Top 5 rpg

yea after I look planescape torment trailer and play through, it look not that appealing, I feel too lazy to start it. I'm not Mr. Graphic Gamer, not at all, but to start something that seem not that attractive I need to force myself first (even though in the end I may find it as a master piece). I guess I will complete all series of Mass Effect.

Yeah, some of the games really only have some sort attraction when you played them when they were sort of state of the art.
I don't think you could today really convince many people to play the old iso-rpgs, because they're just too old.
Even I can't really do that anymore. Tried at some point last year to play Temple of the Elemental Evil, but directly lost motivation when I looked at it.
Okay, might have been the wrong time point, but I'm sure that these games sort of just don't work today anymore.

haroon said:

I agree with you. Storyline for me still the most important aspect in rpg, maybe it sound like inconsistent to some of you that think Elderscroll have a weak storyline, it can be truth in some case, yes I agree, or in some side quest, but it not apply all the time.

Take for example Oblivion expansion, the shivering Isles, it have a very good storyline, [...]
The things that I like is wondering around and doing the side quest, I like many of the quest in Oblivion like as I mention before the quest where you enter the painting of a painter to save the painter, the quest is short but so absurd and interesting. Also the side quest in chorol. Or when you try to figure out a mysterious murder, or a band of girl robber that haunting peoples around the city. There are many more to mention. [...]

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Yeah, that's true.
Haven't played Oblivion, but I have nice memories of the first Morrowind expansion, which was also overall interesting.
The Elder Scrolls games are just too big. If you could just condense the more interesting parts into a smaller world, that would be great.

yes you are right, I take a look of "Temple of the Elemental Evil" this is the first time I heard that game, the environment graphic look pretty much like Baldurgate even the gameplay, it remind me backthen I tried to play Baldurgate however I gave up, I cannot really enjoy the game, the combat battle etc. You know what the developer need right now? they need to remake good game with the new technology. And this what they always promise to the gamer but so far the promise just remain a promise.

I think the new gamer also want to try to epic/legend from the old game but they unable to connect with the epicness of the story because of technology limitation, while the old gamer, who haven't try other game that consider to be legendary, hardly try the new one because again, they must bear the graphic limitation, poor gameplay mechanic, in order to get the honey of the games (they must stand all those bees and suffering that circling it). While the one who already played that game, also eager want to replay it in better or even far superior version.

Just imagine chrono trigger remake, final fantasy 7 remake, baldurgate remake, original bard tale remake, ultima remake, planescape torment remake, I think that will be awesome.

I think this is a new market possibility that Square enix, Bethesda, Bioware, Obsidian haven't notice yet, they should feed this demand and it do have a valid demand in my opinion.

My personal faves were Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI and VII, Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Clear bias, I suppose, to the JRPG-style and more action-oriented Zelda games. I haven't played any in a long while, though, so I've missed the good releases in the last decade.

Honorable mentions go to Final Fantasy Tactics--loved the story, loved the character-building idea, but the balance was just horrible. Very similar criticism for VIII--good story and bad balance. The SNES/Playstation Ogre Battle was another game I liked but never played enough of to call a favorite.

A Link to the Past is one of my favorite games ever, but I don't feel like Zelda games are really RPGs. I mean, just because you're wielding a sword and it's a fantasy setting doesn't mean it's an RPG. They're pretty much action-puzzle-adventure type games. I was just talking about Dark Souls in another thread and now I found myself wondering how it would be an RPG while Zelda wouldn't qualify for me. I mean, Dark Souls also has the whole action-adventure-puzzle thing going. I guess it's all the stats, the huge weapon/armor selection and builds you can do, and all the NPCs you can interact with, make decisions about, and even kill, and the consequences of these things, plus the various covenants you can join or not join. Plus it's not linear.

I consider Zelda an RPG because it has quest mechanics, and you do have some form of "leveling" in the sense that you acquire new abilities and increase your heart gauge throughout the game. But yeah, it has significant action and puzzle elements.

The Lufia series are probably games that tows the line a bit closer to the RPG side of that spectrum.

