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I played Drakkhen on my SNES many years ago. It was colorful and kind of fun (if a little clunky and frustrating trying to navigate areas using a side-scrolling perspective) but then Final Fantasy III came out a few weeks later in the States and I forgot all about Drakkhen.
Planescape: Torment
This one is pretty obvious. Essential not only as an RPG but also as a game in general.
Fallout: New Vegas
At least one of the fallouts must be in the list. I think New Vegas is the most mature title in the series thematically and C&C wise.
Baldur's Gate 2
Personally, I don't enjoy BG2 too much but I recognize it as a game with a colossal amount of content and possibilities to role play just like the tabletop D&D.
LISA
I don't know any other RPG that can absolutely crush and destroy you emotionally like this one. The absolute piece of art.
Morrowind
The most atmospheric and immersive RPG ever made.
Gold box: pardon my peasantry, never played one. The only games that I've played from that age are Wasteland and Darklands. Darklands is too buggy to preserve and Wasteland is not that interesting from a nowadays perspective.
Fallout 2
Baldur's Gate 2
Underrail
Mount & Blade Warband
Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead
I am assuming no modding so these are my picks for the replayability.
If consoles are included as well, then I would replace Underrail and Warband with Suikoden 2 and Breath of Fire 3.
I chose this one ‘cause it’s 60 hours of contrived weeb bullshit followed by 15 minutes of greatness that sets up the next game in the series in grand fashion. A true classic.
Xenogears
This is a hands down classic on account of the fact that it’s the first game ever made where you get to pork the main love interest, all while being chided to “be a man” by your pals. Also ‘cause the last quarter of the game turns into a shitty visual novel. Fuckin’ great.
Final Fantasy 15
This gem gets honorable mention ‘cause of it’s lauded battle system where you fight with the camera, spam healing potions and mash the shoulder buttons in hopes you’ve triggered some arbitrary conditions needed to summon an “Astral”. It took 10 years to develop and was legendary director Hajime (Monster Rancher 2) Tabata’s swansong.
Fallout: New Vegas
For those unfamiliar, this is a great Fallout 3 mod that’s attained godlike status ‘cause there’s this one part where you have a choice between helping Goodsprings or joining the Powder Gangers. No rpg gaem before this one has ever allowed that level of freedom or C&C. It helped raise a little known group of developers going by the name of Obsidian to virtual superstars of the rpg games genre. Everyone is currently looking forward to their latest upcoming mastapeece Outer Worlds.
Pool of Radiance
I made this my gold box pick ‘cause it’s level of difficulty is truly a thing to behold. Most retards won’t even be able to navigate the character creation menu unless they can puzzle out that you need to use the num keys instead of the arrow keys in order to make yore selections. It truly separates the men from the boys.
Wizardry 7
Ultima 6
Diablo
Fallout
Planescape Torment
Deus Ex
I somehow doubt I'll ever play any cRPGs again that have such an impact on me as those games had, that felt so damn addictive or mind-bending or just brilliant
Fallout 1
Dark Sun
Planescape: Torment
Chrono Trigger
FF6
Wizardry...not even sure which one, any of them except 4 and 8 I guess.
I do not consider these the best RPGs ('cept fallout, dark sun, and Wiz), but I do consider them essential because everyone knows and are influenced by them.
I got bored and, since this thread is more than a month old, I decided to count how many votes each game got. The only things I disregarded were obvious troll posts, while poor taste and blatant disregard of the rules the OP set (more than five games, no Gold Boxes) were tolerated. Also, I was not bored enough to double check the results, and there were some situations where I wasn't 100% certain where to put the points, so there are probably some fuck-ups in the following list. What follows is in no way a definite list of best/most essential RPGs; however, since people voted, there's no harm in counting the votes. Do not, however, treat these results too seriously (or seriously at all, for that matter).
Throughout the thread, a total of 156 different games were mentioned. Out of those, 13 had 10 or more votes, 33 had 5 or more, while 78 had more than 1 vote.
