The most popular party-based games

Mordor: The Depths of Dejenol is fantasy RPG game released in 1995 for Windows 3.x, but it runs flawlessy even Windows XP (see this faq if you want to play Mordor in a virtual machine). Mordor: The Depths of Dejenol is a mix of first-person and top-down perspective dungeon crawler; the game shows the dungeon in by both perspectives at onc...

After the success of Ultima 6: The False Prophet, Origin decided to "create worlds" not part of the popular Ultima series (strictly speaking) using the same engine of Ultima 6. They came up with two games: The Savage Empire and Martian Dreams. The Savage Empire is set in a stone age-like world and features prehistoric tribes, dinosaurs, insectoid a...

Might and Magic: World of Xeen is a fantasy role-playing game (RPG) released in 1994, which is a combination of two games: Clouds of Xeen and Darkside of Xeen. These games were part of the Might and Magic series, a franchise of RPGs developed by New World Computing. World of Xeen represents the merging of these two games into a single, interconnect...

The Aethra Chronicles is not a well know fantasy RPG, but it deserves some praise. It was developed by only one person (Micheal Lawrence) and, as the title implies, was intended to be the first volume of a saga. Unfortunately, volume two and three were never made. For a shareware game, Aethra was pretty solid and is still loved by the ones who play...

Secret of the Silver Blades is a fantasy RPG set in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons universe, developed and released by SSI Strategic Simulations Inc. in 1990 for DOS, Macintosh, Amiga and Commodore 64 systems. Secret of the Silver Blades is part of the Pool of Radiance series and uses the same "GoldBox" engine with isometric turn-based combat ...

Buck Rogers: Matrix Cubed is a CRPG developed by SSI Strategic Simulations Inc. and released in 1992 for DOS only. Buck Rogers: Matrix Cubed is the sequel to Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday and it's based on a campaign setting created by TSR in the late 80s. The game uses the Gold Box engine, common to much of the RPGs developed by SSI.

Hired Guns is an abandoned game developed by DMA Design and published by Psygnosis in 1993 for DOS and Amiga platforms. Hired Guns is a sci-fi RPG in which you control four mercenaries in four individual simultaneous first person sub-screens tasked with destroying all the bad guys from a single planet.

MegaTraveller 1: The Zhodani Conspiracy is a science fiction role-playing game (RPG) released in 1990. The Zhodani Conspiracy is the first installment in the MegaTraveller series and was developed by Paragon Software.MegaTraveller 1 takes place in the Traveller universe's Third Imperium, a vast interstellar empire. The plot revolves around a c...

The Magic Candle: Volume 1 is the first chapter of a series of fantasy old school RPGs. The Magic Candle was developed and released by Mindcraft Software in 1989 for DOS but was also published for Apple II and Commodore 64. The whole Magic Candle series is very similar to some of the early Ultima games in every aspect: turn-based combat, top-down v...

Ishar: Legend of the Fortress is a first-person grid-based RPG developed by Silmarils and released in 1992 for DOS, Amiga and Atari ST. Ishar: Legend of the Fortress is the second game, part of the Ishar game series (the first being Crystals of Arborea). Ishar is a classic RPG like Wizardry or Might & Magic and it plays the same way, but the en...

Ishar 2: Messengers of Doom is a role-playing video game developed and published by Silmarils, released in 1993. It is the sequel to Crystals of Arborea and the second installment in the Ishar series. Set in the fantasy world of Kendoria, the game follows the adventures of a group of adventurers as they journey across the land to defeat the evil so...