Community The Age of Incline: RPG Codex's 2012-2016 GOTY Results

[HanoverF]

to everyone who voted just to cause delicious butthurt

 

[Somberlain]

Muh Undertail.

 

[purpleblob]

So Witcher 3 is #1 after all, definitely would have gotten my vote but I only just started playing. I was watching my husband playing through expansions though and preferred story of Heart of Stone over Blood and Wine. In saying though, both were fantastic, enough to make me start playing.

 

[DeepOcean]

Typical Codexian 01: "Man, I hate those AAA developers that make games with quest markers everywhere, you know, where is the mystery of exploration when all that there is to be seen is shown on big yellow arrows. Do you know they are even making a trail of dots yu have to follow to reach the quest destination?

Typical Codexian 02: "Yeah, they are adding this eagle vision shit everywhere, it is retarded. What is the point of doing an investigation and exploration if everything you need to find is glowing on yellow and red?"

Typical Codexian 01: "Yeah, those Bethesda faggots and their copy pasted open world shit. How many Draugr tombs there are on Skyrim? Why make an open world if most what you do is pointless shit? Man, I hate this leveled loot shit. They are really dumbing down their games to appeal to the peasants. Common, blunt weapons, swords, spears, axes are all one handed and two handed? There are only 15 skill trees now, what is next? A game with only three skill trees?

Typical Codexian 02: "Yeah, they are cutting so many weapon styles that on the future you will only play a two handed sword dude with long hair hacking slashing for hundreds of hours. And about an RPG without attributes? Skytim is a major letdown, it is just and easy babys first hack and slash shit."

Typical Codexian 01: "Another thing I hate on the gamming industry is on Mass Effect, this cinematic shit must end. How you spend half the game watching an over long cutscene? This TellTale "adventure" shit is horrendous too. How there are people claiming their games to be RPGs?"

Typical Codexian 03: "OMG, guise, CDProjekt is about to release Witcher 3!"

Typical Codexian 01: "OMG, POTATO STRONK!"

Typical Codexian 02: "OMG, POTATO STRONK!"

Typical Codexian 04: Ehh guise... I dunno...

Typical Codexian 01: "NO POTATO STRONK?"

Typical Codexian 04: Ehh... I dunno... gameplay you know is a little... I dunno... popamole?

Typical Codexian 02: American faggot, you are an edgy butthurt cunt, butthurt with envy from the glory of Glorious POTATO! You know nothing. CDProjekt do no wrong.

 

[Outlander]

 

[Malpercio]

lol Witcher, a game in which the RPG elements almost feel out of place, over OS.

 

[Excidium II]

Twitch3r is better.

 

[Invictus]

Typical Codexian 01: "Man, I hate those AAA developers that make games with quest markers everywhere, you know, where is the mystery of exploration when all that there is to be seen is shown on big yellow arrows. Do you know they are even making a trail of dots yu have to follow to reach the quest destination?

Typical Codexian 02: "Yeah, they are adding this eagle vision shit everywhere, it is retarded. What is the point of doing an investigation and exploration if everything you need to find is glowing on yellow and red?"

Typical Codexian 01: "Yeah, those Bethesda faggots and their copy pasted open world shit. How many Draugr tombs there are on Skyrim? Why make an open world if most what you do is pointless shit? Man, I hate this leveled loot shit. They are really dumbing down their games to appeal to the peasants. Common, blunt weapons, swords, spears, axes are all one handed and two handed? There are only 15 skill trees now, what is next? A game with only three skill trees?

Typical Codexian 02: "Yeah, they are cutting so many weapon styles that on the future you will only play a two handed sword dude with long hair hacking slashing for hundreds of hours. And about an RPG without attributes? Skytim is a major letdown, it is just and easy babys first hack and slash shit."

Typical Codexian 01: "Another thing I hate on the gamming industry is on Mass Effect, this cinematic shit must end. How you spend half the game watching an over long cutscene? This TellTale "adventure" shit is horrendous too. How there are people claiming their games to be RPGs?"

Typical Codexian 03: "OMG, guise, CDProjekt is about to release Witcher 3!"

Typical Codexian 01: "OMG, POTATO STRONK!"

Typical Codexian 02: "OMG, POTATO STRONK!"

Typical Codexian 04: Ehh guise... I dunno...

Typical Codexian 01: "NO POTATO STRONK?"

