25 Top RPGs of the Last Five Years

Continuity

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There is so much wrong with this list I don't even know where to start, some of the games are doubtful for making the RPG genre nevermind a top 25 RPG list, and as for rankings, a RNG could of come up with something making more sense.

Skyrim for the number 1 spot? ok its got some great values but its far from a great RPG, the gameplay as an experience was dubious and the story much the same, i've said it before but Bethesda make premier sandboxes and second rate RPGs.

Ten Foot Bunny said:
I also wish Fallout 3 could have qualified. What everyone seems to like about New Vegas - its limitations and consequences - is exactly what I don't like about it. What I like to experience when I play games, especially RPGs, is feeling like I'm eventually the supreme ruler of all that I survey. Fallout 3 gave me that in spades, while New Vegas withheld that satisfaction.
The power trip is fine for a while and if you're happy to keep eating vanilla it might work for you long term, but I think for many RPG fans some more complexity is welcome. Plus, Vegas just has so much more "RPG" to it, I'll admit hands down FO3 has the better sandbox and more polish over all, better atmosphere even, but shear depth and number of quest lines and options and detail Vegas blows FO3 away by a large factor.

Basically any RPG can be boiled down to spreadsheets, the more detailed and complex the spreadsheet, generally, other things being equal, the better the RPG.

RealRT said:
Where is Alpha Protocol? And JRPGs and both Dragon Age games have no business being in a "Top RPGs" list.
Agreed, DAO is possibly one of the most overrated RPGs I've played. It makes virtues out of cliché and bland lip service to the form, in story, characters, mechanics, and loot. it does everything just well enough to make a mediocre grade, then because of its size and budget it pretends to be some grand epic when really its more of a caricature of the classic high fantasy crpg than paying any sort of homage, I wont even get into the whole romance simulator aspect.

Whats really galling is that a generation of gamers have grown up thinking this tripe is prime beef.
 

gorfias

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crackfool said:
PC Gamer's top 25 looks so much better than this. Severely underrating modern classics like Alpha Protocol,
Wait, what? Alpha Protocol is worth playing? I got it in bundle purchase and when I wasn't immediately thrilled, deleted it. Sounds like I should give it more of a chance.

Dyf91 said:
As soon as I saw Dragon Age 2 on this list I was frantically clicking to the next page going "If they've put Dragon Age 2 on this list but not Origins...", but thankfully my prayers were answered when I found Origins sitting pretty at #2.
Another I have in my Origin libary. Started it up again today. Graphics are good enough. Fingers crossed, I'm playing on easy with a human fighter. I get the impression I could see different story starts with a number of combinations.

Signa said:
Only about half of these are actually RPGs. Then again, true RPGs have been severely underrepresented in the last 5 years.
Zelda 2 was likely my first action RPG, but FF 1 on NES blew me away. That kind of gameplay is missing. Last one I enjoyed of which I can think was FF10 on PS2. As I like my games easy, I need a game with lots of save points, and everyone should be 100% health after evey save to allow grinding. And I like to choose my characters choices. I was playing some cartoon cell shaded thing on Gamecube the first time I saw a game where, the characters all started doing stuff on their own. I'm like, "golly, hope you guys are having fun. I'm going to go watch Star Trek VI again."

veloper said:
Have to join the anti-Skyrim chorus. The last 5 years may not have been great, but Skyrim at #1 sounds like such a joke.

The list would have been less terrible if a distinction was made between action-RPGs, including diablo-clones and RPShooters, in one category and the blobbers, turn-based RPGs, RTWPs, all the games with full party control basicly, in the other category.
My problem with making it #1 was it was wildly unbalanced. Want to be a magic user? You'll need to use all you've got to fire blast a mouse. What made me love it nearly more than any other game in the last 5 years were the mods. Replacing the moon with the Death Star, giving myself 100 in all stats, etc. Lot of fun.
 

Don Incognito

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Gorfias said:
Wait, what? Alpha Protocol is worth playing? I got it in bundle purchase and when I wasn't immediately thrilled, deleted it. Sounds like I should give it more of a chance.
Alpha Protocol was an excellent Deus Ex sequel without being a Deus Ex sequel; it even had Deus Ex's one fatal flaw, poor combat AI. If you can look past that, I strongly recommend it; it is a terrific game with interesting characters, a fun plotline, and really great level design.

