What are some some games that let you explore ancient civilisations with an air of mystery to them...

make a proper recommendation thread then. ll you need to do is not start it with the shitty template oneliner.

every fucking template starts the same, "what are some games that let me do -something stupid and very specific that nobody should give a shit about as long as a game is good-"

this isn't a recommendation thread, its template "le Holla Forums culture xDD" cancer

You shouldn't be so assblasted about the wording if the thematic is fine.
Take a break from the computer.

Please tell me a story anons, I hear morbid tales of /a/ and I'm too frightened to venture out myself.

They're shit anyway, so don't bother.

Actually, Shining Force 2 looks nice. Thanks.

Ruin nuts need to stick together. One small tip though–avoid promoting your archers into tank knights. The extra range just isn't worth the speed cut.

Some of the Wario games.

Try Landstalker and Alundra

This thread isn't that bad, and OP even included specifics about what kind and some examples.

It's not too bad, but there are often times where you see posts or threads that are just so awful and retarded, but everyone else is totally ok with them. They also can be the most shit-eating elitist weeaboos in the world, but there are still some quality threads.

You wasted those double dubs on bait, shame on you.

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Well make an argument any time homo.

Our need for vidja isn't found in merely a game being technically impressive or appealing to a passing phase. We want vidja that understands the desires and flamboyant passions that we share.

They were inspired by Another World so I guess you could try that. Maybe try emulating at least Ico again, it should be playable with some configuration.

Kay, I'm downloading it and configuring it then. Thanks.

Secret of Gaia was fucking awesome.

You should try Skies of Arcadia for a grand adventure feeling.

You know those images of random stick-figure anons chained up in a dungeon, scruffy, beaten, and enforced to say how much fun Holla Forums is (but without everything that makes it fun) lest they get got? That's /a/, but absolutely seriously. It's a blackhole of fun.

You can't post anything that isn't on some nebulous "okay" list, including images. You can't write in ways that are anything less than perfect grammatical English, 100% of the time. You can't disagree with others or step outside of the hivemind, or you'll instantly be banned for being an "offboarder." There's way more behind the shitshow and I've posted about it previously on other threads, but I'm tired and can barely think right now. It should suffice to demonstrate to you how bad the state of that garbageheap is that currently airing anime, the primary focus of the place, can't even sustain their own threads due to dwindling userbase for the aforementioned reasons. The anons who remain behind are (ironically) offboarders visiting for a particular thread or two, or the most cucked casuals you can possibly imagine.

Don't be afraid of the place though. Like any good dystopia, it appears perfectly appealing on the surface of things. You'll only notice the cracks in the seams if you stay a while, or are hardcore enough to immediately spot the lack of activity for anything but the most popular flavor of the season shit. Hah, and even then the discussion is garbage, because the posters have been molded to only post the most inane and tame shit lest they get disappeared.

I remember them giving me shit once because I called them out on talking about shit anime when nobody had something interesting to say just because it was new. You can't talk them out of discussing shit that's not worth talking about.

Nice. I'm checking it out

All I know myself is that /a/ got sick of "recommend me shit" threads and started their own board here for such things called /rec/. Keeps /a/ free of recommendation threads, while provided a place for people to go to find seasonal/genre charts and shit in bulk. Not that I'm advocating for removal of all recommendation threads from Holla Forums (and I'm not sure /a/ wants Holla Forums cluttering up /rec/ either).

They also seem quick to blame board quality degradation on crossposting "Holla Forumsermin".
Feels bad. At this point the only /a/ related threads I really bother to participate in are OST ones.

Skies of Arcadia and Grandia are pretty much the go-to JRPGs for adventure vibes. I've also got a soft spot for a DS one called Nostalgia, but that's just me.

Nostalgia wasn't that great but the world map was fantastic.

How was Nostalgia's battle system? The aesthetic gave me a Nadia:Secret of Blue Water vibe and I am 1000% down for anything like that.

There are some exceptions to the older anime shows thing. /a/ likes talking about Yu Yu Hakusho, for instance.

Which is why I noted how incredibly ironic it is that the majority of the board activity comes from crossboarders, as all the ruinous policy in place was established to root them out.

A good majority of their threads on current airing anime can barely reach 50 posts, unless it's obvious FOTS shit, in which case suddenly it rockets to bumplimit, then gets another thread or two until it's finished. Crossboarders at work providing the illusion of livelihood. I'd laugh at the irony, but I'm too pissed at not having a good place on this entire site to talk anime/manga because of the existence of that shit board.

Breath of Fire 3 has a great adventure feeling to it, and the setting has lost technology from an ancient civilization that you encounter in a few places throughout the journey. Nothing truly overt until the end of the game, but you quickly begin to realize things aren't all medieval-tier. All this aside from being an astoundingly good game.

