Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

The role-playing paradigm in the post-Oblivion era

Joined
Apr 12, 2007
Messages
1,658
Location
Prussia
Alpha Popamole is better than Oblivion and Fallout 3 combined.

Since this thread turned into a which recent RPG's were good:
Risen 1st half of the game
 

Morkar Left

Guest
SuicideBunny said:
Morkar said:
Mostly because nearly no traditional rpgs were developed :/
motb, soz, avernum 4+5+6, geneforge 3+4+5, eschalon 1+2, the dark spire, etrian odyssey 1+2+3, knights of the chalice (plenty others i forgot) isn't exactly what i would call "nearly no"

It isn´t much either. Without indies it is "nearly no" (umm...). And most of the indy games are just remakes or clones of older games. MotB and Soz are just addons for NWN2 and it really shows contentwise.

Dark spire and etrian odyssey were completely unknown to me. But jrpgs aren´t my cup of tea and pure dungeoncrawls only once in a while. No wonder I missed them.

But I agree, if you count every obscure indy 80's style rpgs and every roguelike in there are of course lots of rpgs in the last 5 years. But an increasing count makes it only more depressing in the end :(
 

Suchy

Arcane
Joined
Nov 16, 2007
Messages
6,032
Location
Potatoland
Good post-Oblivion nextgen RPGs?
Witcher (crap character progression, but good writing, story, and design)
Risen (a true Gothic game)
Fallout NV (best of the 'lot' so far)
Haven't played MoTB yet, started it once but couldn't stand the camera... I'll get back to it someday though.

Shit nextgen?
Everything else, including Fallout 3, AP, DA:O.
ME2 was a fun popamole, but definitely not RPG.
 

Admiral jimbob

gay as all hell
Joined
Sep 29, 2009
Messages
9,225
Location
truck stops and toilet stalls
Wasteland 2
Morkar said:
Dark spire and etrian odyssey were completely unknown to me. But jrpgs aren´t my cup of tea and pure dungeoncrawls only once in a while. No wonder I missed them.

They're hardly typical JRPGs, they're very competent Wizardry clones that happen to be made by yellow people. I'd definitely recommend them if you have a DS or are willing to emulate.
 

janjetina

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 28, 2008
Messages
14,231
Location
Zagreb, Croatia
Torment: Tides of Numenera
I don't know about 'we', but here's which games that were marketed as RPGs (which some were and others weren't) I liked and what I hated, roughly in chronological order:

The Witcher - below average

MOTB - good

Mass Effect - shit

Failout 3 - shit (haven't tried playing it, watched the LP) \

SOZ - below average

Dragon Age - average

KOTC - good

Mass Effect 2 - shit (haven't tried playing it, watched the LP)

Alpha Protocol - shit

F:NV - good

So, we had 3 good titles, one due to its system and combat (KOTC), other two due to its quest design, setting and writing (MOTB and F:NV), 4 shitty titles (Ass Effect and Protocol franchise and Foblivion), while the rest was nothing to write home or rage about.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,836
I liked The Witcher, Mask of the Betrayer, Storm of Zehir, Risen, Dragon Age, Knights of the Chalice, Alpha Protocol, and New Vegas for what they were (mostly various shades of mediocre, a couple that were good, none reaching Ideal RPG-like status of getting everything acceptably right). I don't pay much attention to things I don't think I'll like. I'll give those Vogel games a try when I get over his neckbeard appearance (the graphics are fine, it's really just him keeping me away).

POOPOO MCBUMFACE said:
I just can't stand a perspective that makes me feel like I'm about to gently topple over and subconsciously tilt my head for the rest of the day.

That said, I should probably try it and try to power past that, I'll probably stop noticing it quickly enough.
I didn't like it when I saw it in screenshots, but stopped caring several seconds into the demo. You should check that out, it's a small investment in time.
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
Wow, 5 years huh...

