Groboclown said,

I would include Morrowind and Eye of the Beholder in the list. Morrowind because of the incredible story, and Eye of the Beholder because, well, at the time it really captured my imagination, but it’s a toss up of whether that one would beat out the gold box games.

As for indie games, I would include Blue Lacuna – some would say it’s a stretch to label it a CRPG, but to me it classifies because you are really thrown into a role, and can make solid decisions about the kind of character you want to play.

Matt Barton said,

Funny you should say that, Rampant, because that’s basically what inspired this list. I was thinking that M&M 6 has a special meaning for me along with 7 because of the time period in which I played them. It was a terrible, awful time emotionally for me; definitely the lowest point I’ve ever been at. I hear people talk about their favorite music like that; “such and such album saved my life,” etc. Except for me it’s a game rather than a song or album that helped me cope.

Matt Barton said,

Man, that’s got to be the best Ultima VII story ever.

Maklak said,

I can only say for myself, what I enjoyed and what I found memorable.

I played about half of Baldur’s Gate 2, but somehow stopped playing for a month due to real life and dropped it.

I really liked Gothic 1 first time I played it. Well, killing monsters was a bit annoying, but otherwise I liked it. 3D graphics looked great, and I loved mobility (jumping, climbing, etc.) in that game. I played some 3D FPSes before, but nothing this pretty and with such freedom of movement. Gothic 2 was less fun, and plants everywhere obscured my view. I never got to Gothic 3, but Risen trailer looked somewhat promising. After a few years I revisited Gothic. Graphics looked bad, interface was still clunky, I knew the story anyway, killing monsters was boring, and I installed some overpowered mods. In short, I enjoyed Gothic at the time, but can’t return to it.

Morrowind got me hooked for half a year. It had mobility, like Gothic (even more, because I could fly), much more stuff, bigger world, scattered random quests and locations. Lots of usefull mods. It was glorious.

I finished Neverwinter Nights and enyoued it much.

Witcher 1 was OK, but I was bothered in how they made “3D game in 2D engine” (that is graphics was 3D, but Geralt couldn’t jump, and anything would block his way. Camera was annoying too.

I watched a Let’s Play of “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time”, and if I played it in its time, I’d probably really enjoy it. It is more of a platformer than RPG, but had quests, hidden locations, storyline, etc.

I played Diablo + Hellfire, but don’t think of it as an RPG.

I guess I really like “big open world” and “unrestricted movement” in games.

LateWhiteRabbit said,

Well, here I go; in no particular order:

1) Chrono Trigger [The time travel plot, dozens of endings, and New Game+ kept me playing for months, and I still come back to it once a year. I still vividly remember buying it on launch day at Toys’R’Us.]

2) Arcanum [An original steampunk setting that is absurdly detailed and well-thought out, it made elves and orcs fantasy fresh for me again.]

3) Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines [The best vampire RPG on PC, bar-none. The game makes you truly feel like a creature of the night and has amazing replay value. The ending breaks down a little, but the ride is more than worth it.]

4) Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer [One of the best and most intriguing CRPG plots I’ve played in years. The dialogue and writing is above top notch and is truly nuanced. Plus, it proved to this D&D player of nearly 2 decades that a high-level campaign CAN be just as fun, tense, and interesting as a low-level campaign, something I hadn’t previously thought possible.]

5)SSI Gold Box – Champions of Krynn [All the Gold Box games were good, but as an avid Dragonlance fan, I was happy to ditch the Forgotten Realms for a more coherent and familiar world.]

6)Fallout Series [I’m going to cheat a little here and list the whole franchise – excluding BOS of course. As someone who loves retro styles and music and also loves post-apocalyptic scenarios, it is like Fallout was made just for me. Not to mention I welcome any fresh setting in RPGs besides the standard High Fantasy ones.]

7)Final Fantasy VII [A lot of people forget how fresh and innovative this game was when in first came out. There is a reason it struck a cord. Because I got this game before I got a memory card(!) the first six hours or so are vividly etched in my memory from replaying them so many times. Cloud was the original wangst character in JRPGs, but that was presented as a character flaw to be overcome. I only hate what Cloud started, but I can’t hate on the original JRPG emo himself.]