I know Holla Forums hates sony and "movie games" but come on, Uncharted 2 and 4 were masterpieces and totally represent what OP's talkin about.

Tho if OP wants Mayan/Aztec, their best bet will be the Vita title and maybe the first game… I forgot about that.

2 was Asian temples
3 was Indian temples (despite being in Africa)
4 was Carribean Pirate stuff
Golden Abyss was Aztec Temples

2 is a fun game, 4 is irredeemable garbage.

It's been a while since I played it, but if memory serves, turn-based with visible advance turns (with various actions speeding or slowing the character's next turn as well). However, you have two forms of combat: the player's party within dungeons, but on the overworld, you utilize your airship to fight monsters and other airships. Each character commands a particular operation of the ship as well, and points gained through winning battles can be spent to learn new skills (both the character's own innate combat as well as their specialty on the airship) as well as powerup already learnt ones. Buffing is also useful, especially since there's some notable difficulty spikes at each level of atmosphere once your airship is able to fly that high.

As a warning though, if you're the type to like physical copies of games, Nostalgia should be cheap to get still, at least cart only. However, some copies have a game ruining bug that prevents progress and only shows up about fifteen hours in (namely that the second half of a boss fight doesn't prompt). Not every copy has it thankfully. So, if you want to play it safe, double check that copies you see have a file on "The Adventurer's Epilogue", as that means that the game's on post-game content (a massive difficulty spike in itself).

Beyond that though, it's a decent (in my opinion) adventure-vibe heavy game. Story's basically a boy looking for his missing explorer dad, building a small band of friends, saving a mysterious girl, and exploring the world, which has an alternate Earth 19th century setting, with "gaslamp" elements given that airship tech and magic exists.

True, there's some older shows they're more willing to get actual discussion from. But there's a difference between late 90's/early 2000's shows posters grew up with, and shows (only) a decade old that no ones seems to care to watch or discuss despite having been good.

It really is an issue, for any point of topic really. As long as a board holds the majority of the posterbase (as well as lurkers) for a given topic, that's where people are apt to stay even if someone makes more options, quality of the prior board be damned. And I don't just mean that as far as anime and /a/ here go. Plus, alternative boards for topics seem readily shilled against, sometimes making them out to be the cause of the problems that are plaguing the prior board they were made to provide an alternative to to begin with.

Why? It was easily the longest game, had the best gameplay, and was a satisfying end to the Nathan Drake story.

Have you even played it?

Tombs and Treasure for the NES. More of a puzzle/adventure game than an exploration game. You could lose by trapping yourself, and the characters would react by saying something like "oh well, it was a good life!".

HAHA
NO

yes I did play it and half the game is fucking filler and the other half is devoid of charm. No supernatural elements, and it takes itself too seriously. It being the longest is entirely because it dragged on every sequence with forced walking sequences or aimless driving so ND could show off they animated the winch to wrap around objects for the hundreth time.

bruh, where were you when everyone was whining about Uncharted's lack of exploration? Next you're gonna say SOTC was total garbage.

Gothic 2's expansion fits this (almost) perfectly
only thing is they are fantasy aztecs and not regular ones

..maybe I should mention that the rest of the game doesn't really have anything to do with the Aztecs, it's your regular orks and dragons… But it's still really really good

You faggots need some classic action 3D adventure platforming in here!
The original Tomb Raider is a fucking classic. Starts out in the Andes with an Incan civilisation, then goes to Greece, then Egypt.
It was made back in the day when FMV and cut-scenes were the reward for playing the game, not the actual gameplay itself. The puzzles are good, the platforming is clunky but works within the limitations of the controls, and the combat is based more on evasive maneuvering than anything but still good. It also has some resource management making it more survival horror but it's so easy that you're never really lacking in health kits or ammo. And it has a few spooky moments too, though they're mostly jump-scares.
Tomb Raider 2 is also good, but loses the focus on tombs and ancient civilisations and goes more modern day, which I found really disappointing. The gameplay was much the same but a bit more refined though.
Tomb Raider 3 is similar, but TR4 goes full-on Egyptology, although by this point the engine limitations and the new abilities they try to give Lara don't mesh well and the controls end up more frustrating than anything.

Tomb Raider was never good.

I see the "X was never good" meme is going strong.

Golden sun and specially golden sun 2

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AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Oh wait, you are serious?
=AAAAAAHHHHH HAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHA==

Thanks for the warning, I'll be sure to keep an eye out. Game looks comfy as hell, and I'm glad Matrix Software got to work on an original project just once instead of being doomed to work on ff remakes forever. Nostalgia looks like it balances out the steam technology well without going full retard steampunk, and that's always a plus.

