Guilty Pleasure RPGs

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 9, 2011

Yesterday I talked about lists of favorites. It’s fun to talk about the classics, what made them classics, and how influential they were, and how they rate in comparison to each other. Fans make arguments defending their favorite games, people reminisce a bit, and everyone involved in the discussion can learn a little more about some of the most popular titles.

Those are easy.

But do you have any favorites that were not so popular? Or, even better, do you have any favorites that were really not that good, not that popular, or just so off-beat that you seldom feel like bringing it up because you’ll be met with blank stares? Or do you love a game that’s completely not the kind of title you claim you prefer? Or where you were really not the target market, but you loved the game anyway?

Do you have any favorites that are guilty pleasures?

Since I am always determined to destroy whatever cred I have with gamers, I’ll start it off and admit to a few of my favorites here that will probably not make many people’s lists:

Cute Knight – Okay, this one shouldn’t be a shock to anybody who’s been around here for a while. I’ve made no secret of my enjoyment of this game. Take the “life sim” aspect of Princess Maker, and mix it with a fairly simple RPG where you are actually playing the young female protagonist, add a ton of possible endings with lots of replayability, and you have Cute Knight, an indie RPG that I lose man-points for admitting that I enjoy. And I’m not a former marine or anything with man-points to spare.

But in Cute Knight Deluxe, you can become a knight, an adventurer, a sorceress, marry a prince, end up as the Queen of Thieves or a dancing girl or… or settle for being a waitress or cleaning maid. The game gives you three years to live your life, gain skills and expertise, and even adventure down in the depths of a dungeon below the town. Cute Knight Kingdom expanded upon this idea even further with multiple towns, dungeons, and storylines. The games are cute – and fun – and compelling. And yes, a little girly. But dang it, a fun game is a fun game.

Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption: The second Vampire game, Bloodlines, gets all the attention. And in spite of the bugs, it was probably the better game. But its 2000 predecessor, Redemption, is a lesser-known favorite of mine. It was in its own way just as ambitious as Bloodlines, supporting a “Storyteller” mode for multiplayer RPGs that beat Neverwinter Nights to the punch by a couple of years.

The game was excessively linear. The second half, set in the modern world, fell a little flat. The endings sucked (no pun intended). And the dialog could be wordy as hell. But I was okay with that. White Wolf’s signature game world came alive for me with the first two acts of the game, taking place in medieval Prague. The setting – a mix of dark fantasy and real-world history – seemed very believable. Playing your character initially as an ultimately doomed crusader and monster-hunter, only to become the thing you once hunted — it was great stuff, long expositions and all.

Al-Qadim: The Genie’s Curse – I’d probably dislike this one if I were to play it now, but at the time, I had great fun with it. This action RPG was even more action and less RPG than a lot of the games we like to complain about today. I played it to completion, though I couldn’t tell you much about the story today. I found myself playing it in the spring of 1995, when my first job in the video games biz was leading to very long hours and very little time for a “deep” game.

The Genie’s Curse managed to give me my RPG fix with an entertaining story without a whole lot of time and brain commitment. There’s definitely a place for that kind of game.

Twilight: 2000 – In this DOS-based RPG, you led a tiny military team tasked with preserving what’s left of peace and civilization in an area of post-World War III Poland. A military warlord was gathering power to the north of you, though you were as often fighting random marauders or treating disease in a small town as dealing with his forces. Standing on its own, this game fails as an RPG on so many levels. Not the least of which was that, on two different computers and two completely different run-throughs, the game would crash just as I reached the climax of the game. That tells you two things: #1 – the game was poorly tested before being shipped, and #2 – I somehow still liked it enough to play it all the way through to the bug-blocked endgame twice.