Alpha Protocol - I liked it, it reminded me of Deus Ex. Good choice and consequence, good effects from stats on combat and storyline. Is it a cover-based shooter as well as an RPG? Of course... Deus Ex was an FPS as well as an RPG, who cares? I like more than one genre.

The Witcher - Epic, lovely, brilliant. A little too clicky-clicky in combat, and a rough translation at times, but otherwise excellent.

Dragon Age: Origins - Not as good as the classics but close enough to make it enjoyable. The storyline overall had some promise but I found dialogue to be disappointing. Still, I loved the combat and visuals... the combat was very tactical and fun to play for me.

Gothic 3 (with fan patches) - As good as Gothic 2 for me when all patched up, other than combat.

Risen - As good as Gothic 2 for me, other than combat, no fan patches required. Well... alright, maybe not as good as Gothic 2, it lacks some of that game's creativity.

Fallout 3/Fallout New Vegas - Fallout 3 was kind of lame but I still enjoyed exploring the world. Fallout New Vegas has that same exploration along with actual RPG gameplay and well written dialogue... hooray!

Have not played yet:
- Arcania
- Two Worlds/Two Worlds 2
- Avernum
- Sacred 2
- Drakensang
- Divinity 2 Ego Draconis
---------------------------------------------------

Is not an RPG but I liked it anyway:

- Mass Effect 2 - If you like shooters and RPGs this is a great game. Well, if you like cover-based shooters anyway, they're pretty different. The combat is all shooter and I like shooters, so it was good. The dialogue is all RPG, which is nice, and when you play a bad-ass "renegade" Shephard the dialogue and choice moments are great. The stats and powers are in the middle of shooter and RPG somewhere, but they work for what they are, you can certainly craft a character different from another character, etc., etc.. NOT an RPG in any way really, like 5% RPG and 95% shooter, but I like shooters and ME2 was probably my game of the year until New Vegas came out.
 

Topher

Cipher
Joined
Dec 5, 2007
Messages
1,860
A lot of people here have a mentioned how much they've enjoyed Dark Spire. I was having a good time with it myself until I started needed to constantly consult walktroughs to make any progress. It not that I mind the lack of hand holding but every single quest solution is painfully obscure or worse outright hidden.
 

commie

The Last Marxist
Patron
Joined
May 12, 2010
Messages
1,865,249
Location
Where one can weep in peace
Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
In no particular order, from the ones I played:

Alpha Protocol. Very good game, quite rough but good outshone the bad for me. What Splinter Cell would have been if it was made into an RPG, though not as polished.

Gothic 3. With mods it became one of my favorite open world games.

The Witcher. Good story, characters, RPG elements a little awkward at times, combat a little dodgy(but what major RPG doesn't have it dodgy these days). Loved it.

Risen. Great open world game, very good combat. Only 'flaw' is it wasn't as epic in scope as Gothic 3. Would have wanted to keep playing.

Fallout NV. About as close as we're going to get to the 'classics' at the moment.

Drakensang. A bit treacly and whimsical, but a very fine game, much more enjoyable than DA:O as one of the few recent party RPG's.

ME 1/2. So much to hate in these action games pretending to be RPG's yet I have to admit that I enjoyed them as dating simulators and the story was fun enough to play through if uninspired.

Two Worlds. So many shitty things here as well, crap dialogue, inventory managing, combat, yet the world was very nicely done and it was a pleasure exploring it.

FO3. Took so many starts to finally grind my way through this. Utterly mediocre, but masquerading as a Fallout game made it instantly 10 times worse. I have it in this section only because on some days I could fool myslef that it was something else and there were occasional cool moments.

Shitty games or games which didn't grab me enough to play for more than a few hours in this period were:

Oblivion, DA:O, any number of cheapo Diablo clones and Russian RPG crap.

Haven't played NWN2 or any of it's expansions or Divinity 2 yet.


Funny, I pretty much exhausted the entire big name list(along with lesser names) and it adds up to barely more than a dozen games in 5 years.
 

hoverdog

dog that is hovering, Wastelands Interactive
Developer
Joined
Jul 8, 2010
Messages
5,589
Location
Jordan, Minnesota
Project: Eternity
for me:
Witcher - good, character system was crap, combat mediocre, everything else very nice.

