Other than BG, what's your favorite CRPG
the_spyder
Member Posts: 5,018
in Off-Topic
So, recently I have been spending a lot of time playing Dark Souls. I know that a fair amount of the people here won't claim that this game is an RPG of any kind, and up until two months ago, I'd have been one of them. However, I am blown away by how character development actually impacts game play and how actually picking a role and sticking to it actually develops and improves advancement in the game. In fact, I find very little about Dark Souls to not be impressed with. It is easily a better CRPG than either of the last two Elder Scrolls outings, at least in my opinion.
but it got me to thinking about what else might be out there. The topic is open ended with the following qualifications.
1. Any CRPG is fair game, even if some may not consider it a "True" CRPG.
2. Let's avoid including BG or IWD or PST in the lot as we already know that everyone here loves them (er, well mostly)
3. Everything here is opinion and therefore not wrong. If you don't happen to like a title that someone posts, they are entitled to their opinion. Let's keep it friendly.
4. Give reasons WHY it's your favorite. Don't just say "Mario Cart Adventures. Bo-yeah!" or some such..
but it got me to thinking about what else might be out there. The topic is open ended with the following qualifications.
1. Any CRPG is fair game, even if some may not consider it a "True" CRPG.
2. Let's avoid including BG or IWD or PST in the lot as we already know that everyone here loves them (er, well mostly)
3. Everything here is opinion and therefore not wrong. If you don't happen to like a title that someone posts, they are entitled to their opinion. Let's keep it friendly.
4. Give reasons WHY it's your favorite. Don't just say "Mario Cart Adventures. Bo-yeah!" or some such..
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Comments
They're so fun. I love the bird's eye view, the active world, the loot, the story, the NPCs, the goodies included in the boxes, and the music. Absolute classics.
Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura remains a fave of mine due to the sheer amount of convosational options to be had depending on race, stats and skills.
Temple of Elemental Evil was VERY good yet it gets pretty bad reviews all round due to initial bugs and people not liking the turn based system.
Wizardry 8, dont flame me on this and just hear me out. Lots to be done, lots to be had and a rather intriguing character set up almost reminiscent of eye of the beholder. I liked this alot!
1: Quest for Glory series (1989, 1990, 1992, 1993)
I grew up playing Sierra games, and QFG perfectly blended adventure and RPG elements while having amazing replay value for their time due to the multiple solutions and game events unique to each class. Combined with the quirky humor and consistent world, they highlighted just how good Sierra was in the early '90s. And no, I don't count V.
2: Ultima V, VI and VII (1988, 1990, 1992)
While many older gamers remember IV most fondly, I feel V took it in a new direction, both technologically and in tone. I loved the darker story that V established, as well as the more dynamic gameplay. VI took it further with VGA graphics and a huge game world, and VII was absolutely unique at the time with its full-screen approach and excellent writing. If you've never experienced them, I highly recommend that you at least read through the game plot summaries of I to V and play VI through Nuvie and VII through Exult.
3: Might & Magic VI (1998)
I had never played any of the M&M games until VI, and after trying both those that preceded and followed it, have no desire to do so. VI just struck the right tone with me. It has a wonderful combat system, great variety and awesome gear. It's a hardcore RPG designed for those of us who want to play just ten more minutes in order to get a ring that grants one more point of strength...
4: Gold Box series (1988-1992)
These games got me hooked on AD&D, and without them I never would have touched BG. The stories and gameplay, while never the best, always struck the right balance for me. Secret of the Silver Blades and Death Knights of Krynn in particular rank as two of my favorite traditional RPGs. I also loved the sci-fi twist offered by the Buck Rogers games.
There are more that I'll add later, but my wife is telling me to go to sleep!
Might and Magic 7 would also be on the list, and Might and Magic 8 is up there, but I don't know if it quite makes my top 10 of all time.
Come to think of it, it might be fun for us to post our "top ten all-time favorite games", or even "top 15" or more for those who have many favorites.
I'll try to make one if other people do.
I love ToEE. it is a shame that it was released in such a state, but the Co8 patch has made it one of my most memorable gaming experiences.
I have also spent many, many MANY hours in NWN2. I liked Mask of the Betrayer, but found that NWN2 really came to life the most in PW arena, at least for me.
I personally have trouble doing a "top 10" because I can never get the order right. What I feel like playing today, may be different than what I want on that list tomorrow. But hey, have at it. Her is a start on my list (in no particular order):
ToEE
NWN2
Dark Souls
The Gold Box series (most particularly Azure Bonds and Silver Blades)
Ultima (I want to say 4, but don't quote me on that)
Fallout 1
Knights of the Old Republic
...
