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The best RPGs of all time (PC Gamer)
- Thread starter inm8num2
- Start date
Randomizer
Member
Not big on my CRPG's but even I can tell there are some odd choices. Too many modern games that don't deserve their spot e.g Skyrim, South Park and Mass Effect 2. Also seems to be exclusively WRPG or stylistically (Dark Souls). Final Fantasy VII had a PC release as well as Ys Oath in Felghana, both of which are better than a fair few of those games listed.
Dark Souls's is my favourite game on the list and I'm glad to see it rated so highly.
Dark Souls's is my favourite game on the list and I'm glad to see it rated so highly.
Last Hearth
Member
And they're equally wrong. There is a huge tendency I've noticed to overrate all of Obisidian's work on that list simply because of Planescape Torment. Because Alpha Protocol also does not belong anywhere close on a top RPG list. That game was just painful to play.
Sojiro
Member
Some of those choices I really disagree with, Skyrim, Stick of Truth, and ME2 I just can't get behind. Especially with Skyrim, how on earth Morrowind isn't in its place (and imo up a bit on the list) is beyond me. The top 4 are solid choices, although I can't personally vouch for Torment, but hear nothing but good things about it, so for me I would have to put Baldur's Gate 2 above it. Overall though, not a bad list at all.
As we made very clear on the first page of the list, our most important criteria was how these games play today. Yes, historical significance matters, but game design is iterative by nature, and as technology and design advances, newer games often build on the groundbreaking experiences of old and improve them in small ways. Ultima I is one of the most significant games ever made, but it's not one of the most playable today.
The games we'd tell people to go play right now make the cut. Hence seeing Skyrim over Morrowind or Oblivion--the active mod scene for Skyrim is huge. And hey, give it another year and you'll probably be able to play Morrowind inside Skyrim.
Anyway, Cory has been a lifelong RPG player and he had a lot of fun--and put a lot of hard work--into forming this list. I think it's a pretty good one.
Mental Atrophy
Banned
Kind of a tricky thing. Maybe they just wanted to include only one of the two... but even that is tricky. In a vacuum, New Vegas is the better RPG in most ways... but the entire content pipeline, technology, and all of the core mechanics were created by the Fallout 3 team, if you want to contextualize it. But that can open the process to a lot of nuance that makes these sorts of lists really hard to make, so it's probably a lot simpler to just ask which game would you rather play if they were presented side-by-side.
If it is, the only question I have is why Alpha Protocol isn't up there.
Also, no King of Dragon Pass? No Nethack?
silvermember
Banned
Any list that has skyrim that high is nothing more than a populist list.
Skyrim is a terrible RPG. It is a good open world game IF open world was considered a genre but as an RPG it is terrible, even the open world part is substandard once you realize it's copy and paste design (not talking about terrain).
Skyrim is a terrible RPG. It is a good open world game IF open world was considered a genre but as an RPG it is terrible, even the open world part is substandard once you realize it's copy and paste design (not talking about terrain).
But it had Dragons. Frikking Dragons! Who cares that every single inn looked the same ... in 2011.
Mental Atrophy
Banned
Only the village inns. Every city had a unique inn.
Disaster Nebraska
Banned
Funny that you mentioned that. I came into this thread with the thought 'I wonder if they'll even have an Ultima on there'. I was surprised that they had two.
Well sure, but that doesn't make it any less insulting. If I had to choose? I would take it the other way around.
The major cities have enough to explore anyway. You'll get new quests, finish old ones or advance in the major plot.
But those small villages? Those 3-4 houses are all they have. Imagine you've just spent 2 hours in a dungeon. You can barely move because of all the loot you are carrying around. Finally you see a village and its NPCs ... just to find out that they are clones from the village you've visited earlier. Same house. Same textures. Same dialogue. Whelp :/.
Certainly killed a lot of fun I had with the game.
Mental Atrophy
Banned
If the inns are actually ruining it for you, it's a very fixable problem. You have several mods to choose from that modify the generic inns, and most are compatible with popular mods like Interesting NPCs.
Mauricio_Magus
Banned
I thought this was a WRPG list till I noticed Dark Souls in there.
No Ys: The Oath in Felghana makes this a joke list.
No Ys: The Oath in Felghana makes this a joke list.
Well, they certainly weren't available on release(+/- 3 months) when I purchased and finished the game.
infiniteheteroskdasticity
Member
Skyrim over Morrowind? What idiocy is this! PC Gamer magazine continue to suck,
List threads suck and are basically click-bait fluff. Nothing wrong with that, given that the other side of click-bait tends to take advantage of social/cultural problems, which is worse.
