Greatest RPG of all time, fight me. I learned so many Germanic root words because of this game, and still call pennies "pfennigs" just to annoy people.
@@MravacKid Ive tried Battle Brothers. It looked good in reviews and lets plays, but I didnt enjoy it. I stopped playing after 12Hrs acording to my Steam profile and have no itch to go back. Combat is turn based in BB, so not like Darklands at all in that respect
@@Ironbuket but darklands has the old pause button so really not that different, I kinda like wartales reminds me a bit of Darklands could be a great platform for doing a darklands revival. but I doubt darklands will ever be remade, to much info for people now days the saints listing is a book by itself.
It's my favourite RPG. The manual is a work of art: classic Micropose instruction booklet where one half is about the game and the other is an analysis of the historical background.
This game was my childhood. I loved reliving this one with you Nook. I remember installing this game with 13 separate floppy disks. It came with a thick manual with so much detail it really made the world come to life. There was also a beautiful paper map. There was a 2 team crew who made a spiritual successor (Serpents in the Staglands).
there is one of the old programmers on steam says it would cost 10 plus million to make an attempt. even that post is years old. if I ever won the big Lottery I'd hire them to remake it. but that's not going to happen. just to get the source code was crazy expensive. so no way to just do a graphics update.
Yeah it does. Sadly, Robert Hendrick, it's creator, died in 2020 from cancer. He had a discussion thread on Steam where he answered questions and even spoke of possibly creating something in the same vein as Darklands, but not specifically as a remake.
I can only imagine how amazing it would have been at those times to have such open worlds RPG. When the media focus attention on consoles, and also the fans of those brands say that thanks to consoles we have video games, they don't know anything. Almost every genre born, and continue born, on PC. This was the core of the games from the beginning, PC not only is amazing today; always was.
It was great! You could travel far across the map on adventures and then it would crash suddenly for no reason losing several hours of play. Restart and then it would crash again. The seemingly random crashes really spoiled the game for me, but I recall the time between crashes fondly.
The character creation is great. There's alot of hidden stuff about it that the manual only kind of hinted at without telling you explicitly. Like there are definite ways to open up career path options during the setup but you have to pick certain careers and raise certain stats. And it makes a difference because it determines what alchemical recipes you'll start the game with, or what saints you know, or what armor you start with.
One of my favourite games ever; I still have my original boxed version. Back in the 90s, it used to crash a lot, mostly when moving on the map. Wonder how stable it runs these days, if it can get past the copy protection. From how I recall, everyone could have ranged weapons. I would use these at the start of each fight to soften the enemies up before entering melee. Buy ranged weapons and potions you can throw in the cities. Castles were end-game content and you certainly shouldn’t be messing with them right after you started. Early game you will get plenty of combat just walking between cities. GOG version may be more stable?
There’s a guide on the steam page for the copy protection, I’ve linked it in a comment. I still thing it’s strange that wasn’t taken out of this version…
My favorite rpg of all time! Just wait till night and go between the docks at night and a dark side street and fight bandits. Get your xp and reknown up plus tons of loot. DONT take the clothes. There's nowhere to get rid of them.
Good for you for picking this up. I tried to do a playthrough of this a long, long time ago, but burned out really quickly. 1:10 - not just with "a little extra flair" - all of the fantasy elements are from things that medieval Germans actually believed in. The setting of Darklands is basically "medieval Germany, except everything they believe in is real" - Alchemy works! There really are monsters in the forest! If you pray to saints, they will answer you! If you say mass incorrectly, Satan will come and possess you and your entire village! 13:34 - "I maybe should go buy some money" :P 14:44 - it's NOT magic. "Magic" is something that only evil, godless people do! Praying to saints is TOTALLY different! :) 34:43 - we're wounded, they outnumber us, and they have actual weapons and armor against our clubs, but we have our fighting spirit! CHAAAAAARGGGE! Fun fact, the copy protection questions are about real alchemy symbols, so you can answer them with your real-world knowledge if you happened to have studied alchemy.
