The Best DnD Video Game That Everyone Forgot! | Strahd's Possession Review
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ต.ค. 2022
- Strahd's Possession was a 1994 RPG dungeoncrawler released by SSI. Strahd is an iconic character in Dungeons and Dragons, growing more popular than ever with the release of the Curse of Strahd module for DnD 5th Edition. But is retro Strahd worth your time?
This is the first of my 2 part spooktober review of the SSI Ravenloft games.
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If anyone tells me 'It's not a '94 game because it came out December 31st 1993' - I am legally allowed to execute you, I checked with a lawyer and everything.
I think you should stop trying the "if this gets x amount of likes I'll do y." This channel is good. You clearly put a lot of effort into all of your content and I enjoy every one of your videos. At this point it's just waiting for the algorithm to promote you more lol. Hopefully it'll pick up with the recent increase in DnD's popularity.
Execute your viewers, this can only result in a positive growth for your channel
It's not a '94 game because it came out December 31st 1993...... try me
Ah, so you have chosen death 🔪
@@WilliamSRD would sir like his dueling swords assembled?
Fun tidbit: the reason a lot of these old D&D video games let you just adjust your stats however you want was so you could plug your tabletop D&D characters (well... starting level versions of them) directly into the game, to see if your tabletop party could survive.
; )
That's actually such a neat detail!
Makes sense
Tabletop players would usually import the entire party and then they will control the characters individually, the 4 of them in a single keyboard. It was more painful on real time games, but many also played the same way on the turn based games.
I can give the voice acting ONE compliment.... it evokes the feeling of that one friend who wants to immerse their friends, but also definitely doesn't have the range to immerse them THAT well
Honestly made me feel like I am playing tabletop
His main problem is that he is American, and everybody knows you can't be a proper scary villain unless you have a British or East European accent. Ideally a British person doing a German accent like Hans Gruber.
37:20 it's a fairly well known fact that the cover of the first Castlevania game used Strahd's likeness for Dracula. Now it seems Strahd is the one copying Castlevania; borrowing Dracula's moveset of teleporting around while shooting fireballs
It was actually Castlevania II: Simon's quest.
Oh man. I remember when PC games started to have voiced narration and characters like this. My newly adolescent self truly felt "Gaming cannot get any better than this!"
Your newly adolescent self was mostly correct, unfortunately.
I felt the same way when I first played StarFox 64.
@@RocketRoosterFilms I mean you show me a modern game that lets you do a barrel roll
Checkmate, athiests
@@tryingtotryistrying I think people like Kevin Sorbo found a new god to worship, as vomit-inducing as it is.
@@drarenthiralas1683 Unfortunately.
But hey, as horrid as modern gaming has gotten, we have so many old gems to play that cannot be ruined by them.
But with all the crappy remakes that come out, I suppose they'll keep trying.
You've found a real gem here. An old style adventure game with janky interfaces that isn't an unplayable mess? I didn't know any actually existed. Bravo.
I'm as surprised as anyone!
Finding these and reporting back has become my favorite TH-cam genre XD
The best part is, these games have a "sibling": Menzoberranzan. And Menzoberranzan is H U G E.
That's all of them if you're not a coward
I like the daggerfall unity
Whenever I think "evil noble vampire" the voice that comes to my mind is ALWAYS Simon Templeman, aka; Kain from the Legacy of Kain series.
Hel yes, Templeman is such a great VA
"so yeah I'm not gonna tell you too much cause I don't want to spoil my dnd campaign" very reassuring thanks, I was worried precisely about that
I got u fam 👍
Ok i have to say this who ever was drawing the books on the female characters really went above and beyond
Yeah, each page is so detailed it's impressive!
With such massive tomes, they better have strong spines.
@@ComicGladiator I see what you did there
Those books sound great, do they have lots of pictures of their boobs?
@@jic1 just go on r34 my dude
The Keypad works as you direction pad on the screen so you can move and clik6to attack. These old school First Person Dungeon games have it setup like that.
This game is NOT forgotten
Torment is incredible.
I hope he covers them at some point
Adventurers getting paid in 'exposure' is the first item required for murder hoboing
GOG does a really good job on making sure these old games are playable. The 2nd Ravenloft game was also quite enjoyable. If you have not done so you may also enjoy the Eye of the Beholder games.
From my experiiences with gog they just use fan patches when they are reselling the abandonware games.
