DOS Games Discussion

Hi I am looking for an old PC game. It came preinstalled on my first PC I bought with 1998 grand prix legends F1 formula game.
The first thing you see after you access the game is a black character selection screen. When you hower over a character it highlights up;
just like diablo 2 but the characters are closer and bigger to the screen and they are not moving, it's just pictures of the characters.
We have a female rogue/assassin type of class a female lady with claws, we have a male archer with a hoodie, we have a male warrior with a sword, and we have a
female barbarian with a double axe (she is kinda muscular with big tits).

On the first map to the left we have a very small town in the shape of a square and right to the town there is a small fountain.
The first mobs we encounter they are some grey minions stacked in packs of 5-7. To the left we have a spike fence made out of wood
(the kind of fence we see at old time wars like in the movie troy on the beach). After the fence the 2nd monsters are leopards.
Then if we go further to the left we will see some kind of castle with a lot of entraces. Each entrace is protected by golems,
and a 2-3 flying mage mobs, and I even saw a red dragon at one of the entraces.

Any1 has any idea what game is this? I am literally searching for it for ages.
Thank you.

4 characters make me think it could be guantlet. Even if you don't think it is it, you should try the game out. Great game. It was even out at the Arcade at one point in time.

What perspective was the game in? Isometric? Top-down? First-person? Free floating 3D camera?

Ady20 wrote:We have a female rogue/assassin type of class a female lady with claws, we have a male archer with a hoodie, we have a male warrior with a sword, and we have a
female barbarian with a double axe (she is kinda muscular with big tits).

I thought that you could check the MobyGames list of games with a barbarian protagonist.

If not, you can try one of these lists:
DOS Fantasy RPGs
Windows Fantasy RPGs

Perhaps Dark Stone. Windows back in 1999 and PS1 2001. I played the PS1 version myself. I did not like it much at the time, seemed a bit humdrum back then. But looking back at it I wished I would of kept it. Granted a Diablo clone, but a decent one. I can not remember most of it, just that a very distinctive feature was a band that was in the middle of the town and when you click or “pay” them they sing a rather decent sounding song for a video game. I assume some kind of local band at the time. As I remember, even though the costumes were era specific as well as the visual instruments, the actual music was comprised of guitars and drums with a girl singer.

Besides that, it pretty much just ripped the Diablo game pixel per pixel, item per item and action per action. However it only cost $10 as it's special at the nearing of the end of the PS1 life cycle. There were a handful of games that tried to keep the attention of those special budget lines with pinball, Spec Ops, puzzle type games among others. It is interesting to find some of these game were quite decent for only $10 the price of brand new and that some of these games are more expensive now used, than others now used, when those were usually $40 brand new at the beginning.

I loved Darkstone; did the 3d transition well as a Diablo clone. I haven't played it in years, I wonder if it holds up? Gog.com has it well. It's fun to see the band's video of the "well song" on youtube - I remember it shipped on the PC disk as an avi video, haha. Audren: The Darkstone will Shine.

But more guesses: Get Medieval? Nox or Sacred? (Probably too new.)
Check MobyGames list of Diablo Variants?

I saw parts of the video as well as another, seems they were mostly of the PC version. I do not remember the graphics being that good so it had to of been because of the PC. I remember it looking much more blockier and muddier on the PS1. Obviously PCs were more powerful, but I remember even the original Diablo on the PS1 looking much better. Regardless though, again the game was only $10 brand new on the PS1. How much was it for the PC? And sorry I could not contribute any more to this thread at the present moment.

I don't remember it being particularly cheap, so I expect the usual $50 give or take, at least at release. On the PC I remember it being "better" than Diablo in 2 ways - it was in "real 3d" rather than 2d isometric, and it would randomize the map, sort of. Like, in the first game, you'd fight L1 reptiles right outside of town, then in a replay game 2 you might not have reptiles at all, and in game 3 they'd be a L5 mid-map challenge. The areas were set, but the game would randomly build the map from pieces. However, Diablo was a much more polished and pretty game. The 3D was fun because you could zoom smoothly, and you could use 3D glasses and have the pieces "look like a table top RPG!" Goofy, especially now that every game is that way, but fun memories back then of "first" well done experiences. (And also, able to play 2 characters and cool click-the-door-they-find-a-path movement, unlike Diablo.)

None of those benefits would have particularly helped a PS1 version, though! "Real 3D" was low poly and far uglier than the pretty 2D art of Diablo. I guess I _want_ to go back and play Darkstone sometime, but I _have already_ gone back and played Diablo now and then - even got it working on win7 (use DxWnd) last fall. But I don't think it was until Neverwinter Nights that I got to play another "real 3d" isometric-ish RPG, not that I'm complaining about the Infinity Engine games - Baulder's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape Torment. Still, for years I remembered Darkstone and had wishes unfulfilled until the great NWN. And now everything is both real 3d and very pretty and just another clickfest dungeon slog grind and I mostly play retro remakes like Spiderweb's GeneForge and Basilisk Game's Eschalon or replay the above. <sigh> But that's a reason to replay Darkstone, I guess!

Well, Ok, Torchlight, and Fate back in the day, and Get Medieval before that, and I try lots of the other new such games, too, on consoles, trying to recapture the magic! Torchlight in particular I liked a lot. But for Action RPGs I like a controller more than a mouse, now. Weird, always used to be the other way, and still is for almost anything else - strategy, FPS. Not that this has anything to do with OP or Darkstone any more!

I haven't come up with more guesses yet, but hopefully OP will opine on the current guesses and give us more memories if we haven't correctly guessed it yet. Lots of first and third person RPGs have similar selection styles, and well endowed female warriors doesn't really narrow the field (TES:Arena's box cover always cracked me up!), though the claw weapons seem more rare - I haven't been able to track that reference down at all.

Hm, re-reading the OP, Ady20 doesn't say the gameplay is like Diablo II, just the starting character selection. I missed that. What kind of gameplay did the game have - what does "bird-view" mean? More like Diablo, more like a Zelda map or Ys, or 3rd person over-the-shoulder type? Was it an action RPG (diablo, everyone moves all the time), or turn based one-square-at-a-time tile based game? Do you have any memories about style of gameplay? There were even some side-view action RPGs like Sorcerian or Zeliard.

Hi Quadko!

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Thank you for your forum sharing.