Vapourware RPGs that can legitimately be called masterpieces

[Valky]

Ladysign: Snake Emblem?

 

[Viata]

Serpent in the Staglands?

 

[Butter]

Perfect Dark?

 

[Falksi]

Ghost'n'Goblins

Ah, memories, i used to play this one on arcade, still, Ghouls'n'Ghosts was even better.
Both beat the crap out of little turds like Diablo.

Fucking LURVED that bastard. Spunkage!

 

[Citizen]

Serpent in the Staglands?

Cool game, but very cold

Perfect Dark?

Freezing!

Ladysign: Snake Emblem?

Hell froze over

Disco Elysium?

Oymakon called, they want their weather back! I said RPG, not VN

Wait wait wait I've got this one.

Birthright Headcrest

Hot!

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Cool game, but very cold

Well, is it cool or is it very cold? :^)

 

[Citizen]

Well, is it cool or is it very cold? :^)

Both. Valky solved half the riddle already

 

[overly excitable young man]

If you search "pretentious" in the dictionary there's actually an image of Lilura.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Wait wait wait I've got this one.

Birthright Headcrest

Birthright: Gorgon's Alliance

 

[Citizen]

Birthright: Gorgon's Alliance

Y E S!

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Y E S!

I'd love to play it but not sure it runs on Windows 10. Looks really interesting.

 

[GarfunkeL]

If I remember it correctly - and this was a loooooooooooong time ago, it's pretty shitty and really buggy, and I couldn't really make much progress in it at all.

 

[Citizen]

I'd love to play it but not sure it runs on Windows 10. Looks really interesting.

There's a dos version that works with dosbox, but it crashes much too often. Windows version works fine on win7 tho

 

[Fishy]

Wait wait wait I've got this one.

Birthright Headcrest

Birthright: Gorgon's Alliance

I loved the Birthright setting, spent some quality time playing PBEM campaigns over the years, and still have that big blue box sitting somewhere in a corner of the house... Gorgon's Alliance was a weird clunky mix of a game though. As a pure strategy game it was alright, but then you had that clunky weird-ass adventuring mode, and battles were all but decided by magic missiles.

 

[Roguey]

Actually, I was at one point thinking of covering such arcade games on my blog, as I know more about arcade games than I do PC RPGs.

Were you an arcade kid or strictly MAME?

 

[Lilura]

Mostly MAME and a couple of Neo Geo emulators.

If you search "monocled" in the dictionary there's actually an image of Lilura.

FTFY.

Now, into the iggy bin you go.

 

[Citizen]

So Lilura, you just pussied out and ignored me when confronted about ACTUAL monocled RPG aka Birthright? Keep playing your popamole boulder gay then, casual

Might as well post some authoritative writeups about your favourite 3-in-a-row mobile games

 

[Serus]

Lilura makes an interesting distinction between-
Tier 0 - Masterpiece
Tier 1 - Legendary
Tier 2 - Classic

With adventure games, for example, it is pretty straightforward that the ranking would be like ~

Masterpiece adventure games-
Grim Fandango
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father

Legendary adventure games-
Sam and Max: Hit the Road
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
The Last Express
Lara Bow The Colonel's Request
Lara Bow Dagger of Amon Ra
Day of the Tentacle
Monkey Island 2
King's Quest VI
Riven
Neuromancer

Classic adventure games -
Zork
Shadowgate
Deja Vu
Maniac Mansion
Monkey Island
Leisure Suit Larry 3
Loom
Gabriel Knight 2: Beast Within
Myst
Beneath a Steel Sky
etc...

[...]

Monkey Island 2 is "legendary" but Monkey Island 1 only "classic" ?

Edit: i wont even comment on the massive stupidity of the rest of that post.

 

[Longshanks]

I don't think it's worthwhile/possible to talk about RPG "masterworks". The genre is too broad and the OP's list clearly shows this (explained below). Whether it's possible to talk about masterpiece in a form of media, usually, lacking a defined master is another problem.

If we're defining masterpiece as near flawless, none of the games the OP lists qualify. They all have major flaws. The only way some don't is if we restrict our assessment to sub-genre, which is why I don't think there are any general RPG masterpieces. I mean a few of the games listed are tentatively RPGs at all (Deus Ex, JA2 for sure), so I don't see how anyone sane could call them RPG masterworks.

Diablo: quite possibly an ARPG masterpiece; not a sub-genre I play so can't say for sure. As a general RPG it badly lacks C&C at least.

Deus Ex: questionable RPG status. Like SS2 I'd term it an FPSWRPGE or "immersive sim". Take out character progression and I'd barely notice. Not sure it has too many masterful elements, combat: poor, stealth: poor, RPG elements: weak. It's parts come together to make an excellent whole, but it is plenty clunky.

JA2: along with Fallout the best game on the list. A masterpiece RPG though? Not unless your generous with your genre definitions. We could maybe label it an RPG, but not a masterful one. It does combat amazingly well and is a masterpiece of turn-based strategy. There's no other masterful element to the game though, certainly not anything particulalrly RPG centric.

Fallout: only game on the list that is clearly an RPG masterpiece. Even then, some would claim only of a certain type. It's combat is certainly not masterful and for those who skew that way it's masterpiece status would be less certain. As a C&C heavy RPG though it has few peers, in addition the rest of the game is competent at worst and it rises above almost any other RPG.

 

[Jason Liang]

Monkey Island 2 is "legendary" but Monkey Island 1 only "classic" ?

Edit: i wont even comment on the massive stupidity of the rest of that post.

Sure. Sort of like Day of the Tentacle > Maniac Mansion, when Maniac Mansion is obviously an amazing adventure game as well

You should know that Monkey Island is pretty far down the pole for me. In fact I enjoyed The Princeless Bride more.

 

[overly excitable young man]

How many sentences does Lilura endure before becoming whiny and ignoring you?
Not even one it seems.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

She did that to me and then later took me off the ignore list.

 

[overly excitable young man]

I don't know. Her autism levels are dangerously high.
But she's still in the top 25% best posters.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

The most flawlessest RPG award goes to:

Is Labor Turns Right: Medusa Shield any good?

 

[Citizen]

Is Labor Turns Right: Medusa Shield any good?

It's Delivery Roadsign: Beheading WoW-merchandise

Yes it's not bad, 9.875364/10 IGN