Community RPG Codex 2016 Role-Playing Game of the Year & Age of Incline Voting

[Goral]

And we can do a 25 point voting after Torment, just for the sake of it.

Yes please

Don't believe his lies.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I didn't play every game on the list, but here are the ones I chose for best of each year:

2012: Dark Souls
2013: Paper Sorcerer
2014: Blackguards
2015: Legends of Eisenwald
2016: Fallout 1.5

2012-2015 were some pretty good years, but man did 2016 seem to fall off a cliff.

 

[sser]

Lotta random games on that list.

2014 was a decent year, unfortunately islanded by a sea of shit.

 

[Average Manatee]

GotYs:
2012: Dark Souls.
2013: Labyrinth of Touhou 2.
2014: Nothing. Xenonauts/WL2DC was closest but I couldn't give either a 5. There's lots of games that I haven't played which I get the impression of being 4-5 games, all backlogged
2015: Nothing I played was worth more than a 3, though there's again a number of games that look at decent and worth a shot
2016: Fallout 1.5. This is a shoo in for game of the arbitrarily designated time period. Hits well on nostalgia, good gameplay, good lore.

I do like the time-block voting more than just a 2016 vote, since it allows those who don't play games the year of release to participate more.

felipepepe What is this travesty? Where is Rance 6? The English release was 2016!

December = essentially a 2017 game. Rance better be on next year to take his justly deserved acclaim.

 

[StaticSpine]

2016 was p. weak for the genre.

= GOTY

 

[Somberlain]

Rating games as shit is cathartic.

 

[thesheeep]

Stardew Valley?
Starbound?

I played both, and both are IMO truly great games deserving many awards.
But neither are RPG at all. I usually get it when some games are debated to be RPGs (like Crusader Kings or *gulp* Skyrim/Fallout 4), but in those I don't even get why someone would assume any RPG elements in them.
They don't even have character building, just equipment.

What is this nonsense?
Guess I'll just not rate them at all, then?

 

[thesheeep]

First game on the list: Borderlands 2. Oh boy...

This gunna be gud!

I hear Tim Cain sunk dozens of hours into it.

As did I.
It is probably the best co-op game out there and simply a blast to play. And it does have stats and character building, which do make some difference.
Belongs to the list about as much as Grim Dawn or Diablo 3, so it is okay to be there I guess.
If only "pure" RPGs were allowed, that list would be kinda short

 

[commie]

2016 is kind of light on the list...I know a lot of the games in the earlier years are a bit of a stretch to call 'RPG's' and there's a lot of shovelware that slipped by, so with those standards in mind, 2016 list is remarkably short. Many of the 'RPG's' on that list are just old console ports as well.

Seems it's becoming 2005 all over again....

 

[Darth Roxor]

a single click in 2016

gud year

 

[commie]

Shadowrun: Dragonfall Director's Cut is the best game on that list (well, except for the great pseudo-RPGs like Dark Souls).

I feel like I am in a distinct minority in that I enjoyed the original Shadowrun Returns (Dead Man's Switch) but the two follow ups were kinda meh and I didn't finish either of them. I don't have to have a huge story with lots of companions that tell me their stories over time like a delicate blossoming flower to enjoy a game. It's not necessarily bad, but it can annoy me if not done amazingly well.

Only thing good about the first one was that it was mercifully short. Don't remember anything from that game apart from the ghosts of the children from the plane crash. No real character building, as I could destroy anything no matter what I picked and just hire a mook to make up any deficiencies. Simple as fuck combat. Tablet game. A lot of talk about overrated games on Codex, and oh so much edge about things like Sawyer overbalancing the fun out of games and Obs being BSB, yet so many Dexers have a hard-on for this mediocre series that is the epitome of BSB ersatz design, a 'my first TB RPG' with simple mechanics and boring lore dumps.
I have a high tolerance for games so to be fair I did more or less enjoy my time with them(not much for the first one)which is all that matters really, though none of these would be anywhere near even a top 100 RPG's list for me if I had to list them all.

 

[Jaedar]

This list made me realize how fortunate we were. 3 dark souls in 4 years.

Rest of the line up has been a bit poor though, especially 2016.

 

[veevoir]

2015 was suprisingly strong, a lot of games that provided at least mild enjoyment.

 

[Hirato]

There were plenty of good games released in 2016.
Dragon's Dogma and Stranger of Sword City are 2 of the more obvious examples.

 

[Snorkack]

Thanks for doing the job, felipepepe!
Poll made me realize that I probably spent more time browsing the codex than playing games in 2016.

 

[Rahdulan]

I did my duty. No 5s, though. Not a single one.

 

[V_K]

Lurking RPG is still missing from the 2016 list.

 

[CWagner]

this poll made me realize how many games I liked but never finished -.-

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Man. This really forced me to face how much shit I essentially ignored in the last few years.

 

[Chateaubryan]

I hope some understated gems will emerge from the final results. <3

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Lots of 5s from me. Witcher 3, Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, Trails in the Sky 1 and 2, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, Shadowrun: Hong Kong...

Trails of Cold Steel 1 and 2 were missing from the list though. Valkyria Chronicles, while a superb game, is not an RPG. And neither is Borderlands 2 (but unlike VC, it is mediocre, so why it was on this list at all is beyond me...)

 

[Mark Richard]

Stardew Valley?
Starbound?

I played both, and both are IMO truly great games deserving many awards.
But neither are RPG at all. I usually get it when some games are debated to be RPGs (like Crusader Kings or *gulp* Skyrim/Fallout 4), but in those I don't even get why someone would assume any RPG elements in them.
They don't even have character building, just equipment.

What is this nonsense?
Guess I'll just not rate them at all, then?

It's most likely a trick question to weed out the traitors amongst us. I made no distinction between genres and rated each game according to my enjoyment, so I'm expecting a sinister knock on my door any moment now.

 

[Saark]

The past couple of years sure had a lot of disappointments in stock. Thankfully there also were quite a few surprises that made up for it.

I do agree though that a lot of enjoyable and entertaining games simply don't deserve to be called majestic™ so I had to bump them down a point.

 

[Crooked Bee]

D:OS, Underrail, Labyrinth of Touhou 2, AoD, Heroine's Quest got 5's from me (as well as Lightning Returns, of course), but there have also been quite a few solid 4's, so overall not bad. Basically, I gave 5's to games I consider mechanically the most creative and important in terms of trying new things with RPG/combat design (D:OS, AoD, LoT) or just plain fun.

The poll also made me realize there have been some games I was meaning to play, but then forgot about them and/or still haven't gotten around to, like Voidspire Tactics.

 

[Zeriel]

The biggest surprise of the last few years for me was that Tyranny ended up way better than Pillars. I would have never expected that from the pre-release coverage.

and we'll also get Mass Effect: Andromeda, the first next-gen RPG from BioWare...

Also, Numanuma will suck.

Huh? Wasn't that Inquisition?