I (tried) playing this back in the day & it was so broken for me, I could barely play it, but it got me so hooked just by the character creation & promise of the premise, that I still poured a lot of hours into it. Thrilled to see it available on Steam.
I loved that game. It was cheesy as hell and buggy but I loved it. One of the first games for which I took extensive notes. I don't remember the details but some saints where OP.
You actually have to write down quest location in a note in case you forget, I had that happening to me multiple times, sometimes in a dialogue containing the location, I clicked too fast and skipped it.
Bro...this game is one of my favorite games. Nothing else like it really. Such an underated overlooked game. I wish they'd make something like it today. Supposedly Serpent in the Staglands was supposed to be inspired by it but yeah I wish more people would appreciate this game.
@@Nookrium not a bad game but not as grand a scale as what they tries to do with darklands but both can be had pretty cheap if you wait for a sale on steam or gog
Great throwback! I remember someone at Microprose saying they’d planned more rpgs with similar mechanics, but set in other parts of Europe like Britain, France, and Eastern Europe. But I guess Darklands didn’t sell well enough for them to continue developing other similar games.
I still remember how I p*ssed my pants in the moment (many hours after after starting the game) the music on the travel map changed to drums (=a dragon is nearby).
Got this game on Home of the Underdogs back in the late 90s, and I was pretty young, so never got into it, because I could now emulate video games, I had never played... The Regular Nintendo with games I had no chance of ever playing otherwise changed my life.
Maybe play it first before you do a video... don't spread the attributes. Pick your religious dude for speak Latin....and it's not smart talk...it's street talk vs Latin talk
Love the game, disliking what's going on here. I'm holding you in higher regards @Nookrium and rather disappointed to see you support that release on steam. I don't see any reason to buy it here if a basic thing like Copy Protection is beyond the publisher's professional skills, I'd have the same in the Free, Legal version through Dosbox. Similar issues have bean dealt with successfully by the scene through our childhood and once more - There's a sad truth that he who pays for legal games - loses. Especially when there's a Free, Legal version out there.
I'm not aware of there being a free, legal version of darklands? I got mine on GoG for like a couple bucks. The copy protection is something built into the game, it was one of those old-fashioned things where they'd ask you a question and you'd look up the answer in the manual. These days you can just look up the answer online. (I'm not sure why the game crashed for Nook right there, I don't think it's related...)
@@typical_name8682 A. check legal abandonware and freeware sites for free games from the 80's on. B. If a single hacker can make a DLL file in their free time to circumvent a copy protection - A paid crew of programmer can do even better but for some reason they don't. They just... Publish and collect money they've never worked for. You're paying for a Dosbox preset and it's a crying shame, friend.
@@typical_name8682 there was for a time back when you had to download of of abandonware, home of the underdog, or a similar site. before GOG and steam. I actually still have the floppies no way to load them so I bought it on GOG for a few bucks and yes the code is actually in the hard code of the game it cant be removed without corrupting the game. and it's buggy anyway. the people that cry on here about a few symbols haven't got a clue
The way this video ended is reason enough to not buy this game and to not support the publisher financially. If you're going to be treated like a criminal, even if you give them your hard earned money, then they don't deserve your money.
this game was made in the early 90's that was the copy protection and it's hard coded into the game itself. it can't be removed. the game was in abandon ware for some time then GOG and Steam picked it up. this was a game that pretty much broke microprose it way to ambitious for what could be done at the time the alchemy signs can be found all over the internet. and like everything else in this game they are actual alchemy signs. trust me there were way worse copy protections back then like go to page 25 paragraph 2 what is the fifth word. this one is pretty simple I had another kingmaker that had pictures of castles in england as copy protection at the time I had hand drawn all the castles in the book. because I was using the game in 2 separate houses. we didn't really have internet back then so these copy protections actually worked as well as having to have the original Disk like later games had.
@@68rastas Not to mention the manual is downloadable at the game's Steam store page. And what a great manual it was! Many games had such great manuals back then, and almost as much fun reading as the games themselves. Good times.
