Poll: Who Do You Think is Best RPGs Between Bioware, Square Enix, and Bethesda?

[DirgeNovak]

Bioware and Bethesda are pretty much tied in my book. Bioware games have better stories and writing, and Bethesda games have better immersion.

But I'll say Bioware because the gameplay of their games is generally more enjoyable on a minute-to-minute basis. And the storylines have more emotional impact.

I absolutely love Bethesda too, though. And I like Square in general, but they're really not what they used to be. Final Fantasy XIII and XIV sucked. Unless you count Deus Ex 3 as a Square Enix game (and I don't), they're not even in the race anymore.

 

[JamesStone]

Lets see here...
Dragon Age - One of the worst games I've ever played.
Mass Effect - Too boring to get into.
Oblivion - Too boring to get into.
Fallout 3 - Amazing.
Star Ocean - Too boring/bad to get into.
Final Fantasy 7, 10, 12 - Great.
Final Fantasy 1, 13 - Decent.
Final Fantasy 8 - Too boring.

I guess I'll go with Square Enix since I can actually play their games without falling asleep. Well, Final Fantasy at least...

GSC Game World is by far the best.

You consider Mass Effect and Dragon Age bad, while you consider Final Fantasy great/decent...
wow, i need to lay down.

Lets see here...
Dragon Age - One of the worst games I've ever played.
Mass Effect - Too boring to get into.
Oblivion - Too boring to get into.
Fallout 3 - Amazing.
Star Ocean - Too boring/bad to get into.
Final Fantasy 7, 10, 12 - Great.
Final Fantasy 1, 13 - Decent.
Final Fantasy 8 - Too boring.

I guess I'll go with Square Enix since I can actually play their games without falling asleep. Well, Final Fantasy at least...

GSC Game World is by far the best.

You consider Mass Effect and Dragon Age bad, while you consider Final Fantasy great/decent...
wow, i need to lay down.

Lay down? Dude, this guy needs to go to the hospital. I think is brain is starting to rot.

There's nothing wrong with the list, Square games were always much more fun than Bioware games, even if they weren't as deep.

Soooooo, you think that Final Fantasy can´t put someone to sleep? Even 7 had the falling asleep label, and seriously 13, decent? That wasn´t a game that was a interactive film.

quoting someone that everyone on the Escapist know:"Someone told me that FF13 get´s good about 20 hours in, but that´s not really a point on it´s favor. Put your hand on a oven for 20 hours and you´re probably stop feeling the pain but you´ve done serious damage to yourself"

 

[Sm0gg]

Well, I loved Just Cause 2, Mass Effect 2, DAO, Fallout3 & NV (although the bugs are maddening & ruin immersion) So I gotta say all three have made games i love.
ME2 is probably my favorite RPG of all time tho.

 

[Eduku]

Lets see here...
Dragon Age - One of the worst games I've ever played.
Mass Effect - Too boring to get into.
Oblivion - Too boring to get into.
Fallout 3 - Amazing.
Star Ocean - Too boring/bad to get into.
Final Fantasy 7, 10, 12 - Great.
Final Fantasy 1, 13 - Decent.
Final Fantasy 8 - Too boring.

I guess I'll go with Square Enix since I can actually play their games without falling asleep. Well, Final Fantasy at least...

GSC Game World is by far the best.

You consider Mass Effect and Dragon Age bad, while you consider Final Fantasy great/decent...
wow, i need to lay down.

Lets see here...
Dragon Age - One of the worst games I've ever played.
Mass Effect - Too boring to get into.
Oblivion - Too boring to get into.
Fallout 3 - Amazing.
Star Ocean - Too boring/bad to get into.
Final Fantasy 7, 10, 12 - Great.
Final Fantasy 1, 13 - Decent.
Final Fantasy 8 - Too boring.

I guess I'll go with Square Enix since I can actually play their games without falling asleep. Well, Final Fantasy at least...

GSC Game World is by far the best.

You consider Mass Effect and Dragon Age bad, while you consider Final Fantasy great/decent...
wow, i need to lay down.

Lay down? Dude, this guy needs to go to the hospital. I think is brain is starting to rot.

There's nothing wrong with the list, Square games were always much more fun than Bioware games, even if they weren't as deep.

Soooooo, you think that Final Fantasy can´t put someone to sleep? Even 7 had the falling asleep label, and seriously 13, decent? That wasn´t a game that was a interactive film.

quoting someone that everyone on the Escapist know:"Someone told me that FF13 get´s good about 20 hours in, but that´s not really a point on it´s favor. Put your hand on a oven for 20 hours and you´re probably stop feeling the pain but you´ve done serious damage to yourself"

Well god forbid if someone has a different opinion than you. Seriously, if people are intelligent enough to post on a forum, they should be intelligent enough to understand what an opinion is.