Typical Codexian 04: Ehh... I dunno... gameplay you know is a little... I dunno... popamole?

Typical Codexian 02: American faggot, you are an edgy butthurt cunt, butthurt with envy from the glory of Glorious POTATO! You know nothing. CDProjekt do no wrong.

Forgot to add they both hate Action RPGs and think Dark Souls sucks

 

[alphyna]

It's mind-blowing how unsurprising the results are.
(A great analysis though, please do more statistics of any kind.)

 

[Roguey]

There is only one Roguey (thankfully) but here's a list of people whose tastes overlap mine the most

Allanon
cpmartins
Apan
Taraska
Desert Fish
Stakhanov
Pretty
Gord
Slimu
Drowed
Saulot
Dreed
Rpguy
twincast
Lis
Hergon
Reinar
sebas
Maverikfreak
steel legion
FritzedProcess
Ondatr

 

[Shadenuat]

The only AAA Western title is The Witcher 3.

How is Warsaw "west"

2016 was a shitty year, but I guess taken on average we got 5 good RPGs/year since the incline began.
It's more positive than I thought.

Yet my heart still aches as in 5 years there still never happened an old-school, modern engine, turn or phase-based first person party blobber. Neither Grimrock of Paper Sorcerer scratched the itch as I had to replay Wizardry 8 with mods again. A true D&D turn based party game also never happened as that one with pointy hats got cancelled then resurrected then godknowswhat happened to it (Chaos Chronicles I think?)

Developers plz I want

 

[Roguey]

How is Warsaw "west"

Poland is still in Europe, and not in Asia.

 

[Forest Dweller]

What the fuck?

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Using the top 10 as games the Codex should do reviews on and the top 11-25 as nice to haves, we do have this fine list for those that like lists.

Recent Games That The Codex Should Review
- Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (#7)
- FTL (#10)


Recent Games That Would Be Nice To Have A Review
- Fallout 1.5 (#11)
- Dark Souls III (#12)
- Dark Souls II (#16)
- Xenonauts (#18)
- Invisible, Inc (#22)
- Lords of Xulima (#25)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------(hidden gems below)
- Rance VI: The Collapse of Zeth
- Megadimension Neptunia VII
- Voidspire Tactics

So far we have reviewed from the top 25 list: The Witcher 3 (1), Age of Decadence (2), Divinity: OS (3), Underrail (4), Dark Souls (5), Shadowrun: Dragonfall (6), NEO Scavenger (8), Legend of Grimrock 2 (9), Shadowrun: Hong Kong (13), Valkyria Chronicles (14), Expeditions: Conquistador (15), Dungeon Rats (17), Heroine's Quest (19), Legend of Grimrock (20), Pillars of Eternity (23), Wasteland 2 (24)

I'm also shocked that Blackguards didn't make it. I thought it would be in the top 10. I also thought that Serpent in the Staglands, Legends of Eisenwald, and Paper Sorcerer would do better than they did, but I guess I'm a sucker for small company, turn-based games.

 

[karoliner]

It feels good to not be the only weeaboo on the site who 5/5 Valkyria Chronicles.

 

[Sherry]

Hi.

I am very sorry to everyone but I just do not understand the graph and how the best game I have played for 160 hours shows itself as the top, Top, TOP game in the graph that does not show anywhere Wither 3 above it yet Wither 3 is tops on another standing? Nearly 80% of voters on the first graphic shows Pillars of Eternity but I cannot find Wither 3 anywhere! How can this happen?

okay. Okay. OKAY!

I just spotted Wither 3 but it is NO WHERE near the 80% mark of the best game so how did it win in this graph?

I will take the first graphic as the true WINNER!

PILLARS OF ETERNITY!

Steve Jackson's Wizardy Games should be higher. The books were awesome!

Thanks,
Randal

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Randal, the y-axis is how many people know the game. The x-axis is rating. Pillars made an overall mediocre impression on the masses, though it was most played (80% of voters). Really, if Pillars stopped at the 20-hour mark it would have done better. That first half of the game is pretty solid. It's the second half that brings it down.

 

[felipepepe]

Indeed, PoE was the most popular game, but votes were split - that's why it's on the middle of the graph.

Witcher 3 had extremely positive votes so it's very far to the right, but not as many people played it, so it isn't as high as PoE.

 

[Carrion]

lol Witcher, a game in which the RPG elements almost feel out of place, over OS.

