Best RPGs by categories (story/exploration/C&C...)

[Cael]

Interesting. I've never heard of these sort of semantics. Guess I just was never in the right environment for it.

They are not semantics. They are very real delineations of roles and responsibilities and in the appropriate field, they have vastly different meanings.

Unfortunately, we have had a generation of armchair "experts" that have blurred the lines, much as the lines have been blurred in the scientific field with the terms "hypothesis", "theory" and "law". To trigger the snowflakes: Globull warming is NOT a theory. It is merely a hypothesis, and a failed hypothesis at that.

 

[Lurker47]

Interesting. I've never heard of these sort of semantics. Guess I just was never in the right environment for it.

They are not semantics. They are very real delineations of roles and responsibilities and in the appropriate field, they have vastly different meanings.

Unfortunately, we have had a generation of armchair "experts" that have blurred the lines, much as the lines have been blurred in the scientific field with the terms "hypothesis", "theory" and "law". To trigger the snowflakes: Globull warming is NOT a theory. It is merely a hypothesis, and a failed hypothesis at that.

Ironically, that was a poor choice of words- I didn't mean it like that.

 

[Trashos]

far more on tactics than strategy

What does this even mean?

Short term, usually in battle is tactical, flank, feign retreat, form a shield wall etc. Strategic is long term, usually pre battle, conserve hp and resources, rest and recuperate your soldiers, secure your lines of supply, set up fallback positions, choose what enemies to face or flee, yadda yadda.

My interpretation anyway, we're getting a lot less of the latter.

Strategy is high level. Neanderthal is correct. Logistics, movement of entire armies, choosing battlefields, getting into the minds of the enemy, that kind of thing. In real life, those are usually handled by generals.

Tactics is local and is mainly concerned with winning a battle. Unit A move to Z to flank the enemy while Unit B tied them down. That kind of thing. Depending on the size of units involved, tactical combat in real life can be commanded by anyone up to Colonels. It is rare that Generals get involved, although there are exceptions (and more likely in the old days than the modern day).

There isn't a lot of strategic level computer games out there. Most are tactical.

Interesting. I've never heard of these sort of semantics. Guess I just was never in the right environment for it.

Of course, I agree wth the gentlemen above. For example, chess is a game where the distinction between strategy and tactics is well-established.
Chess strategy: What's my midterm/longterm plan? (I want to destroy his pawn chain and break through with my King in the endgame / I want to conquer e5 and have it as a pivot for my pieces etc)
Chess tactics: I do this, he does that, I do this, he does that, I do this and threaten both king and queen, he loses his queen.

 

[draug]

1) story/narrative; (not planescape torment)

I guess Ill go with Fallout if I cant put PST.

2) exploration and overral ambience;

Dark Souls. I never realized how much I appreciated good atmosphere in games until I played this.

3) choice and consequence system;

Witcher 3. I found out that I really suck at making the right choices in these kind of games and ended up getting the "worst" outcome in just about everything.

4) strategic battles;

I'll admit I haven't played too many tactical RPGs outside of the infinity engine games. Divinity OS2 probably takes this one for me though. I thoroughly enjoyed combat in the first one and the adjustments they made simply improved the experience for me.

5) character creation/progression.

Fallout. Getting power armor and good energy weapons was just too damn satisfying.

 

[Trashos]

Yeah, you are right. I meant to say tactical combats.

I recommend you just get rid of "strategic" in the OP (without replacing it with tactical), so that you encompass both. Combat in RPGs is often both tactical and strategic. Eg, part of the fun is building a group that can fight well as a team, which is strategic in nature. A minor problem is that character progression is also part of strategy, so keep it simple and say just "combat", imo.

Btw, prebuffing is essentially strategic, while buffing-during-battle is both strategic and tactical (and therefore very different to prebuffing). This piece of knowledge will come in handy soon.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

A lot of game devs can and do get the difference between tactics and strategy. I wish, similarly, that more devs get the difference between espionage and infiltration.

 

[Falksi]

3) choice and consequence system - Witcher 2. An entirely different POV availble for the 2nd chapter, and loads more layers of choices heaped upon each POV after that? Mint stuff.

These are all good picks. Tho witcher 2 wasnt the first game to do this. Id say there are far more impressive achievements when it comes to C&C, like alpha brotocol, age of decadence, fallout 1,2 and NV, etc.

I couldn't get on with Age of Decadence, but Alpha Protocol was up there as a strong consideration.

What clinched it for me was that the C&C in my TW2 playthrough's all fell bang on so that each hit the spot dead centre, for example

Spoiler

when I first played through it I chose Roach's path & killed the dragon at the end. When I played through it 2nd time I chose Iorveth's path, was a bit smitten with Saskia, and then.....boom! Reveal that she's the dragon. Proper did me lol.

There was some great stuff in Alpha Protocol too though. It's just for me personally TW2's stick with me more.

 

[Space Satan]

1) story/narrative - Baldur's Gate 2
2) exploration and overral ambience - Fallout 2
3) choice and consequence system - Alpha Protocol
4) strategic battles - Baldur's Gate 2
5) character creation/progression - Vampire: The Msquerade: Bloodlines

 

[Alex]

1) Quest for Glory series (my favorite for this category would Quest for Glory 2, but they all work well).

