[Discusion] Let's talk about spiritual successors that you have enjoyed
1mon 14d ago by piefed.social/u/falseprophet in Bside@fedia.io
Let's do another discussion, this time the topic is spiritual successors. Have you played a game that is considered a spiritual successor to another game or game series? This can be an open-source recreation of a popular game or an indie game developed by the original developers or fans of the game.
I always loved the Quest for Glory games, originally called Hero's Quest. I enjoyed the mixture of point-and-click adventure game mixed with RPG elements. The fantasy world with anachronistic elements, the humor, and the whole journey of the hero from humble beginnings to becoming a king.
So when I discovered Heroine's Quest, I had to try it out, and I fell in love with the game. It feels like playing a new Quest for Glory game. You play as an anonymous heroine this time instead of a hero. You can choose your class at the beginning of the game and assign points to your skills like the original games. It has beautiful 2D art and amazing music. The story is inspired by Norse mythology and is enjoyable and funny. It has a few Easter eggs related to Quest for Glory. For example, if you give your character a name the same as one of the potential women you could marry in QFG5, the game gives you Hera's ring, which you could buy in that game, implying you are playing a descendant of the original Hero.
Project Highrise and Mad Tower Tycoon - both games are great spiritual successors to SimTower. I would even go as far saying they offer a slightly different spin on the tower building genre.
Does Two Point Hospital count? It's pretty much Theme Hospital but without the brand name.
Parkitect and Rollercoaster Tycoon - they do add a lot of new features and gameplay mechanics. Modding has also supercharged the experience, their workshop feels like it has content on every theme in large amounts.
Yes Two point hospital counts as well.
I think Transport Fever (I have played 2) is a spiritual successor to Transport Tycoon.
The open remake of Transport Tycoon, OpenTTD, is also amazing. It has been in my game rotation since playing the original one and needing a replacement in the early 2000s.
Transport Fever adds some complexity and 3D graphics, as opposed to the pixel graphics of Transport Tycoon.
Lots of tycoon games but good choices. It has been a while since I played OpenTTD, maybe I should played again.
Pillars of Eternity, a spiritual successors to Baldur's Gate 1+2 (which are my favourite games, period). Great game, Pillars of Eternity 2 is even better and one of my all time favourites now. Unfortunately the developer was bought by Microsoft, after that they made a Skyrim-style 3D game in the same universe (Avowed) and it was lame.
Baldur's Gate 3 is an actual successor to Baldur's Gate 2, but since it's a completely different developer from a different continent and there's quite a few changes to the original formula plus a completely new story and characters, it could be argued that it's a spiritual successor that got the rights to call it an actual successor.
I have heard of Pillars of Eternity but I have not played it nor have I played Baldur's gate. I like RPGs a lot but I feel these days I do not have the time for such long games.
Yeah, it's definitely a big time sink. Maybe try Tyranny if you haven't? It's fairly short.
Thanks. I have not played it. I might check it out.
Sorry for the late reply, I was going to answer this on time but forgot. The Metro franchise is a pretty good spiritual successor to STALKER in my opinion. 4A Games was founded by three ex-STALKER devs so I guess it's debatable if it's spiritual at all or just a true successor.
No worries, thanks for sharing
Somehow, I played the first QFG through at least 30 times, and never made it past the first quest in the second game. No worries, I own them all on Steam or GoG ... and I'll be buying this one ... NOW.
Wait, what? Is it Free-2-Play like FREE, or F2P like micro-transaction hell?
Oh yeah I forgot to mention it is Free. Also QFG2 also has a fan made remake porting it to VGA graphics and making it a full point and click adventure. It is also Free. Maybe you will find it easier. QFG2 VGA
Difficulty was not my problem.
OK then what was it? Didn't like it?
Just didn't get "addicted" like the first one maybe? It was over ten years later, and then again around COVID, and never since my teens have I had such a small library of games as I did when I played So You Want To Be a Hero?
I see. I always enjoyed the whole series.
I just realized, its kinda relavent that I had the deluxe version of QFG1 with the little cheat/hint book, and started playing it at a point in my life where I didn't even understand most of the hints. Re-visitting that game over and over, losing and forgetting the little red-lense that made the answers in the book visible, squinting at the answer blocks like I was trying to magic-eye summon the answers, realizing a lot of the answers were implied in the questions ... at one point I was manually-editing save-files as the "easier" option to do what I wanted in-game (whether this coincided with recreationally-consuming mass-quantities of cough-syryp, I don't recall) ...