Maybe I liked it because I was a fan of the pen-and-paper RPG system. Maybe it was because I was a sim fan and I actually enjoyed the 3D sim / action tank battle sequences. Maybe it was the tactical battles that made up the heart of the game, with “random” encounters that would involve automatic weapons, grenades, and even armored vehicles. Maybe it was just the “realistic” post-apocalyptic setting. As far as I know, maybe it was the tedious non-combat missions. But I enjoyed the game, and would have loved to play the announced sequel.

So there you go: Four old RPG favorites of mine that will probably open me up to some mocking, but dang it if I didn’t really have fun playing them.

So how about you? Any guilty pleasures you want to ‘fess up about?

Filed Under: General - Comments: 23 Comments to Read

Barry Brenesal said,

Yes, Cute Knight and Cute Knight Kingdom are guilty pleasures I’ve been guilty of playing, too. Fun little things, enjoyable for their non-linearity not just in processes, but in goals. Very nicely implemented.

Games I’ve liked that never took off:

King of Dragon Pass: Top of the list. And one of my favorite all time games. Quite an innovative RPG/simulation/strategy mix.

Hidden Agenda: Possibly my second all time fave. I reviewed it back in 1988, but the publisher went under shortly after it was released. Truly sophisticated understanding and clever implementation of a Central American leadership sim. Lots of choices, many outcomes–and they were tracked, too, providing you with an “encyclopedia review” of your years in office at the finish of your term. Assuming you lasted that long, which often, you didn’t.

The guy who developed it, Jim Gasparini, told me a couple of years ago that he approached another company with the idea of doing a followup set in the MiddleEast, only to be told that nobody was interested in the MiddleEast. 😉
BellosTheMighty said,

The Legend of Queen Opala. An RPGMaker porn game that actually has some very nice design, with lots of scavenger-hunting and a minimum of level grinding.

The plot is complete and utter garbage: your hero is a pervy swordsman who comes to an egyptian-themed fantasy kingdom seeking the “favor” of their notoriously whorish queen and her equally whorish mother. After doing so, you then have to save the kingdom from the queen’s evil and also whorish sister. Optionally, you can decide the villainess is hotter and instead work to undermine the kingdom from within. Played tongue-in-cheek, so to speak, but still unbelievably stupid.

The pornographic bits are surprisingly well produced, with quality illustrations commissioned from peeps on deviantArt, Hentai Foundry, etc., plus voice acting (!) for the main females, but they’re turned comical by an incredibly juvenile attitude. Both boobs and wangs are absurdly oversized, and the illustrations you’re hunting for weave in and out of furry and monster sex as if it’s all perfectly normal. And every last woman in the game is sex-crazed and slutty. The only one who isn’t is Tirah, a fellow party member who has maybe three lines and exists purely so that there’s an axe-wielder in your party. This is a delicious irony: the only woman who isn’t completely objectified is the one who is, in gameplay terms, an actual object.

It’s horrible, but awesomely horrible. Perhaps unintentionally, it’s also a dead-on deconstruction of the JRPG. The genre is supposed to be powered by it’s epic stories, deep characterizations, and high production values. Here we have a story that mocks the first two and wastes the third, and yet it’s still pretty fun because of the amount of secrets, side-quests, and little touches going on. It succeeds specifically in spite of going completely against the rules of it’s genre.

I’d post a link, but the last time I tried that on a non-adult website I nearly got mod-whacked. Interested parties can pray to Google. (You want the Golden Edition, which has extra content.)
Max said,

Darklands -quite unique setting (set in medieval germany – city states and robber barons), nice music, a lot of gameplay was essentially text based , but it plays well even by today standards.

Transarctica – frozen wastes, mammonts , steam powered armored locomotives .whats not to like?

Might and magic 7 – the only game of series I actually played. It was quite refreshing experience for me at the time semi action combat,lots of different mobs and light/dark path . Since I didn’t play m&m6 it was fresh to me. I heard m&m8 was regurgitation of same gameplay and m&m9 was outright abortion.

