I only played Darklands for like maybe an hour before, but it wasn't anything like TOEE as far as I remember. TOEE is a pretty unique beast.

It's nice to see Fire Emblem get a mention. To be honest I wouldn't have described it as similar to ToEE myself, but it is nonetheless an incredible series. I must have spent about 300 hours on Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones.

Seriously, I maxed all the stats of my link team. Even luck.

Wasn't there a post in this thread with a link to some indie dev with a bunch of freeware, D&D-based games? I wanted to try them, but now the link has disappeared.

Goldbox series were pretty good. To me they are still better then BG (combatwise)

The Gold Box Series were, in my mind, the best RPG experiences of their day. I spent MANY, MANY hours in Phlan exploring, leveling up and completing quests. They also had a great turn based combat system as you mentioned with the ability to very precisely place spells and use chacrater placement strategies to great advantage.

The downside... The graphics/ Even as fond of those games as I am (and if GOG ever aquires the rights its an instant buy for me for each and every one, including the Dragonlance setting ) Even with that level of fondness and nostalgia glasses I cringe a bit at my memories of the pixelated stick figure graphics used.

Oh and if someone already mentioned this I apologize, but I'd throw Arcanum out as a suggestion for those that liked ToEE. Its also by Troika and though there are issues (which you can certainly read about in the Arcanum forum) it was a very solid game and one I can honestly say changed the way I looked at rpgs in a very GOOD way.