Western Fantasy Suggestions and Your Favorites

[MeshGearFox]

Point and Click adventure RPG hybrid set in an Arabian Nights setting with furries. You can be a warrior, a wizard, or a thief (though you can multiclass somewhat). Has some life sim elements. Puzzle solutions are dependent on your class/skills. Combat is real time and based around blocking and attacking at the right times. It's quite engaging.

[siveon]

Knights of the Chalice for engaging combat. Little to no narrative.

The Ultima Underworld series is also pretty engaging, though I have to admit that may just be me. Knowledge of Ultima lore somewhat required. Oh yeah and Ultima 7 I suppose. That game was great. The remakes of 5 and 6 from the Dungeon Siege engine may also be good, I just haven't tried them yet.

GOG.com has a lot of good examples. Though admittedly most of them are dungeon crawlers. Wizardry series and the Might & Magic series are both recommended. I haven't played that many westerns but some of the more common titles I've heard include: Lands of Lore, Betrayal at Krondor, Darklands (good luck with THAT one) and Arcanum (bugged, also warning) and of course the NWN series. The NWN series best comes from it's expansions and mods. I think both had pretty terrible original campaigns. Eye of the Beholder is another good example of dungeon crawling > story. Most RPG's from the 90's were. :D

I know even less about the newer stuff though. I hate Kingdoms of Amalur for being too much like an MMO, so there's that. I would also tell you to avoid Oblivion on the console (because you have a bad PC) due to the broken leveling system. I also didn't like any of the quests that much. The world was also pretty small. Skyrim is great to play on the console, however, and Morrowind can be played on pretty much any computer. There's hardly a narrative for the ES series, so you should be fine for the most part.

+1 to whoever mentioned the Goldbox titles. Little to no story, just a bunch of D&D combat.

That's all I got.

[MeshGearFox]

Ultima 7's one of my favorite PC RPGs, but I'd recommend using the Exult engine to play it.

If you buy it from GOG it's bundled with DOSBOX, and it never really emulated all that well in Dosbox because it has weird memory managers. The original game also had some bugs and interface.

Exult addresses all of these issues and allows for a few useful mods (keyrings, which you definitely need, as well as, uh, something for sheep sheering).

The Worlds of Ultima games are freeware on GOG, as is Ultima 4. U4's a bit archaic, but I like it. You'll want to play it with XU4 or something though, as that re-adds the MIDI music.

Betrayal at Krondor (also on gog) is another great choice, although it's a considerably more challenging game -- the Ultima series from 4 onwards are much closer to adventure games with combat than traditional PC RPGs, and they've aged a lo better for it.

You can get the first six Might and Magic games in a bundle from gog.com too. The first two might be too archaic, but 4 and 5 are super-accessible. I like 6 a lot too though it's sort of gross looking.

Just to break stuff down, Krondor's focused on a really well-written narrative and fairly in-depth gameplay mechanics, the Ultima games are focused more on puzzle solving/exploration/world interaction, with 6 and 7 having a HUGE narrative focus, and M&M is mostly dungeon crawling, with less story.

Gothic 1 and 2 exist at a weird intersection of Ultima 7, Morrowind, Dark Souls, and Germany. Very solid, though.

Also I'm sure someone else mentioned this already but you can get the complete Avernum and Geneforce series off gog for like 20 bucks and have enough RPG to last you for a damn long time.

And for a non-PC recommendation? Summoner 2 on the GC/PS2. Really cool action RPG, big world, all the characters are really unique.

Daggerfall's freeware now if you want to check out what I personally consider to be the worst RPG ever made.

[siveon]

Daggerfall's freeware now if you want to check out what I personally consider to be the worst RPG ever made.

Yeesh, I know it can be a pretty bad (and boringly difficult) Ultima Underworld clone, but worst? That's quite a title.

[ultra7k]

Point and Click adventure RPG hybrid set in an Arabian Nights setting with furries. You can be a warrior, a wizard, or a thief (though you can multiclass somewhat). Has some life sim elements. Puzzle solutions are dependent on your class/skills. Combat is real time and based around blocking and attacking at the right times. It's quite engaging.

I'll also add to this series:

You can import your character from the previous game to continue on and he starts with boosted stats, items, and become a Paladin.

Klyde, you mentioned you never played any point and clicks on PCs, so this might not be a bad one to start with. It sort of takes the Late 80's/90's Adventure game and smashes it together with an RPG. Basically, it becomes Kings Quest with stats and combat, which is only a good thing.

As a Sierra game, it has your typically also has Sierra humor (puns), pop culture references and tips of the hat to other Sierra games.

In being a Life-sim, you have to have enough food on hand, rest, exercise (to gain strength, stamina or agility) cast spells (to become more proficient at magic) and become more eloquent at expressing himself to get better bargains, and flirt with the womenfolk. It goes on and on.

They are all thematic:
1. Medieval/Fairy Tale
2. Arabian Nights
3. Egyptian/African
4. Slavic
5. Not sure.

I believe they've also been updated, 1 (officially by Sierra to use the GUI instead of typing commands) 2, by that link Mesh provided. 3/4 are fine.

I'm a huge fan of this series, and the only other game from Sierra that I enjoyed as much as these was Kings Quest 6 and Conquest of the Longbow, a Robin Hood adventure game which can be found online for free now, I believe.

[Klyde Chroma]

Thanks Ultra! Between what you and mesh have said, I'm sold! I've got a lot of good gaming on my plate now but these Siera titles have peaked my interest and on the list thanks to you guys.

@Mesh- Summoner 2. I would have NEVER stumbled across that if it were not for you and that game looks pretty awesome man! To these ends I thank you. I will, without a doubt, be procuring this one. Something about the screenshots Remind me of Xena Warrior Princess. That is a great thing BTW... I loved that freakin' show.

[MeshGearFox]

For the record, summoner 2 and summoner on the GC are the same game. The PS2 version is a lot cheaper though.

[MeshGearFox]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/102500/

Amalur's on sale. You can get the pack with the DLC for 12 bucks. Also it's the Steam version so uh, no Origin?

[Klyde Chroma]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/102500/

Amalur's on sale. You can get the pack with the DLC for 12 bucks. Also it's the Steam version so uh, no Origin?

Thanks for the tip! Believe it or not I have NEVER bought/played/used steam yet... I know nothing about it... I suppose I should stop being so ignorant in that regard

[NG14916]

Not sure if this exactly fits, but Embric of Wulfhammer's Castle takes place in a typical western dungeon rpg type setting. The game's available for free here: http://wulfhammer.org/ and it has some excellent humor, character development, and a great use of multiple story arcs with multiple endings. There is very little combat, and the story is great. It's really underrated, in my opinion.

[Vencoris]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/102500/

Amalur's on sale. You can get the pack with the DLC for 12 bucks. Also it's the Steam version so uh, no Origin?

Thanks for the tip! Believe it or not I have NEVER bought/played/used steam yet... I know nothing about it... I suppose I should stop being so ignorant in that regard

It would definitely be worthwhile to pick this up.  It's the first time I can remember seeing the steam (non-origin) version on sale.

[MeshGearFox]

I thought steam had to drop it for awhile on account of stuff happening and the game becoming public property of the state of Rhode Island.

[Vencoris]

I thought steam had to drop it for awhile on account of stuff happening and the game becoming public property of the state of Rhode Island.

If they did I missed it.  I had been watching for the DLC to go on sale for a while now.