Regardless of my opinions on that
The only way to remove a character from the party is to recruit a new one when the party is full. When you do, you'll be asked to pick one of your current members to send away. After they leave, most of them have a location they go to wait in case you decide to recruit them again. Also, you can only remove either of your starting characters from your party if they are dead. And if you do remove a dead character from the party, that character is permanently removed from the game.
You can kick party members, there is an option to do so. You cannot kick the two that you created
@@Santiago-Farrell I just tested it, and yes, you can kick one of your created characters if they're dead and you recruit another character while your party is full. Also, I can find no other way to remove a character from your party other than recruiting another one while your party is full, and I've been playing this game for decades. Can you tell me how it's done?
I LOVED this game! I played Stone Prophet too. Menzobarrenzen for me unfortunately had the final boss in the wall bug, which required a phone call and a disk fix mailed to me snailmail. It also required a complete replay of the game, which I didn't want to slog through.
AD&D 2E had so many cool settings. Ravenloft, Planescape, Dark Sun, the Forgotten Realms Underdark, etc.
16:50 Hireing dedicated voice actors wasn't even really a thing in the industry at this time, or at least extreamly uncommon. I struggle to come up with any 1994 game using professional voice actors. It was pretty much industry standard at the time to use wathever people were already working at the game for voices, like programmers and stuff.
Lands of Lore did it 93, but I think they also advertised with it.
lots of Sega CD games did;
Sewer Shark is my most memorable with their 'Robocop' commercials
Prize Fighter another classic
Lands of Lore did it. Used Patrick Steward. But the style was ment to be stilted speech since sound was played off thru those tiny 5watt pc speakers. It 'had to be' that way. Just like radio speech from 1930 was nasal since that was easier to hear through the radio technology at the time.
One of my absolute favorite D&D memories is the moments I was able to play as Strahd von Zarovich when running Curse of Strahd. Such a fun villain.
I played through this back in 98, after having completed Menzo. I loved them.
I am a huge fan of 2nd and 3rd D&D Ravenloft edition and i wish those two versions had more recognition. I was always struggling to find a team in my country to play tabletop Ravenloft with because everyone wanted to play Forgotten Realms because of the popularity of the Baldur's Gate series. Nevertheless back then Ravenloft was a whole immense setting not just a module, it was full of references to gothic literature and moves. Pure amazing, by far the best D&D setting of all time. BTW, there also is a sequel of the PC game called Ravenloft: Stone Prophet
Yeah I don't know where he got the idea that Curse of Strahd is somehow deeper than OG Barovia...
Fighter/Mage/Thief is actually one of the most OP character class combos because with touch attack spells from the mage class, you can backstab with the thief class for x3 damage for much more than the 1-6 damage of a dagger, which lets you one shot things most creatures.
Like most SSI games of the era, this one had a great D&D 'feel' if you could get past all the rough edges. Although it's maybe not optimal, I always play with a full party of four. I find it more fun that way and it helps a lot with inventory management.
The only SSI game I've actually played start to finish! In 1995, even, so it wasn't even old at the time. I replayed it again 2 years ago and while it wasn't as good as I remembered (obviously!), it was still a good time.
This game brings back sssooo many memories. It was one of the first D&D games I played on PC. D&D was a lot harder then. A level 1 thief could be one shot by a rodent!
The game lets you move around with the keyboard, if you have a full keyboard. On the number pad: 7 turns to the left, 9 turns to the right, 8 is forward, 4 and 6 strafe, etc..
Ive played DarkSun I dont know how many times when i was a kid. once recently too :D
This game was almost a direct copy of the original 1983 PnP RPG, at least as much as the Tech of the time would allow. That was only to the game's benefit. It COULD be a really fantastic experience to see a modern remake, not of this game, but of that original D&D Module. It's just filled with memorable characters, bursting with Gothic Mood, and tons of challenges of all kinds.
I enjoy this trilogy a great deal, and it does indeed appear during this mid-90s dark age where no-one seems to talk about it. I know that you did Stone Prophet, but please also do a video about Menzoberranzan. Some of the voice acting in that is... memorable.
By the way, you can also move with the numpad. Arrows for going forward/backwards and strafing left/right. And 7+9 for turning left and right. It's actually quite WASD for its time. And in that sense, controls better than Ultima Underworld.
5:13 Thanks a bunch, now I can't ever see being pulled into the Demiplane of Dread as anything else but the Dark Powers sending a truck from out of thin air to hit the chosen candidate...
My respect to developers! Even though one can see, that you can avoid all of the Ravenloft lore and specifically Strahd's backstory, I do appreciate all of the tips and clues of his backstory through out this game. Those who know the lore can appreciate the references, and those who dive deep, can figure out the story themselves.