Yeah, like I said, it's hard for me to have a top 10.
If not, I think I'll put my money on KOTOR. It was the first RPG I ever played and the fact I was like 9 or 10 years old at the time didn't stop me from understanding it was a great game with a good story and characters.
Off Topic:
Bioware is one of the best game studios around, IMO.
Another CRPG favourite of mine is a classic that people easily seem to ignore, forget, or simply never heard of... Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusade. The game world boasts of an interesting, alternate universe set the darkest middle ages with all kinds of magical pollution and corruption crawling the lands. And it got Mongol Goblins that enjoy macabre literature to boot.
Neverwinter Nights: It was my first encounter with both Bioware and D & D. You could say it acted as a gateway game to CRPGs.
SW: KOTOR 2: While the first game is the one remembered fondly by most, I found the second so much more interesting. The story and characters were far deeper and compelling. I found Kreia especially fascinating. Her philosophy on the force and the war between Jedi and Sith altered not only my perception of the Star Wars universe, but my own personnel beliefs.
Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura - Initially, I was trying to stay away from this game because of its horrid graphics. However, after getting it when it was on sale, and playing it. It turned out that I really liked it. There are multiple endings, and like Skyrim, it could probably take years to get that perfectionist playthrough. Then, there's the sheer amount of things you can do. You can be a pacifist, you can be a gunslinger, you can make yourself a Blackguard type character that gets redeemed and goes Paladin, and the list can go on as to why I love this game. Oh, and Virgil. He's the best companion out of all the people that can follow you. He gives no poops about your alignment, in fact, he goes whatever alignment you're going.
Temple of Elemental Evil - The Co8 fixpack fixes a lot of bugs, and restores content that Troika wanted to put in there. Then, there's the fact that each alignment has a starting story. It ranges from saving a caravan from some bandits, to destroying a village for the pure lols of it.
Divinity: Dragon Commander - Its an RTS, and its an RPG because you're still making choices about what you want your country to be when you defeat your brothers and sisters for the throne, as well as choosing who you want to be your bride. So, it's Baldur's Gate-esq when it comes down to murdering your brothers and sisters. I'm also a fan of strategy games some of the time.
Divinity: Original Sin - Turn-based RPG. Sign me up! You control two protagonists, Scarlett and Roderick, but you can name them whatever you want, give them what type of personality you want, etc. Sure, there are some set classes, but most people seem to ignore them, and go hybrid-ing anyway. I haven't finished this, but it's already in my top list.
Long Live the Queen - I consider this an RPG in the sense that you have to pick what Elodie does in her day to day life. Even if you end up dying later on. Which, err, Elodie dies a lot. In fact, there is an achievement for dying all the possible ways she can die. There are multiple-endings, including the how she dies route.
Jade Empire - If there's any game that pre-EA Bioware should be remembered for its definitely this one. Why? It's Bioware's hidden gem. It has the greatest story after Baldur's Gate II. It has awesome companions. Its short and sweet, and has a lot of people crying for a sequel.
What do you guys think of what is being said about 3? It almost looks like (another) departure from RPG and a foray into more of a RTS game, or at least elements of that.
Regarding DA:O , I only played it once and enjoyed it, though the romance options were a bit limited.
Not for what it is, but for what it offers and does.
Countless modules, online roleplaying on various servers and ability to create your own party from scratch, as well as ton of options with races, classes etc.
I cannot remember any other RPG that I spent countless hours, days and months and probably years on it and I'm still not tired of it.
I've actually got a taste of that with Dark Souls. I finally got to almost to the final battle with my Sorcerer character, but not before getting close with like three other characters. I've got my full money's worth from that one, tapping out at almost 150 hours. Ugh... Where did my life go. but that was over almost 5 months, so....
@InvictusCobra - Yeah, I would consider Mass Effect an RPG. Never played 3, but I liked 1 and 2. And yeah, your build (both character and party) had impact on the game play. So, fair enough.
I have never played Witcher, so I might have to hit that one next. Hmmm....
that come close.
Kotor. I'm a huge Star Wars fan, and this is Bioware close to its best.
Kotor II. Fantastic writing, a refreshingly nuanced take on the light and dark side of the force. The obsidian writers at their best are a level above everyone
NWN2 MOTB: another obsidian writing master class.
