What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

[Zevox]

Isometric view is not a genre, the same way that first person isn't a genre. There was a long time when almost the only first person games were shooters, and there were a lot of RPGs that were isometric, but in neither case was the view the definition of the genre. The early FF games were clearly isometric views, but you wouldn't group them with X-COM, and neither would be grouped with Diablo.
I would also say that what most people that think of when they think "isometric games" never went away, they just started varying a lot more in looks, and they just went from being very prevalent to developers having a lot more good options to build a game around. Many of your 3rd person games still have a lot of those designs around them, even if the technology used to make them has changed drastically.

The early Zelda games were somewhat before Isometric was possible, and then later went to 3rd person full 3D, but they hit Isometric too.


A quick search on isometric games and the list I found of the "best" ranged from Fallout 2, Civilization 6, Disco Elysium, POE II, Hades, and Divinity: OS2. Among others, but gameplay wise there is almost nothing those games have in common besides the view point they use.

I have no idea under what possible definition of "isometric" any non-Tactics Final Fantasy games or any Legend of Zelda games would count. Isometric games essentially use 2D visuals turned at an angle to simulate 3D visuals. The fights in Final Fantasy Tactics and its Advance spin-off/sequels did that, but no mainline games did that I'm aware of, and certainly Legend of Zelda never did. I've played Link's Awakening, it's the same sort of top-down 2D Zelda as every other 2D Zelda.

[Erloas]

Final Fantasy is unquestionable an RPG, and several of the games were isometric, including 7. It didn't always stay in that view, but a lot of it was. In fact there are even fan made mods to change the new remake into the classic isometric view. Granted that the FF games switched to a turn based combat system that used no movement at all and a different view, but the majority of the game world was explored in an isometric view.

I always considered the original Zelda games to be RPGs, or action/RPGs, but I could accept if they were just considered action-adventure, the line between action-adventure and action-RPG has often been very thin at times. But you can't even start to argue that the original Zelda games weren't isometric in their view/design. I'll pull a bigger piece of the quote from the director of the games

In 1991, we released the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and followed that a year later with The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on that system. With this title the Zelda series once again returned to the top down, isometric view. But, it can probably be said if it were not for this title, the Zelda franchise would never have been developed. It established many of the conventions for Zelda games to come, including those that were refined in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening released for the Game Boy the following year. Even now, Link's Awakening is lauded as a quintessential isometric Zelda game.

Not that wikipedia is definitive guide (but considering all of this is at best subjective, it's about as authoritative as anything can be)

This formula was refined by the action-adventure game, The Legend of Zelda (1986), which set the template used by many subsequent action RPGs... The game was largely responsible for the surge of action-oriented RPGs released since the late 1980s, both in Japan and North America. The Legend of Zelda series would continue to exert an influence on the transition of both console and computer RPGs from stat-heavy, turn-based combat towards real-time action combat in the following decades

There are also plenty of modern, fully 3D games, that still use the isometric view, many of which are RPGs. You can easily say that they aren't as dominate as they used to be, but I think you would be hard pressed to find many years in the last 30 where isometric RPGs of one sort or another didn't have big releases. You can find a dozen Diablo-likes just in the last 5 years, and countless more when Diablo was one of the biggest games around.

[Zevox]

There are also plenty of modern, fully 3D games, that still use the isometric view,

Okay, setting all else aside at this point, this is the moment where you confirm for me that we are talking about different things. Because from my understanding of it, by definition, if a game is fully 3D, it is not isometric. As I mentioned previously, what I'm talking about with the term, summed up in simple terms, is games that use 2D visuals set at an angle to simulate 3D visuals.