Overall wonderful video and I am glad that it got into my recommendations!
I've never played curse of strahd personally but my understanding is that it's only barely related to the original domain. Unfortunately Wizards seems intent on reducing Ravenloft to a series of one shot fun houses instead of it being a real campaign setting.
@@KS-PNW They did a decent job with cos, the problem is that one should read extra material to really get things. About ravenloft in general. Yeah, they tried to give a lot of ravenloft inspiration in VGTR, but most of it is based of materials from the previous editions. It's not as good, but it's better than nothing
"My sister is dead"
"My condolences. Here, this pile of dust should help"
I decided to play this game because of how much I liked its soundtrack. Took a break almost right before the Strahd battle and ended up spilling a whole glass of water on my laptop before finishing the game. lmao
There was also Menzobarranzan (1994), also made by SSI on the same engine. Another great DnD game.
i would just like to point out that the sound and voice acting is actual really good for a game like this that this old.
This game has so many memorable things. The "whooouushh" of the magic missile, the "ga-HUH!!" Sound the skeletons make, and the music... I remember the first time I heard the song that plays when you talk to the bard woman, I found myself mesmerized by it. It was so uplifting and regal.
This game had a great mood, mixing horror and the occult with a feeling of misery and hopelessness. I'm actually playing a DnD campaign for the first time of curse of Strahd and since I'm incredibly familiar with this game, I'm seeing how close the two are in plotlines and such. Great video mate.
That castle in Barovia looks like a hand coming out of the earth to give the city below it a giant finger! (2:11)
"Welcome back to Elturel! Now we'll laugh and savor our victory for years to come!"
top 10 moments before disaster
It's bonkers that I've only just found this channel, great quality work! Looking forward to watching the older content and seeing new stuff as it comes!
Ayyy! I had this and the Menzoberranzan one in a pack, and Stone Prophet. I seem to remember beating Strahd, or getting really far, but super little details of it; I absolutely remember beating Stone Prophet and feeling super accomplished about it, hahah.
The SSI series of DnD games was actually quite good. It was only that the company basically re-released the game every year or so with minor system upgrades and a new story and characters. Still the 'new' game was compelling enough to later spawn one of the first MMORPG with Neverwinter, which existed briefly during the dial up internet times in the mid 90s but is now almost completely forgotten, Ultima Online took what brief fame it had.. It is not to be confused with Biowares Neverwinter Nights which came much later.
Back in the 80's I played a lot of the SSI games. Bitter and sweet times for SSI. Thanks a bunch for reviewing this treasure!
Stone Prophet took all the good things about this game and took um up 10 notches.. and a few of the bad things too.. but I loved it.
An excellent review, most creative, thorough review of this game I’ve ever encountered. Thank you.
These dives into classic D&D video games are real enjoyable. I remember playing the dark sun gold box games back in the day. Never to completion, but I sure enjoyed them
I figured Curse of Strahd was a reintroduction since they have been reintroducing a lot into 5e, but I didn't realize it was so old or had a game. Fun
The game specifically is INCREDIBLY forgotten.
I only knew about it because I stumbled across it in a list. I've asked a few older players about it and none of them knew it existed!
@@WilliamSRD Oh wow, guess it ended up just buried to time
quite a bit of the stuff they have done is a remake :) Eberron was almost word for word the same as the 3rd ed :(
Yes, sweet summer child, we have had many winters.
@@MythicMoonlight this isn't curse of strahd based really, it's the classic Barovia.
fucking classic. I had first played the non CD rom version of Strahd's Possession which lacked voice etc. I always loved the SSI series that allowed you to import your characters from one to another. Jumping into Stone Prophet with your party from Strahd was great (though Stone Prophet wasnt as good)
Dear god was this entertaining, and it was so cool to finally watch a really in depth video on a game I wish I could have played back when I had the patience to deal with its bs. Thanks so much for making this!
Ravenloft as isekai? Hmmm. So would truck-kun be a monster that chucks you into another plane after killing you in combat, or is it tied to a cursed magic item? "Ring of Vehicular Manslaughter" or somesuch?
It’s Silent Hill entrance, if you see a fog in the place that shouldn’t be there, you’re isekai’ed. Other option is getting punch in the face with Plane Shift spell
My favorite of the classic DD from SSI was Dark Sun Shattered Lands
Just a little constructive criticism...
What I like about your videos is the in-depth coverage of old D&D games. The moment you said you weren't going in-depth on aspects of this one (the primary villain at that) I tuned out instantly. Deep dives are supposed to go deep, especially on very important elements like villains and settings.