Absolutely an underrated gem.
 

kuolonen

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Honestly when I started to go through the list I first thought I was reading it backwards. New Vegas and Mass Effect 3 at bottom? Really? And stuff like Amalur and Diablo 3 comes after that? And then DA2??? (I mean I do somewhat like DA2 but there are limits)

I suppose we all have our different tastes but spaghetti monster christ, I couldn't comprehend the maker of this list any more than I could a person who sees tastes and hears colours.
 

Trunkage

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grimner said:
Andy Shandy said:
No Nier or Alpha Protocol, and Fallout: New Vegas being that low makes me sad. This is counteracting by Skyrim being number one making me laugh however, so I suppose it all evens out.
came here to comment before even seeing the list through, as it seemed that the list would fall into the all too common mistake of underselling new vegas next to FO3, but they made Skyrim is number 1? Wow.


New Vegas is twice the RPG FO3 or Skyrim are by the very simple virtue of adding consequence and weight to all your actions in an organic fashion. I still found completely defining and in character that while strolling around with Boone he, spotting a Legion member from afar, wasted no time to pop his head off. I had actually planned to do that playthrough with the Legion, but the game had other plans, and far from begrudging that, it was the game designed as intended. Sometimes being dragged ito something without having any agency in it is actually pretty damn good roleplaying, especially when backed by an all around good story and delivery.

Skyrim is just Norse tourism by comparison, hellbent on having its story moments break my immersion. Choosing a faction over the other has absolutely no direct consequence, and even though you're the only one (besides, you know, a horse) capable of defeating those mighty, mighty dragons, you remain completely and utterly anonymous. It's as if they did NOT want the game to have replay value, by allowing you to rule all guilds, holds and factions in the same playthrough. I've replayed New Vegas a lot while exploring options and different outcomes, which is what RPG's should do. I have exhausted all my interest in Skyrim once the majority of main quest paths were completed and all I had to show was one huge and glitchy save file. Every single choice in this list trumps skyrim as an RPG.

jdarksun said:
Are the Dark Souls and Pokemon games really RPGs?
Unless I am aiming for the Darkwraith covenant, I took to always completing the Artorias of the Abyss DLC before beating Sif. I always bow, even though no one is watching me do so. And always offer a prayer upon completion. I fight Manus with Artorias's gear as way of homage. What is this if not roleplaying?

The game is rife with choice, even if said choice is not telegraphed within set game moments. Preemptively kill Lautrec? Avenge Rhea? Leave the sad souls you interact with to their own demise? Take some shortcuts by way of murdering someone because you want some trinket or other? That is choice, and the lack of a paragon/renegade dialogue wheel doesn't diminish it in the slightest.
Which New Vegas did you play - mine involved being funnelled down a certain path, without any real ability to choose how I wanted to play or where I wanted to go. levelled creatures block all the alternates. While it was better that you could see what affect you had on others through an epilogue, and that all decision had some negative consequence, most of the factions didn't make sense. The Boomers segregated themselves from people AND PROVISIONS. There isn't an effective way for them to resupply themselves and considering how long they were at it, there would have been that need. Caesar comes off as a reasonable guy but enslaves everyone. He lost to the NCR, how was there not a revolt by all the slaves. Even Hitler didn't have that much control over his 'subjects'. Or the fact that he tried his best to follow Roman society but then enslaved EVERYONE. Someone has to develop the economy. Also if you sided with them, you lost most of the possible merchant you could have. I think I'll stop there as it just get more boring. Don't get me wrong, the idea of a faction system would have made it better than FO3, but it was poorly done.

I did play it again recently. Old world blues does make up for so many things wrong with New Vegas. I'm now replaying Skyrim and the difference in freedom is remarkable. I get choices again.

Oh, and why do I get to petty much destroy the legion or NCR and then they forgive once I reach a certain point in a quest. Twice. Talk about no consequences.

I think my other main problem with New Vegas is the setting. It's a desert. Other than one unexploded bomb, the setting could fall into a variety of other series. All other Fallouts showed that the place was devastated. New Vegas was a wasteland before there was any bombed dropped. Yes I understand that House protected them, but I literally couldn't tell.
 

Bombiz

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I just love how all of the souls games are on this list.

SirBryghtside said:
Haha, this thread is full of delicious tears :D some of you guys need to look up 'opinion' in a dictionary.
If "full of delicious tears" means people disagreeing with the escapists list then yes it is "full of delicious tears".