Gothic 2: Still the only open world RPG that rivals the best Bioware/Obsidian RPGs in terms of atmosphere. Has is its own unique medieval fantasy style.
Witcher I and II: The first one has slightly annoying combat mechanics (and had hideously long loading times when it came out) and some sub-par dialogue in places but it's still a great game. Geralt is such a compelling player character. The second game is even better (not at everything though, it lost some of that magic that made the first game so compelling to me, the uniqueness of chapter 2 and 4).
Deus Ex Human revolution: Strong characters, great music, great voice acting, very interesting near future scenario (transhumanism), fun game play. Like ME2, it's game play is close to an FPS though, so may not appeal to everyone.
Mass effect 2: So, so good. Best start to a game ever, has the same strengths that DE HR has.
I have a feeling I would like Arcanum just as much, but i seriously for the life of me can't get past the first area with the crashed Zeppelin, not because of the difficulty, but because the battles with those wolves feels so atrocious from a gameplay standpoint that I just don't know if I can handle it. But everything I hear tells me it's amazing, so I must be missing something.
I would also suggest Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. (Made by Troika, quite buggy, but there's an unofficial patch for it).
It's basically an Action/RPG with heavy emphasis on the RPG part and using the Vampire the Masquerade PnP rules.
Also, here's Chris Avellone's (incomplete) playthrough of Arcanum for anyone curious about it.
- Gothic: I just love the world of this game, you can feel it's alive and I could wander and do stuff for hours just to enjoy it. I sometimes would like to stop the story and become a member of one of the societies - all camps have distinct atmosphere and way of living. Similarly I enjoy exploring this world, even though it's not as big as in other open world cRPGs it has some great and mysterious places. You can see that people behind this game wanted to put much more areas into it, but probably had to cut them due to time constraints. I really enjoy the story, the dialogues and the fighting style (you have to get used to the controls). The sequels (especially Gothic 3 and 4) were disappointing, but the first one has still great atmosphere and I'd like to come back to it some day.
- Fallout: Where do I begin to talk about this masterpiece. I would say that the feeling of freedom is probably the best aspect of this game, wandering through the wasteland with Dogmeat and companions and doing/becoming whatever I wanted is just great. The atmosphere is beyond words, this game made me fall in love with post-apocalypse. The dialogues and characters are so distinct and memorable. The ways you can approach the situations create such a great replay value. I'll better stop writing about this game, because it'll take too much space, but I'll just mention that the ending is one of the best in my opinion.
- Anvil of Dawn: Forgotten and underrated cRPG, with pseudo 3D from 1st person perspective. More emphasis on the dungeon crawling, but you have absolute freedom where to go in which order. Each area has distinct creatures, some a bit strange (hand-snake holding a dagger), but they are always really well designed. You can choose one of 5 characters and you can meet the rest of them later in the game, great replay value if you want to see what happened to the character you played previously. The spells have uniqe symbols drawn by the character during combat, and there are some awesome weapons (e.g. talking sword - but not as a comic relief *cough* Lilalcor *cough*). The dialogues and especially the atmosphere are very grim with the sense of inevitable defeat.
- Diablo: Yes, one can argue that it's not an cRPG, but really like the first one in the series (haven't and won't play Diablo 3). It has awesome atmosphere (e.g. the intro movie) and even though there is less emphasis on the story it's still a really good one in my opinion, especially the ending. The venture to the depths below the cathedral and discovery of what happened, all this while hacking through many monsters. It's really well done and of course the randomness of loot and dungeon. I was really pissed off when you would reload in Diablo 2 only to find that all the killed monsters were back, I still don't get what was the reason for that.
So those are 4 titles I'd like to mention that are amazing cRPGs in my opinion. I didn't mention it earlier, but in all those titles the voice acting and music is brilliant.
- The Witcher II. The plot, characters, the world and possibility of playing and making decision as my favourite novel hero are mainly the reasons I like it so much. The Witcher I might be more traditional cRPG wise, but I found the second game more polished and enjoyable to play. Looking forward to thrid game.
Diablo isn't an cRPG, that's one. Two, the reason that monsters are back when reloading in Diablo II onwards is the fact that Diablo is not plot-driven but rather loot-driven game. Everyone who says that Diablo is about the plot is lying to themselves. But I agree that Diablo I had wonderful dark feel to it.