I have old pirate copy on ~26 years old CD. It is patched and still has copy protection. I had notice only two bugs: 1) with 99 saves game files freezes with 100th attempt to save (easy to avoid); 2) game characters change their colours, Hans became green and then purple, Greta got neon green hair. If you want, I can support you in reviving memories! Btw, I haven't seen jukebox and picture viewer in steam edition, really a shame, it was nice part of the game.
![BRASIL vs. PERÚ [4-0] | RESUMEN | ELIMINATORIAS SUDAMERICANAS | FECHA 10](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tbyOJKXfQnI/mqdefault.jpg)
Ah, Darklands. Practically the greatest game of its time. This and Sword of the Samurai were so great. Wish we got more games like those.
Greatest RPG of all time, fight me. I learned so many Germanic root words because of this game, and still call pennies "pfennigs" just to annoy people.
one of my favourite games of all time! Sadly, there's not another game like it. I've wanted a remake for years
Pathfinder games come close, but not based on reality like this was
The game that came closest in recent years from what I can tell is Battle Brothers, but it's much smaller and shallower in scope.
@@MravacKid Ive tried Battle Brothers. It looked good in reviews and lets plays, but I didnt enjoy it. I stopped playing after 12Hrs acording to my Steam profile and have no itch to go back. Combat is turn based in BB, so not like Darklands at all in that respect
@@Ironbuket but darklands has the old pause button so really not that different, I kinda like wartales reminds me a bit of Darklands could be a great platform for doing a darklands revival. but I doubt darklands will ever be remade, to much info for people now days the saints listing is a book by itself.
It's my favourite RPG. The manual is a work of art: classic Micropose instruction booklet where one half is about the game and the other is an analysis of the historical background.
This game was my childhood. I loved reliving this one with you Nook. I remember installing this game with 13 separate floppy disks. It came with a thick manual with so much detail it really made the world come to life. There was also a beautiful paper map.
There was a 2 team crew who made a spiritual successor (Serpents in the Staglands).
Thanks for the info on Staglands!! Will look into that. Wish I'd had the original packaging!
Another thank you for mentioning Serpents in the Staglands. I’d never heard of that one. I’ll have to check it out.
Same here. Bought on steam and used my mega manual for tips and help a couple years ago.
This unique game needs a remake.
there is one of the old programmers on steam says it would cost 10 plus million to make an attempt. even that post is years old. if I ever won the big Lottery I'd hire them to remake it. but that's not going to happen. just to get the source code was crazy expensive. so no way to just do a graphics update.
Yeah it does. Sadly, Robert Hendrick, it's creator, died in 2020 from cancer. He had a discussion thread on Steam where he answered questions and even spoke of possibly creating something in the same vein as Darklands, but not specifically as a remake.
@@Breggle wow, I posted in this thread and interacted with him. This is heartbreaking.
I can only imagine how amazing it would have been at those times to have such open worlds RPG. When the media focus attention on consoles, and also the fans of those brands say that thanks to consoles we have video games, they don't know anything. Almost every genre born, and continue born, on PC. This was the core of the games from the beginning, PC not only is amazing today; always was.
It was great! You could travel far across the map on adventures and then it would crash suddenly for no reason losing several hours of play. Restart and then it would crash again. The seemingly random crashes really spoiled the game for me, but I recall the time between crashes fondly.
The game was decades ahead of its time, clean up the graphics a little and it would still be very good.
Console gamers playing competitive games with PC gamers be like: they must be hacking.
@@Ironbuket they did finally get a lot of the bugs out. the steam, Gog versions still crash but not as bad as the original release.
The character creation is great. There's alot of hidden stuff about it that the manual only kind of hinted at without telling you explicitly. Like there are definite ways to open up career path options during the setup but you have to pick certain careers and raise certain stats. And it makes a difference because it determines what alchemical recipes you'll start the game with, or what saints you know, or what armor you start with.
This is my favorite game of all time and, in my opinion, an RPG that no other has ever equaled.
