Community RPG Codex GOTY 2020: Results & Cool Graphs

[felipepepe]

Tags: GOTY 2020

Welcome to the RPG Codex 2020 GOTY Award!

This year we had 1025 voters, who rated 76 releases from 2020. If 2019 felt like a slow year, this was even slower. But we still had some good games that will likely turn into classics as more people try them out. Since we had very few expansions & DLCs this year, I've cut the categories to just two: Best RPGs of the Year & Best PC ports/remasters.

For those of you who just want the TL;DR, here are the winners:

Game of the Year
1st - Wasteland 3
2nd - Yakuza: Like a Dragon
3rd - Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children

Best Remaster/Port
Persona 4 Golden

For the full results and fancy graphs, just follow the link below.

Read the full article: RPG Codex GOTY 2020: Results & Cool Graphs

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Don't support fraud, support transparency.
Rusty's official unofficial RPGCODEX 2020 GOTY thread

 

[Darth Roxor]

Champagnes must be popping at InXile, because Wasteland 3 managed to beat CDProjekt, with 84% of positive votes, becoming the 2020 GOTY. Still, I must point again how low its numbers are. Only 48% of voters played it, while 65% played Wasteland 2 in 2014. This is really surprising, given how WL3 is also on consoles & on game pass, was released earlier in the year than WL2 and there weren't many other big RPGs competing against it.

yeah it's really surprising that people weren't rushing to play wasteland 3 given inxile's track record of releasing unfinished mediocrity and the fact that it also looks thoroughly unimpressive

also these results should show how many blank ballots were tossed in, it seemed like something common this year considering the replies to the thrad

 

[ERYFKRAD]

How many of these votes were by codexers though?

 

[HiddenX]

I can agree with the top 3, but I have Troubleshooter on top.

 

[StaticSpine]

I started playing W3 after I voted. P. good so far, I'd give it 3/4.

Troubleshooter is solid 4/4 tho

 

[thesheeep]

Yakuza does look interesting, but I've never played a single game in the series - and this is what, the 6th entry?
And all the other games don't even play the same from what I hear, this is the first with RPG combat.

Troubleshooter? Oof - I'd have to be totally out of things to play to not be put off by the anime avatars. And my backlog has ~70 games.
There are just certain styles that I will never, ever get into. The bog standard "anime avatar" is one of them.

 

[Jaedar]

I'm honestly just surprised half the voters played wasteland 3. And almost 60% played cyberpunk!

Maybe for next year consider having "Never heard of it" and "Doesn't look interesting enough to bother" as separate categories. It is hard to know with the current voting what is a super niche product and what is a hidden gem.

 

[Thac0]

Yakuza does look interesting, but I've never played a single game in the series - and this is what, the 6th entry?
And all the other games don't even play the same from what I hear, this is the first with RPG combat.

Troubleshooter? Oof - I'd have to be totally out of things to play to not be put off by the anime avatars. And my backlog has ~70 games.
There are just certain styles that I will never, ever get into. The bog standard "anime avatar" is one of them.

Yakuza is perhaps the best possible entry point in the Yakuza series and maybe the best entry drug for JRPGs in general.
It changes the protagonist from prior Yakuza games, and with him the story. Ichiban Kasuga does not even know about what happened prior in Yakuza, and neither need you.
It changes the brawler gameplay to classical turn based fighting with classes, a la Dragon Quest. The system is completely new for any Yakuza fan, as it was made off the good reaction to an April Fools Joke.
The new turn based combat is quite generic, Dragon Quest from 30 years ago has more complex combat. But it is well executed, and the classes are funny. Instead of Warrior, Mage, Thief, Cleric you have Foreman, Host, Chef and Musician.

The only gripe that the game has is that it takes very long to get hard. I did not die once in my first 20 hours or so, and there is no harder difficulty for your first playthrough.
Eventually combat gets a bit spicy, but even then it is a JRPG. It will never truly challenge you.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

It's not real democracy if you can't vote "none".

 

[Thac0]

Some numbers that stood out for me:

Horizon's Gate 7% played 85% positive 2,63 Bayesian Average

Codexian made tactical game, has the second highest positive rating on the poll after Yakuza. Perhaps the true hidden gem this year. It even beats out Nox Archaist, which was played by half as many people but which only got 83% positive.