Ploid 3.0
Member
On PC mods make it pretty neat. One of the best PC games I own. Modders make interesting quests, gameplay overhauls, and gear. You can pretty much make your own rpg.
Disaster Nebraska
Banned
If we were talking about, say, first person shooters, or sports games, sure, I hear ya. You have to take playability into account. Most of the new stuff is objectively better than most of the old stuff.
However, RPGs are a completely different beast. The story, the atmosphere, the writing quality (this, specifically, has declined greatly compared to the 80s and 90s), the combat systems, the total amount of content, all of those things come into play just as much as modern advances in the genre. RPGs age completely differently than most other genres in the hobby, and to say "well, you have to take playability into account" is valid, but only to a point.
The fact that you have PS:Torment, Fallout 2, and BG2 as your top 3 only goes to show that I'm right and you agree that I'm right. Those games have awful, awful interfaces, compatibility issues, glitches, graphics that haven't aged well, re-used assets, and other such flaws. Yet, they're your Top 3. Clearly, there's something to be said for a clunky RPG whose story and setting still hold up after all these years (and make that game one of "the games we'd tell people to go play right now" ).
What prompted my comment is that as far as "old classics" on the list are concerned, it's pretty boilerplate. Fallout 2 makes the cut 'cause, you know, Fallout 2. But what kept a Wizardry title from showing up? Or what about Avernum or Arcanum? These games have flaws, certainly, but when we're critiquing "all time" then we should take "all time" into account.
On that same note, it's usually not frowned upon to have new games on a list. That's normal. A lotta new games are fantastic. But when half the games on the list came out within the last 5 years (some within just a year or so) you're going to get comments of "not enough classics".
Mental Atrophy
Banned
Why do you play a game to completion from which you derive no enjoyment? And it's not even a small game you can cram into an evening after dinner.
Intheflorsh
Banned
Why do they bother with these lists? They do nothing but get people riled up.
Kacho
Member
Easy clicks.
I said, and you even quoted this part, that the inn aspect
If this means to you that I got no enjoyment out of the game so be it.
Answering your own question.
Anyway, I pretty much agree with Nebraska. The list takes a really short view of games. Many of the games in the Top 10 are also clones of one another (different settings/story, same idea).
Also, the Souls series isn't the greatest anything. I love the games, but at best they're in my top 25. They wouldn't make my top 10.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I've heard the game is very good, but then peoples opinions on games change six months down the line all the time. I know a guy who proclaimed Bioshock Infinite as one of the best games ever three weeks after its release, and just last week I heard him deep in a conversation about how many things he finds wrong with it now
Only when people mentioning D2 remember it need an expansions and updates itself.
2.1 isn't even out anyways and barely anyone whose played vanilla or ROS has experience the big 2.1 changes.
D3 is a high but it should be somewhere in the top 25.
Whoever brung up ME2 was spot on too high and why is it on the list at all.
Can I somehow take my money out of your kickstarter again?
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
Mass Effect 2 and Dark Souks are way too high. I like the rest of the list even if the order isn't to my complete liking.
If that's true, where the hell is Chrono Trigger!?!?! This must be specific to Western/Action RPGs or something. Otherwise Imma write a letter.
The title explains it's a list from "PC Gamer".... i don't think Chrono Trigger had a PC version.
Oh, missed this earlier. Yeah, I think games like Dragon Age: Origins and Knights of the Old Republic would be better. They hold your hands more and get you used to the idea of significantly different design. Though KotOR edges it out I think if you plan to play the D&D RPGs, even though it's closer to 3rd edition D&D it'll give you some idea of how Baldur's Gate is supposed to work, and will definitely be relevant for IWD2 and the NWN games.
Though I actually didn't have that much trouble getting into Fallout 1, so it's worth considering that depending on how far back you can go and WHAT your hangups are, I mainly wanted a reasonably intuitive interface that can be mostly controlled with a mouse without memorizing a bunch of keys. Fallout 1 is just that, while something like Ultima VII could be fully mouse controlled but was kind of opaque still. Divinity is probably better than THAT at least for an initial highly interactive world RPG.
Yeah, the list is about games that had PC versions, though I still imagine they'd overlook a lot of older ports and stuff anyway, especially rougher ones like FFVII or VIII. It's why most Falcom games are legitimately worth bringing up, while something like Chrono Trigger is more or less irrelevant.
