Incline Of the Big Three, which is your favorite? (Fallout, PS:T, Arcanum)

[Ysaye]

Fallout > Arcanum > PS:T (the gap between the last two games being bigger than the one between the first two)

By the way, I'm not sure if the brand "Big Three" of RPGs should be used to refer to these three games. Before clicking this thread I assumed this would be a poll about the long-running, genre-defining franchises of Wizardry, Ultima and either Might & Magic or Gold Box.

Agreed - I was expecting this to be a choice between Wizardry, Ultima and Gold Box.

 

[Humbaba]

Here's the real big 3

1. PST
2. Wrathfinder
3. BG2

 

[Rephyrnomicon]

For me it's Planescape, and it's not particularly close...

I do wish I had the wherewithal to play Arcanum, though. It's been installed and patched up on my PC for about a half decade, and I just never seem to find the time to actually run the damn thing.

 

[CootKeeper]

I love all three almost as much but I chose Arcanum. Best soundtrack

 

[c u in da ballpit ashren]

Fallout's greatest strengths are that it does everything reasonably well. Not spectacularly mind you, but it was a finished product where one aspect didn't domineer over the others. You weren't getting insane reactivity like Arcanum, nor the breadth and scale of it, but you were getting a game that is closed, complete, and doesn't overstay it's welcome. When people talk about Fallout's bugs, they mean a couple that you can work around, save for maybe blocking the doorway and having to reload.

When people talk about Arcanum, they mean the game crashing, corrupted saves, quests not working properly, things that should have been smoothed out but never were.

Arcanum had, and still has the potential do everything *way* better than Fallout, but it's combat is bad and it barely runs well.

Planescape is less about gameplay and more the other parts of a CRPG, that unlike the last two, is pretty direct with how it wants to interact it's story with you; In Fallout and Arcanum, you rarely get an actual NPC presenting you with dialogue choices on man itself, until the very end, but in Planescape those questions are so commonplace that one of the quests has you *killing yourself* to teach a young boy, a lesson. And that's an optional quest, but every quest usually revolves around directly answering a question for yourself.

With that being said, Planescape might have been one of the giants back then when people thought more alternatives were on the way to compare, but as we currently live: There aren't even any *real* alternatives to Fallout or Arcanum, much less Planescape Torment (though Disco Elysium does come close, it's still different.) which is a testament of good these games actually were.

If I had to pick, it'd be hard to say. Fallout's a finished game, Arcanum is the objectively better game but with issues that were never cleared up and overhauls desperately needed (looking at you drog) and Planescape is just too different of a game to compare.

That's why it should have been Fallout x Arcanum x Baldur's Gate.

Fallout still has the best death animations though, and that's massively, surprisingly, underrated in a game.
You can't look at the SMG animation or the Lieutenant's cybernetic meltdown and tell me the other three games has better.

 

[luj1]

Objectively Fallout

Subjectively Arcanum

 

[luj1]

None of these games have good combat or build variety by the way

 

[Sranchammer]

Arcanum was unique then and remains unique now.

 

[Sigourn]

Oops, wrong thread.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

Technically these are the only good RPGs ever made.

 

[Miner 2049er]

Hm...let's see....replays:

Fallout~10
Arcanum=3
PS:T=0 (loved it back then, but I'm not into emo visual novel stuff anymore and I do think Baldurs Gate 2 is a better game)

 

[Crispy]

My thread has raised the dead

 

[jackofshadows]

Fallout was always a special game for me because of its setting, aesthethics, sound and of course ahem death animations. Less so because of its actual mechanics even though always seen them as fine. And even less because of the plot, the dialogues and the characters although that's more thanks to not too crappy but very loose translations that I've played at the time. It's quite different in english when I replayed it first time that way.

But even if I saw the potential of its core systems all the more after I've played F2 it wasn't even close to, like OP put in terms of capturing the imagination as with Arcanum. You play it and at the same time imagining what else you could do there in all senses: quests, possible plots, characters, NPC interactions and even builds. Yes, I find Arcanum much more stumulating in that regard than Fallout. Then of course, the reactivity just blown my mind back there even when it was just in terms of possible dialogue replies and not actual ways to solve this or that quest. And on the surface Arcanum also has impressive look and sound even though I didn't find fantasy, albeit this unusual more appealing than postapoc.

Played Torment much later and liked it a lot but wasn't even closely impressed as with the other two. So, Arcanum it is.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Fallout being the one I replayed the most over the (many) years, it gets my vote.

 

[Terenty]

Deus Ex

 

[Humanophage]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...mwCeFhw6RoX_iMa8ZshNdZxEz4/edit#gid=238442825

BG2 is heftily above Arcanum in polls.