There's just a bajillion little bits of my experiences with that game from the ages of 8 to 16 that no other game has a chance in hell of re-creating, living-up-to or improving-upon, on its own(same goes for Heaven & Earth, Battle-Chess, Chess Master, Metal Marines, Rampart, and so many others, plus most of the main-stream hits of the time). I'm still going to play the others, can't wait, but I've also been telling myself that for 30 years.
I see, I can relate to have fond memories of playing a game again and again. Did the deluxe version come with the original EGA or the VGA remake. I always played the VGA version of QFG1 (originally had pirated version though now I own all 5 game on GOG). First time I played it together with my brother we both loved that game. But after finishing the game we noticed the second game did have and VGA remake and my brother found the parser for command to convoluted so I continued on my own. Initially I thought that might have been the reason for you too not playing the second game. Nowadays GFG2 has received a fan remake game with VGA graphics and I play that version.
It came with the VGA version, but I ended up expirimenting with the EGA version for a play-through or three until my PC was eventually upgraded to the point the VGA version didn't play slower than dog-shit. Hell, now I think about it, I'm sure there was also some fuckery with the VGA version not liking certain CPU clock-speeds, HIMEM, and/or Sound-Blaster non-sense ...
... the first time I got the Erasmus' mini-game to play and display properly in VGA, I remember all but shedding tears, realizing "wait, was it always supposed to be this easy?" Pretty sure there was a clue in the book where you could just spam x spell and mana potions and end-up winning like 1-in-3 times, which was the only reason I had won ever up to that point. IIRC, it was actually supposed to be easier than in the EGA version? 😅
Oh yes true I remember the CPU clock speed issue. I had it when I was in the brigands lair the room with the doors and the annoying guy in the middle. It was impossible to open the exit door and run there in time before the door closed again. I think my brother came up with idea to lower the game speed in the settings and the it was possible to exit the room. At the time a thought it weird to have to solve the puzzle using the game settings, later I found out it was a bug due the CPU speed. I never managed to beat the Erasmus mini game, Erasmus was always faster even if changed the game speed in the settings.
I think grim dawn makes a good diablo 2 2.
Endless Sky is the spiritual successor to the Escape Velocity trilogy of games, and in many ways far superior.
I love the Escape Velocity series. I played the heck out of them as a kid!
I’d say my favourite one was probably the original game, for its simplicity and scale. I enjoyed Override and Nova, but they got to feel like too much ice cream. For me, EV classic was the right amount.
I should check out Endless Sky. It’s tough though, because I fear my love of EV might be rooted in nostalgia, for the scenes and sounds of the planets, for the rumble of thunderstorms and the cries of seagulls.
Nostalgia is weird!
Oh it will scratch that itch and then some. It's both bigger and better.
Also check out their discord community.
Heroine’s Quest looks quite beautiful, though some of the screenshots look a little too close to scenes from the QFG series. There needs to be a balance between drawing inspiration and finding your own voice. Otherwise, the game looks incredibly compelling for an old fan of the QFG series.
Anyway, my pick for a spiritual successor is Arx Fatalis, which is inspired by the Ultima Underworld series. This game takes place entirely underground. After a catastrophic war and the disappearance of the sun, humans and the other races are forced to move underground and try to settle their differences within the tight confines of their new home.
This game is incredibly immersive, with so much to interact with in the environments. The places feel like much more than just areas within a game world, they feel lived in. But that feeling is not limited to the NPCs in the game, it extends to your character who can manipulate objects to gather food, cook meals, combine objects, find clues, and solve puzzles. This gives the game a very tactile and interactive feel.
The game also features an alchemy system as well as a unique, rune-based magic system, to go along with its first person melee and ranged combat. If you choose to play a spellcaster, beware, as the drawing of runes is quite challenging in combat, but there are a lot of different spells and the highest level ones are extremely powerful. This makes the system high risk, high reward, which I think is a better balance than spell casting in many other games, which let you have very easy access to extreme power once you are high level.
The story is not overly complex but it does have some twists and turns which do well to draw you in and keep you interested. The world itself is extremely interesting to me, as it’s an otherwise ordinary fantasy setting with a post-apocalyptic twist: the surface world is completely uninhabitable, so everyone must live underground. There are a LOT of different tunnels running all over the place, but space is far more constrained than the surface world, and long-distance travel as well as communication are limited. It’s also unknown whether there are any other separate tunnels out there, as anyone who ventured out on the surface never returned…
While Heroine’s Quest has many similar scenes with QFG it is also very unique in my opinion. The world inspired by north mythology is quite different, the plot is unrelated it the game its own puzzles and quests. I have heard Arx fatalis I remember reading reviews about it ages ago but I have not played it.