Wasteland wasn’t the first RPG on PC, but it laid the foundation for many of the ideas that took hold in what’s been come to be known as “western RPGs” for years to come. ![]() Wizardry was the template for an entire genre that didn’t even really catch on until years after its initial release. Taking quite a bit of inspiration from the text adventures that came before it, Wizardy took RPGs to the next level by incorporating color graphics.įrom there, the gameplay is actually pretty recognizable to any RPG fan, featuring a fully-customizable party chosen from five races and four classes, first-person dungeon crawling, and turn-based combat. While many gamers cite Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest as the birth of most of the usual JRPG tropes, the true birth of the genre was actually way back in 1981 with Wizardy. Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord Elite went on to inspire tons of space trading games and MMOs like Eve Online, and of course, its own successor, Elite Dangerous, which continues to see updates now. That turned off a lot of gamers, but those who put the time into mastering its system found it to be incredibly fulfilling. If Elite had a flaw it’s that its gameplay is extremely complex. Even the 3D wire-frame graphics were years ahead of most games. Given how primitive home computers were in the early ‘80s, Elite did a remarkable job of creating an entire universe full of planets to explore, with open-ended gameplay featuring piracy, interstellar trade, and bounty hunting. Eliteįor almost as long as video games have been around, developers have been trying to capture the vastness of space using just a few lines of code. And while it only featured one plane (the Cessna 182) and the cities of Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle, that was more than enough for fledgling pilots to earn their wings. Microsoft Flight Simulator 1.0 wasn’t the first in the genre, but its full-color graphics and attention to detail were far beyond anything that came before. And while that rotoscoping never really caught on with video games, it did show gamers that they didn’t have to settle for jerky slideshow animations. But what most people remember about Prince of Persia is the rotoscoping: an animation style that traced over live footage, making for extremely smooth animation. ![]() And the combat, which emphasized strategic swordplay, was unheard of at a time when most platforming protagonists were still jumping on enemies and hurling fireballs (regardless of how much sense that made in context). But in 1989, Prince of Persia arrived with little fanfare with several new ideas that actually moved the genre forward.įirst, there was the Persian aesthetic, rarely seen in games up to that point. And as you’d expect, most were pretty terrible. The genre was so big, that pretty much any halfway popular movie, TV show, comic book, or toy line ended up with a platformer. ![]() Prince of Persiaīy the late ‘80s, the video game market was completely oversaturated with platformers. Even though Wolfenstein went on to change gears dramatically to become an immensely successful first-person shooter series, the influence of this first game in the series can still be seen in series like Metal Gear Solid and Assassin’s Creed, as well as pretty much every annoying, unnecessary stealth section in games of other genres. But instead of just avoiding guards, you can get them to surrender (even if your gun is out of ammo), or sneak past them using stolen uniforms. ![]() Yes, the first Wolfenstein game looked incredibly basic, but the actual gameplay was surprisingly deep.Īs an allied prisoner, you need to get through dozens of procedurally generated rooms to escape the Nazis. Long before the zombies, Mecha-Hitler appearances, trips to Venus, and the improbable decapitation survival of a protagonist, Wolfenstein was an early pioneer in more realistic stealth games. It was a nice early example of how RPGs didn’t need to just be turn-based grind fests that lives on in some of the best modern RPGs with complex character-building options. Some of these songs were even required to complete the game’s puzzles. What really set the game apart from other similar titles was the bard himself, who used songs to debuff enemies or strengthen his party. Also, the game’s graphics were a little bit better than most other early dungeon crawlers, though not a big enough step forward to make any “best of” lists just for that. The Bard’s Tale, true to its humble namesake, was more about small steps that eventually had a big impact. Most of the games on this list offered more revolutionary innovations.
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