Favourite RPG created?

[Fates_ward_2010]

Hello
What RPG would you lovely people out there consider to be your favourite? Personally i'm going to have to go for Baldurs Gate I, mainly due to the fact that there aren't so many overpowered items that you can equip for your character; and the fact that its so rewarding to find a Long Sword+1 lol, in comparasin to Throne of Bhaal where you get sick of the sight of them :laugh:

Looking forward to hearing what you all have to hear

[jack828]

There are a lot of RPG's i like but if I had to pick one I would have to say: fallout.

others i have enjoyed: fallout 2, bloodlines, arcanum, icewind dale

[GawainBS]

Arcanum, PS:T and FFVI are all close.

[Daynov]

Planescape: Torment

[galraen]

It's a 'what mood am I in now' type of question for me, and right now the answer is Might & Magic 6.

On another occasion it might be Wizardry 8 or Arcanum, or even good old Eye of the Beholder.

[Dereth]

Baldur's Gate I & II along with IWD I & II at a close second.

[Lucinda]

Bloodlines. No competition to be had.

[Nukester]

Id have to say Gothic I is my all-time favorite

[doady]

I mostly prefer the old-school, open-ended RPGs that promote exploration.

My favourites, first tier: Wizardry 8, Baldur's Gate, Might and Magic VI

Second tier: Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door, Ogre Battle 64, Arcanum

Wizardry 8 seems staunchly old school, but it also seems like most innovative and advanced RPG in recent memory. Customizable personalities, roaming monsters, open-ended dialogue, etc.

Paper Mario 2 is probably the most ridiculous and funniest RPG ever...

Not only is Ogre Battle 64 one of the few RPGs (if not the only RPG) with strategic combat instead of tactical combat, but also one of the few so-called "strategy" games with strategic combat instead of tactical combat. That said, even tactical combat is rare in RPGs these days, let alone strategic combat...

Arcanum could have been the absolute best RPG ever, if not for the combat system...

[Scully]

Planescape is indescribably good.

[Tenser]

Well, Baldurs Gate 2 of course.

- The only game ever where Mages are truely fearsome opponents.

- And it has romances.

- And really well made companions, albeit they dont have as many features as newer games, but OTOH I liked them much more. Imoen is my forever favorite companion ever. And even the evil companions where at least FUNNY.

- Also, BG2 has the best villain speaker ever.

- Tons of great quests.


BG1 was nice-ish, but there are better games than it out.

- Like Vampire: Bloodlines. Definitely beats BG1, but not BG2. Main complaint really was the bugs and the fact it turned into Diablo in the late parts. I had to enable god mode to finish it. Before that point, though: uber roleplaying experience. Only missed a party, romances / friendships, and a more interesting rule system.

- Or NWN2. Except for the truely awful controls, and the super lame romance, it was very good and only got better with the expansions. While I hate the first expansion, the second one was really fun. Only drawback was that the last battle of it is so hard, I havent managed it with my group that managed everything else with relative ease. Guess I have to play it again some time.

- Or KotoR1. I was amazed how well that game entertained, despite the trivialistic rule system. And Mission Vao is definitely my second favorite companion ever, after Imoen. I only hate that she's supposed to be 14. She never gives the impression of being that young. And her speaker certainly isnt.

BG1 had many drawbacks, like the companions - there where too many, you met them too late, they didnt leveled with you (thank god for editors so you could fix them up that way, at least), and of course, aside from some fights between them, nothing much happened with them, ever.

[Stworca]

If i was to answer in a word, i'd go with "BG2". Why? Because it was nearly flawless, and did not have a single major fun-breaking issue. Great combat system. Quite open. Full of choices with alive NPCs that live even now.

Now, for me there are two competitors, both close, both on second place, both beneath BG2 because they HAD a major flaw (and not because BG2 was that much better). Both i like more than BG2

These games for me are : TES3 : Morrowind and ToEE.

Let's start with ToEE.

It could easily be the best cRPG ever made if not for a gamebreaking issue.. It ends before you get warmed up!
It would be an awesome game, if it wasnt too short even for that.
Prologue, Hommlet, One fort, one small, secondary, rotten village with few (4?) quests and you're in the temple already.

ToEE has more possible endings than most games have dialogue lines. ToEE has a prologue for every (or almost every) alignment, each one of them alters the game. ToEE has more moral choices in its demo-like length than whole series of other games (cough, cough Icewind Dale series for example.. cough).

But it ends before it starts.

All the other issues of ToEE are the result of its shortness. The fact that you can defeat avatar of a god at lvl 10 is caused by the fact, that game is too short (the item that allows you to win vs an avatar of a certain god had to be there lore-wise, and the avatar of a certain god had to be there lore-wise. They just didn't have the time to balance it out)
I'm not sure if EVERY quest could be completed in 5 differend ways, but most of them can.

ToEE is a chapter, not a book, but the quality of the chapter can overshadow a small-sized library.
But its just one chapter. About 14 too short for the crown.

Then there is Morrowind.

If one had to describe Morrowind in one word, the word would be "Open". A prisoner arives in Vvardenfell, after a short "how to" tutorial you're fred, and get the last message from the authors : "You're on your own. Good luck".

Where to go? What to do?

