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[Arulan]

As usual, RPG Codex manages to provide a very interesting look into the best RPGs. This year they decided to include everything from 2012 to 2016, that period of which many have dubbed a new RPG renaissance.

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

Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the RPG Codex's latest poll results!

As you all know, the mid/late 2000's were quite sad for RPG fans. We were treated to the glory of the late 90's/early 2000's with some of the best RPGs ever released, only to see the "Death of PC" - Black Isle, Sir-Tech, Troika, Looking Glass Studios, Westwood Studios, DreamForge, New World Computing, Origin - all closed down or were bought (and then closed down), leaving us under the iron, multi-platform rule of a few giant publishers.

Then came 2012, and things changed. Or it felt like they changed.

First, Legend of Grimrock came out of nowhere (with productions values above RPG Maker levels!) reviving the real-time blobber sub-genre, dead since the 90's. Then Dark Souls got a PC port (something rare back then) and, more importantly, Kickstarter became a thing. That year we all saw Brian Fargo sell us on a dream of RPG revival, spearheaded by Wasteland 2 and soon followed by Shadowrun: Returns, Pillars of Eternity, Dead State, Banner Saga, Xenonauts, FTL: Faster Than Light, Legends of Eisenwald, Hero-U, Barkley 2, Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar, etc...

This began what many called The Age of Incline, a hopeful return to our past glory.

Now, onward to the results! According to 800 users, the best RPGs of the past 5 years were:

On slightly related news, here's a list of the worst games:

We also divided the games by year and made a new Bayesian Average for each year, leading to these results:

So, has The Age of Incline truly arrived?

Not in 2012, and not as a barrage of all-time classics loved by everyone as in the late 90's. But since 2014 we've definitely been getting more great games, and what's more important - we broke away from the dullness of an industry dominated by a handful of publishers and AAA releases. Due to Kickstarter, Steam & Early Access, cheaper engines and other changes on the macro environment, we now have a healthier industry, with more devs, games and options.

 

[McDougles]

At the very least, this data confirms what rational minds thought at the time: Dragon Age: Inquisition was vastly overrated in its time.

 

[Fantastapotamus]

I should probably play Underrail or Age of Decadence at some point

 

[SpiceMelange]

Was Sword Coast Legends truly a bad game or just squashed expectations of it not being NWN3?

I should probably play Underrail or Age of Decadence at some point

Age of Decadence is amazing, but also a bit trial and error -ish. You will restart a lot.

 

[Anno]

For some reason I wouldn't have thought that Codex was that down with The Witcher.

 

[MechanicalWall]

lmao at Fallout 4 as the worst RPG in 4 years. I'm not much of a fan of Bethesda's RPGs, but give me a fucking break.

 

[adj_noun]

Was Sword Coast Legends truly a bad game or just squashed expectations of it not being NWN3?

It was a big disappointment.

 

[SpiceMelange]

lmao at Fallout 4 as the worst RPG in 4 years. I'm not much of a fan of Bethesda's RPGs, but give me a fucking break.

(IMO) As an RPG, it's pretty friggin bad. As a video game as a whole, it's disappointing to average at best.

It was a big disappointment.

So does that mean the former or the latter?

 

[zelas]

I should probably play Underrail or Age of Decadence at some point

.

 

[Ventara]

Is FTL = Fatter than Light? I thought that was a puzzle game?

Edit: Suprised DA: Origins didn't make the list. I guess 2 and Inquisition soured everyone's impression.

 

[F0rneus]

Honestly considering the "quality" of the average RPGCodex post, I'm not sure they deserve any attention. It's all rampant sexism, racist, GG tier bullshit over there. Their forums are a cesspool.

 

[Sinatar]

Was Sword Coast Legends truly a bad game or just squashed expectations of it not being NWN3?

They managed to make a game that appeals to nobody.

- It's too stripped down and dumb to appeal to the CRPG crowd.
- It's too slow to appeal to the action RPG crowd.
- It's too low budget to appeal to the console triple A (Skyrim, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, etc...) crowd.

It was a failure in every conceivable way.

 

[Maxios]

At the very least, this data confirms what rational minds thought at the time: Dragon Age: Inquisition was vastly overrated in its time.

Every time I've looked at a Codex thread about Inquisition, they've been full of people complaining that it was a "SJW" game because of the gay and transgender characters. There are a lot of legitimate problems with the game, but I feel like a lot people gave it 1/5s solely for that reason.