8 )Alpha Protocol [A spy rpg, and a modern RPG without a karma meter, only choices presented in a natural manner? Oh, yes. Hard decisions and meaningful choices that rippled out invisibly to all areas of the game made this one of my favorite games last year. Having a tense conversation at a cafe table and realizing all your previous choices have condemned your friends to death? Gripping. Going off the edge and deciding to get revenge at the cost of the mission and innocent lives? Heart-breakingly amazing. The game not trying to slot you into a good or evil category based on your actions, but treating you as a nuanced human being? Priceless.]

9)Princess Maker 2 [It has stats and battles, it counts right? Endless possibilities and endless replay value. A short and quick game were I discover something new every time I play.]

10)KOTOR [The first thing to convince me that the Star Wars expanded universe might be worth looking into after-all. Who doesn’t love this game? It even had a video game twist not topped until Bioshock came around.]

11)Dragon Quest VIII [The most fun I have probably ever had playing an JRPG. Full of old-school goodness, a gazillion side-quests and activities to do, and a fun and interesting story that felt like a fairy tale. It is also notable for being one of the first JRPGs I can remember where the plot remained clear and sane instead of delving into philosophical insanity as the end got closer.]

12)Elder Scrolls [Yeah, I’m cheating again, but this is my last entry. I love me some open-world games and they rarely get better than in Bethesda’s home-brewed franchise.]

There are more like Baldur’s Gate 2, the Eye of the Beholder series, etc. but this list is already long as it is!

Rampant Coyote said,

LOL – Cartman, you kinda beat me to the punch on tomorrow’s article. But only kinda. 🙂

Rampant Coyote said,

I never played Anachronox, but I would like to. I hope GOG.COM sells it someday soon.

Dread said,

I’ll start with an honorable mention of Planescape: Torment. I haven’t played it too much (missed it on release and now I’m just lacking the time to play a lot), so I can’t give it a real judgement.

10) Might & Magic 7/Mass Effect/Fallout 3
I can’t really decide here, I love each of these games, but they all have some weak points. (MM7 with the mediocre story, ME and Fallout with too action-oriented), so I just give all of them 10th place

9) Panzer Dragoon Saga
The only eastern and only console RPG I really enjoyed, it’s pretty unknown, as it’s a Sega Saturn exclusive game. Great story, nice combat and many choices on how to develop your dragon make this absolutely excellent.

8 ) Gothic 2
Best game in the franchise offers a good story and many possibilities along with great world design and a great atmosphere.

7) Knights of the old Republic
Though a bit on the easy side, KotoR is ripe with decisions, has great characters, enjoyable combat and an intriguing storyline.

6)Das schwarze Auge Nordlandtrilogie
I believe those games were released as “Realms of Arkania” outside of Germany. Though the second game is my favorite by far, they form a trilogy which a new player should experience in its entierity. The best part is the atmosphere, I really feel like a group of adventureres wandering the wilderness.

5) The Witcher Series
I adore the atmosphere, the dialogue, the characters, the decisions and the combat system.

4) Neverwinter Nights 2 (+ Mask of the betrayer)
An excellent RPG in every regard. The main characters feel alive, the combat is tactical and challenging, the story and dialogue is the best I’ve seen since Baldur’s Gate

3) Dragon Age: Origins
Pretty much the same reasons as NWN 2 and I rank them very closely together, DA gets the slight edge due to the gritty atmosphere I find to be more intriguing.

2) Elder Scrolls Series
I can’t really pick a single game here, I’ve loved the series since I first palyed it with TES2. Each game has it’s own merits. Daggerfall for it’s vast world and large skill system. Morrowind for it’s exotic enviroment, Oblivion for it’s aesthetic and great quests (the Dark Brotherhood questline alone is worth a full priced game). Though Oblivion rally does need some mods to be truly excellent.

1) Baldur’s Gate Series
Again, all games, it’s one single epic and with mods you can play it like one massive game anyway. Story and character interaction remain unparalleled. You can literally play through this game 20 times and still find new lines of dialogue. No other RPG has ever drawn me in like this and there is none I remember more fondly.

Well, you’ll see some well known series missing in my list. I’ve started gaming in 1996, so a lot of the classics released before that went by me, including Ultima, I only played Ultima 9 and didn’t think it was that great. Nowadays I can’t really get into the older ones.
FF, I don’t like them. story is mostly nonsensical, character development poorly implemented, aesthethics turn me off as well. Same with Chrono trigger, story makes no sense, you have no control over your characters development in any way.