Even tho the quests are linear to boot for most part, you don't feel it (unless you play for the 5th time or so, and each time did the whole thing)
How could you? The journal when everything is done is 1500 pages long! Go wherever you like. Do whatever you want. You CAN.

It has a major flaw too however, and a secondary, minor flaw. First one Combat and second one Power. The combat system in Morrowind is poor. 3 attacks can be overlooked, but NPC movement can not. If you levitate - you win. If you keep running and attacking - you win. This problem was partialy fixed in Oblivion (at the cost of everything that made Morrowind great) It would be fully fixed with slower movement in combat. Sadly it was not
Second flaw i've mentioned is power. One can get too powerfull too fast. What is the point of playing further, when you can do [url="http://www.gamebanshee.com/forums/album.php?albumid=37&pictureid=208"]THIS[/url]?
Ofcourse it takes a while, and enemies do not scale with your rank so you can always stumble across something that will chew your head off (unless you run and attack or levitate...)

If you want a combat rpg Morrowind is not the way to go. But its overwelming world will keep your attention for months

To summ it up - BG2 is not my favourite cRPG, as i like both of the above more (thus it's third). But BG2 is the BEST cRPG ever made.

[galraen]

Why? Because it was nearly flawless, and did not have a single major fun-breaking issue.

That completely gobsmacked me. The reason it doesn't come into the reckoning for fave is because of the flaws, which start right at the beginning if you're transferring a character (you can't transfer a party, flaw number one) from BG1. As for fun breaking, try having the game glitch on you as it has done too many times, sometimes almost fatally, and the fun can very quickly go away.

I like BG2 a lot, but despite it's flaws, they definitely keep the game out of the running for favourite though.

[Stworca]

That completely gobsmacked me. The reason it doesn't come into the reckoning for fave is because of the flaws, which start right at the beginning if you're transferring a character (you can't transfer a party, flaw number one) from BG1. As for fun breaking, try having the game glitch on you as it has done too many times, sometimes almost fatally, and the fun can very quickly go away.

You know what i mean. A bug is not a gamebreaking flaw. Not beign able to transfer party is not a gamebreaking flaw. It's not BG1 part 2. There are new parties every game glitches and crashes to deskop. Lands of Lore anyone?

Length, storyline, combat, balance, open or linear world, NPC's, choices, replayability.

Only if the above are poor its a gamebreaking issue for me. A flaw.

It's easy to find minor flaws in every game. They can take a point off a note only if there are LOTS of them (like in Buggerfall) things that you described as flawed in BG2 don;t affect the note in my book, as not a single one is major and there aren't THAT many of them. I've played BG2 through quite a few times as you know, and i realy didn't come across anything that would chop the note down more than by a 0.1 point (each) in a 10 point scale. It lacks problems that would lower the note by 0.5

Arcanum had a major flaw for example, the ending for evil char. You side with the bad guy, share his ideology and the ending... wtf?! WHY!??!?!? 'tis why i didn't even count it here. So did EoTB 1 and 2. So did most other games.

But since you're here already. Was i wrong about ToEE?

Ahoy!

[galraen]

Was i wrong about ToEE?

I haven't got a clue, I've never played it, and sorry but a bug is a flaw, and BG2, is by definition Bladur's Gate part two.

I am not questioning your right to name it as your favourite, that would be daft, but to say a deeply flawed game is flawless just had to be challenged. I could go on and list all the flaws in the game, but that would be redundant and boring, but they definitely exist.

[Stworca]

I am not questioning your right to name it as your favourite, that would be daft, but to say a deeply flawed game is flawless just had to be challenged. I could go on and list all the flaws in the game, but that would be redundant and boring, but they definitely exist.

Let's just agree that we define "Flaw" in a differend way. Perhaps i am wrong, but i understand it as a serious issue, and thus i called BG2

nearly flawless

notice the nearly.

And i named it best, not favourite (because while writing for some reason i thought this is what the OP asked. So i had to write a wall of text explaining my choice. Wall of text was made to avoid getting picked on, but my attempt failed miserably! You're too resilient )

[Ares2382]

I'll just add some of my favorites in here (in no particular order).

Arcanum, Vampires Bloodlines, BG2, Oblivion (modded), PS:T, NWN2 (especially the second XP).

[pewpewbangbang]

The whole canon of Fallout just has me hooked so hard; I've actually spent hours of my life sitting and reading the fallout Bible wiki and immersing myself in the background of the Fallout world. I secretly root for the world to get nuked someday so I can completely own at ruling it, once I get my Railway Rifle working, y'know.

[galraen]

I secretly root for the world to get nuked someday so I can completely own at ruling it, once I get my Railway Rifle working, y'know.

Better vote for Sarah Palin then!:laugh:

[doady]

Aside from the awkward leveling system, and the awkward combat, the problem I have with Morrowind was the lack of seamlessness between indoor and outdoor environments. The game world is very static, and all doors and windows in the game are always closed. Even the cave entrances in that game have doors. There is never any natural light indoors. You can never stand inside a building and look through an open door or window at outside would like you can in Wizardry 8. Wizardry 8's game world is much more seamless and much more interactive.

In games like Baldur's Gate and Might & Magic VI the day and night cycles affect the game world a lot as well. For example, in both those games, certain shops would be open at certain times. You don't see that in Morrowind. Day and night cycles don't seem to change the game world in Morrowind at all.