1 Planescape: Torment 576
2 Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game 512
3 Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn 435
4 Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura 387
5 Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 375
6 Fallout 2 345
7 Fallout: New Vegas 286
8 Deus Ex 277
9 Gothic II 255
10 The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind 246

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I'd say the real big 5 (not 3) was:
Wizardry Series
Bardstale series
Might & Magic Series
Ultima Series
Questron Series (yep including LOTA & LOBS)

To a lesser extent:
Dunjonquest Series
Old SSI games (before GB) like Wizard's Crown, Eternal Dagger, Phantasie Series, Shard of Spring & Demon's Winter, Rings of Zilfin, Genstone Warrior & Healer, etc)

Gold Box, imho, takes an entirely different role of gold crown gaming. It is above these for it was a tabletop pnp design before CRPG. It laughs at any top 3 or 5 or 10.

note: this is my old man perspective. Fallout merely reinvogorated the Wasteland (which was a bit Bardstale-ish). I'll admit there is something to early Elderscrolls games I enjoyed.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Fallout, not necessarily because I feel strongly towards the game, but because I don't care for the other two. I do like it though, one of the few games to do something interesting with a post-apocalyptic setting. While the combat is not the greatest, its just a simpler version of much better systems to me, so I don't mind it too much.

Arcanum I need to give a proper shot to, since the only time I played it I felt quite annoyed by combat and moving around. Not exactly a great first impression.

For Planescape, I get why people would like it and I get why people consider it so great, but its just really eh to me. I tend to feel that way about Infinity Engine games.

 

[Serus]

Of the three, I like Fallout 2 the best.

Other than that, Fallout 1. Or maybe Arcanum, didn't play Arcanum since early 2000s, don't remember it very well. Planescape however, paraphrasing Crispy, is an abomination. No, not really, it's just not very good if you are not a storyfag.

Anyway, this is no "Big" three. At best two "big" and one "small".
In addition no kingcomrade option makes the author a fag. I rate this thread 3/10.

All three have shit combat.

True but at least Fallout 1/2 combat is fun compared to the other two.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

I'm gonna go with Arcanum. Why? Because Gnome Harm mage is the best character ever created in video games. Also has the most potential with the haggling skill.

 

[Ismaul]

As a game, Fallout is is the best. Puts you in the driver's seat.

PST is great and all, intellectually stimulating, creative, and a huge influence on young me, but it's a worse game. It's less about what you do, and more about what you experience.

Arcanum is great, has more involved systems than Fallout, but it doesn't live up to its own potential. It needed some more love.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

If you don't like planescape...... you could play numen... num.... uh Numenera?

 

[Serus]

PST being "great", I can live with. "Intellectually stimulating" however...


Someone is really easy to stimulate.

 

[Rincewind]

To me, these are NuSkool RPGs. Like Keigh said, the *real* classics are from the pre-Fallout, pre-Infinity Engine era. I don't have much love for isometric Infinity Engine style games, and RTwP is an abomination that needs to be killed with fire, hands down (to be clear, I do like isometric graphics a lot, just not the general execution of IE-style games).

I enjoyed Fallout when I first played it, but when I tried it again last year after a few Age of Decadence runs, it was very meh in comparison. I get it that AoD was inspired by it, and it served as inspiration for a great many RPGs, but still, I can't enjoy it that much anymore. The strange quest sequencing bugs were very apparent (people saying things I really shouldn't know at a given point). I still liked the reactivity and multiple solutions parts, but the combat is mediocre at best (and I like turn based combat *a lot*). Also, I just don't like purely post-apocalyptic settings (in ELEX it was okay, but even there I enjoyed the Edan part of the map a lot more).

Planescape Torment, the setting and story start out strong, but then it devolves into pretentious pseudo-intellectual/pseudo-philosophical bullshit that I don't care for and find tedious to read. I like reading, I like pulpy fantasy/sci-fi — what I don't like is *pretentiousness*, and P:T has *loads* of it. And the combat is shit, of course, so what's left? Btw, I really enjoyed going through the catacombs and meeting the rat king guy, that was brilliant, even with the shit combat. But after a while, I just couldn't tolerate the pretentiousness any longer.
I have a feeling people who find the writing great and deep have grown up "reading" Marvel comics, mainly

Haven't played Arcanum yet, I hear it has a turn-based mode? That seems promising at the very least, and the settings looks quite intriguing on the surface.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

"Big 3" without either of the titans that is Baldur's Gate 1 or Baldur's Gate 2.

King

Fucking

Comrade.

That aside, overall it's probably Fallout 1, though I enjoyed both PS:T and Arcanum more.