Seriously though this discussion is quit civil. I honestly don't see what you're talking about.
 

Caostotale

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William Fleming said:
No mention of Star Ocean 2 makes me sad. Skyrim taking no. 1 doesn't bother me, though Mass Effect 2 taking the no. 3 spot, that does kind of bother me since I felt that game became a slog (my personal favourite Mass Effect is the first one).
Star Ocean 2 is 15 years old. Remakes weren't considered in the making of this list, just dreary brown/grey/green WRPGs that play like FPS/TPS, JRPGs designed to appeal to Westerners' crap stylistic tastes, and that small handful of regular JRPGs that Nintendo begrudgingly let Americans have, much to the delight of a gaming press that enjoys Cinderella stories. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that barely anybody on this site's staff even attempted the last several titles in series like Disgaea, SMT, Etrian Odyssey, etc...

Thankfully, there are plenty of better RPG weblogs and such that actually engage with the genre on the whole rather than subsuming their dialogue to the US gaming market's ever-changing definition for 'role-playing experiences' (and the whimsy of corporations like Nintendo of America, who've been nobly protecting the U.S. from the majority of good JRPGs since the 8-bit era).
 

Continuity

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Don Incognito said:
Gorfias said:
Wait, what? Alpha Protocol is worth playing? I got it in bundle purchase and when I wasn't immediately thrilled, deleted it. Sounds like I should give it more of a chance.
Alpha Protocol was an excellent Deus Ex sequel without being a Deus Ex sequel; it even had Deus Ex's one fatal flaw, poor combat AI. If you can look past that, I strongly recommend it; it is a terrific game with interesting characters, a fun plotline, and really great level design.

Absolutely an underrated gem.
Ah now hang on, Alpha Protocol is alright but its by no means a gem, for me it had too much focus on action and that action was too consolified, plus some of the dynamic hub branching story stuff made for some weird and opaque story lines. I finished it but have had no desire to go back, not the sign of a good RPG, hell it was more of an action adventure anyway.

Alek_the_Great said:
Continuity said:
RealRT said:
Where is Alpha Protocol? And JRPGs and both Dragon Age games have no business being in a "Top RPGs" list.
Agreed, DAO is possibly one of the most overrated RPGs I've played. It makes virtues out of cliché and bland lip service to the form, in story, characters, mechanics, and loot. it does everything just well enough to make a mediocre grade, then because of its size and budget it pretends to be some grand epic when really its more of a caricature of the classic high fantasy crpg than paying any sort of homage, I wont even get into the whole romance simulator aspect.

Whats really galling is that a generation of gamers have grown up thinking this tripe is prime beef.
I see nothing inherently bad with cliche, especially when it's cliche done good in the case of DA:O. I also thought they tried and supplement it with well written characters, story choice, and a fun tactical combat so at the very least it stands firmly with the better RPGs out there. Also, I don't think the romance aspect of the game was all that big, at least in Origins. It was only in DA2 and ESPECIALLY in DA:I (Christ, I've seen at least 6 separate articles that focused on romances along and how inclusive they are or some bullshit) that they truly started to pander in regards to that aspect.
It does have some good points, and they add up to a competent if mediocre crpg, and in a world that was starved of AAA crpg's at the time I can see why it was picked up with such gusto. However, I can't forgive its flaws, especially as it claims to be a spiritual successor to Baldurs Gate (that jacks the bar right up for a start), and especially as its coming form the developer of Baldurs Gate (though frankly I've been wondering how much influence Black Isle had on the BG series, and how much was really down to Bioware).

DAO's big flaws are: Bland see-through story with highly generic high fantasy theme, cut down and frankly boring character development mechanics, the magic system alone is a travesty when compared side by side with the BG series, and loot, there is just so little loot of any consequence. So really its failing hard on some of the major factors that make for a good CRPG.

s69-5 said:
Dark Souls at number 5. Demon's Souls even lower!? No Valkyria Chronicles!!? What the shit!?
There's the real top 3 right there.
Eh, Look I'll tolerate them in the list but in my opinion Dark souls is barely an RPG, sure it has the character development and the loot but really its all about the combat, these are fighting games first, everything else second.
 

DeathQuaker

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I personally would draw a line between RPGs where you make choices in dialogue, what characters you choose to establish relationships with (I mean this in the broadest sense), and your actions in quests have consequences....