 

[mlclmtckr]

is that a Grimoire joke

 

[Nairume]

Was Sword Coast Legends truly a bad game or just squashed expectations of it not being NWN3?

There are good things about it (especially the randomized dungeon crawler mode) but it's dragged down by its shitty interpretation of 5E character building and the extremely limited module toolkit.

It's not a terrible game to get on sale if you have people to play it with.

 

[Shepard]

Is FTL = Fatter than Light? I thought that was a puzzle game?

Edit: Suprised DA: Origins didn't make the list. I guess 2 and Inquisition soured everyone's impression.

Origins was released in 2009.

 

[adj_noun]

Honestly considering the "quality" of the average RPGCodex post, I'm not sure they deserve any attention. It's all rampant sexism, racist, GG tier bullshit over there.

It's a shame. They have some darn good RPG articles and analysis.

I've never really understood what RPGs have to do with wanting to be diet 4chan.

 

[Kifimbo]

What's going on with Diablo III ? I assume it's the launch version ?

 

[Coriolanus]

Fallout 1.5?

WHAT?

oh my... i've... i've... hm.

Welp, that list sure showed me that i'd missed some stuff. Forgot xenonauts existed, even.

 

[Arulan]

I might as well include this chart too:

It's a good visualizer of the breakdown in consensus.

 

[napata]

Honestly considering the "quality" of the average RPGCodex post, I'm not sure they deserve any attention. It's all rampant sexism, racist, GG tier bullshit over there. Their forums are a cesspool.

They have good taste in RPGs though based on that list. From the games on that list I've played my own list is pretty similar. Will probably check out the ones I haven't played.

I think it's a good thing that some of those RPGs get a bit of attention.

 

[Coriolanus]

I might as well include this chart too:
It's a good example of the breakdown in consensus.

hah. Yerp. Especially the stuff in "your next favorite" section. ALso understandable that grimrock1 would be in the controversial bubble, wot with the sequel doing absolutely everything better.

Every time I've looked at a Codex thread about Inquisition, they've been full of people complaining that it was a "SJW" game because of the gay and transgender characters. There are a lot of legitimate problems with the game, but I feel like a lot people gave it 1/5s solely for that reason.

Go for the articles. This is the codex review on Inquisition. It suffers from none of those problems and does quite a good job of breaking down the game into its components parts and having a look at them.

 

[Maintenance]

Fallout 4 and Dragon Age Inquisition getting a 1/2 combo of being the shittiest RPGs is music to my ears.

Honestly considering the "quality" of the average RPGCodex post, I'm not sure they deserve any attention. It's all rampant sexism, racist, GG tier bullshit over there. Their forums are a cesspool.

Judging by that list they at least have better taste than GAF.

 

[Sou Da]

I might as well include this chart too:

It's a good visualizer of the breakdown in consensus.

They have good taste in RPGs though based on that list. From the games on that list I've played my own list is pretty similar. Will probably check out the ones I haven't played.

I think it's a good thing that some of those RPGs get a bit of attention.

They have good taste in RPGs yet Sunless Sea is in the "don't even bother" zone.

Why is Dust there too?

 

[BolognaOni]

lmao at Fallout 4 as the worst RPG in 4 years. I'm not much of a fan of Bethesda's RPGs, but give me a fucking break.

Well, it's worst based on Bayesian average, so maybe "most disappointing" would maybe be a more appropriate designation (since the truly, objectively bad games are not played by that many people).

 

[F0rneus]

They have good taste in RPGs though based on that list. From the games on that list I've played my own list is pretty similar. Will probably check out the ones I haven't played.

I think it's a good thing that some of those RPGs get a bit of attention.

Fallout 4 and Dragon Age Inquisition getting a 1/2 combo of being the shittiest RPGs is music to my ears.



Judging by that list they at least have better taste than GAF.

Honestly though, go browse the forum over there. See how they think. They might have "good taste" but the average RPGCodex poster would last around 2 posts here. They are extremely toxic, obssessed with "SJWs", feminism, race, everything you wanna shake a stick at. Not a great source IMO. I mean last time I went, people freely could use nazi signatures, without problems. They are like the anti-thesis of GAF.

 

[neurosisxeno]

3/5 of the "Worst" Games are laughable (Fallout 4, DA:I, Diablo 3). They aren't the best entries in their series', but saying they are objectively bad games is a joke.

