[PC] Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (1985)

How:
Got it for free on GOG.
Notes:
I solved the game almost entirely on my own, except for the dungeon maps.
I never found and used the silver horn to bypass the 100 daemons guarding the shrine of humility. I instead fought all of them.
Pros:
- Heavily dialogue-based, makes exploration interesting and rewarding
- Some convenient interface changes, also easier and quicker fights
- You can ask people to join the party
- Very non-linear
- Battles take place in several different environments, allowing for some strategy
- Food depletes slowly, is shared within the party, and is not a hassle anymore
- Finally, enemies have no diagonal movement (still diagonal attack though)
Cons:
- No music in the original PC version
- Combat can be very slow when many characters are involved
- Getting a ship is still a pain in the ass
- Ships can be destroyed even when parked, forcing you to find another one
- Wind when sailing is still a HUGE pain in the ass

My final character stats.

Only 91,682 turns!

An Indiana Jones reference!

Encounters on bridges involve trolls. Nice touch!

Gazers - another type of beholders (strictly speaking these are all called "beholderkin").

[PC] Ultima III: Exodus (2012 VGA upgrade) (1983)

How:
Got with a Ultima I+II+III sale at GOG.
Pros:
- Finally with music!
- The tactical turn-based combat adds a new dimension to the series
- More items and weapons than the predecessors
- Magic is an important and fun part
- Not a grindfest for the most part
- Dungeon crawling is actually fun and useful
Cons:
- Still no diagonal movement / attack (although the enemies can)
- Wind in the world map is super annoying and makes you waste frigate turns for no reason at all
- The 5s timer for turns is very stressful, especially during combat
- Monsters are not visible in the dungeons, they just attack out of nowhere
- Food is a real pain, and can be drained (unfairly) by invisible gremlins in the dungeons
- Boats spawn very infrequently
- Still a lot to grind

I managed to teleport without boat into the water.

The disappointing ending with my final party.

[PC] Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress (2001 EGA upgrade) (1982)

How:
Got it with a Ultima I+II+III sale at GOG.
Pros:
- Exploring the world across time and space can be fun
- Better monster sprites in the dungeons
Cons:
- No diagonal movement (while monsters can)
- Progress is achieved by randomly talking to all characters and slaying innocents (e.g. prison guards) in order to access otherwise unreachable areas. This kills role playing completely.
- The game is basically a long, unrewarding, extremely tedious grinding fest.
- Everything must be obtained with money, which is obtained by grinding, or by random drops by killing thieves. I did not visit other planets because the fuel drop was too rare.
- Overworld monsters are too rare
- Still no music
- Planets are useless
- Too many ingame jokes

My final character.

That L-shaped piece of land is Italy. I am passing Gibraltar strait with my frigate.

I made a bridge with boats.

[PC] Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (1986 remake) (1981)

How:
Got it on GOG during a winter sale.
Pros:
- Nice and odd mixture of first-person dungeon crawler, classical fantasy rpg, and space fighting sim
- Easy to get in and strangely addictive
- Big world
- Nice little side quests
Cons:
- Not always clear what must be done in order to proceed with the story
- The world has no memory, you can kill the king and go back and he'll be there again
- No music
- Being a magician is practically useless, and you must purchase a spell for each use
- Monsters (like the skeletons) tend to be goofy
- Experience levels are useless

My final character. I got two red gems simply by repeating a quest twice.
Also, I had 88 INT at some point, but went down to 36 for no reason.

"Wandering eyes" is basically a beholder.

[C64] Warrior of Ras 1: Dunzhin (1983)

How:
Read about it from CRPGAddict.
Pros:
- Sound effects and victory music
- Some replay value (levels and events are random)
- Reaction-based traps add to the overall enjoyment
- Random dungeons reveal as you explore, which adds to the pleasure of discovery
- Nice tactical combat, in which you can choose whether to aim, force, attack, run, or hide. Attack is specific for different body parts and you have to learn the most sensitive/exposed body parts for each enemy.
Cons:
- No music during the game
- Winning or losing a battle is completely a matter of luck, as a result fights are an exercise in frustration
- The weapon and armor can break with no possible replacement
- Unnecessarily complex control system which requires you to specify how many steps to walk in which direction
- Buggy (or just awkward) player status, in which experience points and statistics fluctuate randomly
- Very high encounter rate

[PC88] Cosmic Soldier (1985)

How:
Found about this game after reading of Psychic War on the レトロゲームの塔 blog.
Pros:
- Nice setting
- The character leveling system is mildly interesting
- You can recruit allies among the enemies
- Generally well balanced, requires some strategy
- Nice variety of monsters
- The accompanying android idea is not bad
Cons:
- No music at all
- The few sound effects are unpleasant
- Requires a considerable amount of grinding
- Junk shops are totally useless
- Limited variety of weapons and armors, and no special attacks whatsoever
- Very limited and repetitive gameplay mechanics
- Only one save slot per party
- Very high encounter rate
- Ugly interface, the game could have looked much better with a bigger first-person view

My winning party. This must have been my fourth or fifth party overall.