Dungeon Siege -the original one. I always thought that game was much better than diablo ever was. Pure action gameplay with nice mobs and scenery. It got boring towards the end , but dang I enjoyed the ride. Never understood why people considered it a failure .

Bard’s tale (the new action one)- what an amazing game! awesome humor , music and actually fun gameplay. Best action rpg. EVER! One of the best game I ever played period.
Rampant Coyote said,

@Barry – A lot of folks have had great things to say about King of Dragon Pass. Sounds like it’s something of a cult classic.

@Bellos – Yeah, good call – I’d rather not have that linked from here. 🙂

@Max – Heh, yeah, I really did not enjoy Dungeon Siege, as hard as I tried to. But I did play the demo to The Bard’s Tale (the new one) – and while part of me was aghast at what they did to the license, I did get a kick out of it.
Eldiran said,

My guilty pleasures are Suikoden I and II. Those games were fantastic for their story and music, and I love the concept of building up a stronghold with an army comprised of unique characters in an RPG. When it comes to game inspiration, the Suikodens are up there with The Black Gate and Baldur’s Gate 2 (the good games all seem to be about Gates…)

The “guilty” part comes from the fact that they are JRPGs through and through. This means random encounters, long hallways, nonsensical treasure chests, and limited flexibility. It’s not as extreme as, say, Final Fantasy, but still it requires some patience to play through.
sascha said,

I think it’s safe to say that I mostly like titles where only few others would share the same view. I like especially scifi- and cyberpunk-themed RPGs. It’s often the theme that does it for me. On the other hand I loathe Tolkien-Fantasy-themed games, yet they are wildly popular. SF and cyberpunk are niche-themes at best.

Vampire Bloodlines was a game I found excellent, mostly because of it’s well done gothpunk theme. The bugs bothered me less. If the theme sits right for me, negative sides of a game become more acceptable.

Twilight: 2000 … A game I definitely want to play more in-depth someday because the Cold War-related theme also has something very nostalgic for me.
Groboclown said,

I really liked the old Infocom Battletech game, The Crescent Hawk’s Inception. There wasn’t that much to the story, but it really pulled me in. I played it many, many times.

And I’ll go along with Max and say that I really enjoyed the first Dungeon Siege, even ignoring the awesome Ultima mods made for it. The single player game was alright, but I spent way too many hours exploring the multi-player game, which had just an incredibly huge world to explore with no save points (including one very long maze that was a pain).
Groboclown said,

I can’t believe I forgot my favorites.

The original Dune RPG / strategy game, where you took over Arakis from the Harkonen. It had great music that I still listen to today. A really odd mix of story and strategy, and based on the movie rather than the book (Weirding modules? Really?) But it stuck with me, especially the game developer notes that were included in the manual.

And who could forget the Little Big Adventure games.
Max said,

But I did play the demo to The Bard’s Tale (the new one) – and while part of me was aghast at what they did to the license, I did get a kick out of it.

Seems like most people criticism about new bard’s tale is about that is nowhere in the spirit of the original. And wrong expectation spoils it. A shame really cause its an excellent game on it own – 100% quality to the very end (it has 3 different endings actually! )
Bad Sector said,

Not an RPG (although with enough squinting you may notice some elements), but i liked Daikatana enough to finish it twice.

Also i don’t know if it counts as an “unpopular” RPG, but i liked Arx Fatalis. In fact it is the first RPG i ever finished (and probably the first western style RPG that i played more than one or two hours, although i might remember wrong here).
getter77 said,

I spent quite a many hours with Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage on the N64. In many ways, it was waaay ahead of it’s time, and certainly the N64 audience. It was very buggy, never finished by me due to wonderful things like multiple-save corruption, rushed, and the sequel the entire story hinged on never materialized.

