The Temple of Elemental Evil

Big, BIG detail that i noticed, its a PAIN to make the game work on windows 10, seemingly needing some outside mod to do so. Got it as part of the D&D bundle and if you got it like that? Okay, rest works fine. If you want just this one, make sure you read up about how to make it work first and then decide.

Tjhis game is FULL of "role playing" goodness. You just have to understand that the "role playing" part of the term "Role Playing game" does NOT refer to what actors mean when they 'search for good roles to take'. The "role playing" in RPGs refers to the TACTICAL role of characters in a party. RPGs are a direct descendent of table-top war games. Where war games emphasized 'armies' or entire crews(i.e. tanks) within larger armies(and 'divisions', 'brigades' etc.), the RPG emphasized single 'characters' as units within a 'squad'(called a "party"). So they are4 technically squad-based tactical games. D&D, even in it's best form(re: the 3.5 ed. rule set) is fraught with nonsensical, illogical game mechanics. "Hit points" being nonsensically defined to rationalize their equally nonsensical increases with experience(RuneQuest did away with this way back in the late 1970s but most RPGs are still playing catch up here), the "Fire and forget" spell system(ugh! How did this ugliness survive for decades after better systems were introduced?!), etc.. But ignoring problems of logical consistency within the rules set, ToEE is a great game. Whereas Baldur's gate forced you to create a single character and then recruit others(unless you use the multiplayer work around) and Icewind Dale does not allow for recruiting RPCs at all, ToEE makes a nice compromise by allowing you to create five and recruit three. This allows you to make sure you have the party you want while still allowing you to recruit additional members who may offer unique benefits. The radial menus used here are a crappy feature and make the interface kind of screwy but this is a minor quibble I suppose. Being a more combat-oriented game than say Baldur's Gate, it is a good thing they went with true turn-based combat. In this respect ToEE is far superior to both of the Baldur's gate games because you do not have to struggle with pathing issues when you give orders to your characters(not to mention the 'feats' and such of 3rd edition D&D).

Not very fun. Too janky to play!

Its an old game that got revamped by another company that knows what they are doing. Circle of Eight is the company. Original it was Troika that created the game. Circle of Eight did the improvements and fixed the game.

Sure this game seems to be emulating PnP rules faithfully, but the truth is you feel it's cheating, unless you're an expert of these rules. Enemies seem to be immune to AoO's : archers leave melee range no AoO for you, enemy casters cast in melee range no AoO for you, they drink potions no AoO for you, When you do the same, you take a crapload of AoO's in your face. The worst I've seen is enemy archers performing AoO's against my mage who was casting magic missiles at the other side of the room. I guess all this can be explained by the rules, but the game doesn't explain them. So if you're not an expert of the PnP game, you'll be screwed, you'll feel that the game is constantly creating and modifying the rules to beat you. Next, confort options. For example, max HP on lvl up. You have the power to reload, so why not doing like BG and giving you max HP anyway if you want it ? Giving the option to have it wouldn't hurt anybody, and you wouldn't waste 15-20 minutes reloading on every level up. Why are all potions unidentified, when you loot a lot of them ? Of course, if you don't identify all these potions, they won't stack and your miserably small inventory will be full soon. Now, next thing is what I call the "Icewind Dale syndrom". Most of the time you'll be entering an area, and you'll be in combat right away. And you won't decide how your men are placed. Of course, your mages will find themselves in the frontline, getting beaten up even before they can move. This is a cheap design. Now NPC's. If you don't use the Circle of 8 modpack, you'll have a party of 5, you'll probably want some NPC's to come along. Most of them suck, and you can't even know it because you can't see their stats ! Some of them are overpowered (Giant ?). The worst thing about NPC's is they steal a part of the loot. You don't even have a word to say. And when they level up, you can't even do the levelling, it's automatic. Ok, the game has some potential. But the way it's done sucks badly.