What is the best RPG of the CRPG Renaissance?

[anvi]

Butterfly Soup
I have never laughed so much during a game as I did when playing Butterfly Soup. I expected it to be heartwarming and a little painful, but I did not expect how well its jokes would land, and I would recommend it on comedy alone.

Butterfly Soup follows the lives of four Asian teenage girls living in Oakland, CA in 2008, exploring life (and each other!)

It’s hard to find a game that has as much personality as you’d find in Butterfly Soup. Each character is wonderful - just completely gawky teen girls who get into absurd shenanigans, with layered story arcs that intertwine with one another. As the game puts it: “It’s okay to be a flaming dumpster fire. If you want to be a butterfly, you have to be butterfly soup first.” All of the characters are finding themselves, and are figuring out ways to express themselves as they awkwardly grow into adults. Everyone should play Butterfly Soup. It’s pay-what-you-want on Itch.io, so there’s no excuse not to. And we've even included it in our round-up of our favourite free PC games.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Also, due to the number of games that are only tactical games (Battle Brothers and the likes) Dungeon Rats, which is a Tactical-RPG should also be on the list.
It's also more of a RPG than most blobbers and dungeon crawlers out there.

And cherry on the cake, it's good.

 

[duanth123]

<3sRichardSimmons

Can you modify the poll so I can vote for Dead State: ReAnimated 5 times?

Thanks.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

I want to vote for A Legionary's Life, where is it??

Expeditions: Conquistador deserves more love.


Edit: And a fucking Baldur's Gate clone is winning, WTF is wrong with you Codex?

 

[Jrpgfan]

Underrail, AoD, Battle Brothers and KCD.

To me these games were better than all the bigger releases(Kingmaker, DOS, PoE, W2 & 3 etc...) and it's not even close.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

I want to vote for A Legionary's Life, where is it??

I hadn't heard of that. Will add.

Edit: And a fucking Baldur's Gate clone is winning, WTF is wrong with you Codex?

The first 2/3s of Kingmaker are more ambitious and overall just straight better than either BG.

 

[Desiderius]

I want to vote for A Legionary's Life, where is it??

I hadn't heard of that. Will add.

Edit: And a fucking Baldur's Gate clone is winning, WTF is wrong with you Codex?

The first 2/3s of Kingmaker are more ambitious and overall just straight better than either BG.

It's hard to appreciate just how ambitious BG itself was in it's day. The crickets chirping when you left Candlekeep alone put you in a whole new world. It's one of the few games with aesthetics up there with Diablo. Kingmaker didn't get to that level aesthetically, although it has nothing to be ashamed of, but in terms of gameplay and mechanics it hits higher highs than BG did, and in general in recapturing the spirit of that era achieved it's aim. Wrath builds on that and then some.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

I want to vote for A Legionary's Life, where is it??

I hadn't heard of that. Will add.

Edit: And a fucking Baldur's Gate clone is winning, WTF is wrong with you Codex?

The first 2/3s of Kingmaker are more ambitious and overall just straight better than either BG.

It's hard to appreciate just how ambitious BG itself was in it's day. The crickets chirping when you left Candlekeep alone put you in a whole new world. It's one of the few games with aesthetics up there with Diablo. Kingmaker didn't get to that level aesthetically, although it has nothing to be ashamed of, but in terms of gameplay and mechanics it hits higher highs than BG did, and in general in recapturing the spirit of that era achieved it's aim. Wrath builds on that and then some.

I was 17 when BG1 came out. I like it a lot, and it basically single-handedly influenced my gaming hobby into adulthood. That said, I do think it’s overrated and has not held up particularly well. The combination of low-level AD&D’s swinginess coupled with the relatively empty gameworld have diminished my opinion of it on repeat playthroughs. By contrast, Kingmaker’s biggest flaws are arguably that it’s overstuffed with content and too deterministic to anyone who understands 3.5E. In that light I will always prefer the virtues of the latter.

I will concede that both BGs are aesthetically superior to Kingmaker in every way though, that’s a strong point.

 

[fantadomat]

a lot of good games,hard to chose only 5

 

[Butter]

Storyfags must hang.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

democracy is shit: the thread

 

[Can't handle the bacon]

Behead all combatfags.

 

[Trippy]

The EEs shouldn't be on there. It's like asking whether the greatest CRPG of the era is Pool of Radiance using the Gold Box Companion (GBC) mod: the core experience is unchanged, it just has some features added on that make it arguably more user friendly and approachable for the modern era.

They add new content. If they were purely UI upgrades, resolution changes, and improved compatibility with modern OSes I wouldn't have included them, but there is original content present in them that is not present in the original releases.

That said, anyone who votes for them is clearly a moron.

Agreed on all counts, but if adding content qualifies, then I would argue that means stuff like Enderal qualifies. And in that case, I'd vote for Enderal because it trounces the everliving shit out of every other commercially released AAA graphicsfag game in recent memory. I don't feel the fact that it's a "mod" and is released for free should count against it, given that Beamdog get several slots simply for slapping some SJW nonsense into even older games and charging $20 for the dubious pleasure of it all. Also, shouldn't Daggerfall Unity be up there? I would readily vote for that too over Beamdog opportunism.