EDIT: And yeah, Dark Souls is also a rough port that got a LOT of crap. But I think the key difference is that it's like a diamond in the rough that can really shine after Durante's fix. FFVII... will forever be something of a hack job just because of the way it controls and the assets, it's painfully obvious it was always meant to be a PS1 title, not a PC one even in the 90s, while Dark Souls is almost stupefying in the amount of detail you can draw out.
Denton
Member
To provide list of essential rpgs for pc gamers, old and new? You are never going to make everyone happy no matter what list you create. But only people getting riled up by this are... you know.
Reasonable people are able to accept that different people have different opinions.
Sure I disagree with some choices here, but is is still pretty darn fine list of rpgs that are for the most part still playable today. I would recommend any of these to anyone, including Mass Effect or Skyrim.
Yeah, there's plenty of good choices, it does lean more towards the mainstream but that's to be expected from a site like them and it's not inherently bad to list those. Usually if something's mainstream it's at least solid, though sometimes there do seem to be marketing miracles or raw brute force.
dark_prinny
Banned
Planescape Torment is good. Baldur´s Gate 2 is perfect. This list is wrong.
The thing with magazines is that different staff come and go. The new staff members may not agree with the above statements - or maybe the staff who wrote the review are still there, it's just that time has dulled their opinion of it.
Happy to see Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines and Gothic 2 in there.
Danne-Danger
Member
Always pains me when Wizardry 8 doesn't get the recognition it deserves, especially now that it's widely available.
Everyone who has enjoyed Legend of Grimrock and/or Might & Magic X owe it to themselves to check it out. I played it for the first time ~5 years ago and it still feels like its the most "modern" game in its genre. Huge world to explore, a somewhat intresting story in a unique setting and it has a fast and fluid interface for a party of 8 (six player made characters and two companion slots). There's nothing quite like it today and IMO there's nothing better out there at the moment.
An extraordinary game that deserves to be up there with Baldur's Gate, Obsidian, Fallout, Black Isle, etc, even topping some among them.
http://www.gog.com/game/wizardry_8
OMNOMNOM
Everyone who has enjoyed Legend of Grimrock and/or Might & Magic X owe it to themselves to check it out. I played it for the first time ~5 years ago and it still feels like its the most "modern" game in its genre. Huge world to explore, a somewhat intresting story in a unique setting and it has a fast and fluid interface for a party of 8 (six player made characters and two companion slots). There's nothing quite like it today and IMO there's nothing better out there at the moment.
An extraordinary game that deserves to be up there with Baldur's Gate, Obsidian, Fallout, Black Isle, etc, even topping some among them.
http://www.gog.com/game/wizardry_8
OMNOMNOM
Hooks
Member
I've never been able to appreciate Morrowind, I didn't get a chance to play it in its prime, I played Oblivion first and absolutely loved it... I tried Morrowind a few years later in about 2010 and just couldn't get into it. Shame really, I've heard so many good things about it.
Same goes with Fallout 3 / Fallout: New Vegas, It has everything I love from post apocalyptic open world rpg which sounds like a fucking 10/10 in my books! But I just can't get into it, No idea why
Same goes with Fallout 3 / Fallout: New Vegas, It has everything I love from post apocalyptic open world rpg which sounds like a fucking 10/10 in my books! But I just can't get into it, No idea why
Morrowind was good and had some lovely locales. As negatives, it had terrible combat. cliff racers and a really unsettling "I am the centre of the universe" sensation as the NPC's would focus entirely on you and nothing else.
I miss the setting and sense of scale but the games have undoubtedly improved over time. They certainly learnt a lot on the journey from Oblivion to Skyrim. Making offensive magic at least usable was a good start.
I miss the setting and sense of scale but the games have undoubtedly improved over time. They certainly learnt a lot on the journey from Oblivion to Skyrim. Making offensive magic at least usable was a good start.
Danne-Danger
Member
Do you get XP (y/n)? If y go to RPG, if n go elsewhere.
These statements always bug me.
Bioshock doesn't have nearly the same kinds of choice mechanics, one of the defining aspects of western RPGs, and the character building is actually much worse.
ME is an action RPG with guns. Many RPGs are incorporating more and more action mechanics in order to engage players now-a-days, and more action games are incorporating RPG mechanics to give players depth. There are a few games where it's a bit difficult to determine whether the action mechanics or the RPG mechanics are the most prominent feature, but I don't think Mass Effect is one of them. Human Revolution is where I would say it's hard to classify, because like Bioshock you can pretty much get everything in one go, so character building is a bit light.
There are an abundance of action RPGs over traditional RPGs now-a-days, so you as may as well drop the "action" asterisk when referring to ARPGs unless distinction is required.