OT: I like all of them, JRPGs and WRPGs both. I have phases, so sometimes I'll want to play JRPGs for ages at a time and sometimes WRPGs. At the moment I tend towards Bioware more since I have a backlog of DA and ME to complete, but I suspect that will change when Skyrim comes out.

 

[Defense]

Soooooo, you think that Final Fantasy can´t put someone to sleep? Even 7 had the falling asleep label, and seriously 13, decent? That wasn´t a game that was a interactive film.

I never said that, but most WRPGs I played have boring combat. It's either D&D hacky slashy team based combat or a crappy cover based third person shooter.

And yes, 13 was decent as a game. It's just slightly more linear than Mass Effect 2, if only because about 5% of choices in Mass Effect 2 actually matter. The only difference is that it makes sense in Final Fantasy 13. Mass Effect 2 is corridor TPS with chest high walls everywhere, by coincidence.

 

[Rawne1980]

Had to be Bethesda.

As much as I enjoyed Bioware games the sheer amount of modding an extra content you can make for Bethesda games is unreal.

I get far more hours out of those than Bioware games.

 

[Wayneguard]

I love the Elder Scrolls universe. Morrowind was my first high fantasy RPG and I've been a huge fan ever since. My vote is for Bethesda.

 

[Grey_Focks]

holy crap, is this some thread necro or what? Anyway, I think I voted for BioWare, despite DA2 disappointing, though Bethesda was very close. Square however is still on a personal embargo, after killing JRPGs for me with The Last Remnant and FF13. That being said, I do think I'll have to buy Deus Ex, though I think I can wait a week or so and get it used, just because I am that petty.

Also, wow, I stand by a statement I said a while ago, RPG fans really are the worst fanbase there is. Say what you will about CoD fans, atleast they just shut up and enjoy their games. You guys are all fans of the same genre and you can't agree on shit.

 

[Stalydan]

Wow that was a tough one. Answer at the bottom for the tl;dr.

All three of those companies have great things about their own ways of doing RPGs.

Bethesda - What I love about these guys is they make very big worlds to explore with lots of side quests. Most of them implement a "karma" system of some kind: The Elder Scrolls has the Fame/Infamy thing going on for it that has effects on what side quests you can do and how different people will react to you. Fallout pretty much has the same thing with "karma" but mostly affects your ending if anything. But Bethesda has the problem for me that the story isn't very engaging. I can spend hours just traversing the dungeons, caves and forests of Cyrodiil and forget I'm suppose to be stopping the world from ending.

Square Enix - These guys are pretty much the biggest reason that the JRPG exists in the West and they rightly earn bragging rights to say they have one of the best known gaming series in the world, never mind just among RPG fans. What these guys do and do well is stories. Their games always remind you there is a reason you're fighting and throw in some pretty memorable characters. In later years, they've shown that they are among the masters of cinematography in gaming to the point they released a sequel to Final Fantasy VII as a movie. A pretty damn confusing movie if you don't own a Blu-Ray player but still a very pretty one. But they lack in one area. Side quests are very fun but they really put much of an emphasis on them. They're really only there for the people who look for them. Except in Dragon Quest... definitely there they're not. But even then, they don't have that appeal that Bethesda have. They don't really have much of a impact on anything. Whilst Fallout has side quests that a very engaging and lets you meet new people who will give you a helping hand, Final Fantasy and the like really only just have enough that make you want to play them and it's usually just "Go here, kill 10 of that and come back and I'll give you money".

Bioware - I think these guys have got the mid ground between these. Great stories with some great optional quests on the side. But they still feel some how as important as the story missions and quite often as fun. There are usually optional endings and now we have started seeing that these endings aren't just for the sake of seeing how things will play out. Transferring your save from Mass Effect 1 to Mass Effect 2 would really show just how much your actions matter by opening up new quests and dialogue options. It's a truly fun game to play through twice just to see how different you can make things.

tl;dr I chose Bioware because of how much you can experiment with the story.

 

[Stalydan]

I love the Elder Scrolls universe. Morrowind was my first high fantasy RPG and I've been a huge fan ever since. My vote is for Bethesda.

Quick question, will you be buying the Skyrim Collector's Edition? Or do you think the price is too high?