The list of the games more than one person in this tread considered essential is:
1. Fallout - 28
2. Planescape Torment - 27
3. Arcanum - 24
3. Baldur's Gate 2 - 24
5. Morrowind - 20
6. Fallout 2 - 18
6. Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines - 18
8. Pool of Radiance - 14
9. Dark Sun Shattered Lands - 13
9. Deus Ex - 13
11. Baldur's Gate - 11
11. Fallout New Vegas - 11
11. Temple of Elemental Evil - 11
14. Gothic II - 9
14. Ultima 7 - 9
14. Wizardry 8 - 9
17. FRUA - 8
17. Gothic - 8
17. Might & Magic VI - 8
17. Pathfinder Kingmaker - 8
21. Betrayal at Krondor - 6
21. Buck Rogers Countdown to Doomsday - 6
21. Dark Souls - 6
21. Death Knights of Krynn - 6
21. Jagged Alliance 2 - 6
21. Might & Magic III - 6
21. Neverwinter Nights - 6
21. Wizardry 7 - 6
29. Daggerfall - 5
29. Icewind Dale - 5
29. Might & Magic World of Xeen - 5
29. Realms of Arkania 2 Star Trail - 5
29. Wizardry 6 - 5
34. Diablo - 4
34. ELEX - 4
34. Grimoire - 4
34. Mask of the Betrayer - 4
38. Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead - 3
38. Chrono Trigger - 3
38. Dark Queen of Krynn - 3
38. Darklands - 3
38. Knights of the Chalice - 3
38. Might & Magic II - 3
38. Might & Magic X - 3
38. Phantasy Star IV - 3
38. Pools of Darkness - 3
38. The Witcher - 3
38. The Witcher 3 - 3
38. Underrail - 3
38. Wizardry 1 - 3
51. Arx Fatalis - 2
51. Caves of Qud - 2
51. Champions of Krynn - 2
51. Divinity Original Sin 2 - 2
51. Dragon Wars - 2
51. Dungeon Master - 2
51. Dwarf Fortress - 2
51. Eye of the Beholder - 2
51. Eye of the Beholder 2 - 2
51. Fallout Tactics - 2
51. Final Fantasy 6 - 2
51. Final Fantasy Tactics - 2
51. Gateway to the Savage Frontier - 2
51. Iceblink Engine - 2
51. Kenshi - 2
51. Might & Magic - 2
51. Might & Magic VII - 2
51. Might & Magic VIII - 2
51. Neverwinter Nights 2 - 2
51. Nox - 2
51. Oblivion - 2
51. Pillars of Eternity 2 Deadfire - 2
51. Silent Storm - 2
51. The Witcher 2 - 2
51. Ultima 6 - 2
51. Ultima Underworld - 2
51. Wizardry 5 - 2
51. Zangband - 2
Aditionally, these are the games exactly one person in this thread considers worth preserving for eternity:
7.62 High Caliber
Aarklash Legacy
Abandoned Places
Age of Decadence
Alpha Protocol
Anachronox
Avernum 1
Blackguards
Bloodstone
Breath of Fire 3
Crescent Hawk's Inception
Curse of the Azure Bonds
Dark Messiah
Dark Sun 2 Wake of the Ravager
Disciples of Steel
Divinity 2
Dragon Age Origins
Drakkhen
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup
Elminage Gothic
Elona
Everquest
Exanima
Exile 3
Fall of the Dungeon Guardians
Fallout 3
Final Fantasy 10
Final Fantasy 11
Final Fantasy 3
Icewind Dale 2
Kingdom Come Deliverance
Knights of the Old Republic 2
Lands of Lore
Legend of Grimrock
Legend of Grimrock 2
LISA
Magic Candle 2
Magic Candle 3
Mass Effect
Mount & Blade The Last Days of The Third Age
Mount & Blade Warband
NEO Scavenger
Persona 3
Prelude to Darkness
Quest for Glory
Quest for Glory 2
Rance VI
Ravenloft Stone Prophet
Ravenloft Strahd's Posession
Rift
Romance of the Three Kingdoms X
Secret of the Silver Blades
Sengoku Rance
Shadowrun Dragonfall
Shin Megami Tensei 4
Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey
Shining Force II
Star Control 2
Star Traders Frontiers
Stardew Valley
Stonekeep
Suikoden 2
Summoner
Superhero League of Hoboken
System Shock 2
Teudogar and the Alliance with Rome
Torment Tides of Numenera
Trails in the Sky
Tyranny
Ultima 4
Ultima Online
Unreal World
Vanguard
Wasteland
Wizards & Warriors
Xenoblade Chronicles
Xenosaga
Zelda Breath of the Wild
The winner is Fallout, with 28 votes, followed closely by Planescape Torment with 27. There are no real surprises in the top 10; Dark SunShattered Lands and Pool of Radiance might have placed lower were it not for the Gold Box clause (I guess Dark Sun isn't technically Gold Box, but a lot of folks put it in that spot anyway). Also, Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures and Neverwinter Nights probably benefited from "every other game is destroyed class", since they rely heavily on user-made content, and performed much better then in the RPG Codex Top 70 List, where they didn't even appear. One game which underperformed was Ultima Underworld, with only two votes.