Finally, I'm confused by the inclusion of roguelites like Darkest Dungeon, Battle Brothers, and Starcrawlers. If those count, then there's no reason why Slay the Spire shouldn't be included. And then the whole poll is null and void, because Slay the Spire is inarguably one of the best games ever made.

Yes, I finally registered to this den of degeneracy just to post this half-drunken twaddle.

 

[Atlet]

Deadfire, Kingmaker, Tyranny, Atom and Dragonfall.

 

[Jinn]

Agreed on all counts, but if adding content qualifies, then I would argue that means stuff like Enderal qualifies. And in that case, I'd vote for Enderal because it trounces the everliving shit out of every other commercially released AAA graphicsfag game in recent memory. I don't feel the fact that it's a "mod" and is released for free should count against it, given that Beamdog get several slots simply for slapping some SJW nonsense into even older games and charging $20 for the dubious pleasure of it all. Also, shouldn't Daggerfall Unity be up there? I would readily vote for that too over Beamdog opportunism.

Agreed and brofisted.

Finally, I'm confused by the inclusion of roguelites like Darkest Dungeon, Battle Brothers, and Starcrawlers. If those count, then there's no reason why Slay the Spire shouldn't be included. And then the whole poll is null and void, because Slay the Spire is inarguably one of the best games ever made.

Disagree, but the above still earned you your first brofisting.

Yes, I finally registered to this den of degeneracy just to post this half-drunken twaddle.

How long you been lurking, slut?

 

[Can't handle the bacon]

democracy is shit: the thread

Is there a Codex Royalist Party that I can join?

 

[fantadomat]

Hong Kong is actually better than dragonfall. Also went for underrail ,disco,kingmaker and ELEX !

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Starcrawlers is in no way a roguelite.
I’m honestly very confused about the amount of misinformation circling around this relatively niche game that I don’t think is particularly good or noteworthy.

 

[JDR13]

The list is void because Fallout 4 isn't on it.

 

[Trippy]

Disagree, but the above still earned you your first brofisting.

Ha, figured that was risky to post. The point being that roguelites are muddying the waters and probably none of them should count. I love Slay the Spire but wouldn't seriously argue it as an RPG.

How long you been lurking, slut?

Fuck, long enough. I was a well-versed dipshit Quake kid who eventually decided to find out what RPGs are all about, and many many years ago I ended up lurking here and playing through the anointed classics. Apparently vodka and sheer American-apocolyptic boredom have inspired me to register and post tonight. Cheers!

My serious answer would be Tales of Maj'Eyal 4. It's the most complex tacticool RPG thing I've yet encountered, and technically it was released after 2012. The best 'cinematic' RPG post-2012 is definitely Enderal, with a runner's up prize for Kingdom Come.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Surprised to see Dragonfall doing so well. I think it’s definitely the best of the nuShadowruns, but I didn’t find it particularly engaging outside of the narrative.

Also seems like Codex is less inclined towards blobbers than it used to be. For shame.

 

[fantadomat]

Surprised to see Dragonfall doing so well. I think it’s definitely the best of the nuShadowruns, but I didn’t find it particularly engaging outside of the narrative.

Also seems like Codex is less inclined towards blobbers than it used to be. For shame.

Because there is no blobbers to be inclined toward. There was operencia which was ok but nothing special,and there was bard's tale which was a meme,yet still ok after a lot of fixing. Neither of them is something amazing,it is no new MM tier of incline.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Surprised to see Dragonfall doing so well. I think it’s definitely the best of the nuShadowruns, but I didn’t find it particularly engaging outside of the narrative.

Also seems like Codex is less inclined towards blobbers than it used to be. For shame.

Because there is no blobbers to be inclined toward. There was operencia which was ok but nothing special,and there was bard's tale which was a meme,yet still ok after a lot of fixing. Neither of them is something amazing,it is no new MM tier of incline.

Grimrock 2 is probably the best RT blobber ever released outside of CSB, and Lords of Xulima is a perfectly respectable game as well.

 

[Butter]

Surprised to see Dragonfall doing so well. I think it’s definitely the best of the nuShadowruns, but I didn’t find it particularly engaging outside of the narrative.

Also seems like Codex is less inclined towards blobbers than it used to be. For shame.

Because there is no blobbers to be inclined toward. There was operencia which was ok but nothing special,and there was bard's tale which was a meme,yet still ok after a lot of fixing. Neither of them is something amazing,it is no new MM tier of incline.

You're not a blobber fan if you didn't vote for Grimoire.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Surprised to see Dragonfall doing so well. I think it’s definitely the best of the nuShadowruns, but I didn’t find it particularly engaging outside of the narrative.

Also seems like Codex is less inclined towards blobbers than it used to be. For shame.

Because there is no blobbers to be inclined toward. There was operencia which was ok but nothing special,and there was bard's tale which was a meme,yet still ok after a lot of fixing. Neither of them is something amazing,it is no new MM tier of incline.

You're not a blobber fan if you didn't vote for Grimoire.

I ultimately liked Grimoire a lot, but when I played it (maybe two or three months after release) the lack of documentation of systems/rules was immensely off-putting and unprofessional.