I get why you didn't want to do it, but it doesn't make for a compelling reason to watch the video. "I'm going to play this one, but I'm not going to give you the content I do in every other video of this type I've done."
I went and played this game after watching your review. This was a great RPG, such amazing atmosphere
SSI was an amazing game making company. I remember playing the heck out of their Stronghold game.
ravenloft was like the high end of the SSI games
I was eleven when this came out, I remember playing it with my older cousin. I still have the original game in box. Good review, I shall subscribe!
Really like these videos of old games that I, not only didn't know exist, also won't play even knowing they exist.
35:50 Aww, come on man. It's okay to embrace the low-hanging fruit sometimes! "Accosted by more unsolicited wood than a woman on tinder" was _right there_ and you could have even had bonus Halloween points if you pulled up some old art of a witch burning or something.
For real though I love this video and definitely have to sub now.
I legitimately had an existential crisis deciding on my level of maturity when I scripted that part!
@@WilliamSRD Oh, fair enough lol. I understand it could be hard deciding on what kind of audience you'd want to appeal to when trying to commit to a TH-cam channel.
Ahh, level drain. Remember when monsters in D&D could scare players?
I played a little ADnD and a LOT of 2nd edition. I'm about 10 sessions into a 5e campaign and it is insane how coddled players are in 5e. I've talked them all into playing a campaign I'm goin to DM..... In Dark Sun.
They have only played 5e. They have no idea.
Wow that was entertaining! I love your style of video
If I recall there's a few parts to the original Ravenloft that aren't in the main campaign book like The secret of Bone Hill, which had it's own module. As someone who hasn't played the 5e version yet I can't remember if they were included in Curse of Strad to make Baroviva more complete without extra splat books.
Also, that woman you passed on in the green, her brother is a Lupe Garuo. She's quite good too.
That was awesome! A pleasant nostalgic trip. :)
Just found this channel tonight. Leaving it because your intro explicitly stated it would avoid giving me the interesting information I came for. D&d is barely older than I am, so in this case, avoiding so called, "spoilers" means you skipped all the content I showed up for. I don't see how this could be entertaining while avoiding everything about the main subject. Good luck, I'm moving onto a channel that isn't afraid to inform me.
Strahd fight an underwhelming cakewalk? Oh cool, just like in I6 and Curse of Strahd.
Yeah.. at least in the original version Strahd was more than a match for anything short of a top tier level party.
20th level fighter/ 16th level magic user AND a vampire, dude could wreck shop!
@@KS-PNW That's true! Maybe our DM just gave out too many magic items. It's been awhile since I've even looked at I6, but IIRC the sunsword BALANCED the scales of that fight rather than pushed them on behalf of the players.
I was there, buying a lot of these off the shelves, fun to see them in the present :)
Great editing & comedic timing
More like this, youre very good at what you do sir and the getting paid joke was laid out progressively/brilliantly. Also, Glorianna is major offt.
13:27 That bard is definitely thumbnail material 😏
Both ravenloft games are my favourite SSI games. Love the athmosphere and the world.
Thank you for praising the music: I always tell people how good and forgoten the music ofbthis game was.
By the way, I play this one more than 10 times and I NEVER think in using only two characters. Thats insane. Only for powergaming obsesive people.
I'm so glad you've loved this game!
And yeah, having now played through the first one, I FULLY agree about taking a full 4 person party. I let power gamers in the forums scare me into thinking thee game was much harder than it was!
Besides the music, young teenage me (in 1995) playing this alone in a dark room, creeping around Barovia, enjoying the spooky atmosphere... and suddenly that cat noise! Jumped out of my skin, and more than once.
I mean they don't even power game that optimally. Fighter/cleric and fighter/mage is probably the better way. Both characters wind up spellcasting killing machines. I usually do dwarf fighter/cleric and elf fighter mage then imagine them both constantly bickering the whole time.
Ravenloft: The Quest to Get Paid
Here I thought I was done buying old retro games that I'll play maybe once, but damn did you sell it well! Got it installed on my Steam Deck for handheld retro goodness, combats a blast.
5:15 Damn you, Truck-kun!
the soundtrack of both this game and stone prophet are amazing and i have used both in my years long epic curse of strahd campaign
aye curse of Strahd, ran 3 different group thru that one, was very different for every group, save for old bonegrinder.
I know nothing of this bonegrinder, but I presume I have some nightmares in store for me in the coming sessions.
Really enjoyed this. Thank you.
