Top 5 rpg

[Samez]

Morrowind was indeed a great game. A non medieval, non viking fantasy setting with great side (house and guild) quests. Oblivion also had great storytelling for the side quests but a more common setting but int he end totally messed up with the game mechanics and the really annoying main quest. Skyrim improved the game mechanics (at least in some points) and the main quest but lost a lot by replacing unique side quests with mostly generic ones.

I also like Arcanum very much. The steampunk setting is nice and the player has the freedom of choice how to build his character and which (if any) companions will support him.

KOTOR was a great scifi fantasy series but I never played the game in any other way than the good Jedi style (I tried to play as Sith but somehow always ended on the good path...)

MassEffect2 was also great as the interactive 100% spoken conversations were quite a novelty compared to the standard (the player doesn't really talk but chooses text blocks) and made dialogues more interesting.

Dragon Age was okay imho but did always feel like an attempt to copy the great Baldurs Gate series. Baldurs Gate1+2+TOB had some really great quests and settings and provide quite different gameplay experience according to your character choice (in Dragon Age I never felt like it would matter how I played my mainchar as the party was always the same constellation)

The Fallout series was also great with different concepts for each part. IMHO it's the game series with the most fun in being a bad guy.

I love the Witcher series for the lack of a distinctive good aligned fraction but somehow never got that much into the gameplay style and didn't like the char development. It will be interesting to see how the 3rd part turns out.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

The best part of Morrowind was the setting. Oblivion is boring to me even if you install a ton of mods to fix it's many and varied problems because the setting is generic fantasy tripe that I've seen a million times before. Skyrim is a little better in that regard, but I've always had a personal hatred for snow/ice themed sections of games so obviously I wasn't super impressed to have 80% of the game be like that.

Compelling writing has never been the strong point of any of them, but that has definitely gone even further downhill in the last few iterations.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

I heard Morrowind was quite less in rpgness in compare to fall out:2, I never played that game myself, I just read it in a forum. But you know, the more I think about it the more I see why Morrowind lots superior than oblivion, you might laugh at me how can I question such things but Oblivion is beautiful for me. Because in Morrowind for example, if you want to continue the quest on fighter guild you will find it hardly to maintain it without harming your relation with thief guild, this kind of dilema and polemic give you a strong sense that you are trap inside the (cold) war between the guild and you must chose to pick a side, even radically you must assassinate important person of the thief guild or in some option in fighter guild itself to move in promotion.

I remember how I left in dilema because of this dirty quest, and later on I found the way how to get out of it cleanly and still got the promotion by founding the culprit in fighter guild that start all of this mess.

But again that is awesome, if a guild quest in Oblivion is like 10 than Morrowind is 100. Just amazing experience on gaming.

Fallout (1 and 2) are among my all times favorites along with morrowind but i would place it a step under Morrowind in my RPGness scale along with most great RPG games as BG, PS:T and many others. I mean, i always felt as i was a bit more directed in Fallout and similars. From the start you know that you have the mission of bringing the water chip to the Vault and such. so the main plot has more weight along the game. In Morrowind however you start being nobody and from that point forward everything is up to you. Once the game develops you eventually know who you are really but that is the least interesting point IMO. It is at the beginning of the game when you have this magical sensation of knowing nothing about your character or about the huge world out there and anything is possible.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Dp.....

 

[Wolfbeckett]

Frig now I kinda want to play Morrowind again. Thanks a lot you monsters.

 

[H4run]

Frig now I kinda want to play Morrowind again. Thanks a lot you monsters.

I think, there is nothing wrong with that you should thanks all the "monsters" to trigger good memory to be recall

 

[da dick]

in no particular order ,off the top of my head>>

- shadowrun(genesis) : it's s'pose to be quite close to the original p&p game. very "grindy". nice 80s cyberpunk atmosphere, and probably the best cyberhacking feature in any game?

- star ocean 1(snes): one of the first and best realtime jrpgs ever made? intro part is a star trek ripoff though.