As for some of the subgenres, top rated blobber was Wizardry 8, with 9 votes, followed by Might & Magic VI with 8. If we look at grid-based ones, Wizardry 7 and Might & Magic III are tied with 6 votes each. Real-time blobbers dind't fare well, with Dungeon Master and the first two Eye of the Beholder games scoring two points each. Diablo clones weren't a popular choice either; Diablo itself has 4 votes, while Nox has two. Most popular jRPG picks were Chrono Thrigger and Phantasy Star 4, with 3 votes each.
What interested me most was how the more modern games would fare with such harsh voting conditions; and the answer would be "not that well". Most voted post-2012 RPG was Pathfinder: Kingmaker, with 8 votes, barely making it into the top 20. Following it, ELEX and Grimoire are tied with four votes each. As for games that appeared in felipepepe's Age of Incline poll, Dark Souls performed best with 6 votes. A lot of games from that list weren't mentioned at all, including Divinity: Original Sin (which placed third back then; it's sequel got two votes though) and Dragon's Dogma (placed seventh). The Witcher 3 and Underrail got three votes each, and Shadowrun: Dragonfall got only one. Most surprisingly, Age of Decadence only had one vote, less then Pillars of Eternity 2 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, while equal to Mass Effect, Torment: Tides of Numenera and multiple Japanese porn games.
And that, as they say, is that. I wasted a couple hours making a pointless list, and some of you will hopefully waste a couple minutes reading through it and raging about the results.
I got bored and, since this thread is more than a month old, I decided to count how many votes each game got. The only things I disregarded were obvious troll posts, while poor taste and blatant disregard of the rules the OP set (more than five games, no Gold Boxes) were tolerated. Also, I was not bored enough to double check the results, and there were some situations where I wasn't 100% certain where to put the points, so there are probably some fuck-ups in the following list. What follows is in no way a definite list of best/most essential RPGs; however, since people voted, there's no harm in counting the votes. Do not, however, treat these results too seriously (or seriously at all, for that matter).
Throughout the thread, a total of 156 different games were mentioned. Out of those, 13 had 10 or more votes, 33 had 5 or more, while 78 had more than 1 vote.
The list of the games more than one person in this tread considered essential is:
1. Fallout - 28
2. Planescape Torment - 27
3. Arcanum - 24
3. Baldur's Gate 2 - 24
5. Morrowind - 20
6. Fallout 2 - 18
6. Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines - 18
8. Pool of Radiance - 14
9. Dark Sun Shattered Lands - 13
9. Deus Ex - 13
11. Baldur's Gate - 11
11. Fallout New Vegas - 11
11. Temple of Elemental Evil - 11
14. Gothic II - 9
14. Ultima 7 - 9
14. Wizardry 8 - 9
17. FRUA - 8
17. Gothic - 8
17. Might & Magic VI - 8
17. Pathfinder Kingmaker - 8
21. Betrayal at Krondor - 6
21. Buck Rogers Countdown to Doomsday - 6
21. Dark Souls - 6
21. Death Knights of Krynn - 6
21. Jagged Alliance 2 - 6
21. Might & Magic III - 6
21. Neverwinter Nights - 6
21. Wizardry 7 - 6
29. Daggerfall - 5
29. Icewind Dale - 5
29. Might & Magic World of Xeen - 5
29. Realms of Arkania 2 Star Trail - 5
29. Wizardry 6 - 5
34. Diablo - 4
34. ELEX - 4
34. Grimoire - 4
34. Mask of the Betrayer - 4
38. Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead - 3
38. Chrono Trigger - 3
38. Dark Queen of Krynn - 3
38. Darklands - 3