 

[caviar1]

i think what he means is that there's not much dialogue variety/choice. i would still disagree though, bethesda makes games of the year every time they step on the field

 

[Camaranth]

I've been trying to figure out what it is about Bethesda RPGs that just don't work with me...I've tried fallout 3 and Oblivion and I really want to try skyrim but I have never finished a Bethesda game.

I think it's to do with mind set, Bioware is kinda of a "hey come be the protagonist of this epic tale in a great world we have created" where as Bethesda is more "come and explore this amazing world we have made oh and if you fancy it there is an over-arching plot but it's not that important"

Personally I prefer having a goal than just wondering, they are both great at what they do but Bioware gets my vote.

As for square, i don't have an opinion

 

[Wayneguard]

I love the Elder Scrolls universe. Morrowind was my first high fantasy RPG and I've been a huge fan ever since. My vote is for Bethesda.

Quick question, will you be buying the Skyrim Collector's Edition? Or do you think the price is too high?

I'll be buying it day 1 for sure but not for $150.

 

[JamesStone]

Soooooo, you think that Final Fantasy can´t put someone to sleep? Even 7 had the falling asleep label, and seriously 13, decent? That wasn´t a game that was a interactive film.

I never said that, but most WRPGs I played have boring combat. It's either D&D hacky slashy team based combat or a crappy cover based third person shooter.

And yes, 13 was decent as a game. It's just slightly more linear than Mass Effect 2, if only because about 5% of choices in Mass Effect 2 actually matter. The only difference is that it makes sense in Final Fantasy 13. Mass Effect 2 is corridor TPS with chest high walls everywhere, by coincidence.

But FF13 is the best example of boring combat. I still can´t understand how people can survive those 20 hours that take to the game be good. Not just for the combat, I don´t mind a game when you don´t kill anyone, if the history is good and we can do bloody something. In FF13 we get to walk a reaaaaaaaaally linear corridor, with fights occuring in an alternative universe, and FF13 story isn´t good. It is just goddam confusing, it doesn´t give me any reason to like the characters and the capital sin: it doesn´t stack with gameplay. Most of the people who play FF13 understand the story by reading the text logs, and people who didn´t only understand probably because they already played other FF games after 7 and know in what kind of shit they are getting into. Mass Effect 2, on the other hand, had really important decisions, and it is good to remind that most of the decisions won´t be felt in the game itself, but on 3, so you always get the felling that you are building something epic, and the ME2 combat did enough variation to be fun. You only play classic TPS if you want (i.e. choose the soldier class).

 

[Bajinga]

Well this is easy:
-I hate Square Enix

-I have yet to play a Bethesda game

-I love Dragon Age: Origins

 

[Defense]

Soooooo, you think that Final Fantasy can´t put someone to sleep? Even 7 had the falling asleep label, and seriously 13, decent? That wasn´t a game that was a interactive film.

I never said that, but most WRPGs I played have boring combat. It's either D&D hacky slashy team based combat or a crappy cover based third person shooter.

And yes, 13 was decent as a game. It's just slightly more linear than Mass Effect 2, if only because about 5% of choices in Mass Effect 2 actually matter. The only difference is that it makes sense in Final Fantasy 13. Mass Effect 2 is corridor TPS with chest high walls everywhere, by coincidence.

But FF13 is the best example of boring combat. I still can´t understand how people can survive those 20 hours that take to the game be good. Not just for the combat, I don´t mind a game when you don´t kill anyone, if the history is good and we can do bloody something. In FF13 we get to walk a reaaaaaaaaally linear corridor, with fights occuring in an alternative universe, and FF13 story isn´t good. It is just goddam confusing, it doesn´t give me any reason to like the characters and the capital sin: it doesn´t stack with gameplay. Most of the people who play FF13 understand the story by reading the text logs, and people who didn´t only understand probably because they already played other FF games after 7 and know in what kind of shit they are getting into. Mass Effect 2, on the other hand, had really important decisions, and it is good to remind that most of the decisions won´t be felt in the game itself, but on 3, so you always get the felling that you are building something epic, and the ME2 combat did enough variation to be fun. You only play classic TPS if you want (i.e. choose the soldier class).

Nice opinions bro.

Also, a summary of Mass Effect choices:

X happens!
|-Be a tool\
|-Be bland-----------B happens regardless of your choice!
|-Be a dick/

With a few exceptions of course.

 

[migo]

Given the available choices, Bethesda, but Atlus is the best.

 

[Mark Flanagan]

Bioware makes the best RPG from a story and character perspective IMO while Bethesda makes awesome sandbox RPG which allow the player to make their own story.

I don't think I've played a Square Enix game as FF seems so blagh to me.