... And "action RPG" clickfests where your only decisions are customizing the look and abilities of your character. To me that's not "playing a role," that's just superficial customization of a character that otherwise is always going to make the same decisions and actions.

I LIKE BOTH GAMES. Let me be clear. I LIKE BOTH TYPES OF THOSE GAMES.

But there is a clear distinction between something like Torchlight 2 (which I adore), where largely the point is kill stuff and collect loot, and something like Fallout: New Vegas (which I also adore for different reasons), where largely the point is to see how how your actions affect the story (okay and ALSO kill stuff and collect loot). Bastion is one of the most brilliant games to come out in a long time, but I still don't feel like it belongs on a list shared with Mass Effect. Of course there are similarities (see: kill stuff and collect loot), but I think you set yourself in a very different mindset from playing one or the other type of game.

It seems like the only reason why action fantasy games and choice-driven RPGs were combined was because otherwise they wouldn't have been able to come up with a list of 25 games.

I find it odd Fallout New Vegas gets dinged for bugs when a lot of other games also had nasty bugs on release, Skyrim included, which of course is in a similar engine (what bugs an individual hits is always a "mileage may vary" issue, but I've actually, on relatively finished, patched versions of each game, hit more quest breakers on Skyrim than I have on FNV). This isn't to say FNV's buggy-on-release status wasn't problematic, but it's not fair to call only that game out and turn a blind eye to other games that have had similar issues. It feels like FNV was only judged for what it was like on release, before patches or DLC, and everything else was judged on its final iteration with DLC included (such as Mass Effect 3's DLC getting props).

I do agree with those who complained Alpha Protocol wasn't on here. It also had bug issues on release (because Sega apparently released the beta as final or something stupid like that--I don't remember exactly the issue off the top of my head), but it deserves props for the interesting conversation system, for having a stealth system that is actually fun to play and master (stealth doesn't work properly in most RPGs), and how the game adjusted for your actions in very complex ways, from who you left alive or dead, to how you talked to someone, from whom you allied with to simply whether you got caught on a mission or not---but there was never a *wrong* choice, just different choices that drove the story forward. Many RPGs have these kind of choices, but in AP they really had some noticeable and interesting effects. It is an immensely replayable game because of this (and because while it's got a meaty enough story it doesn't take too long to play through); I am not one to play a game over and over again, but this one I have several times because you always end up seeing something happen in a different way than it did before.

While we're nitpicking, I just wanna ask.... why does everyone always laud Skyrim's immersiveness? I love Skyrim and it is also a game I replay a lot, but it is one of the most obviously gamey games I've ever gamed. Cut and paste dungeons with the same monsters over and over again, people's barkstrings go off at the most random and stupid times so you're always aware you're dealing with a dumb AI and not interesting and storied people, quests that often never properly finish right and people never seem to acknowledge properly anything you've done (people still fret about Alduin after you've killed him, people still talk about the civil war going on after the plotline is over including talking about characters that are now dead as if they are still alive; oh, but a random guard will always respond to how great a blacksmith you are even though they've never seen you near a forge). All the thousands of people in the world have the same three voices. People forgive murder if you pay them enough. Loads of people the game won't let you kill for no apparent reason--too many quest essential NPCs that shouldn't be and quests too poorly designed to adjust themselves to your actions (compare: you can't kill Maven Blackbriar because she's involved in the thieves guild and civil war quests but even when you finish those you still can't do anything to her; versus, in Fallout New Vegas, you can actually kill Caesar, a major faction leader, and REACTIONS ADJUST ACCORDINGLY (your Legion rep drops permanently and everybody talks about it), but the game itself goes on, as the developers took the time to develop a line of succession). Yes, the graphics are pretty and it's kind of novel for a little while that you can go into most buildings and steal people's forks--but that doesn't make the game immersive, it just makes the environment well designed. Details of the physical environment can be important, but they aren't the MOST crucial element in terms of telling a story you can't break yourself out of (which is what immersion is to me), it's how the NPCs are programmed and quest and story all links together so you never think "oh, gee, I guess they can't react to that properly because they're not programmed to," and Skyrim fails to do those things utterly. It is game that goes amazingly broad, but fails to go deep. Skyrim is ultimately fun for the same reason a game like Torchlight is fun--it's fun to go into dungeons and kill things and collect loot and level your character, and it is a LARGE enough world that on a replay you will encounter stuff you either didn't the first time or don't remember seeing, but it still always makes it clear you are not in another world in another life, you are just playing a game.

