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Ecstatica

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This thread was inspired by the RPS post:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/05/01/megabiff-its-megarace/#more-11001

Does anyone know of a way to get Ecstatica to work on modern PCs?

I played it a lot when I was about 15-16 and I just loved how evil the whole game was. You could be killed within about 2 seconds, the suit of armour that didn't help you one iota, the fact that you could only carry two things (suck on it Halo) and that nothing, nothing at all, made sense.

I played for some time and then the game insisted on crashing repeatedly no matter how many times I rebooted my PC. I'm curious to see if it is really bad, or really good/bad.

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I remember that game! I thought it was great too. I was so pleased with myself when I finally managed to kill the werewolf.

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Yeah, there was a specific weapon that was really effective against the werewolf (the dagger I think), if you didn't have that it would take ages. So then the game starts throwing Minotaurs at you.

I got as far as the abbey (I was carrying a book that happened to be the key to getting in there) and then the crashing started.

There were so many things in that game that really shouldn't have been fun.

Update:

Well that was easier than I thought:

http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/204/Ecstatica.html

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I was intruiged by this game in my youth, but never played. Looking at the screenshots today I'd estimate that it'll be very hard to get into it now, if you're not carrying a nostalgic feeling for it, yesno?

Also, it has a sort of Little Big Adventure vibe to it, visually.

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Yeah, I don't think it is something that you can play now with no previous experience of it. The difficulty level is set blisteringly high, the visuals have aged badly and the story line is indecipherable.

The game does some things that are virtually unforgivable in modern gaming, for instance there are instants deaths that have no sign posting at all and seem to be random.

The visual style is reminiscent of Little Big Adventure, I think I went and checked that out after playing Ecstatica.

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I just feel I need to mention that LBA and (in particular) LBA2 are maybe the greatest games ever made.

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This thread seems to be about a game called Ecstatica, but then when I clicked the first link, it showed a game called Megarace. Since I've only skimmed the text here and on the other site, I have nothing to add except that I also love Little Big Adventure. Bye now.

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Also, it has a sort of Little Big Adventure vibe to it, visually.

That'll be the Gouraud shading. They've taken much the same approach with shaded characters and pre-rendered scenes.

I went and looked up a few videos of this. Gameplay looks terribly frustrating and punitive. Also found a video of

two endings

, turns out that

the armour has a purpose after all

.

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I just feel I need to mention that LBA and (in particular) LBA2 are maybe the greatest games ever made.

hmpf, lba1 > lba2

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Which one had the clockwork robots that fired ball bearings and made the really cool CHUNG CHUNG CHUNG sound while doing so? Because that was definitely the better of the two ¬¬

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My opinion is that LBA2 did more of everything LBA did, and better. The clockwork guys were from LBA, by the way.

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You must be shitting me. Elmuerte. I could never get through LBA1 because of the harsh difficulty. LBA2 was only slightly less brutal, but infinitely more pleasant a world to traverse. Or worlds, rather. Up until then I had never played a game with that scope; starting out with a few delightful islands of mystery, and suddenly blowing up with you going to the MOON and a completely different planet with a goddamn subplanet inside it. That just blew my mind!

LBA1 had its charm, obviously. But LBA2 was far more epic and playable ^_^

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I went and looked up a few videos of this. Gameplay looks terribly frustrating and punitive. Also found a video of

two endings

, turns out that

the armour has a purpose after all

.

Reeeeally? That (from second spoiler) always got me killed in about 2 minutes.

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Reeeeally? That (from second spoiler) always got me killed in about 2 minutes.

Well, it looks like it's not meant

to protect you.

It appears it fools an undead king into thinking you're one of his knights.

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You must be shitting me. Elmuerte. I could never get through LBA1 because of the harsh difficulty. LBA2 was only slightly less brutal, but infinitely more pleasant a world to traverse. Or worlds, rather. Up until then I had never played a game with that scope; starting out with a few delightful islands of mystery, and suddenly blowing up with you going to the MOON and a completely different planet with a goddamn subplanet inside it. That just blew my mind!

LBA1 had its charm, obviously. But LBA2 was far more epic and playable ^_^

LBA wasn't that difficult. Sure, maybe in the beginning when you had problems not hitting walls while running around (you can disable that "feature" with LBAwin). Well, and the part in the pool with the flying grobos, that was a difficult part. If you have real issues getting past a certain part you are probably doing something wrong (i.e. drain the water form the pool, fighting in the wrong mode). LBA2 was just very easy, or at least when you used the protection and lightning spells. Completing the game without using either one you has a proper difficulty.

I liked LBA1 more because it's generally more darker. In LBA2 is quite obvious who you can trust and who you can't. In LBA1 anyone can be your enemy. LBA1 has more mystery, because you can not see everything on the island.

(although, the fact that I played LBA1 like 20 times before LBA2 was released could also be a reason why I like LBA1 more)

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I found LBA 1 really hard in the beginning personally. I didn't understand why everyone had to be constantly chasing me and getting the hang of that bouncing ball was kind of obnoxious.

The second one was a cakewalk though, although I feel it's lot more involved, as a lot of others, for the sense of scale, quirkiness, and gobs of adventurouis stuff you do in one game.

So... how about that... Ecstatica?

Edited by syntheticgerbil

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LBA2 never had the same feel to it to me. I never finished either one though. Or got very far. But damn I loved the atmosphere in 1.

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I found LBA 1 really hard in the beginning personally. I didn't understand why everyone had to be constantly chasing me and getting the hang of that bouncing ball was kind of obnoxious.

The second one was a cakewalk though, although I feel it's lot more involved, as a lot of others, for the sense of scale, quirkiness, and gobs of adventurouis stuff you do in one game.

So... how about that... Ecstatica?

Nah, fuck it. Little Big Adventure was great. As much as I'd like a bunch of people to try and reminisce over Ecstatica you can't distract from the LBA adoration.

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