Googling this, I see definitions which appear to match what I'm talking about, albeit getting into more nitty-gritty of the specific angles used to achieve the effect. For instance:

Isometric video game graphics are graphics employed in video games and pixel art that use a parallel projection, but which angle the viewpoint to reveal facets of the environment that would otherwise not be visible from a top-down perspective or side view, thereby producing a three-dimensional effect. Despite the name, isometric computer graphics are not necessarily truly isometric—i.e., the x, y, and z axes are not necessarily oriented 120° to each other. Instead, a variety of angles are used, with dimetric projection and a 2:1 pixel ratio being the most common. The terms "3/4 perspective", "3/4 view", "2.5D", and "pseudo 3D" are also sometimes used, although these terms can bear slightly different meanings in other contexts.

With this in mind, I don't see how games like Final Fantasy 7 or Link's Awakening could ever qualify for the term. They simply don't do that, at all.

So, going to have to ask: what are you referring to with the term? Because it doesn't seem to be the same thing, if you can make that statement and not see it as an inherent contradiction.

I always considered the original Zelda games to be RPGs, or action/RPGs, but I could accept if they were just considered action-adventure, the line between action-adventure and action-RPG has often been very thin at times.

And bringing back the aside, I know there's a minority out there that think that way, but I can't understand it in the slightest. I don't see anything I would define as RPG-like in any Legend of Zelda game I've ever played, which is most of them. My only guess has ever been that some people just assign the term to anything with a medieval fantasy setting, it's the only link between them that I can see.

[Erloas]

There have been fully 3d rendered "isometric" games for a very long time. The origins of it was pseudo 3d as mentioned there, but it hasn't been limited to that in probably 20 years.
I also don't think it's doing anyone any favors to use a mathematical technical term to a precision that would exclude the majority of what people that play games understand the term to mean. Since technically anything other than exactly 120x120x120 x\y\z isn't isometric.

I was going to quote from the same isometric wikipedia article but it was going to be too long (and I'm on my phone now), but it even says Fallout 1&2 aren't "true" isometric games, so if you're going to get technical to the point of cutting out 2 of the most quintessential "isometric RPGs" out of the definition then it no longer means anything. It also said there are combinations of 2d and 3d assets that can be used in isometric games.

But if the main producer of Links Awakens, in his own (translated) words says he thinks the game is a quintessential isometric game, there really isn't anything more I can say to convince you.

[Rynjin]

My guy everybody but two people in this thread knows what everybody else means when they say "isometric RPG". I could say "CRPG" if you want but that term for the genre is even MORE meaningless if you want to nitpick, which is as far as I can tell the only point of this tangent.

"Oh yeah Final Fantasy X is a CRPG because it got ported to PC a while back, bro, totally."

Come on.

[Rodin]

Going back to the spirit of the original post (we can nitpick all day over what is or isn’t an isometric RPG)…

The ironic thing is that the “modern” isometric RPG became mainstream in the 1990s with the release of Baldur’s Gate. Baldur’s Gate was heralded as saving the Western RPG from extinction as Adventure games slid into obscurity. These days they are niche, but they were extremely popular for a few years.

[Spore]

The ironic thing is that the “modern” isometric RPG became mainstream in the 1990s with the release of Baldur’s Gate. Baldur’s Gate was heralded as saving the Western RPG from extinction as Adventure games slid into obscurity. These days they are niche, but they were extremely popular for a few years.

Its attention has honestly split between true turn based strategy (90% of which have an RPG advancement system behind it anyhow) and 3rd person action RPGs ala Dark Souls. The first has the benefit of allowing you to weigh any decision without RTWP slowing down to a crawl (there is a reason people clamored for a turn based mode for Kingmaker, and Wrath of the Righteous is saved by it), the latter has the basic idea of "stupid spammy aggression gets you nowhere, and aside from fakeouts that abuse your naivete, no death in combat is unfair" and cranks up the single player aspect with no handholding.

Iso cRPGs are outliers that cross systems successfully every now and then. But what I have started to enjoy is isometric action RPGs (ala Hades, Diablo 3 and Torchlight), there is much potential to be had.

[Anonymouswizard]

Zelda can't be an isometric RPG, because everything's parallel to the bottom of the screen! While I agree that trying to be 100% accurate to the mathematical term is unnecessary, I don't see a need to include games which don't do t have a defining feature.

