Good ol' Sucia Island

[Student of Trinity]

Anyone played both G2 and G3 and then gone back to G1? How does good ol' Sucia Island look, after you've seen the Ashen Isles? Better? Worse? Better or worse because of the added context of knowing the future, or for other reasons?

[MrRoivas]

Different. All games have their strengths.

[Suspicious Vlish]

I found Geneforge 1 to be the most enjoyable. I don't like the 'new' creations you make/fight... they are unimaginative and overpowered.

 

I long for the days when Drayks were at the top of the pecking order.

[Marlenny]

I loved it. Sucia Island looked to cool and different. I had forgotten lots of things, so it was cool going through them again.

[shell]

I was a bit shocked at the dearth of spells in GF1, I had forgotten how many spells were added for the sequels.

[Contra]

I really enjoyed to go "back to basic". I agree that the new creations in G2 and G3 are just too powerful sometimes.

[Icshi]

Geneforge 1 is a real classic in every sense of the word.

 

In retrospect, probably the best thing about the first game is how much it encapsulated with minimal story elements. It showed the player so much by showing so little, giving you both an insider's and outsider's view of Shaper society without actually depicting it, but by letting you explore the ruins of their handiwork. This always fires the imagination more than a detailed first-person exploration of a living and breathing Shaper colony, such as we encountered in a limited way in Geneforge 2 and then fully in 3.

 

It showed traditional Shaper procedures, and then the introduction of a "rogue" element in the form of Danette's Geneforge project. And then outsiders come along, see the injustice of Shaper tradition, and decide to use that rogue element to rectify Shaper injustice. And you're thrown in the middle and get to choose how to influence events.

 

Pure classic. I'm almost—almost, mind you—sorry that such a game was followed by sequels. The sequels added their own variations on this theme, and carried it through pretty well, though neither equaled the first in terms of originaltiy, impact, and overall story quality.. But future games in the series will have to work very hard to get up to the first game's very high standards.

 

I think after I'm done playing Geneforge 3 through again, I may go back and play the first game one more time. I've played through the first one about three or four times, since it's so good.

 

The best thing that could happen, in my opinion, in a Geneforge 4 is for the Shapers to split into sects, arguing over how many of their "barred" experiements—including the Geneforge—should be used in fighting their war with Ghaldring. They're loosing the war, and are desperate for anything that'll give them an edge. (My character at the end of the third game was all souped-up on canisters yet fighting for the Shapers, and I wasn't just tolerated by most other Shapers for my artificial abilties but valued for them, and this shows that the schism is already starting.) That would bring the real moral dilemma absent especially in Geneforge 3. Should they use the powers that enabled their enemy to appear in order to defeat that enemy? Will using such knowledge and powers cause them to become just like the enemy they hate so much?