I am from that generation and played a third of those games. The SSI logo didn't really lose its sheen to me. What IS wild tho is that the art style looks so very familiar across the games. It is as if the art for the entire 90s was done by the same person. Despite being very different games in very different engines Veil of Darkness and this one here look nearly identical.
9:47 It sounds like the Jaws theme bring played on an empty water jug
The twist at the end is that you end up in Elturel and therefore die horribly only a short while later. Yay!
You don't have to click on screen arrows to move those are there for involuntary direction spell effects.
Regular movement could instead be done on the number pad
12:43- Original version had the g-word used and I think the localization team--in a European area where the g-word as a term has a huge stigma and is very un-PC--convinced TSR to change it to Vistani.
I've been playing since 2e and I can't ever remember them being called the G word.
I also think that most people are smart enough to understand that the Vistanni are fictional and not intended to be an accurate representation of real world groups.
33:13
"Yeah, you just use 'Turn Undead' on them and they break!"
You use Turn Undead... on a construct... and it works? Good lord, who programmed this game?
Really fun video, and a cool game to boot.
Pre-internet, I was stuck for *YEARS* on Menzo because of a hidden door that I never found. Then I peeked at a strategy guide at an electronics shop, found out what the problem was, and finished the game that same day.
Damn, that is super solid voice acting for that era. Like shockingly good. Can't believe you trashed it.
"I wish they could've gotten a prestigious voice actor to play the part of the Big Bad Guy" doesn't qualifying as "trashing" the voice acting, really.
"Think of the exposure!" Loved it! 🤣
that was one of my favorite games...man that brings back memories
Great video 👍
I’ve been watching the unexpectables play raven loft and no matter what ravenloft I see even if straid isn’t in it you always fell his reach
If your in Barovia that's certainly true. There were lots of other domains beyond Barovia though. Beyond the other core domains (the Core was the main "continent" of Ravenloft) you had a bunch of "Islands of terror" (smaller domains scattered throughout the various seas of the coast of the core) along with "Clusters" (which were similarly themed domains that bordered each other in groups of 2-5).
It never got fleshed out but they teased the possibility of other cores waiting to be discovered in the Mists 😁
bro the reason the sound mixing is bad is because small speakers during the 90s were crap, simply because they did not have the technology to make smaller cones produce crisp sound. It actually sounds normal on era-relevant technology. They blow the music out on purpose because the software/hardware could barely produce low notes.
Like, I have a pair of full big cone speakers from the 80s "made in West Germany" linked up to my PC and they sound better than all but the highest grade consumer technology we have today, literal concert quality. When i shoot in a game i feel the sound reverberate through my chest as i am firing a real gun but at the same time it's not deafeningly loud, and that's without the subwoofer. Absolutely masterful technology that is in the process of being lost to time.
People did have good sound back then but speakers like those were mostly used for playing cassettes, DVD, TV or whatever. Just like today, they were rarely if ever used on PC.
This channel makes my life better!
Holy crap! The artwork is exceptional! Better than any game of its type.
Go play Stone Phophet
The RPGs I played when this was out were on SNES. Chrono Trigger, Breath of Fire, Tecmo Search For The Stars. Didn't play an RPG on PC until Daggerfall.
I bet the 'print' just puts a jpeg of the map in the folder that print screen puts it, where ever in windows that is. I remember another game did that rater than print.
Something I probably often forget, not playing when frustrated. Sometimes I probably tackled the challange till it let me past it and ended it there.
The music reminds me of Vagrant Story in places
I think we played different games, most of my ravenloft campaign consisted of me trying to keep Ireena from drowning herself when near any more than a thimbleful of water. Sergei my love! grblbglglgbgh!
More old DnD game reviews please!
Ahh, _just_ what I was looking for.
I beat this game when it came out, so fucking awesome! Stone Prophet and Menzoberanzan or however you spell it were also classics I played the hell out of. Menzo was weird though, started out great, got super linear and kinda boring, then ended with a bang.
Ooo, I gotta break out that monologue when I run CoS next
The audio balancing in the game is acceptable. You're playing with General MIDI music, so at the time you could have adjusted that separately, usually on an external unit. I have tried the game on a couple of machines without touching any of my usual settings, and the music doesn't drown out the sound effects. If you play with AdLib/Sound Blaster music, yes, the music gets a bit loud, but it's absolutely not to the point of what's in your video either. You might want to check out your volume settings in Windows (which is now a bit more difficult to do since Microsoft took MIDI controls away, but there are 3rd party tools for that.)