P.S. when I express disappointment that a series I like is going to be dropped for a genre I have no particular like of I don't need to be told why I'm wrong. They had many more options than just jumping to first person, including a more NWN/KotOR style.

[Batcathat]

The first has the benefit of allowing you to weigh any decision without RTWP slowing down to a crawl (there is a reason people clamored for a turn based mode for Kingmaker, and Wrath of the Righteous is saved by it)

Maybe I'm missing something obvious here, but I don't see why turn-based would make things less of a crawl than heavily using RTWP, at worst you're basically using RTWP to mimic a turn-based system (which would admittedly make having it as RTWP unnecessary if it's something that had to be done all the time). While I certainly prefer turn-based in some cases (I suspect X-COM would be nearly unplayable with RTWP) I don't really see the advantage in this case.

[GloatingSwine]

P.S. when I express disappointment that a series I like is going to be dropped for a genre I have no particular like of I don't need to be told why I'm wrong. They had many more options than just jumping to first person, including a more NWN/KotOR style.

No, I don't think that was an option.

NWN/KotOR have aged much worse as play experiences than Baldur's Gate and nobody is nostalgic for the style of play they represented (even if they are for the story).

They could have made a third person game in the modern style, and for a game with both ranged and melee combat that would probably be better than first person (first person melee combat is always going to be more limiting than third person), but not an Aurora-like.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious here, but I don't see why turn-based would make things less of a crawl than heavily using RTWP, at worst you're basically using RTWP to mimic a turn-based system (which would admittedly make having it as RTWP unnecessary if it's something that had to be done all the time). While I certainly prefer turn-based in some cases (I suspect X-COM would be nearly unplayable with RTWP) I don't really see the advantage in this case.

The thing with RTWP is that the pausing tends to be staccato as you have to respond to things that happen at varying intervals. Turn based games have a regular rhythm of pause and action, RTWP do not but they're a bit too granular and fiddly (and not well enough supported by hotkeys usually) to just power through with realtime micro unless you maintain an annoyingly high APM intensity which is at odds with the pace of responses.

[Batcathat]

The thing with RTWP is that the pausing tends to be staccato as you have to respond to things that happen at varying intervals. Turn based games have a regular rhythm of pause and action, RTWP do not but they're a bit too granular and fiddly (and not well enough supported by hotkeys usually) to just power through with realtime micro unless you maintain an annoyingly high APM intensity which is at odds with the pace of responses.

I can see your point, but the flip side of that is that you only have to pause when you need to in RTWP. Yes, if "when you need to" is literally every five seconds, it might as well be turn-based but if it's not, RTWP has the advantage in some situations, I think.

[GloatingSwine]

I can see your point, but the flip side of that is that you only have to pause when you need to in RTWP. Yes, if "when you need to" is literally every five seconds, it might as well be turn-based but if it's not, RTWP has the advantage in some situations, I think.

Yeah, RTWP offers an advantage when the encounters are easy enough that you don't need to react much to what's going on. But even then a well designed turn based game that feels responsive to inputs and uses things like animations well can feel dynamic enough that easy encounters don't get old either, see: Persona 5.

It's when things are tricky and you're pausing at irregular intervals because you need to get off a heal or counter something an enemy is trying to do with an interrupt or something like that. It's actually even worse than pausing every 5 seconds, it's pausing at 5 seconds, then 7, then 3, then 12, then you've dealt with the dangerous stuff and don't need to again

[Anonymouswizard]

No, I don't think that was an option.

NWN/KotOR have aged much worse as play experiences than Baldur's Gate and nobody is nostalgic for the style of play they represented (even if they are for the story).

I guess I'll just go over here and stop existing so you can be right

They could have made a third person game in the modern style, and for a game with both ranged and melee combat that would probably be better than first person (first person melee combat is always going to be more limiting than third person), but not an Aurora-like.

By which you mean 'they could have made a third person action game'. Which is true, but when leaving isometric RPGs behind they weren't limited to 'first person action' or 'third person action'.

