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What was your most pleasantly surprising RPG?

Vlajdermen

Arcane
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Inspired by the thread about RPGs that pissed you off. This is about whatever RPG turned out better than you expected. Maybe gave you something new that you never knew you wanted.

I can think of two games that did that to me: Arx Fatalis and Kingdom Come: Deliverance. The first one may be because I never played Ultima Underworld, so I didn't know what to expect, but it just felt more concrete and tangible than other RPGs. The lack of dialogue trees, unobtrusive UI, minimal amount of menus, and magic system are all in service of the idea that this is a world you interact with with your hands, not your mouth. Like how some items, like books, are found sitting out there in the world as physical objects, not just icons in a menu. How you have adventure game-esque puzzles, platforming segments that can be cheesed with levitating spells, fish that can be caught and then cooked by physically placing them in a fire, botlles that can be filled with wine. Randumb rune combinations that lead you to spells that you have no clue what they do. They had this idea of interactivity and got creative with it, they explored their possibilities instead of just doing conventional things in an unconventional way.
Plus, the soundscape and atmosphere are top-tier. I salute you, France.:salute:
Are other Arkane games as good?

I already gushed about KCD 2 years ago, but the gist of it is that it commited to its medieval theme down to the little details, like the look of the UI, and did so with a pleasant, non-cynical approach. It indulges in the small and simple. A homely-looking blacksmith's son getting drunk with a priest, humble romantic walks along a river, random chivalrous duels, the backstories of all the monastery novices. It may have many big flaws, the main quest is p. repetitive, but I loved it nonetheless. It did with realistic-medieval what I wish skyrim did with norse fantasy.
 
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octavius

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Evil Islands: Curse of the Lost Soul. I had never heard about it before putting it on my play list. When I was ready to play it I was pleasantly surprised.

The Earthlords. Very obscure indie, but surprisingly good.
 

Reality

Learned
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333
Expeditions: Viking - big improvement on original with quality of life stuff re food & traps in combat almost overshadowed by how much better the writing was. Kills the first game despite allegedly having a less unique theme.
 
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The Present
Presently, I'd have to say Gedonia. It's a one man, indy, early access game, but I'm digging it. The mechanics are well thought out. Flying and teleporting arount the large world as a wizard is very satisfying. I am inexplicably driven to explore the world despite its generic art style and barebones quests. I expect I've got another 20-30 hours in it before I have pretty much done everything. Maybe I should write a review.
 

Grauken

Gourd vibes only
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Technically all the RPGs I played as a kid when I didn't know anything about the genre and that made me into a fan. Recently, Grimoire probably, I thought this was just a complete delusion and then BOOM, it got released and turned out to be great
 

Funposter

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Two Worlds but only because mainstream gaming outlets and Oblivion superfans acted like it was the worst game ever. It was an adequate game with varied environments and what I remember as being an interesting magic system.

Persona 3 because I dislike JRPGs and apart from Pokemon it's still the only JRPG that I've managed to complete. Even Persona 5, with it's better gameplay mechanics and higher production values didn't manage to hold me all the way until the end (I stopped at the penultimate dungeon iirc). I had to actively stop myself from playing P3 too much and put it down for weeks at a time because I'd play 20 hours in the space of three days and realise that it was destroying my life. Great music, fun battles by the standard of JRPGs and a fun, edgy mid-00s anime aesthetic.

Daggerfall but only in the sense that people online had convinced me that the dungeons were innavigable labyrinths and that the 3D automap didn't work, neither of which were true. It's a hard game to approach casually but eventually you sort of start to learn how the dungeons work and which pre-made block you're currently inside of, and you really get into a "zone" when you're playing for long enough.
 

Wunderbar

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Nov 15, 2015
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Game of Thrones RPG.

A licensed low-budget Dragon Age clone from europoor devs who were previously making only those Bloodbowl Warhammer hand-egg games. Everything could've gone wrong, but in the end the game turned out excellent.

Worth checking out even if you didn't watch the show or didn't read the books.
 
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smaug

Secular Koranism with Israeli Characteristics
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Insert Title Here
Fallout.

Played it a while back and quit pretty quickly. Playing it again got me addicted and I couldn’t put it down. Now, I’ve gotten back into CRPGs. Fallout 2 has been a blast so far and I can’t wait to play Arcanum.
 

Contagium

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Currently, Legends of Amberland. Put off playing it for so long because I generally don't like "retro for the sake of retro" , but it's a good, fun, basic RPG. Pleasantly surprised.
 