Silent said,

I’m a bit surprised by how seldom “Arx Fatalis” gets mentionned, even though I seem to remember a blog entry about it. I always wonder if it’s because people don’t appreciate it as much as I do, or because few people had played it.

“Temple of Elemental Evil” has, in my opinion, the best interface. I wish a whole series of gemes had been done on that model. I liked it better than “Neverwinter Nights” or “Baldur’s Gate” for that. Unfortunately, I don’t like dungeon crawling much, so I lost interest a bit after the adventure went underground (the temple itself). The outdoor and urban parts were fantastic.

I didn’t like “Baldur’s Gate” at all. And possibly for very bad reasons. It took itself too seriously for me (the ridiculously badass character portraits embarassed me) and, as often, only the french version was available here. The french voices were unbearable. This was before the crazy connections and internet piracy networks we have today, so at that time I couldn’t download an english pirated copy and copy the sound files over the original ones (which is now my modus operandi whenever I realise I bought a non-multilanguage localised version). So, I couldn’t immerse myself in it. Today, the interface puts me off.

Apart from that, I tend to agree about the classics : “Fallout I, II and (also) III”, “Morrowind”, “Planescape”, “Ultima IV”, “Wastelands”, “Arcanum”, and, surprisingly maybe, “Vampires: Bloodlines” (I didn’t care as much for the linear hacking and slashing of “Redemption”). I had been bitterly disappointed by “Kotor”, but now I appreciate “Mass Effect” without really treating it as a roleplaying game, or asking it to be one. I would probably have liked “Kotor” better if it hadn’t been marketed as a roleplaying game, or if I had been more familiar with its loosest definitions.

Speaking of definitions, though, I dare to mention “Stalker” as one of my favorite role-playing games, which may traumatise those who found “Fallout 3” too action oriented. For me, it was sufficently open, and sufficiently humane (in the sense that it felt like an exploration more than like a perpetual combat à la “Far Cry”), and even if the interactions are limitated, you’re still impersonnating some version of yourself in an autonomous universe. I felt I was roleplaying in it much much more than in any “Kotor” or “Mass Effect”. It’s a fact, even though it would take time to try to determine why – and why it’s the opposite for other people.

Lastly, I had been very nicely surprised with “Gothic 2”. I don’t like the interface much (compared to “Morrowind” for instance), but the gameplay, universe, options, and adventures themselves exceeded my expectations. Sorry to hear that the next “Gothic” games didn’t evolve in the best direction.

And I’m now perplexed about this “Alpha Protocol”. I didn’t try it, thinking it would just be some basic linear sneak action game with a few dialogues as a roleplaying excuse, and I wonder if I was wrong. I think we’re in the short-ish period where the game can still be found for pretty cheap before vanishing forever, so I guess I’ll have to take a decision about it soon…

Silent said,

All right. Thank you for your answer. I’ll get it tomorrow. Just crossing my fingers for it to be multilanguage, or at least have its sounds files in their own separate folder.

Stealth is also my default approach (I love letting people alive, and few games permit it), which reminds me that I unforgivably forgot to mention the unforgettable “Deus Ex”. In my list of favorite roleplaying games. Is it one ? It felt like one. It’s certainly easier for me to call games such as “Deus Ex” or “Fallout 3” roleplaying games than games like “Diablo”. But I don’t believe in genres discontinuity anyway.

Which probably allows me to mention Sierra-on-Line’s “Hero Quest : So you want to be a hero ?” (later renamed as “Quest for Glory”). In all the genres that surround roleplaying games, adventures games make the most interesting hybrids. Too bad it’s not a path that has been much exploited. I’m certain that you could have magnificent RPGs totally devoid of fights, and only made of practical or social puzzles, solvable through different ways. Many RPGs feature such sections, and they are often the most memorable bits, but I know no RPG that dares to actually focus on these.

devon said,

Ultimate VII, Betrayal at Krondor, Quest for Glory I, Morrowind, Final Fantasy IV, Diablo II, Daggerfall, Eschalon Book I, Ultimate VI, The Worlds Finest Software Sword Quest