God, this is almost as annoying as Extra Credits's views on turn based combat.

But hey, I guess the homogenisation of big budget games is a good thing.

[Mechalich]

Yeah, RTWP offers an advantage when the encounters are easy enough that you don't need to react much to what's going on. But even then a well designed turn based game that feels responsive to inputs and uses things like animations well can feel dynamic enough that easy encounters don't get old either, see: Persona 5.

Easy encounters get old plenty fast in Persona 5, which hands the player an ability to functionally ignore them from pretty early on. In P5:Royal it's to the point that, once you take an hour or so to over-level properly in the mid game you only actually have to play out the boss fights. Various games in the series that use functionally the same combat system, which hasn't changed significantly since Nocturne and is therefore twenty years old now, can get incredibly sloggy without such an option.

[GloatingSwine]

By which you mean 'they could have made a third person action game'. Which is true, but when leaving isometric RPGs behind they weren't limited to 'first person action' or 'third person action'.

God, this is almost as annoying as Extra Credits's views on turn based combat.

But hey, I guess the homogenisation of big budget games is a good thing.

I suppose they could make an autoattack + hotbars style RPG, but that runs into the same problem as they already had with isometric RPGs which is that they're really not a commercially popular model for singleplayer RPGs. The only title that's really kept that style up outside of the MMO space is Xenoblade (and even then they lean more on action elements with timing skill uses with the autoattack hits).

[Erloas]

I guess I don't agree with the premise that turn based tactical western RPGs are what people mean by "isometric RPGs" and neither does a large part of the Internet from a few quick searches. Especially when Diablo is one of the pillars of the term and it has none of that.
But anyway...


I think that Kickstarter helped prove that turn based western RPGs, which do have a distinctly different feel to turn based RPGs out Japan, still has a pretty strong fan base. Sure they don't have COD or Fortnite numbers, but a lot of people play them and still get good reviews.
I would say that Wasteland 3, Battletech (the Hairbrained Schemes one), and Shadowrun all fall into the category. Even if Battletech isn't an RPG, it has pretty much everything else being discussed.
It's always seemed like "people in charge" just said "these sorts of games won't sell now" and stopped funding them, rather than people not wanting to play them. I think a lot of it came from the companies making them often went out of business in the late 90s, but that almost always came down to "programmers running a company" sort of issues and less "the games weren't good enough to sell."

I think the biggest factor in TB versus RTWP comes down to party size, with the complexity of character options being a modifying factor. If you've got more than about 3 characters and they can do more than basic attacks, and aren't expected to die constantly, then turn based is the way to go.
I think that pausing in what would otherwise be a FPS just breaks up the game.
There are of course exceptions everywhere, the game needs to be tuned around the choice, and games that just throw one or the other option on always come down to one being the far better choice.

[Zombimode]

God, this is almost as annoying as Extra Credits's views on turn based combat.

Never understood why Extra Credits got the tracktion it got. Their knowledge of games seems to come from compiling game magazine articles (like IGN) and their views on what is and what isn't good game design likewise seems to come from reading about game design without a long personal history of actually playing games.


On topic (skipping the "Whats a paladin rpg" and rpg style discussions :smallamused: ):

During a deep dive through GoG strategy catalogue, I stumbled upon Mission Force: Cyberstorm
What the title refers to is a bit unclear (especially the "Cyberstorm" part), but whatever ;-)

It an (old) turn-based strategy game featuring mechs. The scale is one to several "lances": I started the game with 3 mechs, and for the final mission my loadout was about 13-15 combat mechs and 3 unarmed scout mechs.
The mechs (called "HERCs") are in the style of Battletech mechs. Which is not surprising since the game was made by the same studio that was involved in some of the older Battletech games. They lost the license but obviously wanted to continue to make battletech-style games. Which resulted in a game universe (called Metaltech - yes, really) that would eventually lead to the Tribes multiplayer shooters. No kidding.