Baron Dupek

Arcane
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1,870,765
Arx Fatalis
Remember old screenshots from some random gaming magazine, bougth random package with full games from gaming magazines (iirc the same mag that had those screenshots got full game years later).
That was fast charm, unlike my casting skill... which was still on 4:3 CRT+classic mouse+Windows XP combo.

Temple of Elemetal Evil
Nothing more than good turn-based combat back then when I had some kind of fever for this thing, played twice right after initial playthrough, this time on New Content+ with Circle of Eight. Spoiler - new content sucked, badly.

Fallout 1 was mentioned.
Played it more than two decades after playing FO2, realized that it was better in some aspects like more consistent atmosphere without joke bloat that made 3D Fallouts worse, setting things in stone for modern, popamole gamers who couldn't stomatch proper game made by original developers.
 

Falksi

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Nottingham
As games were declining fast, Shadowrun Returns and Dragonfall were awesome returns to form for the genre.

Hard West too, that came from out of nowhere to me and I fucking loved it.

Shadowhearts Covenant and Summoner 2 were two games I'd not heard much about and just took a punt on in, and which were both fantastic.

Warsong and Langrisser 2 are two SEGA Megadrive games which I'd never played until this past year, and which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Deadly Premonition reviews put me well off the game, but I really enjoyed it when playing through it.

Bard's Tale 4 somehow managed to capture the brilliance of old school games in the same vein, whilst also providing options for newer gamers ruined by shit like Skyrim to get into it too. Brilliant.
 
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Krivol

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Potatoland aka Prussia
Chrono Trigger
I hate jRPGs (Role-Playing RPG games :D) but this one was decent.

FF IX
Same as above - it lacked emo bullshitery of FFVII (mostly).

Shadowrun trilogy (SR, Dragonfall, Hong Kong)
Well, a lot of people said it's shit, but I found all of those quite fun games.

A lot of classics that turned out not only to be playable today but also extremely fun:
Bard's Tale Trilogy - yeah, it's quite primitive but still, gives so much fun.
Ultima series - I played 4,5,6,7 and both Underworlds - I know that those are classics and everyone prises them, but I installed them in 2010+ and my attitude was like - let's try those bad-looking games with bad controls and shitty UI. Boy, I was wrong!
Wasteland 1 - A bizarre game (killing all those kids and old people... XD) and yet a great one. The remake is well done, so there is no reason for you to not play this!
 

laclongquan

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Fallout 3.

Sure, Codexers scream and spit on it for decades. I even agree with 3/4 of those spits.

But what the unsaid show it's that it's a very surprising RPG. Yes, the writings are below FNV. yes, the amount is nowhere near enough, with several locations just plain untouched in term of writings.

But what they had done? They draw out the audience and present them with certain choices and consequences that make audience display themselves. FNV done the same thing in regarding Legion's matter (and or Bloodlines' main theme), but it can be said that F3 did it first with The Pitt's moral dilemma. Somehow a nobrainer choice of slave versus slaver/owner become a heated debate among the F3 gamers and modders (who are much more vocal compared to normal gamers). Simply because the final boss was written to be a good father, mouthing some platitude, that can erase all that enslaving and forcing people to work to their death in a most horrifying work conditions in postapocalypse..

And Codexers keep complaining about how the East Coast BOS is not the same as BOS in F1/2. yet that very difference explain a critical question: "just how did F1/2 steel knights fallen to the level of FNV's underground moles, hunted by NCR". Well, because they sent their best to East Coast, so the dregs stay behind get clobbered by NCR, just how.

And finally, F3 is a tactical combat game with heavy RPG thrown in, differ from FNV being a heavy RPG with detailed (but easy) combat. Thus the storyfags generally get clobbered in F3 thus they get mad and badmouth it. Most of the bad points come from playing in console. But tactical players would play F3 in PC thus most of those bad points get dealt with by mods, or simply by better hardware than console.
 

Dwarvophile

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As games were declining fast, Shadowrun Returns and Dragonfall were awesome returns to form for the genre
Bard's Tale 4 somehow managed to capture the brilliance of old school games in the same vein, whilst also providing options for newer gamers ruined by shit like Skyrim to get into it too. Brilliant.

So, it's the second time I see you mention Bard's Tale 4 in most praising terms and I'm really curious because I remember it got flak on the dex when it was out (but so did Wasteland 3 and W3 is awesome). I might give it a try even though I don't have the same nostalgia for dungeon crawlers.

Agree on the Shadowrun Returns trilogy.

The Bannersaga.