- ultima underworld: labyrinth of world ::i think google can explain why this game was great better than i can. also check out arx fatalis if you can't stand the pixelated old-skool cuting-edge 3D graphics

- ultima vii: the black gate:: probably one the most immersive rpg of that era? hate the battle system though. the magic and inventory system is also pretty clunky. and some arsehole npcs steal your stuff w/o you ever knowing...

- saga frontier: don't play it for the plot or characters. pretty innovative turn-based combat system. beautiful pre-rendered 3D graphics, which aged better than some other PS1 games. plot progress can be impossible w/o a walkthrough btw... yeah, don't play it for the plot. although the superhero character's scenario is pretty cool. i guess girls would prefer the not-vampire lgbt scenario.

 

[H4run]

- saga frontier: don't play it for the plot or characters. pretty innovative turn-based combat system. beautiful pre-rendered 3D graphics, which aged better than some other PS1 games. plot progress can impossible w/o a walkthrough btw... yeah, don't play it for the plot. although the superhero character's scenario is pretty cool.

Another jrpg gems that I consider very underrated, it have all of its power and beautiful graphic that just amazing to see, however it have one downside, the enemy is levelling up together with you, as you are getting stronger so the enemy getting tougher, so it is quite complicated to play, if you do too much levelling and fighting you can end up making the game tougher for you. If only they don't put that feature, I include Saga Frontier is one of the top 5 of my jrpg game in Playstation

 

[Disgustipated]

I was watching a let's play of Skyrim on youtube, and that got me in the mood to play again. I may have to give Skyrim a little more credit than I have earlier. It's a damn good game. Why else would I have played it 200 hours? I just wish the combat wasn't so repetitive. But I do like the perk system. It's what sets it apart. I don't believe Oblivion had that (correct me if I'm wrong).

I have 2 concurrent games (the major downside of Skyrim- which Fallout: New Vegas also suffered from) is the crappy console save game interface. All of my character save games are jumbled together, and I have to be really careful not to save over. I'm trying to finish up my Orc 2 handed mace character. His Smithing is already 100, just trying to finish Enchanting to 100 and finish crafting a full dragon armor set. Then max out 2 handed weapon fighting and heavy armor, finish the main quest and civil war quest and call it a game. My second game my character is level 14, and I'm going for pure mage wearing no armor. This is much more challenging for me because of my playstyle. I have more deaths, because sometimes I'm not careful. Unlike my Orc who can steamroll through anything with daedric armor and weapon.

So because I want to include Skyrim, I'm turning my top 5 (actually 8) list into a top 10 list. And updating it a bit.

1. Fallout: New Vegas. No surprise here, I'm from Vegas. It has the good gameplay of the Bethesda engine, and good story telling from some of the original Fallout people. It's based on some of their work on Van Buren (the true Fallout 3). Lots of dialogue, lots of freedom, lots of choices. What's not to like? The DLC is step down, but still decent (I'm not rating dlc, just mentioning it).

2. Dragon Age: Origins. Fun gameplay. Not as many spells as Baldur's Gate 2 (although many spells I never used in that game because they were not useful), but the gameplay is the best Bioware has to offer (that I've played). A good mix of good storytelling, good gameplay, good rpg choices, and good action.

3. Baldur's Gate 1/2. I'm just going to say Baldur's gate 1 and 2 are a tie for me. I can't decide which I like more. 1 has good outdoor areas to explore which I like, and I like the lower level stuff too. It's a challenge until you get several levels under your belt. 2 has better variety of spells and stuff to play with.

4. The Witcher 1/2. Again I can't decide which I like more 1 or 2. So I'll say they are both a tie. 1 has a better story in my opinion, just not as good an engine to play the game. 2 is smoother, but perhaps they simplified things a little too much.

5. Fallout 2/1. Again another tie. Yes I realize this allows me to make my list 8 games instead of 5. Deal with it. Again I can't decide which I like better.

6. Skyrim: For the reasons discussed above. If I have 200 hours played, it surely means I enjoy it right? But I should mention I don't enjoy the game for it's rpg moments, and the voice acting is terrible compared to Bioware games, I mostly enjoy the action, building up a character, and the scenery.

