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3: Final Fantasy VII - Involving story, great gameplay, and the most badass computer game villian ever!

2: Baldur's Gate II: SoA - First foray into a fantasy setting, elves, orcs, wizards, the lot! Loved how to develop your character (beginning with BGI). Still need to finish ToB tho.

1: Planescape: Torment - For proving to me that intelligence, charm, wit and sheer force of will can carry you through a game without having to kill anything and everything that moves. The interactions in this vivid world make life seem dull in comparison. And the story caused me many hours of sleep deficit till I had finished it. "I shall wait for you in death halls, my love!"

Really wanna play the Fallout series. Seems an interesting setting, and they get a lot of love on these forums. Modern games can rarely hold a candle to the stories told by the games of old.

1)Might&Magic 3
The first crpg game I played
2)Might&Magic 1 (NES Version)
Nice start, nice ending and I was surprised that I even enjoyed drawing the maps myself.
3)Icewind dale
4)MM6
5)MM7
6)MM 4+5
7)Stonekeep
8)Realms of arkania trilogy
9)MM2
10)Gateway/treasures of the savage frontier
11)Pool of Radiance & the 3 follow-ups
12)BG1 & BG2
13)PoR 2

don't remember more crpg games that kept me playing.

Loom (amiga-version) had the best athmosphere.

My top RPG's ever are in order:

1: KOTOR 1, just plainly amazing and oh boy it has the best plot twist in RPG history, one that i didn't even take in at first.
2: Neverwinter Nights, a huge game in all aspects and fun to play, but hard to get into, but mass loads of content.
3: KOTOR 2, not as good as first one, but good story again, the ability to train up new jedi from npc's.
4: Fable:TLC, great game, looks amazing on my new graphics card, great gameplay, but damn annoying in places, and stupid (stupid blocking creatures)

i could only think of 4 RPG's i've played in full, but overall no games i've ever played will ever compare with KOTOR 1 it is just too good and fun.

1. Fire Emblem (US version)
2. Morrowind

1. Neverwinter Nights
2. Diablo II My first RPG, at the age of seven

[QUOTE=Jinjer]2. Diablo II My first RPG, at the age of seven [/QUOTE]

Isn't that rated 'M'? Which would make you ~12 now? Heck I barely let my 7 & almost-9 year old play T games ...

Puts things in perspective - my first RPG of the 'modern era' was Diablo, which my wife bought me for Christmas '96 ... I was 30.

Mike

1.FF7- Sephiroth is just to cool
2.Chrono Cross- awesome story, I have yet to try Chrono Trigger
3.Vagrant Story- simply but sweet also nice story
4.Morrowind- you get to do what ever you want!!!armor and weapons are cool too
5.KotOR-you get to be a jedi in an rpg environment....nuffsaid
6.Castlevania Symphony of the night-(I thinks its rpg)Alucard......need I go on?
I love all of these games, not always in that order though.
Is Monster Hunter an RPG? If so then put it up there too. I love the weapons and Armor you could make.

I can't believe none of you guys have mentioned the Zelda series, especially Ocarina of Time. In my opinion, the best RPG (Adventure) ever. Fable sucked.

Warcraft (one) was the first game I ever really played on the PC, so it's pretty special to me. But then again, so is Diablo...
Have to say Final Fantasy 7 is, like, the best.
I loved Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights as well.
Just beat Fable and I want to play it again, so I'll give it some props for that.

I agree Fable sucked and, in everyone else's defense, I never really considered Ocarina of Time as an RPG, rather as an adventure game...
It is amazing, though, and one of my favorite overall games ever.

I tend to agree with the notion that the Zelda games are not so much RPG's, but adventure. Doesn't make them any less enjoyable, as they are amongst my favorite titles.

A real shame is the direction Squaresoft's work is going (I refuse to recognize Enix as a part of them). It seems to be gradually becoming worse and worse over the years, with only a couple gems here and there. They seem to be taking the Sony approach, and making a number of games, hoping one of them does well.

[QUOTE=TonyMontana1638]I agree Fable sucked and, in everyone else's defense, I never really considered Ocarina of Time as an RPG, rather as an adventure game...[/QUOTE]
I've never played console Zelda, though we have some we got our kids with the 'Cube ... but played both GBA games, and they are really good - but *NOT* RPG.

As for Fable, I see it as failing to meet expectations, but 'suck'? That is a bit strong, eh? I just finished it (TLC on PC), and see it as a 8/10 game - solid and enjoyable, nothing earthshattering.

Mike

See I didn't enjoy it at all; maybe it's because I tend to look for a great story more than anything else and Fable hardly has that. The graphics are cool and the gameplay is solid, but I found it very bland overall.

[QUOTE=TonyMontana1638]See I didn't enjoy it at all; maybe it's because I tend to look for a great story more than anything else and Fable hardly has that. The graphics are cool and the gameplay is solid, but I found it very bland overall.[/QUOTE]
It's a trend of RPG's these day. Since Blizzard's success with Diablo (Okay, okay. Xan gets his Hanoi rant, I get my Diablo rant ). Companies saw the successful formula of click-kill sort of RPG's, which in turn lead to a whole slew of them. While some to rise above the others, most are just the same things with a face lift. Fable is an example of one of these games.