Dungeon of Naheulbeuk were games I diodn't expect to enjoy so much.

Wasteland 3, I thought I'd get bored of it half way, like with W2, but it's been lots of fun till the end.

Lately, it's been a pleas,y surprise anytime I would bother to finish a RPG.
 

Serus

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I would say Rogulikes (classic) as a whole genre. I was "raised" believing it's boring and a genre for weirdos and autistic people. Then i started playing: DCSS, TOME4, DOOMRL and more and discovered that i am one of those people. That was a surprise and this genre became one of my favourites.

Edit:
Another pleasant surprise was Darklands. Before discovering it, I didn't know that there were historically themed crpgs at all. Then I discovered Darklands... and then i learnt that i was right in the first place, historically themed crpg don't exist*.

*
Except very, very few but there isn't a whole subtype like fantasy crpg or post-apo crpg
 
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Valdetiosi

Scholar
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Finland
Underrail. Was afraid I would get turned off by the looks of the game and means of progression, but fell in love with gameplay instead.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance, for same reasons as OP.

Morrowind is special case cause I played it as an illiterate kid and didn't knew much, forgot about it and played Oblivion. Picked it up years later and was surprised how well the game holds up. It's just that much better structured than sequels.
 

King Crispy

Too bad I have no queen.
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Possibly Realms of Arkania (II): Star Trail

I had recalled at the time playing the first game, but this one just blew me away in its overall quality, depth, etc.

I remember seeing its advertisement in Computer Gaming World for months before it was released, then being overjoyed when my local Egghead Software called me to tell me they had a copy in stock waiting for me.
 

Blutwurstritter

Learned
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Spellforce 3 was a very pleasant surprise that I didn't expect at all.

A "milder" surprise was Elex, which turned out better than expected even if it didn't reach G1/2. The Shadow Run games were also strangely entertaining. Never did it cross my mind that Larian would implement decent turn-based combat, so I'm counting Divinity:OS too. Westwoods excursion into the action rpg genre Nox was also surprisingly good.
 

Vlajdermen

Arcane
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Catholic Serbia
Underrail. Was afraid I would get turned off by the looks of the game and means of progression, but fell in love with gameplay instead.
Yeah, that too. First I thought it was just a Fallout clone, then I played it when I found out it was made in Serbia, now it's one of my favourite games. Best game from the last decade as far as I've played. Not just best RPG, best game.
 

Zlaja

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Swedex
Daggerfall but only in the sense that people online had convinced me that the dungeons were innavigable labyrinths and that the 3D automap didn't work, neither of which were true. It's a hard game to approach casually but eventually you sort of start to learn how the dungeons work and which pre-made block you're currently inside of, and you really get into a "zone" when you're playing for long enough

Yeah, Daggerfall isn't really that hard to get into and I didn't play it until after Morrowind got released. As you get used to navigating the dungeons, reach around Lv.7-8 and get some decent equipment, you start to dominate the poor fools in your way (until you stumble upon a vampire ancient who ends up insta killing you). My favorite part was always shooting enemies with a bow through doors and even walls. :smug:

I can’t wait to play Arcanum.

And I can't wait until you get slaughtered by starting area wolves.:hug:

PS: Play in turn-based mode.

F3 is a tactical combat game

Thus the storyfags generally get clobbered in F3 thus they get mad and badmouth it

:retarded:
 
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The western road to Erromon.
Fable: The Lost Chapters is one I can think of.

It's not a great RPG, but I expected a more generic fantasy experience going in, like what you'd find in Guild Wars, Warcraft or Dungeon Siege. I didn't expect the sort of light Fairy tale theme to be so prominent. In that vein, it would be really cool to see a game based on some of the stories by Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm.

Also Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal. I was lead to believe it would be worse than the base game, but I liked it better personally. Especially the soundtrack.
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

Guest
I would also echo Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Very good game.

Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen took me by surprise as well. Shit was sitting in my library for a long time and one bored night I decided to install it. One of my few good decisions.
 

Vlajdermen

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Fable: The Lost Chapters is one I can think of.

It's not a great RPG, but I expected a more generic fantasy experience going in, like what you'd find in Guild Wars, Warcraft or Dungeon Siege. I didn't expect the sort of light Fairy tale theme to be so prominent. In that vein, it would be really cool to see a game based on some of the stories by Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm.

Also Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal. I was lead to believe it would be worse than the base game, but I liked it better personally. Especially the soundtrack.
Yes, more literary arr pidgeys. Start with Jules Verne and Robert A. Heinlein.
 

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