When drawing on legends and history for inspiration, in the words of professional curmudgeon Michael Moorcock, traditional fantasy can be 'sentimental, slightly distanced, often wistful, a trifle retrospective.' Fantasy presents worlds where ancient means better and lost empires of the distant past are idealized, and those attitudes can bleed into the culture around fantasy as well.Įven sci-fi RPGs tend to look back for their inspirations. RPGs, like the fantasy fiction they grew from, have always had a tendency to look backwards. They're not bad games-they're just repeating past successes. These are RPGs so old-fashioned they should come with a pair of suspenders and a hat. We also had Eastward, which is a love letter to Earthbound and The Legend of Zelda, Encased, which is a love letter to Fallout and STALKER, Monster Crown, which is a love letter to Pokémon and Dragon Quest Monsters, and Solasta: Crown of the Magister, which is a love letter to Neverwinter Nights and every D&D campaign run by a teenage Dungeon Master. Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is a particularly blatant example, an homage to Baldur's Gate with a strategy layer from Heroes of Might & Magic, one chapter set in an extraplanar city that would be right at home in Planescape, and two dungeons that reference Fallout vaults. There's also Black Geyser, The Iron Oath, Project Witchstone, Dark Envoy, Space Wreck, and probably more I don't know about.

Old school as they may be, I'm looking forward to a bunch of the upcoming top-down party-based RPGs.īroken Roads is basically Fallout Australia, Odd Gods is a '90s-style RPG about the '90s, and Sovereign Syndicate is a steampunk game where you can play an alcoholic minotaur in a top hat. Durante called 2014 the first year of the CRPG renaissance, but it's really kicked into gear now.

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