have played and thus voted for:
- wizardry 8
- might and magic 10
- the dark spire
- elminage: gothic
(btw, elminage: ORiginal was released in 2003-2004 so... it counts too! though in terms of aesthetic it is more japanese than E: Gothic which was intentionally designed to be as close to western Wizardry as possible and
not "japanese-y". Also, Wiz Empire 1 and 2 and 3 were all released post 2000, with Empire 1 being released at the beginning of that year. Those are all not only "canon" Wiz games contracted by Sir-Tec themselves, but besides that are also much truer and better continuations of the Wiz series than the western titles.).
- paper sorcerer
- starCrawlers (played the early access beta; looking foward to its full release)
- grimrock 1
- grimrock 2
- Seven Mages
- Devil Whiskey (made me want to seek out original BT games)
- Stranger of Sword City
- frayed knights... Frayed Knights was a turning point for me. Not because it was that good but because:
DramaticPopcorn
- I remember playing this way back in the day when i used to think first-person 'crawlers were not as much RPGs as the c&c shit that everybody thinks are actual RPGs. Heh. how times change. now I find that majority of c&c RPGs are just mediocre adventure-game hybrids without a strong RPG foundation to bolster their gameplay; whereas by mechanical default the type of 1st-person 'crawler game discussed here is indisputably an RPG first and foremost and are usually bereft of the inclusion of Adventure Game elements.
Remember kids, c&c has never been an actual ingredient of RPGs! it is a design element that is part of the current mainstream RPG template that was borrowed from MUDs and Adventure Games way back when and the formula proved very popular with the mainstream audience; much more so than a pure RPG design ever did, thus making the hodge-podge RPG "genre" of adventure game hybrids, most of which are not even turn-based, become the face of the genre in the eyes of the players and the industry.
CAVEAT: nothing wrong with a good adventure game hybrid (i enjoy FO 1 and 2 and BG, just like everybody else) but it is their strong foundation that makes those games true RPGs... nobody can deny that Fallouts 1/2 and BG 1/2 are (besides being excellent adventure game hybrids) also filled with mechanical depth that is
unrelated to the "c&c" and in fact those games can be enjoyed completely by a player for their
gameplay only.
That is what marks an RPG.;
not the c&c.
A choose-your-own-adventure R.L. Stein book is
not an RPG, and neither are games that play like such things.
P.S. none of this has any bearing on the actual quality of the RPG of course! There are plenty of AWFUL "true RPGs" and plenty of AMAZING "adventure game hybrids". Please bear that in mind.
What is my definition of the truest, most text-book definition of a traditional RPG? None other than Wizardry 1: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord and in 2nd place Ultima IV.
I prefer the former over the latter because it features less c&c and much more mechanically complex gameplay. The same sentiment holds true in exactly the same way as it does with those two games since those games released and has not changed in any meaningful way.
A good RPG has good gameplay, not good "story". It can have both, of course, but only the former stands the test of time (and the player).
MISSING FROM THIS LIST: Team Muramasa's Generation XTH: Code Hazard which is most definitely post-2000, though that one is so japanese even I, who normally doesn't give a shit about this stuff, would never even dare include it in any list that stresses "western" aesthetic.
Also (with same jap-caveat) the class of heroes animu games. Also missing: a few indies like Heroes OF a Broken Land, and probably a few more I can't remember right now.