"Best RPG" and "best game that can be classified as an RPG" are two different things, really. You always run into the same problem when trying to fit stuff like SS2, DX or JA2 on some RPGOAT list — they're better games than almost anything else out there, but it still doesn't feel quite right to put them at the top in that context.

 

[Sherry]

Randal, the y-axis is how many people know the game. The x-axis is rating. Pillars made an overall mediocre impression on the masses, though it was most played (80% of voters). Really, if Pillars stopped at the 20-hour mark it would have done better. That first half of the game is pretty solid. It's the second half that brings it down.

Hi.

I do not know what else to say except I am shocked to see the % of voters that did not enjoy Pillars. How is that so when so many have participated in the Pillars thread with the Deadfire announcement? I have received over 100+ hearts from the community for my Pillar/Deadfire posts so that is a lot of members who like Pillars and my game play posts. I have watched some Wither 3 Let's Plays and the combat is not fun. It is nothing like the tactical aspect of Pillars and some guy with facial scars just swings a weapon and rolls about doing somersaults around the enemy. Somersault and naked women?! This is what gamers want when Pillars has such depth and character development with a party with multiple ending slides that will change Eora in Deadfire based on our choices?

Deuce Traveler thank-you for replying and being my friend but I need a glass of red wine right now to relax and step away from this. I have watched the forum and threads and not seen very much excitement or posts about Wither 3 like I have participated in the Deadfire threads so this is very upsetting to me right now but I hope to return and learn more about what the community truly likes because clearly I have missed the signals.

p.s. Tomorrow there is a Twitch stream for Deadfire I hope to see some of you there.

Thanks,
Randal

 

[Shadenuat]

Creating or bringing pen and paper setting into life, into a game world, is the foundation of every RPG. Fallout did it, troika games like Arcanum and VTM did it, PST you bet it did it. Now Witcher 3 did it. In a balance between shitty game and great world, the later wins as long as game is playable even if gameplay is far from good. You do a foundation right - you already won.
And W3 didn't just do it right, it's setting, characters and world design are extraordinary. In a AAA game. Think about it when we will begin going through long texts of Numenera and probably realise that good things can come from unexpected places.

Spoiler

How is Warsaw "west"

Poland is still in Europe, and not in Asia.

Hm I always assumed western RPGs are west coast, sunny California, all that. European RPGs like say Gothic and european companies understanding european settings better probably made me think like that and separate them from american RPGs and say D&D.

 

[felipepepe]

BTW, I also made this:

 

[l3loodAngel]

Retarded polish cunts should be banned from codex. Those kurwas can't think for themselves and would vote for anything polish. We are lucky there weren't many polish games.

Seriously just ban fucks with polish IP.

 

[Nostaljaded]

2016 might have had few classics, but had 29 games with a positive average score - almost SIX times the number of good games released in 2012.

Give 2016 games 1-2 years to thaw. Aftertaste kicks in much later for games, coupled with recency bias.

Voidspire Tactics was voted the 8th best RPG of 2015, but it's practically unknown outside the Codex and only sold ~2k copies according to SteamSpy. Surely there are more games like that, just waiting to be found.

Hidden gems is why I'm here for.
Looking forward to see how Rance VI will fare when % rated goes up in 2 years time. The lady hyperweapon was so late to the 2016 party.


P.S. Where's the oldfags, newfags breakdown analysis?
Would be interesting to see if the oldfags' taste has changed.

Could present them in 2 different ways:
- 'by same calendar year cutoff as previous polls' (which can then be treated as 'same' sample) &
- 'by no. of years registered in forum' (2-4 age categories report to placate the dex management on how effective the brainwashing/propaganda has taken a toll dutifully achieved its purpose of turning members into zombied negative naysayers [citation needed])

 

[otsego]

I'm curious how Kickstarter psychology influences the %known and score of those particular titles. I feel like their exposure and ratings are likely swayed by people's own investment and emotional attachment to having put excessive (in some cases) amounts of cash into seeing these things come to fruition, and the whole 'campaign' surrounding them. Felipepepe's pie chart above spurned my own further consideration about this.

At the same time, I still think we see the better of those kickstarters (DOS, SR) earning places they truly deserve, while others (POE, WL2) fall short. Is DOS higher because of investment, or true quality? Is POE lower because of the unmet expectations of a hugely successful kickstarter?