NWN2 - OC was very bland, miles ahead of NWN1, but I couldn't play it anymore. MoTB was great, fantastic story and design hindered only by shitty engine. SOZ was a failed experiment, a combat-driven game on this engine is impossible.

Mass Effect 1 - horrible.
Mass Effect 2 - very enjoyable and fun, in part thanks to getting rid of most crpg mechanics. thus not much a rpg.

Alpha Protocol - good for what it was, excellent C&C, nice concept, but mediocre at best gameplay.

DA:O - I honestly liked it, despite derp roads, uninventive setting and story and gay elves. at least they tried to return to their roots.

Risen - tried to play, but gave up very fast. i just utterly hate all that gothics are about, plus the game didn't like my pc.

drakensang - first was boring, second much better, but too short. designers were getting the hang of this when they were closed. shame.

divinity: ego draconis - atrocious combat, and in an action rpg game.

fallout 3 - better than oblivion, but not much.

KOTC - pretty neat. lacked something though.

Fallout NV - the second best of these (after MoTB)

Two Worlds - oblivion-level shit without mods to improve anything.
 

Sceptic

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 2, 2010
Messages
10,872
Divinity: Original Sin
commie said:
Haven't played NWN2 or any of it's expansions
Skip the OC, play all 3 expansions. Each one is very different, and they're all good (and MotB is great+).

Check out VD's reviews of MoW and MotB and Roxor's review of SoZ.
 
Joined
Aug 6, 2008
Messages
7,269
I really liked Risen, haven't given NV a fair shot yet, despised AP as one of the worst overall products I've ever played, liked the Witcher but felt that as a product it was mediocre at best, hated Oblivion, hated FO3, DA:O could have been good, turned out bad.

So far the only "RPG" that I've played (other than Space Rangers 2 which is amazing) from the past five years that I think is an actual good game is Risen. And Dragon Age was the best RPG since Arcanum, of course.
 

Cassidy

Arcane
Joined
Sep 9, 2007
Messages
7,922
Location
Vault City
In rough chronological order, these are the only post-Oblivion "RPGs" I have played and finished:

Neverwinter Nights 2: Mediocre, in spite of being better than the bad NWN1 OC. Passable for a single playthrough and I wouldn't say I regretted it. I tend to be far more tolerant of games that at least are clearly making justice to the genres they're supposed to belong to though.

Mask of the Betrayer: By and far the best CRPG released in 2007 and in spite of the lack of good alternatives almost as good as Planescape:Torment story and C&C-wise, and better gameplay-wise(though many will question this, I imagine). Not counting some equally challenging modules, it was the first NWN expansion where some of the battles were actually difficult, like when pissing off some thugs in a bar and having to face them, and although I would prefer a turn-based solution, IMO its combat was OK. It was the before last real CRPG released by Obsidian besides the supposedly not so good SoZ. After that they shifted totally their focus to the Xbawks audience.

The Witcher: Combat mechanics were meh, but still better than what is usual nowadays in shit mechanics like in AP and NV, and passable(specially at hard difficulty where at least there is no obvious "press button now" to continue combos) as a sort of lone PC Neverwinter Nights esque combat with more clicking. The story was quite good and the unique setting and atmosphere have helped a lot in spite of the letdown of the first Chapter. A good to OK game.

Risen: Best Action RPG of 2009, best CRPG of 2009 too because Dragon Age sucks and what in an ideal situation should have been a standard for Action RPGs. It was actually my first experience with the Gothic games and it was incredibly pleasant to see, for a change, a game where the PC isn't invincible and that instead of creating artificial barriers to exploration or retard level scaling allows free exploration with risks and rewards. The plot in the first two Chapters was good, and because I liked its combat mechanics, differently from most post-2005 action RPGs, I wasn't that bothered by the last and combat-heavy last chapters. Only the ending was a bit of a let down, but it still doesn't take away from how of a refreshing change this game was from the trend.