Oh man this is such a classic. Loved this as a kid but I'll have to admit that I struggle to deal with the ancient UI these days...
Font doesn't age well, does it, haha?
The UI is surprisingly good. It might not follow the idioms that you have gotten used to but there is nothing wrong with it.
my favourite RPG from my childhood. I wish they would remake this.
One of my favourite games ever; I still have my original boxed version. Back in the 90s, it used to crash a lot, mostly when moving on the map. Wonder how stable it runs these days, if it can get past the copy protection. From how I recall, everyone could have ranged weapons. I would use these at the start of each fight to soften the enemies up before entering melee. Buy ranged weapons and potions you can throw in the cities. Castles were end-game content and you certainly shouldn’t be messing with them right after you started. Early game you will get plenty of combat just walking between cities. GOG version may be more stable?
There’s a guide on the steam page for the copy protection, I’ve linked it in a comment.
I still thing it’s strange that wasn’t taken out of this version…
One of the very first games I purchased for my 486dx, it came on a pile of floppies. Took like a half hour to install!
Those half hour install times built character! 😂
My favorite rpg of all time! Just wait till night and go between the docks at night and a dark side street and fight bandits. Get your xp and reknown up plus tons of loot. DONT take the clothes. There's nowhere to get rid of them.
Good for you for picking this up. I tried to do a playthrough of this a long, long time ago, but burned out really quickly.
1:10 - not just with "a little extra flair" - all of the fantasy elements are from things that medieval Germans actually believed in. The setting of Darklands is basically "medieval Germany, except everything they believe in is real" - Alchemy works! There really are monsters in the forest! If you pray to saints, they will answer you! If you say mass incorrectly, Satan will come and possess you and your entire village!
13:34 - "I maybe should go buy some money" :P
14:44 - it's NOT magic. "Magic" is something that only evil, godless people do! Praying to saints is TOTALLY different! :)
34:43 - we're wounded, they outnumber us, and they have actual weapons and armor against our clubs, but we have our fighting spirit! CHAAAAAARGGGE!
Fun fact, the copy protection questions are about real alchemy symbols, so you can answer them with your real-world knowledge if you happened to have studied alchemy.
I (tried) playing this back in the day & it was so broken for me, I could barely play it, but it got me so hooked just by the character creation & promise of the premise, that I still poured a lot of hours into it. Thrilled to see it available on Steam.
This game came on something like 20 5.25” floppy disks. Spent hundreds of hours on this, wished there was more quests.
Oh wow , one of my favourite games of all time! , I laminated the map way back and still use it as a poster!
I loved that game. It was cheesy as hell and buggy but I loved it.
One of the first games for which I took extensive notes. I don't remember the details but some saints where OP.
Here's the copy protection stuff: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=484431912
You actually have to write down quest location in a note in case you forget, I had that happening to me multiple times, sometimes in a dialogue containing the location, I clicked too fast and skipped it.
loved this game once upon a time :3
This game needs Daggerfall Unity treatment.
Bro...this game is one of my favorite games. Nothing else like it really. Such an underated overlooked game. I wish they'd make something like it today. Supposedly Serpent in the Staglands was supposed to be inspired by it but yeah I wish more people would appreciate this game.
Someone else mentioned Serpent in the Staglands, I hadn’t heard of it before then but it looks like I need to try it out too!
@@Nookrium not a bad game but not as grand a scale as what they tries to do with darklands but both can be had pretty cheap if you wait for a sale on steam or gog
Still installed on my Pentium. Haven't played in a while though. Couple of decades old saved games still to finish. Brilliant game.
Great throwback! I remember someone at Microprose saying they’d planned more rpgs with similar mechanics, but set in other parts of Europe like Britain, France, and Eastern Europe. But I guess Darklands didn’t sell well enough for them to continue developing other similar games.
Ah, too bad. I’ve been trying to find newer stuff similar to this since this video
I never understood why no one ever made an updated version of this class game.
I still play Darklands from time to time, too!