Fae Tactics 5% played 56% positive 2,47 Bayesian Average

I expected this to be played less but do better. It has almost no criticism in the rpgcodex thread, the only thing that bothers people was that it's initial absolutely brutal difficulty got patched out.
So there was a silent chunk of people who did not enjoy it? Or are those ratings for the dreaded combination of tumblr influenced anime art style?

Overall, cool poll.
It has raw data attached, even the one with time logs and everything, so the STOP THE STEAL might stop now.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

3/4 of the bests are JRPGs. Why the JRPG forum is still separated from the "General" RPG one?

 

[index.php]

#notmygoty

 

[NJClaw]

Troubleshooter? Oof - I'd have to be totally out of things to play to not be put off by the anime avatars.

 

[DeN DarK]

Surprising, actually! W3 was released with plenty of bugs. Of course after that CP2077 redefined definition)
I enjoyed W3 but never thought that W3 will be GOTY here.
Yakuza and Troubleshooter looks interesting. Need to try.

 

[Fowyr]

So, felipepepe run fucking poll for a just one week (using arguments that he had run them before for a month and someone always missed them. No shit, Sherlock, people come and go, it's a forum, a lot of us don't use Codex 24/7), added shitton of not-RPGs with a retarded arguments such as that they are "listed as RPGs in Steam" (if we go by Steam, we should have genres like "meme", "female protagonist", "casual" and "colorful"), added the true RPGs like Nox Archaist only after Infi's ribbing, didn't add Codexian Note of the Outskirts and was a truly disgusting Sopa de Macaco guzzler overall.
It's truly regrettable that clear-eyed kid with interest in old-school RPGs that I knew became another soy golem that fruitlessly, but endlessly, tries to worm his way into industry by the means sucking to usual suspects and Twitterati.

 

[Citizen]

How many of these votes were by codexers though?

IKR? No way cp2077 wouldn't get the first place in a codexer-only poll

 

[StaticSpine]

How many of these votes were by codexers though?

IKR? No way cp2077 wouldn't get the first place in a codexer-only poll

Yep, RPG Watch users saved us this year.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

So, felipepepe run fucking poll for a just one week (using arguments that he had run them before for a month and someone always missed them. No shit, Sherlock, people come and go, it's a forum, a lot of us don't use Codex 24/7), added shitton of not-RPGs with a retarded arguments such as that they are "listed as RPGs in Steam" (if we go by Steam, we should have genres like "meme", "female protagonist", "casual" and "colorful"), added the true RPGs like Nox Archaist only after Infi's ribbing, didn't add Codexian Note of the Outskirts and was a truly disgusting Sopa de Macaco guzzler overall.
It's truly regrettable that clear-eyed kid with interest in old-school RPGs that I knew became another soy golem that fruitlessly, but endlessly, tries to worm his way into industry by the means sucking to usual suspects and Twitterati.

Don't support fraud, support transparency.
Rusty's official unofficial RPGCODEX 2020 GOTY thread

 

[CappenVarra]

the real news is that the highest rated game of last 4 years is Titan Outpost MF

 

[lukaszek]

id say tis surprising how many played cyberpunk, after all it was advertised as requiring high end pc and was out for just a month.

still its another shameful anonymous poll so i cant see because of who cyberpunk scored that high

 

[felipepepe]

id say tis surprising how many played cyberpunk, after all it was advertised as requiring high end pc and was out for just a month.

True, but it also had a pirate version on day 1...

 

[NJClaw]

id say tis surprising how many played cyberpunk, after all it was advertised as requiring high end pc and was out for just a month.

True, but it also had a pirate version on day 1...

I'd say that 2 entire years of constant uninterrupted advertising also helped.

 

[lukaszek]

id say tis surprising how many played cyberpunk, after all it was advertised as requiring high end pc and was out for just a month.

True, but it also had a pirate version on day 1...

i dont buy this argument. All games with high visibility are being cracked on 1st days.
If its about trying game out - you can do so on steam and refund if you got problems running... or for any reason actually

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

I'm quite glad the pretentious and soulless crap cp2077 didn't make the top 3!