Space Rangers 2: Another excellent game. In spite of not being marketed a CRPG it is much closer to one than the majority of the smegma being sold as RPGs since 2005, including New Vegas, I dare say. It has some quirks and balance issues, but like Risen, it is also one of the few games where the PC isn't invincible and enemies aren't completely scaled or placed to be fought in a linear progression. Add to that a partly procedurally generated world, a cool RTS game with heavy customization of units, a decent shootemup and text-based adventures, and here is a much better example of how to integrate different games within one than retarded console "RPG" minigames.

Alpha Protocol: Somewhere between mediocre and shit. The combat mechanics of this game are among the worst I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing, but at least I'll never try again a popamole console shooter with cover system after this one. The "boss fights", which in themselves already are stupid are laughably exploitable. The choices and consequences only matter in regards to what kind of text you'll see written after a mission, a cheap radio transcript and mission debriefing at the end game, sometimes cut off a few NPC conversations here and there, or change the model and uniform of soldiers helping or attacking you in a mission without changing(with exception of one cutscene time without player involvement in a Moscow level) even the way they attack or their numbers(hilariously lazy). Levels are as linear as one could imagine. There is no way of going through a proper and mostly full stealth approach without using retarded special skills that give "enemy radar" and temporary radar with the exception of only one quite small level(CIA Base). The story is only average at best, rather than the awesome thing some retarded fanboys were gawking about.


While there is one I played, listening once to the "it's good for what it is" bullshit, but was so horrible I never bothered finishing it.

Fallout 3: Even with tons of mods, it was still the worst first person shooter I ever played, the worst "RPG" I ever played. Worst videogame I ever played, in fact. Even if it had a good story and NPCs that aren't completely retarded and without wasted minutes forcing the player to LARP a hiker through a very empty and poorly designed post-apoc theme park, the horrible, consolified gameplay and interface would still be huge letdowns.
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
I forgot about NWN2... I played the main campaign and considered it bland, like most people. Have not played any of the expansions and I know with MotB that is a sin.
 

Jasede

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2005
Messages
24,793
Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
Topher said:
A lot of people here have a mentioned how much they've enjoyed Dark Spire. I was having a good time with it myself until I started needed to constantly consult walktroughs to make any progress. It not that I mind the lack of hand holding but every single quest solution is painfully obscure or worse outright hidden.

No offense, but that was working as intended. Ever played Wizardry V? It's just as painfully arbitrary. The intention was, I think, to extend playtime and have you wandering for hours, checking every square and trying everything everywhere. This was the kind of thing you would talk to your friends about in school or call the helpline for. Grinding aside, these games would be fairly short if you already knew all the solutions.

Good old days. :salute:

Also, I think while the combat could be just a little bit better, and while you might shun the character design, Etrian Odyssey 1-3 still stand as the best RPG series released in the last six or seven years and are certainly worth a shot for everyone who professes himself a fan of RPGs. You might end up not liking them, of course, but that is your loss. :smug:
 
Joined
Nov 1, 2008
Messages
7,953
Location
Cuntington Manor
Jasede said:
Topher said:
A lot of people here have a mentioned how much they've enjoyed Dark Spire. I was having a good time with it myself until I started needed to constantly consult walktroughs to make any progress. It not that I mind the lack of hand holding but every single quest solution is painfully obscure or worse outright hidden.

No offense, but that was working as intended. Ever played Wizardry V? It's just as painfully arbitrary. The intention was, I think, to extend playtime and have you wandering for hours, checking every square and trying everything everywhere. This was the kind of thing you would talk to your friends about in school or call the helpline for. Grinding aside, these games would be fairly short if you already knew all the solutions.