 

[Coriolanus]

They have good taste in RPGs yet Sunless Sea is in the "don't even bother" zone.

Why is Dust there too?

because few of the people that frequent that place played it, and those few that did give it a go didn't enjoy those titles very much, for whatever reason.

Real oddity is wot is Dead State doing there, but then, that thing was jank city.

 

[napata]

They have good taste in RPGs yet Sunless Sea is in the "don't even bother" zone.

Why is Dust there too?

I hadn't seen the chart. Some good games on there that didn't make the 50% positive reaction cut.

I like Dust but it's not really an RPG. As an RPG it sucks.

Sunless Sea bored the hell out of me. I tried though because I thought I would love it.

 

[ZoddGutts]

Great list overall.

 

[SpiceMelange]

Honestly though, go browse the forum over there. See how they think. They might have "good taste" but the average RPGCodex poster would last around 2 posts here. They are extremely toxic, obssessed with "SJWs", feminism, race, everything you wanna shake a stick at. Not a great source IMO. I mean last time I went, people freely could use nazi signatures, without problems. They are like the anti-thesis of GAF.

If I want RPG codex's opinion on something, it's about RPGs. They are a great source for that specific subject matter. The toxicity you're talking about doesn't take that away from them IMO. I wouldn't go in their forums and have a political discussion, but if they compile a list of RPGs I'm all ears.

 

[CertifiedFP]

Honestly considering the "quality" of the average RPGCodex post, I'm not sure they deserve any attention. It's all rampant sexism, racist, GG tier bullshit over there. Their forums are a cesspool.

Sums up my thoughts on the FedoraCodex quite nicely.

But I'll give them some leeway this time for Valkyria Chronicles being in their Top 25 and DarkS1 being above DarkS3.

@That Graph: I'm a BIT concerned that Fallout 4 is somehow more liked than Diablo 3.

And "A BIT" is being very, very gentle compared to how I feel right now seeing that.

 

[chillybright]

I might as well include this chart too:

It's a good visualizer of the breakdown in consensus.

pretty cool graph.

 

[AlimNassor]

RPG codex is like Gaf if everyone were super angry all the time. RPGC gets a bad rap as angry neckbeards from virtually everyone. Hell, even /v/ hates them. RPGCodex hate everything and everyone. Anything that breaks them out of their nostalgia fantasy's is their enemy and has to be stopped.

 

[Tagyhag]

I've never even heard of this Fallout 1.5 mod, maybe I'll give it a shot.

3/5 of the "Worst" Games are laughable (Fallout 4, DA:I, Diablo 3). They aren't the best entries in their series', but saying they are objectively bad games is a joke.

Just because a game gets a good rating or a bad rating somewhere doesn't make it an objectively bad game. But I mean, if you understood the general taste of RPG Codex, those games being down there makes sense.

 

[F0rneus]

If I want RPG codex's opinion on something, it's about RPGs. They are a great source for that specific subject matter. The toxicity you're talking about doesn't take that away from them IMO. I wouldn't go in their forums and have a political discussion, but if they compile a list of RPGs I'm all ears.

Well I don't want to get into any arguments so this will be my last post on the matter but...We wouldn't have posts about 4Chan or Stormfront's RPG lists of the year, and quite frankly RPGCodex is that level of discourse on their forums. Not IMO, it just is hahaha. If there's a discussion to be had over the state of PC centric roleplaying games, it sure won't happen legitimately on that cesspool of a website. No matter what their RPG ranking is.

But hey to each their own.

 

[Breads]

lmao at Fallout 4 as the worst RPG in 4 years. I'm not much of a fan of Bethesda's RPGs, but give me a fucking break.

RPG codex is weirdly hostile to certain titles.

Well, they're hostile in general, but yeah...

 

[SapphiCine]

I am very perplexed that Valkyria Chronicles ended up that high.

 

[Xilium]

Every time I've looked at a Codex thread about Inquisition, they've been full of people complaining that it was a "SJW" game because of the gay and transgender characters. There are a lot of legitimate problems with the game, but I feel like a lot people gave it 1/5s solely for that reason.

To be fair, Bioware is pretty proud about their political stance and they push it pretty hard, to the determent of some of their characters imo.

Bluntly put, I ended up hating Dorian because of it. What I though I was getting was a Tevinter mage that happened to be gay, what I got was a gay mage that happened to be from Tevinter (with the most cliche backstory you could use for a homosexual character).