Anyway, back to Mission Force.
The setting has nothing to do with Battletech. Instead to get an idea about the aesthetics and tone of the setting, picture the future flashback scenes from Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Add mechs.
The main antagonists of the settings is a class of artifical beings called "Cybrids", men-made cybernetic creatures who rebelled against humankind and both groups have fought several genocidal wars.
During the time of Mission Force, humans and Cybrids took to the stars and war inevitably breaks out anew.

For the humans, a megacorporation called Unitech has essentially took over all functions of state. The worth of a human life is measured in success.
The HERCs are no longer piloted by humans. Instead vat-grown bioengineered beings called Bioderms take the role of the HERC-pilots. Bioderms, or 'derms for short, are rather unstable and have life expectency of 1 to 10 years (for the most sophisticated models). 'derms are not considered beings, but commodities and tools. Although the game's narrative makes it pretty clear that 'derms are actually indistinguishable from humans in terms of personality and emotions :smallamused:
The low life expectancy is actually relevant in game. My own run took 7-8 years in game. While I had not to worry about my high-class bioderm models, several of my lower class models died of "old age" during the campaign.

The gameplay is pretty good. The game offers a good ammount of depth often comming from simple interaction. As such the game feels very aproachable (if you can deal with old games, that is).
A good example is the importance of terrain. This comes down to two things:
1. The ammount of energy it costs to move into the respective hex. The differences are quite drastic.
2. The cover the terrain provides. Cover is not some artifical "gamey" state, but a direct consequence of the topology. If one mech can only see 27% of the target mech, the to-hit chances are recuded accordingly.

It is not the most complex mech simulation, but the game is also not overly long. It took me about 30 hours to beat the camaign.

Speaking of the campaign: it consist of (random?) missions spanning three star systems. The star systems are the chapters of the game. Your goal is to destroy the Cybrid main base in each of the star systems. The epic siege mission for each of the Cybrids bases is available from the start so in theory you only have to beat three missions. This is practically impossible of course, and you have to "farm" Ressource Gathering missions for money and Military Missions for promotions. Military missions still pay money (but less) and Ressource missions still count towards your progress for promotion (but slower). All missions can be completed by destroying/driving off all enemy forces. The missions themselves have no other consequences. Hence my term "farming".
The lack of connection between the missions is my biggest gripe with the game.

On the plus side, at the point when the missions felt like "farming", they where also completed in quickly manner. A ressource mission (which I completely switched over to very early in the second star system) could be completed in 2-5 minutes. The big time-sinks are the big siege missions (each taking several hours) and the early game.


Then, I switched over to C&C: Red Alert 3 which turned out to be a pleasant suprise.
While it does deviate in several aspects from earlier C&C titles which took some time to adjust to* and it continues Red Alerts style of non-serious camp (in contrast to the Tiberium game's serious camp) which I don't particular care for, the game succeeds in the mission design.

* Most tanks are pretty useless, including the sovjet Mammoth Apocalypse Tank.

[Cespenar]

Never understood why Extra Credits got the tracktion it got. Their knowledge of games seems to come from compiling game magazine articles (like IGN) and their views on what is and what isn't good game design likewise seems to come from reading about game design without a long personal history of actually playing games.

Extra Credits had a lot of biased and/or dogmatic game design takes, but even they are better than the 99% of "game design analysis" videos on Youtube right now, which consist of "I grew up playing X, so let me speak 45 minutes about it while overusing the word 'GENIUS'".

Anyway, to shake off any excess salt: I also wrapped up Ozymandias, which I must also recommend again to any 4x or strategy lovers -- it basically does to 4x what Into the Breach did to the tactics genre. Minimalistic but with optimized depth of strategy.

[Zevox]

There have been fully 3d rendered "isometric" games for a very long time. The origins of it was pseudo 3d as mentioned there, but it hasn't been limited to that in probably 20 years.
I also don't think it's doing anyone any favors to use a mathematical technical term to a precision that would exclude the majority of what people that play games understand the term to mean. Since technically anything other than exactly 120x120x120 x\y\z isn't isometric.