38. Knights of the Chalice - 3
38. Might & Magic II - 3
38. Might & Magic X - 3
38. Phantasy Star IV - 3
38. Pools of Darkness - 3
38. The Witcher - 3
38. The Witcher 3 - 3
38. Underrail - 3
38. Wizardry 1 - 3
51. Arx Fatalis - 2
51. Caves of Qud - 2
51. Champions of Krynn - 2
51. Divinity Original Sin 2 - 2
51. Dragon Wars - 2
51. Dungeon Master - 2
51. Dwarf Fortress - 2
51. Eye of the Beholder - 2
51. Eye of the Beholder 2 - 2
51. Fallout Tactics - 2
51. Final Fantasy 6 - 2
51. Final Fantasy Tactics - 2
51. Gateway to the Savage Frontier - 2
51. Iceblink Engine - 2
51. Kenshi - 2
51. Might & Magic - 2
51. Might & Magic VII - 2
51. Might & Magic VIII - 2
51. Neverwinter Nights 2 - 2
51. Nox - 2
51. Oblivion - 2
51. Pillars of Eternity 2 Deadfire - 2
51. Silent Storm - 2
51. The Witcher 2 - 2
51. Ultima 6 - 2
51. Ultima Underworld - 2
51. Wizardry 5 - 2
51. Zangband - 2
Aditionally, these are the games exactly one person in this thread considers worth preserving for eternity:
7.62 High Caliber
Aarklash Legacy
Abandoned Places
Age of Decadence
Alpha Protocol
Anachronox
Avernum 1
Blackguards
Bloodstone
Breath of Fire 3
Crescent Hawk's Inception
Curse of the Azure Bonds
Dark Messiah
Dark Sun 2 Wake of the Ravager
Disciples of Steel
Divinity 2
Dragon Age Origins
Drakkhen
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup
Elminage Gothic
Elona
Everquest
Exanima
Exile 3
Fall of the Dungeon Guardians
Fallout 3
Final Fantasy 10
Final Fantasy 11
Final Fantasy 3
Icewind Dale 2
Kingdom Come Deliverance
Knights of the Old Republic 2
Lands of Lore
Legend of Grimrock
Legend of Grimrock 2
LISA
Magic Candle 2
Magic Candle 3
Mass Effect
Mount & Blade The Last Days of The Third Age
Mount & Blade Warband
NEO Scavenger
Persona 3
Prelude to Darkness
Quest for Glory
Quest for Glory 2
Rance VI
Ravenloft Stone Prophet
Ravenloft Strahd's Posession
Rift
Romance of the Three Kingdoms X
Secret of the Silver Blades
Sengoku Rance
Shadowrun Dragonfall
Shin Megami Tensei 4
Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey
Shining Force II
Star Control 2
Star Traders Frontiers
Stardew Valley
Stonekeep
Suikoden 2
Summoner
Superhero League of Hoboken
System Shock 2
Teudogar and the Alliance with Rome
Torment Tides of Numenera
Trails in the Sky
Tyranny
Ultima 4
Ultima Online
Unreal World
Vanguard
Wasteland
Wizards & Warriors
Xenoblade Chronicles
Xenosaga
Zelda Breath of the Wild
The winner is Fallout, with 28 votes, followed closely by Planescape Torment with 27. There are no real surprises in the top 10; Dark SunShattered Lands and Pool of Radiance might have placed lower were it not for the Gold Box clause (I guess Dark Sun isn't technically Gold Box, but a lot of folks put it in that spot anyway). Also, Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures and Neverwinter Nights probably benefited from "every other game is destroyed class", since they rely heavily on user-made content, and performed much better then in the RPG Codex Top 70 List, where they didn't even appear. One game which underperformed was Ultima Underworld, with only two votes.
As for some of the subgenres, top rated blobber was Wizardry 8, with 9 votes, followed by Might & Magic VI with 8. If we look at grid-based ones, Wizardry 7 and Might & Magic III are tied with 6 votes each. Real-time blobbers dind't fare well, with Dungeon Master and the first two Eye of the Beholder games scoring two points each. Diablo clones weren't a popular choice either; Diablo itself has 4 votes, while Nox has two. Most popular jRPG picks were Chrono Thrigger and Phantasy Star 4, with 3 votes each.
