I see I struck out with my "Any other Alternate Reality Fans" thread, so I'll try a different, slightly more recent RPG-- "Ishar" by Silmarils.

I never played the first game in the series ("Ishar: Legend of the Fortress"), but I really thought "Ishar 2: Messengers of Doom" was a great RPG (yes, it had its share of flaws, most notably the bad translation to English, resulting in everything sounding like some sort of cryptic clue, but I still liked it.) Its sequel, "Ishar 3" wasn't quite as good, but it still occupied a lot of my time. Anyone else ever play this series? What did you think of it?

I have played all three of the, but did not finish either.

Ishar 1 - Crap. No automap and cost money to save the game. Constantly have to feed party member. Items sold cannot be traded back.

Ishar 2 - Better. Simple map, savegames don't cost money but items still cannot be traded in for money. Still have to feed my party members from time to time.

Ishar 3 - Better than the rest of them but STILL need feed my party constantly.

Conclusion: It might be a fun game to play back in the early 90's but with so many good RPG around, I would rather spend my time elsewhere.

Just my 2 cents. ;)

What's wrong with having to feed your characters????

Any fans of the Ultima series will know that its an integral part of their experience! It's an element of realism and a sense of boundary between life and death...it makes survival alot more demanding! Which in general, I applaud...

The general absurdity or annoyance of creating batch after batch of cheese, bread, mutton and popcorn doesn't really affect me. It maybe repetitive, but that's life. After all man, its food. Symbolically we can have so much fun with food! I remember hearing the sounds the dwarves of Stonekeep made when they ate stuff, quite the pisser. So three cheers for food and feeding. :D

Its nourishment.

Its mother nature's best.

Its the pure spring of day.

You get what I mean? :D

Feed that charcter man! Watch it grow! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Erm, my apologies there...I got hallucinated a little whilst playing Planescape and got lost in a flashback.

I was very keen to get into the Ishar series when a friend of mine reccomended it as being comparable to a Eye of the Beholder/1st person window 4 directional movement type stuff. I think when I did try to start, I didn't have any documentation. I'll have to look into trying again sometime...

Anvil of Dawn and Stonekeep are two others of this style of view, not to mention Strahds Posession, STone Prophet or Menzoberranzen...haven't played those games for years now!

But yes, I'll remember to try Ishar again sometime :D

The problem in Ishar series is that each party member can only carry a very limited amount of food. Since Travelling and fighting monsters makes them go hungry very fast (or lower the energy bar), every once in a while you have to get back to town to buy more food. And... since it is quite easy to loose your way in Ishar 1 and 2, getting back to town is not simple as "go to point A, shop X".

While you are stumbling to find your way, any random encounter will greatly tax your patience as your party is forced to battle monsters until they have no energy left.

Anyway, if this is something you are willing to tolerate, the gamesplay is actually not very bad, aside from the "no second hand goods trade-in" problem in Ishar 1 and 2.

IMHO, Stone Prophet and/or Menzoberranzan would be much more enjoyable than the Ishar series.

[ 08-15-2003, 06:54 PM: Message edited by: Paladin2000 ]

Feeding my characters was never much of a problem for me, and believe me, I suck at any game that requires any sort of micromanagement (or macromanagement for that matter!) I would just stock up as much as I could before venturing off to a dungeon, and everything worked out fine.

Cerebrodragon-- If you want to try Ishar, I think it's abandonware now, so you can probably find it for free somewhere. However, please remember that it was made many years ago, and keep your expectations LOW! While the graphics were awe-inspiring back in the mid-90s, they're quite bad now. Also, I would recommend starting with Ishar 2. While Ishar 3 made some improvements to the overall game system, the plot and the places you visited were less interesting and it all felt a little disjointed. Also, the maps on Ishar 2 were more packed with interesting characters/items/specials. I remember Ishar 3 having many maps with only one or two interesting spots, and the rest of the map was there purely for a mapping challenge (with the exception of the main city, which was well populated with all sorts of stuff.)

If you enjoyed "Anvil of Dawn," I think you'll like Ishar. I played Anvil after the Ishar series, and my first thought was, "Cool! It's kind of like Ishar!"