Checking /a/ now, I'm seeing threads unironically praising moe-blob shit and posters complaining that people praise cowboy bebop too much. Yeah, think I'll avoid the radiation poisoning on that one.

Sonic Adventure's plot is mainly about finding out what happened to an ancient Mayan-themed civilization and there's several parts where you run around ancient ruins.

I'll be sure to never again overestimate the average user's ability to pick up on sarcasm, thank you.

Bonus points for the devs staking an expedition to several real world Mayan ruins to make sure they got the details right. Just a shame sonic games are iffy.

3 was mostly Arabian stuff wasn't it? I remember a bit in England and a bit in France but pretty much the whole game is Arabian stuff after the latter iirc.

The first game was totally fictional though, I believe the island was just made up.

is Shambala arabian?

and yeah, Uncharted 1 was only "ancient ruins" because of Marco Polo and El Dorado, which ended up being a gold coffin and thats it

Unfortunately any original thread is saved to high heavens. People want the same boring recycled threads because anything else apparently belongs or 4chan and Reddit and isn't "serious" enough.

*saged to high heavens

I never realized how fucked up her proportions really are and I say that not as a jealous feminist, but as someone who appreciates the female form

Good joke retard

Next thing you'll tell me that niggers had a civilization as well, right?

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La-Mulana probably has the right amount of what you want. A lot of references to ancient cultures and mythology.
The puzzles are very cryptic but doable if you're invested enough, so when you find something new it feels amazing. Finding the Temple of Moonlight for the first time was probably one of the best moments for me in vidya.

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What version of Arcadia is better, dreamcast or gamecube? I'm really interested in playing it. I'll play in japanese if that makes any difference

amazing
i only ever played turok in singleplayer so i had no idea it had that feature

I really liked how in GS a lot of the dungeon puzzles were working around centuries of decay instead of everything being some test the ancients setup.

Both have their problems and people are hoping for a PC release for that reason.

DC has a holy fuck high encounter rate and stuff hidden behind now dead online while GC has some poorly compressed audio.

Well fuck. Is there any hope for a PC release anytime soon?

I haven't had many problems from /a/ except when the mods banned me for saying kek, fucking faggots

If you never got banned from /a/ then you're a faggot like them

Sega has announced it's last few PC ports like 2 weeks before releasing them, so we wouldn't know.

Guess I'll wait out while playing other stuff. Thanks for the heads up.

I don't get it.
Try Secret of The Lost Rainforest.

I fail to see the issue.

I want to say that I've heard there's a way to replace the Gamecube version's music files with the higher quality Dreamcast music for use with emulation, but I can't say for sure if it actually exists, to take that with a grain of salt.

It also looks pretty good visually for a 3D DS game, even despite the DS' screen limitations. Similar with Avalon Code if you ask me.

Matrix Software's generally been a mixture of original works (Alundra, Dual Hearts, Nostalgia, Avalon Code), hired work with existing franchises (Final Fantasy: 4 Heroes of Light, Lost in Blue, Torneko), anime licensed games (Yu Yu Hakusho, Precure, Crayon Shin-chan; admittedly I can't say whether or not any of those are good vidya), and remakes/ports (most Final Fantasy for DS and phones, but also Dragon Quest V PS2). Also the factor of the employees' pasts as parts of Climax Entertainment and Telenet Japan. The thing that struck me as sad was how they got stuck being Square's phone port bitch for multiple years on end (and I'd really love to know whose call it was for FF IV iPort to have ended up as bad looking as it did). Thankfully, they seem to have gotten out of that hole and have gotten back to making their own games, though said games are almost certain to be neverevers out here, given how the content would make the western games media kvetch non-stop if they showed much sign of coming overseas.

On that note though, while Nostalgia was developed by Matrix, it was co-developed with Red Entertainment as well.

From what I've heard (and admittedly I'm not sure where the term actually stemmed from), the term for how it handles is "gaslamp fantasy", mixing historical fiction/alternate history setting with fantasy/magic.

As said, it's not entirely "great" tier, but I found it a nice break from how JRPGs tend to handle these days. It's a game that tries to bring back the more light-hearted vibe of classic JRPGs of older generation (with a few improvements here and there, such as giving the player some freedom to gain and upgrade skills how they want), as well as harken back to a prior era of Earth itself (albeit with airships and magic).

The Japanese cover nails the vibe with the sepia tone to it. Ignition's NA cover art, not so much.

I think he was making a point about how fighting isn't exploring?

Grandia (first one only)
Skies of arcadia.

DC coz they butchered the music on the gamecube version.
The encounter rate isn't that bad.

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