The End. All playing characters and enemy sprites are seen dancing with pom-poms as if nothing ever happened.

[C64] Halls of Death (1983)

How:
Searched for other C64 rpg's on CRPGAddict master game list after enjoying Sword of Fargoal.
How to play:
"/" : down
":" : left
";" : right
"@" : up
"+" : use stairs
"p": spells
Movement can be made faster with F1.
Spells: Sleep (1), Teleportation (2), Lightning (3), Fireball (4).
Levels:
I was proclaimed: Apprentice Bumpkin, Yokel, Trainee Warrior, Warrior, Swashbuckler, Seasoned Adventurer, Hero, Dragon Slayer, Champion, Necromancer, Sorcerer, Superhero, Guardian.
Pros:
- Cool first-person view animation on the lower right
- Spells can be used to destroy walls in the dungeon
- The game forces you to take careful choices, because:
   1) a successful game sees you going back to the surface (i.e. you need to backtrack or teleport)
   2) stats grow with items found in the dungeons, and decrease with enemy encounters, traps and magic spells
   3) game ends when any of the three stats (Strength, Psionics, Constitution) falls below zero
   4) using spells consumes both Strength and Psionics, is not always successful and becomes mandatory at the deeper levels (vs wraiths)
   5) Strength and Psionics points can be transferred to each other with a 1:3 ratio
- Gameplay can get addictive and very tense especially during the ascent phase
- Successful ascents are very rewarding
Cons:
- Fight success only depends on the strength and magic levels of the PC
- Grinding is possible only to a limited extent, as it depends on what items you find in the dungeons and the outcome of encounters
- There is no use for the collected treasure
- No sound
- The time you can spend in the dungeon is only dictated by luck, since Constitution depletes as you fight and it can only be recovered by finding Stamina, which is rare

This is as far as I got. Getting the Lord of Light rating is a matter of grinding for treasure, perhaps one day I'll do it.

[Amiga] Dungeon Master (Psygnosis release) (1992)

How:
Had the game on Amiga as a kid but never figured out how to play it. Finally decided to give it a go after reading CRPGAddict's posts on the game.
Pros:
- Favors exploration and discovery
- Immersive and suspenseful
- Nice balance between strategic and real-time elements
- Concocting potions is a cool idea
- Excellent pacing near the end
- Combat can be challenging and rewarding
- Cool magic system, memorizing and using spells makes the difference between a good wizard player and a bad one
- Some cool spells (e.g. see through walls, invisibility)
Cons:
- Throwable weapons (arrows, shurikens) must be picked back up one by one after usage, and the space allotted for them in the inventory is limited to 5
- No music, few sound effects
- Very repetitive graphics
- Slow movements due to overloaded inventories are a real pain
- Items, weapons and armor do not have any description, except for their name and weight
- No NPCs whatsoever. Would have been nice to meet somebody at some point
- The game gets very repetitive after a while, the elements added in each dungeon are not enough to motivate progress
- Probably one or two dungeon levels too many

My winning party:

Bad ending:

Good ending:

[DS] Etrian Odyssey (2007)

How:
Somebody mentioned the game on Hardcoregaming101's forums (was looking for good DS RPG's). Got convinced by the music for the first level.

Pros:
- Amazing music by Yuzo Koshiro
- A lot of side-quests, some of which are actually nice
- Cool enemies, graphics and setting in general
- Fights can be hard and rewarding
- Well balanced for the most part
- A lot of weapons, items, magic and character classes make for many different gameplay strategies
- The mapping functionality can be fun
Cons:
- The main game is way too lengthy. Could and should have been one or two strata (5-10 levels out of 30) shorter
- Very shallow story with no side characters and rare events (and dubious ethics as well)
- Very few dialogues, cut-scenes and anything story-related
- The mapping system lacks some necessary tools, e.g. something to paint damage tiles and something to keep track of source/destination warps (quicksands, lily flowers)
- Random encounters are so very frequent

[FC] デジタル・デビル物語 女神転生 (1987)

Pro:
- La meccanica di gioco principale prevede di prendere alcuni mostri come alleati, ognuno con i suoi punti di forza e le sue magie
- I mostri si possono fondere tra di loro per crearne di nuovi
- Una volta capito il meccanismo e superate le prime difficoltà diventa divertente e strategico
- I mostri sono tanti e disegnati bene
- La possibilità di combattere in AUTO permette di sbrigare rapidamente la maggior parte degli scontri
- La morte non è permanente
- Le musiche non sono male, soprattutto quelle a fine gioco
Contro:
- Troppo difficile, senza soluzione (mappe, magie, oggetti, etc.) ci vorrebbe una vita per fare progressi
- Troppo lungo e ripetitivo
- I dungeon sono praticamente tutti uguali e poco interessanti
- La storia è raccontata per modo di dire, e a mozzichi