Folks who do feel it is immersive, I'd love to know how they deal with immersion breaking stuff like people not giving you credit for your accomplishments, or quests not failing/succeeding properly, or unkillable NPCs. Is it really just that cool that you can steal everybody's forks that you don't care that the guard just said to you the thing about the arrow to the knee for the 8,000th time and nobody cares that you killed Alduin? That you don't care that a thief attacks you to steal your stuff when you are head of the thieves' guild because at least the road encounter feels random? What is it that makes it immersive for you? I am not being sarky (the examples for me are just what breaks immersion for me), I really would like to know.

Anyway, if immersiveness is what makes a game #1, I don't know why it's Skyrim that's there. I'd like to understand that better.

I realize in the end stuff like these top (number) lists are always going to be very subjective and this article is fine in terms of seeing--okay, this is what the Escapist staff things of these RPGs, and that's interesting to know. Seeing what they prioritize in RPGs helps me assess whether their RPG reviews will be helpful to me, and that's good to know.
 

rotkiv

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Mass Effect 3 is way to low on this, sure the ending was bad, but the rest of the game was a masterpice, do games like Diablo 3, Dragon age 2 or amulur have anything close to parts like
{My project, my work, my cure. My responsibility.}
?
 

mattttherman3

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Well, this is a decent list I suppose, although I consider every game on the list an RPG. I don't get why you think you need to seperate RPGS from ARPGS, they are the same damn thing with different combat systems.
 

bug_of_war

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A couple of gripes with the commenters on here.

1: RPG literally means Role Playing Game. That mean you play a role in a game where you imbue yourself in the character. So it shouldn't matter if the game is action orientated, talk your fuckin' ears off, old school DnD shit, lawyer battle simulator, or the fucked up hentai sex games found on Newgrounds.com. In the end, if you have a choice of what to say, do, how you do, or path you take, it's a RPG.

2: The very fact that the JRPG games have to be called JRPG shows that they're a different set of games. Like it or not, if you use the term JRPG, you're perpetuating the mind set that they're a different genre from RPG.

OT: Played maybe half of these...
 

teh_gunslinger

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Sooo, basically a list of the most mainstream 25 RPGs of the last half decade? Topped by Skyrim and Dragon Age of all things?

Can't say I'm particularly surprised. Though at least Shadownrun was in there. The Dragonfall expansion was what Mass Effect should have been when it comes to writing.

Still, nobody played any of Jeff Vogels games? For shame!

Edit: also Alpha Protocol.

This does read like a list made by people with very bad taste. I mean, whatever, it's just a list, but still! There are some real stinkers in that list!
 

balladbird

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Eh, the list was entirely too WRPG and PC-centric for me to really agree with it, but it was a fun read, all the same.

I get that the current taste in gaming says that wide open sandboxes with weak central stories and unlimited freedom are the the order of the day, but I'll always prefer tightly scripted, character-driven stories in my RPGs.
 

Yossarian1507

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Andy Shandy said:
No Nier or Alpha Protocol
crackfool said:
Severely underrating modern classics like Alpha Protocol
Don Incognito said:
To say nothing of criminally underrating New Vegas and Alpha Protocol.
RealRT said:
Where is Alpha Protocol?
DeathQuaker said:
I do agree with those who complained Alpha Protocol wasn't on here.
teh_gunslinger said:
Edit: also Alpha Protocol.
Ah hah! Totally called Alpha Protocol becoming a cult classic when I defended it on this very forum after getting a two-star review [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.199129-Review-Alpha-Protocol?page=2#6516570]. So happy that this game is getting at least some recognition after all this years.

Continuity said:
Ah now hang on, Alpha Protocol is alright but its by no means a gem, for me it had too much focus on action and that action was too consolified, plus some of the dynamic hub branching story stuff made for some weird and opaque story lines. I finished it but have had no desire to go back, not the sign of a good RPG, hell it was more of an action adventure anyway.
I respectfully disagree. I think this is one of the most "RPG" RPG games overall, not to mention in comparison to some of the positions on this list. You are Mike Thorton... And that's it. How you act and what you do is up to you, and choice & consequence system acknowledging things like worse equipment for enemies after arresting an arms dealer, or characters commenting on your playstyle (like Marburg summing up your "sneakiness" in Rome), and even small things like making Mike/Mina crack the usb stick with assassination plans depending on your computer skills is IMO as far RPG as video game RPG can get. I believe that RPG devs should be taking notes from this game about player choices. They should also make notes on how not to do QA, but that's another story.