7. Knights of the Old Republic 1/2: I'm going to list these as a tie. Yeah I'm taking the easy way out. Hard to decide which is better. 1 is the smoother game by far, because 2 is incomplete (even with the restored content mod the ending was lacking in nearly every way). I enjoy the crafting and character feats and such of 2 much more. Not to mention the party interaction system.

8. Planescape: Torment. Yes it's fairly low on my list. I can't list it higher because I don't actually play it that often. I have played the game 3 complete times. It's a classic, but I can't say it's the best.

9. Neverwinter Nights 1/2: A toss up here. 2 has the better story, especially when you include Mask of the Betrayer. But it also runs slower on my computer, and still has camera angle issues. I like D&D, but sometimes the rules drag down a game. I didn't feel it in the Baldur's Gate games, but I feel it in these 2 games. The classes are great (although too many prestige classes are confusing, and take too long to plan a character), but not having enough things for your warrior to do gets kind of boring.

10. I'm not sure what else to include. I included nearly every rpg that is currently installed on my hard drive at present time (except Dragon Age 2 which is on my hard drive, but I refuse to say anything nice about this game. It's not the worst, it just shouldn't have been called Dragon Age). I'm just going to include the Diablo games here. I don't want to get into the heated discussion above whether they are rpg's or not. Since the mainstream gaming media considers them rpg's, I'll go with it and call them rpg's. Although I prefer to call them action rpg's. You have no choice in the story, but you can choose to play as a warrior, paladin, Amazon etc. I'm mentioning Diablo 2 classes, since Diablo 2 is the best of the bunch. Diablo 3 is a let down. I can't put my finger on exactly what's wrong with the, but for some reason I don't want to play it. But I'm bored of 2 as well.

I kind of want to play Morrorwind too after reading this thread, but it's unlikely I'll play. It suffers from the horrible 5 times skill point system. And running around jumping all the time is kind of lame. (for leveling Athletics).

I didn't mention the Mass Effect games because I haven't played them. After reading this thread, I did put 1 and 2 on my Amazon wish list. I'm still undecided if I'll get them.

 

[coanda]

Mass Effect 1 is a superb setting, excellent story, decent free-roam RPG, and good character development.

Mass Effect 2 is a lot lighter on RPG elements; it more heavily emphasizes tactical third-person shooter, with story and character development sprinkled between levels.

Both excellent games, but surprisingly different from each other given that the one is a direct sequel to the other.

Some day I'll play Mass Effect 3, but I didn't really want Origin so I figured I'd wait and see if they released a "complete edition" bundle on Steam (since the nominal sticking point was that Steam didn't like how they chose to distribute DLC). They still haven't and at this point I guess they never will, but it's not exactly a new game any more so I'm in no huge rush to pick it up.

 

[da dick]

i can't help but feel that most single-player rpgs these days are just overglorified FPS's with minor rpg elements. somedays i wished underworld/system shock/deus ex flopped hard enough to never become something of a "standard" among modern westworld "rpgs".

and all the gray ,brown and bloom infesting everything ,from platform puzzliers to rpgs.

 

[coanda]

I don't think the abundance of FPS/RPGs is really driven by the success of games like Deus Ex. I think it's driven by the success of games like Halo. The FPS genre became absolutely huge, and subsequently we started seeing RPG makers hoping to broaden their appeal include more FPS elements in their games. If instead the platformer genre had exploded, I think we'd be seeing complaints about too many jumping puzzles in new RPGs.

 

[Disgustipated]

i can't help but feel that most single-player rpgs these days are just overglorified FPS's with minor rpg elements. somedays i wished underworld/system shock/deus ex flopped hard enough to never become something of a "standard" among modern westworld "rpgs".

and all the gray ,brown and bloom infesting everything ,from platform puzzliers to rpgs.

The success of Mass Effect is also a cause. It's what caused Bioware to move away from role playing games. Yes they are still called rpg's, but as you said, they are glorified shooters, or glorified action games with the case of DA2. DA3 may surprise me, but I'm not keeping my hopes up. They still have the stupid dialogue wheel. Bioware thinks there are only 3 types of people in the world. Good, bad, and sarcastic. Yes you can say you can roleplay as 3 different personalities, but really, it feels limiting to have only 3 choices. I don't fit into any of those categories. As a human, I am neither good, nor bad, nor sarcastic all the time.

