It's not as bad as it sounds. There's plenty of healing plants and combinables, even things that work for the whole group (MC + 3 Pawns). Plus the Pawns you hire can be a Mage class or any of the first 6 vocations. They can't be the hybrid classes.
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That was the most intriguing RPG for me personally, and graphically it was really appealing to me. It still looks great, I wish I could finish the game on my own, maybe some day.

I remember how local BBS channels exploded when Shadow over Riva was announced. Those were the days (with limited or even cut internet), *sigh* ;)

Thing is:
* I still like to have healing *abilities*, specifically ones that I can choose to put resources into developing, rather than just consumables.
* I tend to favor healing abilities, even in games where it's not the best strategy.
* (Worth noting, in an MMO, I would prefer to play a healer rather than a tank or DPS. Similarly, in a TTRPG, I would play a healer role if there is one (though I'd prefer a non-religious one, so I'd rather play a mage with healing spells than a cleric, if the game allows).)

You list Sorcerer twice here.

I haven't heard the term BBS is a long time lol. That brings back some memories.
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Fixed. Thanks for pointing it out. This is what happens when I let Word proofread for me. :)
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Healer is one of my favorite classes also, though whenever possible I like to play a mage/healer hybrid. Which was the case in Drakensang, though it took longer to get the healing spell for the particular class I chose. And I loved playing my Warden in the MMO Everquest 2. Though the Enchanter was a close second. :)

DDDA only has one save. I don't know the reason why, maybe due to the online play or maybe they wanted you to make choices and live with them and replay to try again next time. The game is quite replayable with a lot to do even after you beat the end boss. I only played the offline version though. Thankfully there was a modder that created dinput8 mod, which allowed for additional saves. I was backing each save at critical points before that, which was tedious lol.

The thing about DDDA, is the casting times are rather long and being a fast-paced action RPG, you couldn't play a healer like you would in other games like Baldur's Gate. Think of this as more like Fallout 3 and stim packs. A dedicated healer might be fun to play while supporting your three Pawns. But the devs didn't go with that design choice, so what can you do. BTW, there are augments and items that speed up casting times and longer casting times just meant you had to think more strategically with a Mage or Sorcerer.

Despite giving up the healing spell, I loved playing the Sorcerer over the Mage. Maybe I'm a Wizard at heart a bit more than I am a Priest.
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Actually, I'd go further:
* For me, one healing spell is not enough for me to feel satisfied. I prefer there to be a variety of healing spells and abilities, with different properties (weak party heal that costs nothing, heal party based off current HP, healing spells that are fast or slow, healing over time, overhealing (restoring HP above its normal maximum), heal based off *physical* attack power, healing inactive party members, healing that's cheap and powerful but unreliable, and so on). Just one isn't really enough.

And that's why I mentioned my Warden from EQ2, since that class had all the things you just mentioned. But I don't play MMOs anymore. At least not until they come out with a true and genuine full immersion VR RPG with the quality gear to match.

Trust me, I was a bit leery about playing DDDA myself after hearing about long cast times and such. And I forgot to mention, the healing spell is a fixed location spell, not a target specific spell, which I'm sure you'll hate even more.

But it's like the old saying, never judge a book by its cover and I did that with DDDA for a while. Now that I tried it (granted with mods) I love the game and wondered why I didn't try it sooner. DDDA is not for everyone, but it has its unique charm.

This doesn't change the fact that I still love BG series, PST (original, haven't tried EE, though I own it), Ultima series, Fallout series and so many others that have enriched my life or maybe ruined my life, depending on how you look at it lol. When you obsess about one thing, you end up giving up something else in some cases. At least for me anyway. :)
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Dragon Age: Origins was my favorite. A character should be a character, not a bunch of stats. And the way your character starts is dependant on your character selection, and that just made me love it.

The Co8 modded Temple of Elemental Evil had a similar startup if I recall correctly. And has a very robust party creation, as others said.

I love character creation. I didn't a good hour on almost every RPG I play on character creation in game, and probably a few hours out of game. It's so fun for me that often times the actual game is nowhere near as fun. I love to imagine the possibilities of the character, but many games leave me disappointed. I hate when they give you useless options that you want to use. For example, a very persuasive, conversationalist type should be able to talk their way out of a battle in many instances and earn XP for it. But instead, your character often ends up useless.

Icewind Dale character creation is very limited though, because you don't get to choose any skills for your characters, only stats and some weapon proficiencies (at least in the first game, the 2nd offered more options, including even an attempt to make talking skills somewhat useful).
Agreed about Realms of Arkania character creation being cumbersome. But it's a pretty deep system, probably few parallels for that in video games, because you really need to create a well-rounded party covering multiple skill-sets, including non-combat ones like foraging, healing and social skills (though there are also quite a few skills which seem to be useless in the games and were just taken over from the pen and paper setting).

