pyros
Magician Lord
 
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