Of course there were tons of old school games that were bad.
Shadowrun returns was horrible. You can't even put Shadowrun and Wasteland in the same sentence in my book. Wasteland 1 was a true sandbox - go anywhere do what you want, even if it means walking into a high level area and getting wasted at level 1. The new Shadowrun is completely linear and boring. However, it has prescripted dialogue trees the same way that Underrail does so in that sense they are the same (and the NPC interaction is horribly boring for me in both).
Every single core element of Underrail was implemented, at least in part, by one or another c64 game back in the 80's. I have no idea how you are going to talk about letting old ideas rest in peace.... if you like Underrail that means you like the old ideas. You can not name one new innovation in Underrail, and that is perfectly fine. It has 90% of the best elements from the old games. But there is still another 10% of the (good) old ideas that could be added imo. Hybrid dialogues is one of them.
Do me a favor: spend 10 minutes and download a c64 emulator, and track down the roms for a game called 'newcomer'. It is, I think, one of the most complex/deep/interesting/difficult RPG's in the history of cRPG's (orders of magnitude more difficult than Underrail). If you play this for a bit and still think the complexity of hybrid dialogue is a bad thing, I will be surprised. Then again, many would only see the graphics and write it off.
I see you're not getting the point I'm making about the Shadowrun - it's a KS made game which didn't really work. It has the same world, similar karma system and tries hard to emulate 'good old times'. It failed. The only new game I can think of (maybe there are some indies, I guess Spiderweb Software games) using 'typing in' kind of interface is just the Wasteland 2 which conveniently hasn't been released. Why should it work? Because 'it's sandbox game'? Because it worked before? Look how Duke Nukem failed when it tried to answer the nostalgia call (I'm not saying it's crash is only this... nope). And here you are asking it to be put into the game again... to add eastereggs. To add more content only for those foolhardy enough to find the little bit of dialogue hidden from us. Like somebody asked up in the thread - what is the point? Other people will feel like being cut off from the meat of the game. Not everybody likes hunting for little hints. For me it's too much of a reminder how poetry lessons were in school or at college.
Getting out to the masses isn't a bad thing. Artificially making game harder is. I'm not talking about Dark Souls style of difficulty. More like when you can only save at checkpoints. Badly put checkpoints. Or forcing player to learn new language just to play the game (it's kinda okay in puzzle games tho). Our hobby is no longer just a few guys in a room with a dice. It's for others too. I don't care for elitism in any form, and it sure smells like one.
Every single core element... do you mean every single core element of RPGs? Because if that's the case then we can be bold and say that cRPGs are just RL RPGs. The only thing changed is medium right? Inventory, skills, statistics, talking to NPCs... and mind you even when playing paper RPGs you're forced to do sentences. To 'talk', not just spew numbers and 'critical' single words. At least that's how it worked when my GM was having fun with us... so if we're going about what was first, then obviously the 'word is a key' is something that was cut down, right? ;]. To met the expectations of computer gaming...
It's all about the implementation. It's true that the things that you're dismissing with 'if only graphic matter for you' are important too! Hell. I play roguelikes when I need one thing. Skyrim when other, and Counter Strike or some MMO when another. Yes sometimes graphic matter too. You know, immersion? How the dragon roars, the screen shakes and fire sizzles? It's a lot different then it's just written on the screen. We are beings who use our touch and our eyes to maximum.
And I do think that getting back to the 'write the word and hope it's the correct one' minigame each time I'm talking to NPC (and guessing which has a line attached to it) is going back to old ways. That is why I said that we should let old ideas rest. Or pixelunting if we're talking about old, stupid rituals. Also the 'writing the stuff down' idea... if a company will give me compelling story I will just sit down and live this story. You don't need to use keywords to get lore done. Like in Baldur's Gate each unique magical item had it's history. Like people living in town weren't just bland NPCs. Like books in Elder Scrolls series. Even like wretched audiologs. There are much more things that can immerse in the story. I just think that some things from the older games - just like keyword searching - are just a headache and they really don't do much. And yes. It's tedious. It's not fun.
That is what I'm saying about letting the old rest. There are new things that can carry the story. In the past it wasn't possible - just because computer power limitations. Now it is... so why forcing people to turn back? Even greatest graphical fidelity won't swallow the great story. For people who came for the story.
Rant end, lol.
Anyway, I didn't play the Newcomer, but there are other ones, using this system I did (I'm more Amiga generation). And, to be honest most of the time I had the feeling that RPG I'm playing is getting out the great story omitting the awful player interface. Of course I wasn't thinking that at the time I was playing it for the first time... but then I didn't know anything better that existed. I do now. That is why I react so violently to anyone trying to backtrack
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