Arcanum had a much more free-form style of play where you could literally unmake the story to satisfactory degree if you so chose. Especially once you learned that it was impossible for the game to prevent you from sequence breaking and going where ever you wanted (this was one of my only real gripes that since it was otherwise a very open game...and most of those areas were already suitably Beef-gated, so why prevent a player from going there at all..if it's beyond their means they'll know to stay away). It could try, by not letting certain locations appear on the map till their appropriate times, but you could still force the locations by going there manually without using the fast-travel map.
ToEE was great and aside from the bugs was a very solid CRPG in it's own right, and a good bit of proof that you could in fact have a very close to PnP experience without sacrificing hardly anything.
Daggerfall and Morrowind from TES are also very solid CRPGs, with a level of openness and freedom that also approaches the more free-form style of a table-top adventure. Daggerfall might actually be a little better overall due to using procedurally generated areas, especially dungeons, which could result in dead-ends for certain builds and force them to go and find some way of circumventing the problem they found themselves in.
5: Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny (1997)
The first Lands of Lore was a great game and a good example of a pure RPG, but I just can't help but love the sequel despite its flaws. Guardians of Destiny threw out the option of playing anyone other than Luther, but how often do you get to step into the role of the villain's child who randomly morphs into other forms? How often do you get to play as an evil character, if you want to, and actually have it make a significant difference in the game? How often do you get to have a full SEVEN different endings, all with full CG cutscenes, that are very different and in line with your choices throughout the game? Great story, great gameplay with an immense number of approaches and solutions, and (with patches) decent graphics, it still ranks as one of my dark horse favorites.
6: Spirit of Excalibur (1990)
It's not quite an RPG, nor is it an action game, nor is it an adventure game, nor is it a strategy game. Spirit of Excalibur was utterly unique and blended multiple genres in what I still consider to be one of the best games to ever delve into the Arthurian legend. It was also immensely challenging, with the bulk of the game based on real-time movements of armies. Take too long as you venture around Britain (which you will inevitably do as you hunt clues as to where to go next), and you'll quickly find out how easy it is to be completely destroyed. I still consider it one of the most rewarding games I've ever played. While the sequel, Vengeance of Excalibur, was still very entertaining, it doesn't match up to the original.
7: Dragon Wars (1989)
While I love the original Bard's Tale and still play it occasionally, I love Dragon Wars even more. It's like BT on steroids, and I've played through the game perhaps more than any other. (Just to give you a sense of how much, you can start over with the same characters after you finish. I've done that so often that I dropped all but one...and he's now level 327.) The story and gameplay are superb, with a massive number of optional quests, secrets and choices. Get past the dated graphics, and you'll find one of the most entertaining, unique RPGs ever made.
8: Castle Adventure (1984)
Another game that's not exactly a true RPG, I still remember it as one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences I had on my first computer. Ignore the lack of a story and the character-based graphics and just enjoy trying to figure out the puzzles as you escape or fight the many monsters in the castle.
9: Return of Heracles (1983)
This is absolutely the best mythology-based RPG I've ever played, and I'm not joking. Counting both the initial characters and those that you meet in the game, over 30 (!) characters can join you, all at one time no less--including Achilles, Jason, Pegasus, Theseus, Perseus and many more. Don't want that many? Then take only one; it's entirely up to you. Many have unique strengths and abilities, as well as items that can only be found if they're in your party. The game simply requires you to finish twelve tasks (yes, many based on Heracles/Hercules) and gives you the freedom to explore and complete them in any order you like. I won't even go into the massive number of creatures and items. It may be old, but this is a game I'm still happy to revisit over and over again.
Other games that were popular, but I never got a chance to play them- Betrayal at Krondor, The Bard's Tale series. I never played the SSI Gold Box version of Buck Rodgers, or the "Gateway to the Savage Frontier/Treasures of the Savage Frontier" games. Same with the version of "Neverwinter Nights" that used to be an AOL exclusive (it had the SSI/Gold Box style graphics). And I want someone to re-release the D&D "Strongholds" game again. I only got to play it at a friend's house, but it was interesting. Also "Master of Magic", which was a 4X game with RPG-like elements, rather reminiscent of "Heroes of Might and Magic" to me.
http://www.yipesoftware.com/yipeiii_scores.html
@the_spyder, I do rank Dragon Age as one of my favorites, but I wanted to focus more on some of the older games that might be overlooked. DA was the first game that made me feel like I was a part of a fantasy film. I can also empathize with @InvictusCobra regarding the emotional power of the Mass Effect series. It really was a beautifully realized game world, and I was immediately in awe when when I watched the ME1 introduction for the first time.