In recent memory, New Vegas (the ultimate first-person RPG IMO - even the FPS nature of the game is RPGified by the fantastic VATS system).

Older games would include Ultima 6 and 7 (the best open-world RPGs ever), Wizardry 7 & 8 (the best party-development & tactics RPGs ever, all IMHO of course). I've played a ton of RPGs and RPG-esque games over the decades, but these are the ones that stand out as really being close to my ideal.

haroon said:

yes you are right, I take a look of "Temple of the Elemental Evil" this is the first time I heard that game, the environment graphic look pretty much like Baldurgate even the gameplay, it remind me backthen I tried to play Baldurgate however I gave up, I cannot really enjoy the game, the combat battle etc. You know what the developer need right now? they need to remake good game with the new technology. And this what they always promise to the gamer but so far the promise just remain a promise.

I think the new gamer also want to try to epic/legend from the old game but they unable to connect with the epicness of the story because of technology limitation, while the old gamer, who haven't try other game that consider to be legendary, hardly try the new one because again, they must bear the graphic limitation, poor gameplay mechanic, in order to get the honey of the games (they must stand all those bees and suffering that circling it). While the one who already played that game, also eager want to replay it in better or even far superior version.

Just imagine chrono trigger remake, final fantasy 7 remake, baldurgate remake, original bard tale remake, ultima remake, planescape torment remake, I think that will be awesome.

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Yeah, if you can't really play Baldur's Gate, I wouldn't recommend Planescape: Torment. The graphics in Planescape: Torment are worse than Baldur's Gate, and the combat not as good. Even the story takes a while to discover. I like the plot (as I said, it takes a while before you figure out what's going on), but the concept has been repeated since then. I can't count how many rpg's have you losing your memory.

If zelda games are rpgs, then dead space definitely counts. Deadspace 1 and 2 have equipment upgrades you unlock by finding items and spending resources. However I wouldn't consider either an rpg.

While rpg just stands for role playing game which is extremely broad, the hallmarks of rpgs are that you can change the game by how you play the role, whether that is customization of your character (stats, skills, leveling up, equipment) or interaction with npcs to change the story line (like multiple endings and paths) or choosing which parts of the story to play (like multiple storylines, non linear some mutually exclusive at times). Zelda doesn't really have any of those. It's very linear, you cannot beat X dungeon without equipment from Y dungeon in most cases. While you unlock equipment it is almost always in linear form and while you can unlock different levels of swords and find heart pieces and stuff it doesn't have any stats really. You don't customize Link or level him up. You also can't affect the story via npc interaction. Dead space is same thing, linear, no npc interaction that affects anything. I consider them both action/adventure genre.

Contrast that to mass effect 2 which many consider a very lite rpg and some argue isn't one at all. It has custom skills and leveling up. You can set your character's appearance. You can play the story out in a non linear way although there are major linear plot points. How you interact with npcs changes the game as it progresses as well as the final outcome.

As for playing mass effect all the way through, there's no need to play 1 before 2. There's very little plot interaction. There's a couple things but it's basically only 2 npcs affected. Mainly you'll just have a ton of paragon/renegade points which can unlock some npc responses which can be crucial but there's other ways to get these points.

Going from 2 to 3 though is a little different because certain npc interactions are only available depending on how 2 played out. For example some of your crew doesn't survive 2 unless you do specific things and they won't show up in 3. There's potential for like 8 different old crew members to show up I think, quite a few more than going from 1 to 2. Also you can continue a romance with a character from 2 if you reject all other npc romance options. So it's definitely not necessary to import a 2 playthrough into 3 but it is interesting and a lot more worthwhile than importing 1 into 2. I should note though you also retain your level from 2 so you get a ton of ability points right off the bat and it makes combat easy.

Disgustipated said:

Yeah, if you can't really play Baldur's Gate, I wouldn't recommend Planescape: Torment. The graphics in Planescape: Torment are worse than Baldur's Gate, and the combat not as good. Even the story takes a while to discover. I like the plot (as I said, it takes a while before you figure out what's going on), but the concept has been repeated since then. I can't count how many rpg's have you losing your memory.