One of these days, I trust the rom hacking community will manifest some manner of fix/tweak/overhaul patch that will have it “get there” in terms of the spirit it was aiming for. I also hope for some sort of fan remake/sequel thingie along 2D lines, especially if a Roguelike slant, as the game system and such would probably lend itself well to that styling.
McTeddy said,

Hmmm… you know there are very few games I feel guilty to enjoy. Usually I just assume that the rest of the world is wrong…

The first I will mention is the universally hated Unlimited Saga. They took a famous series of free-roaming RPGs… and basically made a board game. If that wasn’t bad enough… the game rewards you for completing easier quests by REDUCING your skill levels. Yet…for some reason I still actually love to play this game…
—
The second is “My World, My Way” an usually amazing little RPG for the DS. In it, I take on the role of a young princess who is upset that the prince doesn’t even know she exists. So, she runs away from home to become a famous enough adventure that he’ll have to marry her.

The games gimmick involves her throwing tantrums that will change the world around her. Don’t like that graveyard I’m in yell “I HATE THIS PLACE!” and it becomes a happy forest. Battles getting you down scream “THIS IS ANNOYING!” and monsters will give you space.

I don’t care what anyone says… that game was amazing.
—
Finally, not an RPG, but it deserves a shout out. “Eat Lead: The Return of Mat Hazard”. The most derivative… boring… drawn out third person shooter I’ve ever played.

But watching the story unfold was some of the most fun I’ve had with a game. Mat Hazard, an 80s video game action star… is making his comeback. Unbeknownst to him, the CEO actually invited him back to have him killed off by their new star character, Sting Sniperscope.

The game builds up to an amazing climax involving all of the developers logging into the unfinished deathmatch mode to finish Mat off once and for all.

Seriously… that is one franchise that I love will every ounce of my being… despite the games being terrible.
LateWhiteRabbit said,

@Rampant Coyote
Haha. Thanks for the shout-out to one of my previous comments. Man-points indeed!

Cute Knight is a guilty pleasure of mine, but that is natural since my ultimate guilty pleasure is Princess Maker 2. As a grown man, a military vet surrounded by veteran friends, there is no way way I can mention that game to them without looking bad, even if they are gamers themselves. “Princess what?” “You’re dressing up and training a little girl? What the hell is wrong with you, man?!” Me: “But it’s fun!” Them: Weird looks.
Corwin said,

Normally I really dislike shooters, but one of my all time favourite RPG’s could also be called a shooter with rpg elements, and that’s the original System Shock.
Silent said,

I recently learnt that “The Feary Tale Adventure” was a bad game. Some RPG experts officially proved it on the internet. I feel awkward because I’ve spent an insane amount of time on it and loved every minute. It was wide, huge, empty (but I didn’t care, I already had that sightseeing approach to open-world RPGs), with little variety (but still enough to totally amaze me – precisely because reaching a patch of ice after hours of grassy plains was unexpected), and it was ridiculously hard. I had a broken cracked version (yes, I’m one of the little kids who killed the amiga), that didn’t allow me to save, but made it much easier, with infinite lives and maps and bird travel. I didn’t mind restarting it each time – my gaming sessions were behemotic, and any bit of them was enjoyable. I think that what seduced me most was its size and the absence of loading pauses, and the fact it was just scrolling and wasn’t tile-based. And the music was nice, and the night-day cycles too, and, well, I still think it defined the genre that I still prefer nowadays.

A three hours longplay is here, for the curious : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5_4DhXWdwo
Marcus said,

God this takes me back to when I was a kid, I had no idea what game was good or not, I just had to play whatever I would get my hands on regardless of how bad it was. Darklands, Eye of the Beholder and a couple other games like that where you didn’t even move or see your party, it was more like Windows Maze, then Stonekeep, that game for Windows where you were an icon with no legs, the very first Fallout, Betrayal at Krondor, Golden Axe, Ultima Underworld (the one in first person perspective), even played some game where there was just text and everything was displayed in letters. Thank god for the internet and youtube and reviews.
Michael Anderson said,

My guilty pleasure, a game I have played and written about WAY more than it deserves based on the quality … Dungeon Lords.