Good old days. :salute:

Also, I think while the combat could be just a little bit better, and while you might shun the character design, Etrian Odyssey 1-3 still stand as the best RPG series released in the last six or seven years and are certainly worth a shot for everyone who professes himself a fan of RPGs. You might end up not liking them, of course, but that is your loss. :smug:

I have always enjoyed a good 'blob' game (indeed my whole computer gaming career started with Bards Tale), however, they will always be secondary to tactical CRPG's to me (Early Ultima's, Magic Candles, Goldbox games and so on).

Along those lines, KotC is the clear victor for new CRPG's. At least for now.

If you enjoy Blob games, perhaps you should try http://www.classicgamesremade.com/

It is a better game than Dark Spire in my opinion. The graphics seem to have made most people here go bananas unfortunately. The gameplay is very good.
 
Joined
Mar 18, 2009
Messages
7,342
I enjoyed a lot of Alpha Protocol, Mass Effect 2, The Witcher.
I really like Risen and New Vegas.
 

Lumpy

Arcane
Joined
Sep 11, 2005
Messages
8,525
Cassidy said:
Mask of the Betrayer: By and far the best CRPG released in 2007 and in spite of the lack of good alternatives almost as good as Planescape:Torment story and C&C-wise, and better gameplay-wise(though many will question this, I imagine). Not counting some equally challenging modules, it was the first NWN expansion where some of the battles were actually difficult, like when pissing off some thugs in a bar and having to face them, and although I would prefer a turn-based solution, IMO its combat was OK.
I would say that it was better than PS:T story wise. Sure, Planescape had a more interesting world - in MotB the average NPC you meet will be a poor sod, rather than the embodiment of the collective wished of the woodland squirrels or whatever - but MotB's plot was more coherent all throughout. And combat was in every way better.
 

Xor

Arcane
Joined
Jan 21, 2008
Messages
9,345
Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Divinity: Original Sin 2
The years have not been kind. Mainstream RPGs continue to drift away from the Fallout model, and even though the past 5 years have given us some decent games, they're not what I really want to be playing. Still, I'll keep playing new RPGs as long as they meet my esoteric standards of quality even if they aren't perfect.

NWN2 - I actually enjoyed the OC once I played through the whole thing. It's not really deep enough to get into, but the combat was decent enough with Tony K's AI and on the hardest difficulty it was pretty challenging. A pretty average game overall, but the execution reminded me of more linear Baldur's Gate.

MOTB - I missed sleep to finish this game, so it really drew me in. Not much else to say; we've explored the positives and negatives of this game to death.

Alpha Protocol - I liked this game enough to play through it twice even with all the bugs. It was far from perfect, but I enjoyed it overall. Again, we've explored this game to death.

Mass Effect - Meh. I didn't hate this game, but I didn't love it either. There were long sections that were pretty boring, and I was underwhelmed by the promise of consequences in future games. It was also entirely too short; I did a second playthrough just to see the evil path and I clocked in at around 10 hours.

Dragon Age - This game was just boring. I pretty quickly put it in windowed mode and disabled sound so I could watch movies online while I played. The combat was shallow, the story was bland, the quests were pointless, the level design was bad. I could go on. The entire third act just disappointed me even more because it looked like the game was finally going to get interesting but it quickly went back to mindless fighting. I will not be picking up the sequel, nor will I be playing this again.

Mass Effect 2 - This one was pretty polarizing. I'm in the "good for what it was" camp; I actually liked the streamlining they did and thought it fit the game better. There's still obvious room for them to improve, but ME1's RPG mechanics felt tacked on, and not having to hassle with them in ME2 improved the experience for me. Still not a great game, but I certainly had more fun playing it than ME1.

The Witcher - I never got past the first town in TW. Honestly, I thought it was pretty boring. Go figure.

New Vegas - Still haven't played enough to get a solid idea of how much I like this one, but my initial impressions were all positive.

Fallout 3 - I don't even want to talk about this one. It really felt like Oblivion with guns rather than a Fallout game. I think I got past the first town and into a dungeon before I got sick of the clunky gameplay with nothing resembling good writing anywhere I could see and uninstalled.

That's about all I remember off the top of my head.
 