I was going to quote from the same isometric wikipedia article but it was going to be too long (and I'm on my phone now), but it even says Fallout 1&2 aren't "true" isometric games, so if you're going to get technical to the point of cutting out 2 of the most quintessential "isometric RPGs" out of the definition then it no longer means anything. It also said there are combinations of 2d and 3d assets that can be used in isometric games.

But if the main producer of Links Awakens, in his own (translated) words says he thinks the game is a quintessential isometric game, there really isn't anything more I can say to convince you.

I mean, if you're not going to even try to explain what you are referring to when you use the term, there's not much more discussion to be had. I'm honestly trying to figure out what the disconnect is here, because your remarks are baffling to me. When I hear the term, I think of it as referring to a fairly specific thing, which I've tried to describe to the best of my ability, and when I google it, I see definitions that seem to match my understanding and screenshots of games that look like I expect them to. None of which appears to me to apply to games like The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. Not sure what else you expect out of a discussion at that point.

For what it's worth, looking up screenshots of Fallout 1 & 2 (which I've never played), sure, those look like they're isometric to me. And for point of reference, in case it helps, the classic example that comes to my mind when I hear the word is Sonic 3D Blast, which was the first such game I ever played. Not an RPG, but definitely isometric.

[Anonymouswizard]

Extra Credits had a lot of biased and/or dogmatic game design takes, but even they are better than the 99% of "game design analysis" videos on Youtube right now, which consist of "I grew up playing X, so let me speak 45 minutes about it while overusing the word 'GENIUS'".

You mean I shouldn't write a two hour video on what Inquisition is missing compared to the earlier Dragon Age games? Because I've vaguely been considering doing something along those lines (focusing on the relative lack of main plot and the stripped down combat system).

And yeah, Extra Credits mainly have rep because James was good at giving actual, if opinionated, information. Since he left it kind of went downhill until it got eclipsed by the history side topics. Plus the less said about their expressed views on monetisation in full priced games the better.

[The Glyphstone]

Then, I switched over to C&C: Red Alert 3 which turned out to be a pleasant suprise.
While it does deviate in several aspects from earlier C&C titles which took some time to adjust to* and it continues Red Alerts style of non-serious camp (in contrast to the Tiberium game's serious camp) which I don't particular care for, the game succeeds in the mission design.

* Most tanks are pretty useless, including the sovjet Mammoth Apocalypse Tank.

I wasn't a huge fan of RA3 myself, between how every mission was now Co-Op which made it very clear Singleplayer was an afterthought, and the camp which went too excessive for my tastes. RA1 had serious camp, RA2/YR I felt hit the sweet spot of camp without tipping over into ridiculous. Tim Curry is a hoot though, even if George Takei's talent was completely wasted and the less said about Jenny McCarthy's Tanya the better.

This is also relevant because I'm plowing through the Mental Omega fan mod for RA2, subtitled 'Almost Perfect Yuris Revenge'. Has a massively expanded unit list, and completely rewrites the campaign into a giant sprawling 100+ mission story spanning both the RA2 and YR timeliness and all 3 factions, including a full Yuri campaign. Sadly they couldn't match the FMV briefing segments or voiceovers though, but the mission design is hugely improved with far more variety.

[Cespenar]

You mean I shouldn't write a two hour video on what Inquisition is missing compared to the earlier Dragon Age games? Because I've vaguely been considering doing something along those lines (focusing on the relative lack of main plot and the stripped down combat system).

I mean, at least trim it down to a crisp 45:00.

[Thomas Cardew]

I wasn't a huge fan of RA3 myself, between how every mission was now Co-Op which made it very clear Singleplayer was an afterthought, and the camp which went too excessive for my tastes. RA1 had serious camp, RA2/YR I felt hit the sweet spot of camp without tipping over into ridiculous. Tim Curry is a hoot though, even if George Takei's talent was completely wasted and the less said about Jenny McCarthy's Tanya the better.