I still have my hopes resting with Obsidian, and perhaps another small developer. One who hasn't been corrupted by EA as Bioware has. EA has ruined many a developer. Bioware is just the latest of their string of casualties.

 

[H4run]

I still have my hopes resting with Obsidian, and perhaps another small developer. One who hasn't been corrupted by EA as Bioware has. EA has ruined many a developer. Bioware is just the latest of their string of casualties.

This is what always surprise me when I read this thread, why peoples love Obsidian, I mean, I really heavily dissapointed with how they mess up kotor2 or whatever it is, and maybe after that I quite have a subjective perception regarding them, I admit that! When I play neverwinter night 2, when there are so many door that I can't enter, also I look up the interface and stuff, I just think this developer is lack of detail and always end up making fail sequel, I open my mind for you to prove me otherwise I always want to give them my second chance or third chance.

I played FO3 but I never try Vegas because it is obsidian, I also never try DAO2, because it is obsidian. I try to play Vegas in computer rental, from the tutorial it just so boring, the woman voice (who give us the tutorial on how to shot) seems obliviously stage sound so nervous and lack or reality, but I will fair here I just try Vegas like 30 min, and I just gave up. Reading your post it make me want to give another chances to try out Obsidian games.

 

[Akka]

This is what always surprise me when I read this thread, why peoples love Obsidian

Well, Obsidian are the "truest" RPG developpers, and tend to have often actually deep story/characters, which is pretty rare.

I mean, I really heavily dissapointed with how they mess up kotor2 or whatever it is

KotoR 2 mess-up was mainly due to the deadline being too stringent, and a LOT of the game requiring to be cut. Even with the bug and the butchering, it's still often considered just as good as KotoR 1.

I played FO3 but I never try Vegas because it is obsidian, I also never try DAO2, because it is obsidian.

If by DAO2 you mean Dragon Age 2, then it is not Obsidian, it's Bioware.
As for New Vegas, it's the best RPG of the last 10 years, so you're really losing a lot by ignoring it.

The real problem Obsidian has is the lack of polish (bugs, glitches and the like). They are slowly getting better, and I hope they end up drawing a Paradox trick.
They also tend to be (at least a bit) more cerebral and less spectacular than the typical game, but I consider it a quality, not a flaw.

 

[H4run]

I just heard about DAO2 from my friend long time ago, he say it is Obsidian not Bioware, etc etc, and I ask him do the game act as a sequel from the previous DAO? (because I quite curious in the continuation of the story regarding Morrigan and

Spoiler :

her child

). He said no.

And I see the gameplay and review, it seem quite disaster. However I trust both of your review, however there's something wrong with my laptop right now, it easily got heat like it going to melt than following huge lagging in the game I play. I even cannot play Oblivion properly with this laptop, it easily getting hot so much and produce horribly noisy sound from the fan. So I think I unable to play any of high graphic game for a while. I'm aiming to play ps or snes jrpg, or old pc rpg. If any of you have any suggestion, do let me know.

 

[Akka]

I just heard about DAO2 from my friend long time ago, he say it is Obsidian not Bioware, etc etc and I ask him do the game act as a sequel from the previous DAO? (because I quite curious in the continuation of the story regarding Morrigan and (spoiler)). He said no.

First, again it's not "DAO2", it's "DA2" (the first game is "Dragon Age : Origins", the second is "Dragon Age 2", as such "DAO2" makes no sense).
And no it doesn't follow the story of Morrigan and the like (the last we've heard of Morrigan is in the DAO's DLC "Witch Hunt"), but it does follow the events of DAO (DA2 begins during the Blight that we fight in DAO, and span one decade afterward).

And no, Obsidian had absolutely nothing to do with it. DA2 (the entire Dragon Age franchise actually) is a 100 % Bioware creation, from one end to the other, and no other studio has ever touched anything about it for now.

And I see the gameplay and review, it seem quite disaster.