Also, the way they pigeon hole all their prominent female characters into their vision of a strong female character, which is just your stereotypical, no nonsense badass, is very disappointing as that's not an especially interesting archetype (male or female).

 

[Sinatar]

The Codex is what happens when you don't moderate your forums.

 

[SpiceMelange]

RPG codex is weirdly hostile to certain titles.

Well, they're hostile in general, but yeah...

I'd thought they would have done the same to Witcher 3 if the goal was to be contrarian / "I hate popular games" kind of stance, which happens with Bethesda titles. I think they just genuinely think F4 is a very poor role-playing experience all said and done. I personally am of that opinion, with terrible samey dialogue choices, very poor reactivity / consequences and the overall narrative.

 

[Eila]

That's some high praise for Shadowrun. Should I just jump into Dragonfall or do I need to play previous Returns or previous games in the series?

 

[adj_noun]

That's some high praise for Shadowrun. Should I just jump into Dragonfall or do I need to play previous Returns or previous games in the series?

They're all standalone. You can play them in any order.

 

[Anno]

That's some high praise for Shadowrun. Should I just jump into Dragonfall or do I need to play previous Returns or previous games in the series?

All three are very self contained. Starting with Dragonfall is fine, though Returns isn't at all a bad game.

 

[neurosisxeno]

I think they just genuinely think F4 is a very poor role-playing experience all said and done. I personally am of that opinion, with terrible samey dialogue choices, very poor reactivity / consequences and the overall narrative.

It has a weak narrative, but there is no lack of choices or freedom, and it has a much more diverse or at the very least well presented skill tree than previous entries in the series. It's very much an Open-World RPG with an emphasis on freedom. It's a bit action heavy, but if that's a negative then half the games they rated well also don't make sense.

 

[napata]

Well I don't want to get into any arguments so this will be my last post on the matter but...We wouldn't have posts about 4Chan or Stormfront's RPG lists of the year, and quite frankly RPGCodex is that level of discourse on their forums. Not IMO, it just is hahaha. If there's a discussion to be had over the state of PC centric roleplaying games, it sure won't happen legitimately on that cesspool of a website. No matter what their RPG ranking is.

But hey to each their own.

What's wrong with 4chan? It's a way better place to discuss non-AAA games than GAF. GAF is way too mainstream/AAA minded for that. I don't think there actually is a better place than 4chan to discuss certain games.

For example Mount and Blade still has very active thread there. On GAF none of the OTs even reached 10+ pages.

 

[texhnolyze]

Dragon's Dogma so high.. therefore, good list.

 

[Coriolanus]

Well I don't want to get into any arguments so this will be my last post on the matter but...We wouldn't have posts about 4Chan or Stormfront's RPG lists of the year, and quite frankly RPGCodex is that level of discourse on their forums. Not IMO, it just is hahaha. If there's a discussion to be had over the state of PC centric roleplaying games, it sure won't happen legitimately on that cesspool of a website. No matter what their RPG ranking is.

But hey to each their own.

this is false equivalency. In order for it to be more apt, we could most certainly have a thread on what, say, is /tg's list of best rpgs and whatnot.

This is particularly silly diversion, tho, given that the top titles in that codex list are all undeniably god damn terrific. What you're doing is just trying to disqualify it, and this thread, via ad hominem.

That's some high praise for Shadowrun. Should I just jump into Dragonfall or do I need to play previous Returns or previous games in the series?

I played returns before moving to dragonfall. I regret having played returns before moving on to dragonfall.

SR:HK is damn excellent too. Doesn't score as well as DF mostly because it didn't break the mold.

 

[MechanicalWall]

If I want RPG codex's opinion on something, it's about RPGs. They are a great source for that specific subject matter. The toxicity you're talking about doesn't take that away from them IMO. I wouldn't go in their forums and have a political discussion, but if they compile a list of RPGs I'm all ears.

But as was mentioned above, their political opinions taint their perspectives on certain games, like how the (((SJWs))) ruined DA: I

 

[Nikodemos]

What's wrong with 4chan? It's a way better place to discuss non-AAA games than GAF. GAF is way too mainstream/AAA minded for that. I don't think there actually is a better place than 4chan to discuss certain games.

For example Mount and Blade still has very active thread there. On GAF none of the OTs even reached 10+ pages.

Yeah, I tried starting some threads about Illwinter games and failed miserably at attracting attention. I bet on 4chan I'd have gotten at least 30 replies.