This is also relevant because I'm plowing through the Mental Omega fan mod for RA2, subtitled 'Almost Perfect Yuris Revenge'. Has a massively expanded unit list, and completely rewrites the campaign into a giant sprawling 100+ mission story spanning both the RA2 and YR timeliness and all 3 factions, including a full Yuri campaign. Sadly they couldn't match the FMV briefing segments or voiceovers though, but the mission design is hugely improved with far more variety.

It's been awhile but wasn't RA3 WAY more micro-intensive than RA1? I seem to remember every single unit had an active ability or toggle switch you had to constantly micro with few QoL adjustments.

[warty goblin]

It's been awhile but wasn't RA3 WAY more micro-intensive than RA1? I seem to remember every single unit had an active ability or toggle switch you had to constantly micro with few QoL adjustments.

That was a big thing in RTSs for a while, giving every unit some button to press to do a thing. I recall Star Wars: Empire at War was particularly egregious because they then went and made the button absurdly tiny.

[The Glyphstone]

It's been awhile but wasn't RA3 WAY more micro-intensive than RA1? I seem to remember every single unit had an active ability or toggle switch you had to constantly micro with few QoL adjustments.

I had blocked that from my memory but yes. Right down to the attack dogs who could bark loud enough to stun people.

[Zombimode]

It's been awhile but wasn't RA3 WAY more micro-intensive than RA1? I seem to remember every single unit had an active ability or toggle switch you had to constantly micro with few QoL adjustments.

Yeah, thats true. Thankfully for each mission there are ways to victory that doesn't rely on that level of micro.
Massed Twinblades, Rocket Angles, King Onis with Tidal Wave Artillery, Aircraft Carrier, Mirage Tanks, Bombers...

[MCerberus]

That would be too much for me. I already had enough problems actually doing anything else while using the AC130 from Zero hour.

If you're unfamiliar, in that game it was a ground-support jet that had acquired additional dakka. You summoned it on an area and selected a ground attack zone to make sure was extra dead, which you could move around. And you couldn't assign a quick group to it, so ordering a rush through your doom zone was near impossible unless you wanted to have the AC130 shooting a particularly nasty empty piece of terrain for a while.

So eventually I just stopped getting it, and instead started speccing into the Mother of All Bombs drop. Which also accomplishes the objective of deadifying an area.

[Anonymouswizard]

I mean, at least trim it down to a crisp 45:00.

When it comes off the pile of project ideas it might end up at 30-60 minutes But I want it to be more than 'Inquisition sucks until the main game is ovet', so I'm waiting. Maybe I'll try after Dreadwolf is out.

[warty goblin]

Speaking of micro in RTS games, I've been playing Warpips, an RTS with basically no micro. It does this quite cleverly; your base is on the left side of the map, the enemy's is on the right. You build dudes, they march right, the enemy's dudes march left. Dudes kill each other, you push them back and blow up the enemy base. But you do not control the dudes, they just do their thing. You earn money over time, which you spend on units. You also earn levels, which can be spent upgrading units, exchanged for large amounts of cash, or spend on upgrading your population cap. There's also a defense button and an attack button; holding down defense will make your dudes find cover, hold ground, and shoot at longer range. Holding down the attack button makes them move faster and shoot more rapidly. Both of these are filled by fighting, and holding either one burns charge from both.

There's some slightly more hands-on stuff, like manually controllable turrets or drone strikes, but basically that's it. It's really simple, and it works extremely well. You get desperate defenses and sudden breakthroughs and oh crap moments like in a good standard RTS, but without nearly as much bother with, like, where exactly to put your barracks or who exactly Pvt Bob should be shooting right now.

[LibraryOgre]

Going back to the spirit of the original post (we can nitpick all day over what is or isn’t an isometric RPG)…

The ironic thing is that the “modern” isometric RPG became mainstream in the 1990s with the release of Baldur’s Gate. Baldur’s Gate was heralded as saving the Western RPG from extinction as Adventure games slid into obscurity. These days they are niche, but they were extremely popular for a few years.

Dark Sun: Shattered Lands in '93 some some of that, I think.