It is. DA2 has some good parts (dialogue and characters, as usual with Bioware, and I tend to like the more "personal" scope of the story), but it's drowned in a sea of dumbed-down consolization, ridiculously over-the-top fighting spree that choke the life out of the game, utterly lazy and repetitive design on every level, boring and ugly settings and lack of believability in several instances, as well as being railroaded all the while.

If any of you have any suggestion, do let me know.

Well, I can't even imagine playing a game on a laptop (small screen, clunky controls, underpowered computer... how is it even possible to enjoy anything like that ? ), so my suggestion would be that, if you have the money and the desire, to buy a decent rig and set it up comfortably

 

[Zack]

I played FO3 but I never try Vegas because it is obsidian

I cannot think of a single thing better about Fallout 3, compared to New Vegas. It really pales in comparison. F:NV is an outstanding game and RPG.

You really should play New Vegas and Mass Effect 3 as soon as possible. You're missing out on two great games, especially New Vegas.

 

[civvver]

Well they aren't rpgs but for laptop gaming I always go old school games or undemanding indie titles like FTL and master of orion of gog.

I like dragon age 2 myself, I think it suffered a ton of bad reviews because people wanted origins 2 and it definitely wasn't. The combat isn't better or worse, just different. The combat animations in origins were terrible, dwarves swinging 2h weapons looked stupid, but it was far more tactical and slower. In 2 it's a bit over animated, like a super action packed sequence, but being a mage is really, really cool because you are able to cast a lot more spells. The talent trees were reworked as well and compliment each other. While in origins you could chain some spells together for effects in 2 you can freeze a guy then have your melee character shatter him. There's a lot more combos across classes you can do. Overall I like the classes in 2 better.

I also like the full voice acting of 2 over origins. Clicking text just never appealed to me as much. There are some cool characters in 2 as well. The plot choices are pretty good too, there's a few parts you can take the story in very different directions.

However it's severely lacking in many areas. Itemization is bad, though it was pretty awful in origins as well. There is literally zero dungeon and zone design- every zone is a knockoff of like a total of 3 designs. There's nothing to explore, world is tiny. You can only play one race and one character basically, you just pick your class and gender.

Overall it's not as deep as origins but still a very worthwhile game.

Also to whoever wasn't playing ME3 cus of origin client, the origin client is easy to use, it's very similar to the steam platform. And it's easy to turn off when not playing one of their games. If you're ok with steam I don't see any issues with origin other than anti-EA in general preferences.

 

[H4run]

Well, I can't even imagine playing a game on a laptop (small screen, clunky controls, underpowered computer... how is it even possible to enjoy anything like that ? ), so my suggestion would be that, if you have the money and the desire, to buy a decent rig and set it up comfortably

my current job and situation need me to be mobile, I oftenly change house or go to other country. That's why I sold my pc in my hometown and change to laptop. Btw I upgraded my laptop so it have 8 gb rams instead of 4, the vga is ati radeon, core i 5 with processor 2.30 ghz. I mean that already overlapping the requirement to play Oblivion. Btw my laptop brand is Vaio. Some user suggest me to buy a cooling stand for my laptop but he doubt it will fix the performance.

And the government giving high tax in almost everything here (for redistribution) and the cost of pc is insanely expensive, but I'm about to travel this summer to south east asia, I plan to buy either new laptop or pc sphere parts like mother board; vga card; processor and for the power supply and the rest I will buy it here. But still if any of you have any idea of a good laptop for gaming, let me know, how about Alienware is it good? (if it good I will buy the second one or the most lower quality because it is quite expensive also)

I cannot think of a single thing better about Fallout 3, compared to New Vegas. It really pales in comparison. F:NV is an outstanding game and RPG.

You really should play New Vegas and Mass Effect 3 as soon as possible. You're missing out on two great games, especially New Vegas.

Yes I agree with you completely I really feel regret, it is good that I know now at least I have a list of a good game to play, somehow I also glad I haven't play it yet, so I have something to play in the future.

Well they aren't rpgs but for laptop gaming I always go old school games or undemanding indie titles like FTL and master of orion of gog.

I will check your suggestion, have you ever heard Anachronox? I heard it is quite a good and funny rpg, do you think it is light enough for laptop and worth to try?