Rhalle

Magister
Joined
Nov 25, 2008
Messages
2,192
Witcher: some of the best bits of story in an RPG in forever; combat more newshit performance art than, well, combat; too much repetitive monster-slaying; pre-patch translation abominable; limited by Aurora engine but the fantasy aesthetic was on-target; refreshingly un-correct gender politics.

ME1: thoroughly mediocre when cutscenes aren't playing; decent classic sci-fi art direction; cookie-cutter encounters and universe; a few truly standout minmalist tracks on the OST; shit combat; horribly rudimentary map design to accomodate the cover-mechanics and the soul-killing vehicle sections; cliche yet somehow convoluted storyline (typical BW in that regard); good cinematics.

ME2: Better writing than the first-- more GTA than BGII; better combat; dumbed-down RPG mechanics; even better cinematics; some memorable moments and quests; some nice characters and Hollywood-esque dialogue; whole installment, however, accomplishes nothing and is BW simply treading water through another introduction to the franchise until they can release another part for the fanbois to buy.

DA:O : Mostly visually ugly- the problem is in the art direction and not the coding; consolified UI; not a bit darker or more mature than, say, NWN; high fantasy boilerplate 'clever' dialogue ad nauseum; shamelessly steals from WoW; origin story sections good and interesting; the rest came out of the Bioware fantasy-RPG factory that has churned out the same shit for a decade; felt more like leftovers than an homage-- leftovers warmed in the glow of an XBOXs power ON indicator light.

NWN2: technical nightmare; childish and cartoony execution; curiously soul-less and empty; still has the strength of DnD mechanics and character-building, which makes it playable and ptrobably worth a journey or two.

MOTB: Nuisance mechanic of soul-eating; geekfest; not my cup of tea; too nerdy for my taste-- although the Kodex of course loves it; made it only about halfway though; tried to play again and got to the god-awful voiceover in the starter cave cutscene where the demon teabags your soul for the first time and had to stop because it's just that fucking awful. I know: you like it, it's the best RPG in a decade and I suck balls...anyway.

SOZZY: Not offensive; not fully realized; like a mod instead of an expansion for a sequel to one of the most popular games of all time; needed much fleshing-out, which they obviously could not afford to do; passable but unnecessary importation of Pirates! into the NWN2 engine.

Fallout 3: Oblivion with guns; Bethesdan in spirit; 1950s parody stuff on-target, the rest not so much; world has giant scope and is generally well-designed; lots of playtime; professionally polished; shitty storyline; shitty shooter mechanics; shitty zoned sections inside DC; "dialogue" so insipid it's inaccurate to call it bad; overblown fanboi response to the Bioware imitation C&C-- that is, exaggerated (or just plain phony) C&C.

Fallout NV: World generally not as well or thoroughly-designed as FO3; technical issues not present in FO3 (the game's by Obsidian? You don't say...); tons of locations and quests yet feels smaller than FO3 somehow; better shooting mechanics; infinitely better writing and questing although often self-indulgent and capricious in ways that would never have made it out the door of a first-tier designer; still, it's probably the best RPG in a fundamental sense since Witcher.

Drakensang: Played the demo; appears to be a straight-up NWN clone with a better engine and a brighter color palette; particularly like NWN in the dialogue, which is pitch-perfect colorless female grammarian a la Bioware high-fantasy boilerplate, in which virtually every statement or question is clear, unoffensive and implicitly rises in pitch-- this passes for 'intelligent' writing in the minds of some.

Risen: Played the demo; looked like a B-grade version of a SP Age of Conan to me, washed up on a beach, big-tittied female NPCs and all; supposedly good, I know, but the actiony combat was unimpressive; wonky; second, maybe third-rate.

Alpha Protocol: Didn't play and won't because it is obviously an unfinished and half-assed piece of shit.

Mount and Blade: Does it count? Fun; fun; fun; old-school, almost NES-style strategy game attached to an FPS medieval cavalry simulator; what's not to like about that? Did I mention that it was fucking FUN?
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom