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Do you notice a trend in your favorite RPGs?

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,623
One thing I noticed months ago was that my favorite RPGs all shared one thing in common: I usually played them for a very short while before uninstalling them. Yet, when I reinstalled them, I loved them.

In order:

- Fallout: New Vegas: I had started with Fallout 3, and I remember being disappointed at the whole desert setting, thinking it was very boring. So I uninstalled at Goodsprings. The rest is history: best RPG ever made.
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind: I had started with Skyrim, so after taking in the awful graphics outside of the boat in Seyda Neen, yep, uninstall.exe it is. Eventually I installed the MGSO, was shit too, but after I installed the Morrowind Watercolored mod and MGE XE to disguise the blurry textures and the bad draw distance, I really got into the game too.
- Planescape: Torment: I didn't make it past the Mortuary on my first go. I was using the high resolution mod, but everything was too damn tiny. On my second, proper, run I decided to play in windowed mode but with the pixels scaled x2. It looked ugly, but at least it didn't hurt my eyes. And that's how I finished the game and appreciated it.
- Gothic: the controls, enough said. But I knew the game was something special, so after reinstalling I decided to put up with them and after a while I didn't notice them anymore.

Those are but a few. King's Field and Dark Souls (IMO the best game ever made for many reasons) are a few examples, and I won't mention Fallout because it isn't exactly a "favorite" game (just a game I wanted to experience and beat). But I find it curious that of all RPGs I've played, the ones I had the hardest time getting to enjoy eventually becamse my all time favorites, as opposed to Skyrim and Fallout 3.
 
Self-Ejected

Harry Easter

Self-Ejected
Joined
Jul 27, 2016
Messages
819
Hmm, trends in my favorite RPG's:

- They're very playerdriven (Divinity OS, Arcanum, Fallout 2)
- Have multiple endings (See above)
- You die a lot until you reached the first levels (see above, plus Dead State)
- The story is important, but not as important as the story I make through my decisions (see playerdriven)
- Compared to Skyrim, the environments are very small, but you can experiment and solve quests with different solutions so the replay-value is enormous.
-They take a while to finish.
- They're top down, group RPG's.
- Their combat system is mostly turnbased.

Yeah, I've a few trends :D.
 

Mark Richard

Arcane
Joined
Mar 14, 2016
Messages
1,192
Skyrim and Fallout 3 are accessible theme park rides, whereas the rest of those games have depth and require more investment from the player. It's perfectly normal to initially balk at that kind of commitment. Or so I tell myself while wondering if modern game design has turned me into a helpless baby.

:negative:
 

boot

Prophet
Joined
Dec 20, 2015
Messages
1,016
Location
Bartow, FL
They tend to do only one thing really well. Usually one part of the game (story) is complete shit or not even there.
 

ortucis

Prophet
Joined
Apr 22, 2009
Messages
2,015
You don't have to run Torment in Windowed.

Just run it at lower res in full-screen, works just fine (all Infinity engine games do). You can also add custom resolutions in nVidia CP and run the IE games in that res to get a nice middle-ground where you can read the text and the visuals look nice at the same time.
 

Leitz

Learned
Joined
Apr 13, 2015
Messages
350
Usually I call only games that I've beaten at least three times my favourites. With RPGs it seems like my favourites are the ones that burned me out right on the first playthrough.
 

Dorateen

Arcane
Joined
Aug 30, 2012
Messages
4,332
Location
The Crystal Mist Mountains
Might & Magic II: 6 player created party members plus spots for 2 hirelings

Pool of Radiance: 6 player created party members plus spots for 2 hirelings

Wizardry 8: 6 player created party members plus spots for 2 hirelings
 

boot

Prophet
Joined
Dec 20, 2015
Messages
1,016
Location
Bartow, FL
Harry Easter

I would like to respond in more detail but I'm not sure what an RPG is anymore.

JA2 would be the best example of it, and it's the game I have played the most. You have to kill Deidrana Reitmann. Why? She's bad, and you are being paid for the job. Period. (Laptop guy is YOU, and he has stats, thus JA2 is an RPG - Cassidy)

I always mention Dragon's Dogma. The story in Dragon's Dogma is that you have to kill the dragon. Trek through the dark and over the mountain, pack thy bags well lest you run out of lantern oil or curatives and be caught off guard. This game is about HIGH ADVENTURE. It does not truly succeed at anything else.

Early Wizardry's are fun. They have not much story, or, anything really besides dungeon crawling. Just progress through the dungeon, build your characters, try not to party wipe.

Fallout has only functional combat and story, but you are sucked in from the opening cinematic. I think this is called atmosphere. It is perfect here.

I also like Fire Emblem alot. They are like playable fairytales :prosper: Succeed at being really simple, yet require skill to rank perfectly.
 

Severian Silk

Guest
They tend to do only one thing really well. Usually one part of the game (story) is complete shit or not even there.
A lot of RPGs are one-trick ponies. Only a few RPGs are multiple-trick ponies.
 

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