u/Dub_Coast

One of my absolute favorite rpgs of all time, Darklands was made in 1992 and was way ahead of it's time. It's a historical role playing game that takes place in 15th-century medieval Germany (The Holy Roman Empire), where you'll be fighting bandits, robber knights (raubritters), taxed by bishops, but not just that, the mythologies and beliefs and superstitions of that time period are all here too. So you have witches, demons, schrats, dwarves, werewolves, dragons, and all other sorts of evils that people believed in or feared at that time period in history. Magic is replaced with alchemy and religion, where you can create powerful potions or invoke the help of the Saints to assist you. The combat is real-time with pause (in fact, it may be the first crpg to use that system) similar to BG1+2/KotoR/IWD/etc, but much of the game is a "choose your path" text adventure, but traveling on the overworld is an isometric overview map. The character creation system is also one of my favorites, and I highly highly highly suggest reading the manual. The game is on GOG/Steam and I recommend using a DosBox emulator that can use CRT filters to play. There are also image files I recommend getting (for the in-game copyright protection) so you don't get booted. This game is old school and is really one of a kind. I can't recommend it enough.

Celtic Tales: Balor of the Evil Eye is an old school strategy/RPG that takes place in a mythical version of ancient Ireland. It's essentially what if Ireland existed and all of the Celtic mythology was real. This game is considered abandonware now, as the only way I've seen to obtain a copy is buying secondhand. It's an interesting game that I discovered by chance when looking up abandoned/obscure DOS games. Funny how the older I get and the more advanced tech gets, the more I look towards older games for genuine experiences.

Have any of you ever played this game or even heard of it?