On that note, I also liked the party creation in Expeditions: Conquistador which is similar in that non-combat skills like hunting matter (and which also has values for traits like racism, tolerance, cowardice, piety etc., which influence the reactions of party members to your actions), but of course that's not an rpg in the strict sense, more of a hybrid.

Reminds me of the Healing Field spell in Castlevania: Curse of Darkness.

That particuilar Castlevania game is interesting in that healing magic is more readily available than is typical for the series; you get a fairy familiar early on, and depending on how you develop her, she learns different healing spells, including:
* Standard immediate heals, but they cost a fair amount of heath
* A heal over time spell
* Healing Field, which heals you while you're standing in the spot the spell is cast; notably, this spell is quite efficient
* A spell that uses slots to determine the healed amount
* Gold Heal, which heals you fully for a low cost in hearts, but uses up a lot of gold (more than you'd pay for healing items, but the number of buyable healing items you can carry is extremely limited)

In CV: CoD, the Healing Field spell is relegated to out-of-combat healing (because there's other alternatives that are more convenient during battle), but it can be fun to try and get the spell to work during a boss fight. (Note that this game is an action game, and bosses arr action game boss fights.)

(Also, it's possible to create extra fairies if you want more healing, or want the spells you didn't get with the first one.)

Co8 and Temple Plus FTW. :)

I don't think I could ever play the vanilla game ever again for ToEE. The fans modded or patched many games in a way it was meant to be. Something the devs should have achieved but didn't. Oh, and I loved DOA w/ the Exp and all its DLCs too.

RPG and character creation seem to be synonymous, well maybe not lol, but sometimes it feels that way. I know some people love to jump right into the game, but I also know many of us love the creation process (and sometimes hate that we love it, since it can be such a time sink =P), but that's why we come back for more lol.

I mean, how often do we get to recreate ourselves in real life? :)
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I never played any of the Castlevania games or at least I don't think so. I have a vague sense I might have back in the 80s or 90s, not sure though. Closest I can relate to it these days would be the Netflix animated series lol.

Well, that's a lot of different healing types for one character. Yet it certainly reminds me of the Warden for the most part. EQ2 had other healing classes of course, but the Wardens heals were very much heal over time (HoT), though they did have some triggered heals and such, as well as a few instant heals.

I guess if we play enough RPGs we run into a lot of variations when it comes to healing classes. I personally love to play healing classes that aren't locked into a typical priest or cleric class. It'd be wonderful to customize at certain levels or ranks. Mixing healing with damage or CC or any number or combinations. Or just flat out make your own spells lol.

I know I played a few games that had limited versions of that, I can't recall which ones they were at the moment. I don't recall details of past games to quite the level you're able to. :)
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It would be nice if all games had that, especially since a lot of simply don't have time to replay a game over and over. Though some games do have a respec option in some form. At least some games we play allow that, so it's all bad I guess.

Divinity Original Sin has that option if I recall, though you have to rebuy all the skillbooks if I'm not mistaken, which would kind of suck.

Well, here's to hoping that current and future developers are more flexible with the characters they provide us. More choices are always more fun for us players when it comes to the control and creation of our characters. Not to say that pre-determined classes are bad depending on how they developed the game. But more of a personal preference.
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This particular Castlevania game is not typical when it comes to healing. Aside from being one of the few 3D Castlevanias that exist, it's also the only game in the series to give you non-item healing capabilities right from the start. One thing, however, is that I consider these games to be action games rather than RPGs. (Curse of Darkness, to my knowledge, is the only 3D Castlevania to have experience points.)

Mixing healing with other abilities can be done in some games. For example, in Wizardry 8, a Priest can be built to be able to do decent damage (despite having only Mage-level attack ratings, meaning the second attack comes rather late), or you could play a Vallkyrie or Lord. Then there's also a Bard instrument and a Gadget that can be used, by different classes, to heal. If you want to make your own healing spells, look at the Elder Scrolls series; every main series TES game except Skyrim lets you make your own spells, and later games also let you make potions; Morrowind even lets you enchant items with healing effects.


Speaking of triggered heals, Etrian Odyssey 3 has some of those. My favorite, however, is a passive skill, found on the main healing class (Monk, who is also the martial artist class), that restores the character's TP (equivalent of MP in other RPGs) whenever a party member dies (and Monks get a revive skill); there's also a Ninja skill that creates a decoy party member with low HP who draws attacks, and said decoy's death will trigger that TP restore. (Also, there's a Ninja (IIRC) skill that damages enemies when a party member dies.)