Calling it a gem might be a stretch, but not that much. "(very) Unpolished Gem" would be the phrase I would use myself.

Krelyan said:
The following probably should be considered in the running for great recent RPGs:
Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward
As much as I love VLR, and it's proudly sitting on the 4th spot on my "favorite games of all time list", I don't think it qualifies as an RPG, even by really stretched definition of the term on this list. It's pretty straightforward Visual Novel/Puzzle Game. If VLR is considered an RPG then so should Proffesor Layton games.

OT: Yeah, I'm also in disagreement with this list for most part (never played Skyrim, TES series always bored me to tears, while DA:O is one of my biggest gaming disappointments in my life), but I concede that most of the titles here are widely recognized as great, and you're never going to hit the right spot with everyone, that's simply impossible.

I have to question the definition of an RPG game used for this list though. Action RPGs like Mass Effect and Deus Ex: Human Revolution? Fine, dialog trees and choices are staple of a video game RPGs, no problem here. Hack & Slash like Path of Exile and Torchlight II? Sure, those are channeling "kick in the door" DnD campaign style of RPG. But what the hell is RPG mark doing near the things like Pokemon? Where's the RPG element in that, besides leveling up your Pokes (and if that's enough, then almost any FPS multiplayer game and MOBA should count these days)? Also it's been years since I played my last Fire Emblem game (in GBA times, to be more specific), but wasn't this a series of Turn-Based Strategy games?
 

Karadalis

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Continuity said:
form the developer of Baldurs Gate
You dont seriously believe that anyone that worked back on Baldurs gate 1 n 2 is still working for bioware?

Heck the founders of bioware arent even part of bioware anymore.

When a publisher buys up a studio that studio becomes a brand name and nothing more. People come and go behind the big name so todays Bioware is only "Bioware" in name.. but not in soul.

So saying "from the makers of Baldurs gate" in their advertisement was a blatant lie.

However apart from the comparison to the baldurs gate series (wich honestly everyone is gonna loose that one) i didnt saw any glaring problems with Dragon age origins.

Someone here claimed it was a LOTR ripoff... thought i dont remember LOTR having something akin to the fade.. or demons.. or magicians that would be corrupt and superviced by the church... or Elfs that wherent super duper omni capable (looking at you legolas)

They stole more ideas from warhammer fantasy then from any other fantasy setting honestly.

Even the Darkspawn looked and felt like the hordes of chaos instead of LOTR orcs.

What i liked about Dragon age origins was precisely that it didnt try to reinvent the wheel anew. It set out to be an RPG with an high fantasy storyline that was rather gritty in presentation and setting and it did the job rather adequatly.

I mean if you call them out for being blant then i have to ask you what you dont see as blant when it comes to high fantasy?

The follow up thought was a badly paced blatant cash grab that was rushed because EA idiotically tried to apply its "game a year" strategy that they use in their sports department on bioware... and it failed miserably.
 

William Fleming

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Caostotale said:
William Fleming said:
No mention of Star Ocean 2 makes me sad. Skyrim taking no. 1 doesn't bother me, though Mass Effect 2 taking the no. 3 spot, that does kind of bother me since I felt that game became a slog (my personal favourite Mass Effect is the first one).
Star Ocean 2 is 15 years old. Remakes weren't considered in the making of this list, just dreary brown/grey/green WRPGs that play like FPS/TPS, JRPGs designed to appeal to Westerners' crap stylistic tastes, and that small handful of regular JRPGs that Nintendo begrudgingly let Americans have, much to the delight of a gaming press that enjoys Cinderella stories. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that barely anybody on this site's staff even attempted the last several titles in series like Disgaea, SMT, Etrian Odyssey, etc...

Thankfully, there are plenty of better RPG weblogs and such that actually engage with the genre on the whole rather than subsuming their dialogue to the US gaming market's ever-changing definition for 'role-playing experiences' (and the whimsy of corporations like Nintendo of America, who've been nobly protecting the U.S. from the majority of good JRPGs since the 8-bit era).
I never realised that the remake of the Star Ocean 2 is now more than 5 years old (well the PSP remake which I was thinking of) until checking after reading your post... But then again... Demon's Souls is part of the list and its now technically older than 5 year's now if you go by the Japanese release date which is the one given in the article...