1) Exploration;
Cataclysm (Dark Days Ahead or Bright Nights, I prefer BN now)
Yes I know, this a RL/open world/CRPG hybrid. Definitely qualifies as CRPG. You even have NPCs (both random and not), quests and so on. Hell in BN even an end game (work in progress).
And yes i know it is procedural generation. In certain ways. The actual places, like buildings aren't. And there are a few hand-made location as well.
After all this years i still find new stuff. Some was in game for years, it's not only new stuff added later. And what you can find is great, it's not just amount.
Other titles i considered: Underrail, Fallout 2, Arcanum
2) Setting/ambience;
Darklands
Realistic(-ish), late medieval, Holy Roman Empire. Combined with magic and wonders and fantastic creatures blending into the "realistic" parts in a brilliant way. And sometimes the dark (in a good way!) atmosphere. This isn't your so called "medieval fantasy" - it is actually medieval with some fantasy instead.
I wan't a sequel/game closely inspired by - but only if it is a good one.
Other titles i considered: Fallout 1, Jagged Alliance 2, Arcanum, Cataclysm, Planescape: Torment
3) Tactical combat;
Knights of the Chalice 2
I won't consider Battle Brothers as CRPG for this thread - it is a borderline case and it would be too easy.
This means it's either KotC 2 or Jagged Alliance 2 and after long debate with myself i choose the former.
Great AI. Good variety of enemies. Great encounter design. Good variety of battles, big and small, "linear" and not. Tactical combat is simply great. Give me good exploration on top of combat and it would be a serious contender for best CRPG.
4) Character creation/progression;
Need to think more about it. For now let's say Pathfinder: Kingmaker, simply because it the most varied D&D(-like) system and there aren't that much better ones out there. I am not convinced with my ownm choice here.
Titles under consideration: Underrail, P:K, ToEE, Tome4, Darklands
If "creation" would be separated from "progression" then Darklands might have won. However it's not the case.
5) Reactivity/Choice & Consequence;
Well, C&C are, in most parts, FAKE. That includes the Codex darlings, Fallout, Arcanum and so on. There almost no major reactivity, ever, in crpgs. It is mostly small, relatively non-important stuff if at all. All the actual reactions of the world at your actions happen after the game has already ended in ways of those silly end game sliders.
The above means it is more about reactivity. I'll go with
Damned Registrations on that. It's probably a RL(-ish) game and since i didn't play Nethack a lot it have to be
Cataclysm again.
Other titles considered: Nethack, Age of Decadence (i suppose this one is the least fake of the fakes).
6) Best system/mechanics in action-based RPGs;
How would i know, I don't play those, i never liked them very much and i physically can't play them these days. Daggerfall i suppose, because it is one of the very few i played more than a few hours and liked.
7) Itemization;
Baldur's Gate 2
Not totally convinced with my own choice here. Again. However BG2 had a lot of unique magic items, some of them with interesting powers.
Other titles considered: Arcanum - unfortunately many of the base systems of the game were broken. Additionally combat and combat encounters were so poorly designed that the items, although fun and creative, were mostly useless - as most of them were combat oriented. Beautifully drawn too. If quality of graphics counts here Arcanum > BG2.
Other contenders: Cataclysm (again); many D&D-based games, old and new, tend to have above average itemization.
8) Narrative/Story.
- Narrative writing in CRPGs was a mistake
Yes, and storyfags are ghey.
However a good narrative can ADD to the experience. I have trouble about the naming here. "Story" is pretty straightforward. "Narrative" is not. Does it include quality of writing? I assume so. Can a game have good narrative but no/weak/unimportant story? I liked the narrative of Darklands but it didn't have any story per se. Even the biggest quest wasn't that.
Planescape: Torment
But only because it has both the story AND decent narrative. If they were separated, it could only gain the "story" part.
I don't care much about story in computer games other than telling me why i have to become a murder hobo this time. I like the game to have decent writing though.