I still remember how I p*ssed my pants in the moment (many hours after after starting the game) the music on the travel map changed to drums (=a dragon is nearby).
"Tolkien in her sleep," made my eyes water
I feel like I tried to play this when I was 5 or 6 years old and failed miserably. I remember the art though
Got this game on Home of the Underdogs back in the late 90s, and I was pretty young, so never got into it, because I could now emulate video games, I had never played... The Regular Nintendo with games I had no chance of ever playing otherwise changed my life.
oh baby!
My EYES
I've got this one on CD somewere
CD? My copy is on 3 1/2 inch floppies - you know, the _modern_ ones, not those old 5 1/4 floppies.
@@Bill_Garthright There was a CD version apparently. Maybe a later re-release, pretty sure the original release was 5.25 and 3.5 floppy only.
@@Bill_Garthright it was re released on CD in 1995
did you find it
@@SeminarioMAE no, its in a case somewhere though
might be in the shed
"make him a woman" hahahah.
Maybe play it first before you do a video... don't spread the attributes. Pick your religious dude for speak Latin....and it's not smart talk...it's street talk vs Latin talk
Love the game, disliking what's going on here.
I'm holding you in higher regards @Nookrium and rather disappointed to see you support that release on steam.
I don't see any reason to buy it here if a basic thing like Copy Protection is beyond the publisher's professional skills, I'd have the same in the Free, Legal version through Dosbox.
Similar issues have bean dealt with successfully by the scene through our childhood and once more - There's a sad truth that he who pays for legal games - loses.
Especially when there's a Free, Legal version out there.
I'm not aware of there being a free, legal version of darklands? I got mine on GoG for like a couple bucks.
The copy protection is something built into the game, it was one of those old-fashioned things where they'd ask you a question and you'd look up the answer in the manual. These days you can just look up the answer online.
(I'm not sure why the game crashed for Nook right there, I don't think it's related...)
@@typical_name8682
A. check legal abandonware and freeware sites for free games from the 80's on.
B. If a single hacker can make a DLL file in their free time to circumvent a copy protection - A paid crew of programmer can do even better but for some reason they don't. They just... Publish and collect money they've never worked for.
You're paying for a Dosbox preset and it's a crying shame, friend.
@@typical_name8682 there was for a time back when you had to download of of abandonware, home of the underdog, or a similar site. before GOG and steam. I actually still have the floppies no way to load them so I bought it on GOG for a few bucks and yes the code is actually in the hard code of the game it cant be removed without corrupting the game. and it's buggy anyway. the people that cry on here about a few symbols haven't got a clue
The way this video ended is reason enough to not buy this game and to not support the publisher financially.
If you're going to be treated like a criminal, even if you give them your hard earned money, then they don't deserve your money.
this game was made in the early 90's that was the copy protection and it's hard coded into the game itself. it can't be removed. the game was in abandon ware for some time then GOG and Steam picked it up. this was a game that pretty much broke microprose it way to ambitious for what could be done at the time the alchemy signs can be found all over the internet. and like everything else in this game they are actual alchemy signs. trust me there were way worse copy protections back then like go to page 25 paragraph 2 what is the fifth word. this one is pretty simple I had another kingmaker that had pictures of castles in england as copy protection at the time I had hand drawn all the castles in the book. because I was using the game in 2 separate houses. we didn't really have internet back then so these copy protections actually worked as well as having to have the original Disk like later games had.
@@68rastas Not to mention the manual is downloadable at the game's Steam store page. And what a great manual it was! Many games had such great manuals back then, and almost as much fun reading as the games themselves. Good times.
I have old pirate copy on ~26 years old CD. It is patched and still has copy protection. I had notice only two bugs: 1) with 99 saves game files freezes with 100th attempt to save (easy to avoid); 2) game characters change their colours, Hans became green and then purple, Greta got neon green hair.
If you want, I can support you in reviving memories!
Btw, I haven't seen jukebox and picture viewer in steam edition, really a shame, it was nice part of the game.