Okay, that title is bait and a reference to my last thread in here, but I'm very amused right now.
I just completed the disowned Wasteland sequel Fountain of Dreams and I'm smirking at how much Wasteland 3 takes from it. I don't know how much of this is intentional given the former game's bad reputation, but after playing it and completing Wasteland 3 just a month ago, I think it's hilarious that this post-nuclear Florida game seemingly has a bad reputation. It's a clone of Wasteland, sure, but if you like pre-Daggerfall RPGs then this isn't half-bad.
The fact that this was the first game in the Wasteland "family tree" to introduce an in-depth mutation mechanic that was later picked up on in Wasteland 3 with almost identical function and requirements to be cured is interesting on its own, but then again there's only so many ways to design a mutation mechanic in a cRPG and I suspect both games are just aping rules from older ttRPGs anyway.
I do have to wonder if Wasteland 3 consciously took the Payasos from the Klowns in this game. Two post-nuclear games featuring a villainous clown tribe is two too many, in my opinion. I did like the raid on the Klown Kollege in this game, it was a fairly standard dungeon crawl for its time. I would also say that the Payasos are about as fleshed out as the Klowns, and in fact the Klowns have an edge since you can recruit one of them into your party. Wasteland 3's gangs are all wasted potential, in my opinion.
The overall game design is eerily similar to Wasteland 3 too. Both games are front-heavy: Miami and Colorado Springs are the bulk of the adventure and you have to return there multiple times to court the tribes/political factions for each city, respectively. There's no Patriarch figure, but the Astors are a lot like the Hundred Families; you even recruit Beatrice Astor in the same way you recruit Lucia Wesson, when they're both fuming about the locals being unwilling to help them save family members.
I really like the way that Fountain of Dreams ends with discovering the literal Fountain of Youth, hoarded by the Klowns to keep humanity on the razor's edge. Is this stupid? Maybe, but I like the implication that the Miamians now have the potential to be near-immortal, mutation-resistant supermen and that the island of Florida will now enter its golden age. This game has the happiest ending of any of the Wasteland games and there's no nukes involved.
Hunting down information on Fountain of Dreams is pretty hard and the Wasteland wiki does a bad job with citations. It seems like EA purposefully obscured the fact that this was a Wasteland sequel when those rights reverted to Bryan Fargo; maybe they wanted to sit on their own post-nuclear RPG IP if they ever saw potential in it? Doubtful. If canon is something you care about, I do believe that Wasteland 2 makes overt references to Florida.
Technically in the official Wasteland timeline I think this game is a prequel rather than a sequel. On my combined timeline, I put this at 2127; fifty years after the Great War, twenty years after Wasteland 3, thirteen years before Fallout: Nevada. It's far away in another corner of the continent so it doesn't affect anything, and it gives the Payasos a conclusion. If this game got a Unity remaster like Wasteland did, I don't think it would be that bad.
I just completed the disowned Wasteland sequel Fountain of Dreams and I'm smirking at how much Wasteland 3 takes from it. I don't know how much of this is intentional given the former game's bad reputation, but after playing it and completing Wasteland 3 just a month ago, I think it's hilarious that this post-nuclear Florida game seemingly has a bad reputation. It's a clone of Wasteland, sure, but if you like pre-Daggerfall RPGs then this isn't half-bad.
The fact that this was the first game in the Wasteland "family tree" to introduce an in-depth mutation mechanic that was later picked up on in Wasteland 3 with almost identical function and requirements to be cured is interesting on its own, but then again there's only so many ways to design a mutation mechanic in a cRPG and I suspect both games are just aping rules from older ttRPGs anyway.
I do have to wonder if Wasteland 3 consciously took the Payasos from the Klowns in this game. Two post-nuclear games featuring a villainous clown tribe is two too many, in my opinion. I did like the raid on the Klown Kollege in this game, it was a fairly standard dungeon crawl for its time. I would also say that the Payasos are about as fleshed out as the Klowns, and in fact the Klowns have an edge since you can recruit one of them into your party. Wasteland 3's gangs are all wasted potential, in my opinion.
The overall game design is eerily similar to Wasteland 3 too. Both games are front-heavy: Miami and Colorado Springs are the bulk of the adventure and you have to return there multiple times to court the tribes/political factions for each city, respectively. There's no Patriarch figure, but the Astors are a lot like the Hundred Families; you even recruit Beatrice Astor in the same way you recruit Lucia Wesson, when they're both fuming about the locals being unwilling to help them save family members.
I really like the way that Fountain of Dreams ends with discovering the literal Fountain of Youth, hoarded by the Klowns to keep humanity on the razor's edge. Is this stupid? Maybe, but I like the implication that the Miamians now have the potential to be near-immortal, mutation-resistant supermen and that the island of Florida will now enter its golden age. This game has the happiest ending of any of the Wasteland games and there's no nukes involved.
Hunting down information on Fountain of Dreams is pretty hard and the Wasteland wiki does a bad job with citations. It seems like EA purposefully obscured the fact that this was a Wasteland sequel when those rights reverted to Bryan Fargo; maybe they wanted to sit on their own post-nuclear RPG IP if they ever saw potential in it? Doubtful. If canon is something you care about, I do believe that Wasteland 2 makes overt references to Florida.
Technically in the official Wasteland timeline I think this game is a prequel rather than a sequel. On my combined timeline, I put this at 2127; fifty years after the Great War, twenty years after Wasteland 3, thirteen years before Fallout: Nevada. It's far away in another corner of the continent so it doesn't affect anything, and it gives the Payasos a conclusion. If this game got a Unity remaster like Wasteland did, I don't think it would be that bad.