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I have trouble playing baulder's gate and neverwinter nights because of the d&d style. Neverwinter actually plays out in die roll rounds painfully slow. If you move next to an npc you get extra hit rolls just like real d&d rules. It might as well be turn based combat. If you don't know all the rules it's freakin hard and the stats are confusing. I much prefer d&d inspired rule sets like world of wacraft and dragon age origins.

Disgustipated said:

Yeah, if you can't really play Baldur's Gate, I wouldn't recommend Planescape: Torment. The graphics in Planescape: Torment are worse than Baldur's Gate, and the combat not as good. Even the story takes a while to discover. I like the plot (as I said, it takes a while before you figure out what's going on), but the concept has been repeated since then. I can't count how many rpg's have you losing your memory.

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I can play Baldur's gate but I hardly enjoy it, and indeed Baldur's Gate is a hard game even from the beginning, I easily finished neverwinter night and I do enjoy the game.

And btw thanks for the honest and straight forward commentary, if the combat and graphic are worst than Baldur's Gate than this game is not (yet) for me.

I consider myself already played huge amount of rpg game, as I only mostly play rpg game myself, I don't play sport game, racing, all kind of sims game etc, except 2D fighting game (backthen), few strategy game and rpg.

My all time favourite RPG is Ultima 7, because at the time it sort of blew me away.

warpus said:

My all time favourite RPG is Ultima 7, because at the time it sort of blew me away.

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Yeah, I've been meaning to play it again.

It seems nobody likes Ultima 8. It is the only Ultima i have played and enjoyed it very much.

Thorgalaeg said:

It seems nobody likes Ultima 8. It is the only Ultima i have played and enjoyed it very much.

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It's underrated I'd say. It's a bit of a weird buggy mess and obtuse, but I also enjoyed it more than I hated it.

Thorgalaeg said:

It seems nobody likes Ultima 8. It is the only Ultima i have played and enjoyed it very much.

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They tried to mix it up with U8 (and U9) and neither attempt really resonated with their audience. This is straight from the wikipedia page on the game, and aligns with what I remember thinking:

Common complaints include:

The world is much smaller than in the preceding parts.
There are far fewer NPCs to interact with.
NPC portraits are no longer included.
The game went back from the "party" concept to the "lone hero" of the first two Ultima games.
Stepping into any water will instantly kill you by drowning, after a brief animation depicting The Avatar going under. This includes even a small puddle of water.
Battle against enemy characters is hack and slash mouse clicking. There is some resemblance to the later game Diablo.
Poor game balance. Among other problems, a spell that can be learned early in the game grants total invulnerability, rendering all further combat trivial.
Platform game style running, climbing and jumping across moving platforms is introduced.
Less interactivity with objects and items.
Major holes in the plot.
Frequent bugs/glitches.

Well, yes. Thinking on it now objectively it was kinda crappy. Maybe i liked it because there wasnt anything else.

Anyone not voting for Torment as n°1 has displayed either his abysmal ignorance or his abysmal taste !

My ranking :

1 - Planescape : Torment
Obviously. Duh.

2 - Fallout : New Vegas
Huge and finely built open world with titanic amount of content and also an interesting and realistic storyline that actually AFFECTS the world and is not just all talk.

3 - Baldur's Gate II
A Classic among Classic.

4 - Morrowind
The best of Bethesda, before the dumbing down, with a huge hand-crafted world, an interesting storyline and a very long main quest.

5 - Deus Ex
Tight battle between this and the first two Mass Effect and KotoR, but Deus Ex has unsurpassed attention to details and freedom of gameplay.


The Final Fantasy are fun (especially for someone like me who loves japanese things), but as a rule, JRPG aren't actually "RPG" at all, they are adventure games.

Akka said:

The Final Fantasy are fun (especially for someone like me who loves japanese things), but as a rule, JRPG aren't actually "RPG" at all, they are adventure games.

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