The trend is even becoming true with developers like Square (see: Radiata Stories). A company that once told amazingly well crafted stories of high fantasy, backed by a phenominal orcheastral score have become a part of the same cookie cutter formula.

People blame the success of Diablo, but BG did every bit as well. I think it is that 'real' RPG's are harder to make and take more time ... hack-n-slash is quicker, since you don't need to worry about flexibility to the same extent, or dialogue trees, and such.

Mike

[QUOTE=txa1265]People blame the success of Diablo, but BG did every bit as well. I think it is that 'real' RPG's are harder to make and take more time ... hack-n-slash is quicker, since you don't need to worry about flexibility to the same extent, or dialogue trees, and such.

Mike[/QUOTE]
I'm not quite sure I follow what you're getting at here.

Baldur's Gate did well, because it was an extremely well put together game, in all aspects. It had story, sound, gameplay, plus a good license. Diablo did better because it was more accessible and friendly to non-RPG players, with little more than a frame of RPG elements, and a whole lot of button mashing.

The formula that survived, sadly, is the Diablo one, not the BG one.

Baldur's Gate and Diablo, though both RPGs, are so glaring in their differences I find it hard to compare the two. BG and, in particular, BGII: SoA both sold very well and are considered to be some of the best games of all time but hardly sparked the kind of craze that Diablo and Diablo II did. The Diablo's were, at its core, relatively simple click-fests that lacked a terribly engrossing story but were immensely popular because they appealed more to the casual gamer. There was also a remarkable depth of content within the skill branches for each character that appealed to more hardcore gamers that kept them coming back for more, not to mention the addictive competitive online play that kept the game going for so long after its release.

BG was really the exact opposite.

They were immensley detailed games that contained ungodly, unfairly engrossing stories that sucked gamers in and wouldn't release them until long after the game was complete. The competive play was almost nonexistant but it was the story, the depth of gameplay, the character interactions that made them as amazing as they were. The monsters, the weapons, the quests, the plot turns were (egads!) something that games of comparable nature could never compete with and still haven't.

Now tell me which of these game designs is still around today? Hmm? Jade Empire, LOTR: The Third Age, those Dungeon Siege games I hate, BG: Dark Alliance I and II, Freedom Force I and II, the new Pool of Radiance, Dungeon Lords, Divine Divinity, Fable, every MMORPG known to man; what category do they fall under? These are mostly all fine games that I enjoyed but were hardly as engrossing as BG and BGII, and definitely closer to Diablo than BG. I've exempt KOTOR because it's are closer to BG than any games up to this point in time have been.

Now WHY is this?
Like Aegis said they're easier to make and appeal more to the casual gamer than the monstrosities of BG (and Morrowind, thank god for Bethesda) and so the market is flooded with them. As the world poulation's attention span goes, so goes the rest of entertainment.

Do you really think the problem is people's attention span ? I'm not sure that has changed. If the Diablo type game is easier and cheaper to make, and commands a less specialised audience maybe that is enough to explain it. The problem is located in the makers not the players if that is so. Not that I'm particularly well informed, I hasten to add

[QUOTE=Aegis]I tend to agree with the notion that the Zelda games are not so much RPG's, but adventure. Doesn't make them any less enjoyable, as they are amongst my favorite titles.

A real shame is the direction Squaresoft's work is going (I refuse to recognize Enix as a part of them). It seems to be gradually becoming worse and worse over the years, with only a couple gems here and there. They seem to be taking the Sony approach, and making a number of games, hoping one of them does well.[/QUOTE]

I agree, the new Squaresoft games just dont feel like they used to. Square use to make great games little at a time, but the wait was worth it...now we're getting so many games with practically the same story. Its too bad Square had to put so much money into that Final Fantasy: Spirits within movie...if not, Enix would not have had to step in probably. If there is more to the story clue me in....

Did anyone like Star Ocean: til the end of time...I loved it, except for that annoying Hip-Hop song that would play with certain bosses

How about Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne......(not Digital Devil Saga).....a great game to play if your a bit tired of the hackNslash types.

[QUOTE=Aegis]It's a trend of RPG's these day. Since Blizzard's success with Diablo (Okay, okay. Xan gets his Hanoi rant, I get my Diablo rant ). <snip>[/QUOTE]

Oh, don't worry - I can rant about Diablo just as much as I can about stupid puzzles, just watch me go...
But then again - I'd never classify Diablo as a CRPG to begin with which is why I don't often include it in my "rants"
Diablo is a blight on the RPG genrename and should never have been labled as such (but Blizzard wanted awards and where better then to release a game into a genre which didn't have much competition at the time).
It is pure 100% action much like shooter games except for the skillbased system.

Perhaps D2 is better, but the original Diablo helped kill the RPG genre in my view.