Yeah, I know 😉
Rampant Coyote said,

Seriously, it warms my heart to hear some of these old, off-beat RPGs getting some love here! That’s awesome.

And yes, LateWhiteRabbit, I thought you might appreciate the reference to the last time we talked about this. 🙂
adorna said,

I’m not ashamed of liking quirky jrpgs and some oldschool stuff both, but my guilty pleasure by far is Knights of Xentar.
Its acually aHentai game with a very thin RPG disguise. Even though I’m female I sort of liked the whacky fairytale gone bad insprired “girl encounters” you could collect and the game was just so plain funny that I still remember some of the endgame monologue and its been more than 10 years sine I’ve played it.
It played with archetypes big way, but was so open about it that its just charming somehow – if there was a HD remake I’d get it in an instant.
Silent said,

Actually, the pleasure I had with “Vampires: Bloodlines” was a bit guilty. It’s a magnificent game, one which qualities become more and more visible with time, as you look back at some nice gaming memories, and realise many of them cam from that same game. But it was guilty in the sense that the whole game and universe felt terribly demagogical. Very openly aimed at male geek teenagers possibly in search for sexual empowerment (you could get your own pin up slave in your appartment, with various outfits options, for your own “vampiric” consumption – and if I remember well, there was a quite a bit of lesbianism-for-males available, with little or no male homosexual possibilities because it would be gay). On these aspects, I was feeling a bit manipulated, or treated as an idiot, by this game. Or, somehow, I felt I was playing it in bad company – especially at moments where I was understanding how and why I was supposed to be thrilled, and wasn’t really. I felt it was making insulting assumptions about me, like bad sexist commercials do. So, while it’s a game I really admire on most levels (it’s efficiently atmospheric, it’s different, it’s open enough, it’s got a huge diversity of situations, it’s well written and allows to incarnate many different personalities, it’s got well developped secondary characters, it’s suspenseful and really feels like a thrilling adventure to survive – or not survive, as I got a cool but unfavourable ending) something prevents total emotional endorsement : I can’t feel real sympathy for that game. I can’t make it an old like-minded friend-for-life, like I can with a “Fallout”. It’s more like a fun but slightly vulgar and embarrasing friend, with whom you’d share some activities, but still go “yeah I know” and siding with others, when he shows his more annoying personality traits.

This is a long paragraph that makes it sound worse than it is. We’re used to watch action or horror movies that pull the same strings with similar obviousness, and we can half-enjoy and half-regret them (old school slashers or reagan-era vigilante movies have their charms). But these movies often end up as guilty pleasures, especially when we shelve them next to more 100% enjoyable ones.
Travis said,

Ummmm yeah…………..”prepairing to duck” Poll of Raidiance ruins of Myth Drannor. Yes there is alot wrong with this game and maybe i’m so desprate for a turn based d&d game but I’m playing this now and having alot of fun.
Maklak said,

Septerra Core maybe. It is a jRPG from 1999 on PC. I liked it. Probably because my friends were fascinated with Final Fantasy 7 at the time.

As for Bloodlines: It was pretty obvious to me that Viven and that Malkavian were using their sexuality to manipulate a young vampire. Nothing unusual there. Still worth doing for the XP tough. I didn’t quite get the ghoul thing. She had to be fed, and wasn’t all that obiedient or usefull. I barely even noticed posters on the wall.

As for fags they are just gross, but people seem to brainwashed to admit it.
Barry Brenesal said,

[quote]@Barry – A lot of folks have had great things to say about King of Dragon Pass. Sounds like it’s something of a cult classic.[/quote]

My apologies for not responding! I didn’t notice.

Yes, KoDP has developed quite a following over the years, based on its in-depth gameplay. A-Sharp frankly admits that the Web wasn’t ready yet to act as its main market when KoDP was developed, but now they hope to make an app version that will do well. More power to them–especially if they now realize that PC titles can sell very well on the Web.