Recommend me a gateway western RPG.

By "gateway" I mean one that's like a gateway drug likely to get me interested, as opposed to one that requires a familiarity with the genre to appreciate.

Planescape Torment. Not for somebody who wants to focus on the combat aspect of an RPG because its combat is terrible, but for my money it has the best story of any RPG ever made, and it's very easy to play - killing things might be clunky and stupidly done, but the things tend to die in three seconds so there's no loss.

Hmm . . . Avernum might be a good starting point, if only because it's comparatively simple to play. (You can start with any game except the fourth—I think even the first has held up pretty well, but go to the second if you want quest lists and such, or the fifth if you want a reasonably modern experience.)

edited 2nd Nov '10 3:05:57 PM by feotakahari

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

Seconding anything by Spiderweb Software, they've got nice clean interfaces and broad quest structures, plus they're Shareware so it's easy to try them out. If you're interested in something more commercial, I'd probably recommend one of the Neverwinter Nights 2 or Neverwinter Nights bundles with the Expansion Packs included. They're pretty modern and polished, plus there's MOUNTAINS of excellent free campaigns written by players.

Eric,

edited 3rd Nov '10 1:50:22 AM by EricDVH

Baldur's Gate II. It's one of the best the genre has to offer. It's not essential to have played the first game, which is signifigantly worse IMO. The story is pretty much self contained.

I once tried playing Baldur's Gate 1, and found that going places on the map was kinda slow, but the combat system overwhelmed me when I had that whole bunch of characters in that house in the first town where the guy summons up illusions for you to use in battle for practice.

Is this a problem?

As a point of reference, you're familiar with JRPG's, right?

It's a problem with the game.

Hashil: Yes, rather extensively. FF III through VII and MQ, DQ 1, CT, Lufia 2, Pokémon gens 1 and 2, two Rayearth games, Sailor Moon, Earthbound, and Lunar, and others I'm forgetting.

Baldur's Gate 2 doesn't have the "pointless exploration" problem of its predecessor. I'd also suggest the first Knights of the old republic. It's not a classic fantasy RPG but it's basically a slightly dumbed down Baldur's Gate IN SPACE.

"I once tried playing Baldur's Gate 1, and found that going places on the map was kinda slow, but the combat system overwhelmed me when I had that whole bunch of characters in that house in the first town where the guy summons up illusions for you to use in battle for practice.

Is this a problem?"

Baldur's Gate II did away with the large number of random wilderness areas. Instead, there are a smaller number of more detailed areas which you become aware of once someone marks them on your map.

For combat, you can assign AI scripts so that battles pretty much fight themselves, e.g. "Attack All Enemies" "Heal Party" "Cast Offensive Spells," etc. It's too much micromanaging to direct every party member individually all the time.

Just IMHO, trying to play a Pausable Realtime RPG in a Diablo-ish fashion ignoring most of your party on scripted autopilot is Doing It Wrong™. The point of these games is to evenly play the whole group so that your team functions like a well oiled machine by your commands, so pausing frequently is perfectly normal in all but the most trivial encounters. Most such games (like BG) also offer the option to auto-pause on certain events  ^*

, which I highly recommend enabling so as to avoid missing critical opportunities.

Eric,

edited 4th Nov '10 9:19:46 AM by EricDVH

Are there any non-real-time western RP Gs?

KotOR?

edited 4th Nov '10 10:13:00 AM by ryaw

まったく

BG, Kotor and the likes let you pause the game to issue orders and stuff, and the system itself works by turns, but the action itself is pseudo real time. There's nothing like the completely turn-based gameplay of Final Fantasy that I can think of in western RP Gs.

Anachronox?

edited 4th Nov '10 11:26:06 AM by Shale

Mass Effect. This was the entire point of the game, in fact.

Mass Effect 2 is, ironically, the more accessible of the two, but you're screwing yourself over if you don't play the first game beforehand.

KOTOR and Mass Effect for sure.

Baldur's Gate is not a good gateway. The combat system is a wonderful, complex array of shields, counters, and careful setup, but to a first-timer it will seem like a clusterfuck. To say nothing of rather flagrant Trial-and-Error Gameplay.

"Just IMHO, trying to play a Pausable Realtime RPG in a Diablo-ish fashion ignoring most of your party on scripted autopilot is Doing It Wrong™. The point of these games is to evenly play the whole group so that your team functions like a well oiled machine by your commands, so pausing frequently is perfectly normal in all but the most trivial encounters. Most such games (like BG) also offer the option to auto-pause on certain events * PC injury, hostile sighting, ammo depletion, target death, etc… , which I highly recommend enabling so as to avoid missing critical opportunities."

I only use AI scripts for the basic things, like "attack someone else when you kill your target." It saves me having to hand-hold each and every party member. I never use scripts for spellcasters.

Setting the entire party to AI and just watching the battle play out would be indeed Doing It Wrong.

As for turn based WRP Gs, the Might & Magic games are very good. I'd suggest starting with Might & Magic IV-V, aka World of Xeen, which is like a combination of IV and V into one giant game. Number 3, Isles of Terra, is also good.

Wizardry VII is another good game in that style, (first-person dungeon crawl) as is the Realms of Arkania trilogy.

Albion also springs to mind, although like Anachronox it takes a lot of inspiration from JRP Gs. The game takes place from an overhead view and zooms into 3D first-person for dungeons and towns. Combat is turn-based. It's a mix of science fiction elements and fantasy, and IMO does it better than a lot of games that have tried something similar.

Fallout 1 & 2 almost go without saying, if you haven't played either of those, do so! Arcanum, which was made by some of the same developers as Fallout, is worth a look as well. If you play this, I strongly suggest getting the unofficial patches. (yeah, it's one of THOSE games)

These aren't turn-based, but definitely worth a look: the Eye of the Beholder trilogy, Lands of Lore, (I haven't played the sequels so I can't vouch for their quality, but the first game is excellent - just make sure you get the CD version, which has voice acting) Ultima VII and Ultima Underworld are all great RP Gs.

I'd have recommended Morrowind or Oblivion if they actually had substance :| The engine and setup were quite good.

edited 4th Nov '10 12:20:44 PM by Pykrete

Neverwinter Nights is pseudo turn-based, but nothing like Final Fantasy or most JRP Gs.

I wouldn't really call it a "gateway" western RPG, but it's as good a game as any to start with. That said, I'd recommend picking up whatever their latest cheap bundle they're selling the game and its expansions in right now and starting with the second expansion pack, Hordes of the Underdark. It's far and away so much better paced, written, and designed than the other two vanilla scenarios that, within NWN, anyway, it's a much better starting point.

Deus Ex was the first RPG I ever played and I got the hang of it quite quickly, so maybe you can try it. Since it's 10 years old, it should run on any computer.

I'm not sure how much things like Diablo or Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance count. I don't think they're the kind of thing you're asking for.

Fallout 3.

edited 4th Nov '10 1:15:58 PM by JackMackerel

Half-Life: Dual Nature, a crossover story of reasonably sized proportions.

I did try Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance. That's the GBA game, right? It seems nice, but gets kinda tedious after a while.

edited 4th Nov '10 1:21:19 PM by GlennMagusHarvey