What interested me most was how the more modern games would fare with such harsh voting conditions; and the answer would be "not that well". Most voted post-2012 RPG was Pathfinder: Kingmaker, with 8 votes, barely making it into the top 20. Following it, ELEX and Grimoire are tied with four votes each. As for games that appeared in felipepepe's Age of Incline poll, Dark Souls performed best with 6 votes. A lot of games from that list weren't mentioned at all, including Divinity: Original Sin (which placed third back then; it's sequel got two votes though) and Dragon's Dogma (placed seventh). The Witcher 3 and Underrail got three votes each, and Shadowrun: Dragonfall got only one. Most surprisingly, Age of Decadence only had one vote, less then Pillars of Eternity 2 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, while equal to Mass Effect, Torment: Tides of Numenera and multiple Japanese porn games.
And that, as they say, is that. I wasted a couple hours making a pointless list, and some of you will hopefully waste a couple minutes reading through it and raging about the results.
MpuMngwana wow, really nice work!
I also think that my restrictions led to more interesting results than the typical list of hundred games, in which you upvote the ones you like and downvote the ones you dislike. yet still, the top 3 is very similar to the first places of our Top 70 rpg list.
Rather than rage, I'll just make the final aggregation less relevant by adding another post.
1. Age of Decadence - An easy choice for this scenario due to how replayable it is.
2. Arcanum - Great setting, lots of content. I think I could get a lot more mileage out of it.
3. Gothic - I like Gothic 2 a lot more, but I've seen where things went afterward.
Maybe if we return to 1 we can get back onto a better path for any new sequels (new things will still be created after the apocalypse, right?).
4. Infra Arcana - Gotta have a roguelike in here given the stipulations. I've never gotten anywhere near beating this one, so maybe with all the
newfound time I'd have on my hands..
5. JA2 - I don't think this would ever get old. Need something that isn't fantasy as well.
GB: I'm going to go with Buck Rogers here just for the setting, because I have yet to play any of the gold box games
(got both Pool of Radiance and Dark Sun sitting there waiting for me though.. maybe after Silent Storm).
This is a tough (but in a good way) list to think about. Limiting the list to 5 is difficult if we imagine having access to only 5 games + 1 GB SSI game.
I don't know.
Wizardry 7
World of Xeen
Nwn 2 for tons of mods otherwise TOEE
Underrail
Arcanum
Mostly picked these for replayability if these are all i would have.
Didn't pick dexterity games like DS because i'm getting too old to run a character around so much.
World of Xeen is a big game so lots of time to sink there.
never finished arcanum but lots to do so..
Wizardry 7 is like old friend
Underrail for a tactical shooter type
Nwn 2 for the obligatory DnD fix
PF:K is good but after Ekun joins it's just steamroll the map..although unfair the last Azlanti could extend that playthrough by quite a while...don't have DLC so jury is out as yet
For Gold Box...
It seems like a series should be allowed, like all krynn
next time I'm playing Wiz7 I'm going for the infamous solo fairy ninja, which supposedly has a slow and difficult start but gets seriously overpowered over time.
This thread makes me feel inferior, because I started seriously playing in 2005 or something like that and I actually had to specifically look for RPGs of a previous generation. I haven't played anything Goldbox, I didn't even think to go deeper than Fallout 1 or something like that.
Well, here it goes anyway.
1. Morrowind. Because tourism is expensive and university course in comparative religion is teh hard, but you can easily get this stuff from Morrowind And I think it was the first "real" game I played.
2. Fallout 2. It was fun to play, and play again, and play yet again. I think Fallout 1 is more solid, but for me it started with the second one.
3. PS: T. It made me feel smart in a nice way
4. BG2. It made me feel stupid in a nice way!
5. Arcanum. This game kinda lonely, y'know what I mean? I didn't really like the story (except for bits with jewish gnomes), writing, mechanics, but there is wonderful autism of a big, obviously half-cooked world which at the same time offers you hundreds of opportunities
If the choice is replayability, I would choose these:
Tales of Maj'Eyal: Can't believe this wasn't mentioned before, besto roguelike ever Baldur's Gate II: King of AD&D content Fallout 2: F1 is more elegant, but F2 is much more replayable Morrowind: For LARPing Path of Exile: What can I say, it's really fun and feels like it's endless
FRUA: Obvious choice, especially since I like the weird non-fantasy modules