2)Ultima 7: The Black Gate

3)Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magicka Obscura

4)Jagged Alliance 2

5)Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup (some older version, I don't much like what they have done in the last few years). Path of Exile is also very good in this regard.

 

[Lahey]

1) Story; PT NV
2) Exploration/atmosphere; Souls
3) c&c; AoD
4) combat; FFT 1.3
5) character creation/progression; Arcanum

 

[Daedalos]

1) Story/narrative:
Fallout 1 + 2

Runner-up:
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines.

2) Exploration and overrall ambience:
Fallout 1

3) Choice and Consequence system:
Fallout 1 + 2, Age of Decadence, Wasteland 2, PoE

4) Strategic battles:
Underrail

Runner-up: D:OS 2, Age of decadence

5) Character creation/progression:
Underrail

Runner-up: Age of Decadence

 

[Cross]

I discounted JA 2 from rpg. It's more squad-based tactics and that would muddle things if we have to consider Shogun Tactics, Invisible Inc., X-Com, etc... but then, JA 2 and Shadowrun Returns are a breath away from each other so where to draw that line is a conundrum. But in any case, I would still take ToEE ahead of JA 2. Probably. Probably since ToEE uses a class system, unlike JA2. JA2 does A LOT of other things better than ToEE, obviously.

If JA2 doesn't qualify as an RPG, I don't know what does. You travel the world, visit towns, complete side quests, manage party members and engage in combat like you would in any 'fully-featured' RPG. There is the strategy aspect of hiring mercs and liberating towns, sure, but it blends in with that gameplay loop fairly seamlessly.

Yes, but you're literally quoting 3 sentences. Thoughtfully presented in large readable text, by well VA'd and memorable characters.

Brevity is the soul of wit. It's a game, not a book or CYOA.

I'm quoting 3 sentences from a much larger exposition dump. Every NPC in Tristram has such dialogues, and they update pretty frequently, after every bit of dungeon crawling they seem to have new things to say. Something like Fallout would have been a much better example of player-driven narrative.

 

[Jimmious]

1) story/narrative: VtM

2) exploration and overral ambience: FO1/2

3) choice and consequence system: FO1/2

4) strategic battles: JA2 if it's an RPG, otherwise ToEE

5) character creation/progression: Let's say BG1&2 since I love me some old school AD&D char gen and level ups

 

[Parabalus]

1) Mask of the Betrayer, Arcanum, Deus Ex

2) S.T.A.L.K.E.R(s), Gothic 2

3) AoD, Witcher(s)

4)Bg2 SCS+Tactics

5) PoE, Underrail

 

[Falksi]

Reading through all these, I'm surprised that Dragon Age:Origins hasn't had a mention yet, especially with C&C.

Yeah it's a flawed game, but it did contain a lot of choices which impacted heavily on the story.

 

[Lord_Potato]

when I first played through it I chose Roach's path & killed the dragon at the end. When I played through it 2nd time I chose Iorveth's path, was a bit smitten with Saskia, and then.....boom! Reveal that she's the dragon. Proper did me lol.[/spoiler]

There was a Roach's path in the Witcher 2???

Like, Roach?

They must have added it in the Enhanced Edition. Never played this part

BTW, if you already completed Iorveth's and Roach's paths, you should play once more, choosing Vernon Roche this time He's a real bro.

 

[Falksi]

when I first played through it I chose Roach's path & killed the dragon at the end. When I played through it 2nd time I chose Iorveth's path, was a bit smitten with Saskia, and then.....boom! Reveal that she's the dragon. Proper did me lol.[/spoiler]

There was a Roach's path in the Witcher 2???

Like, Roach?

They must have added it in the Enhanced Edition. Never played this part

BTW, if you already completed Iorveth's and Roach's paths, you should play once more, choosing Vernon Roche this time He's a real bro.

Haha

Roach's path is the only one where Geralt can end up in a stable relationship.

 

[majestik12]

1) Betrayal at Krondor

2) Morrowind

3) Princess Maker

4) Strategic combat in an RPG? Not too many options here. Let's say, Birthright: The Gorgon's Alliance.

5) Corruption of Champions

 

[Trashos]

Reading through all these, I'm surprised that Dragon Age:Origins hasn't had a mention yet, especially with C&C.

Yeah it's a flawed game, but it did contain a lot of choices which impacted heavily on the story.

While DAO failed to impress me as a complete package, it did have some good elements and its C&C was not that bad. It is nowhere near the best I have seen, though.

 

[Trias_Betrayed]

1 - Story - First one is hard, I'll say Deus Ex or Dark Souls.
2 - Exploration/Ambience - Dark Souls
3 - C&C - Age of Decadence
4 - Tactics - Though it's easy I'd probably just go with Final Fantasy Tactics or maybe MechCommander 2
5 - Character Creation / Progression - Morrowind

 

[Lord_Potato]

1 - Story - First one is hard, I'll say Deus Ex or Dark Souls.
2 - Exploration/Ambience - Dark Souls

Dark Souls for story? You must be reading really deep into the item descriptions

 

[Lord_Potato]

Reading through all these, I'm surprised that Dragon Age:Origins hasn't had a mention yet, especially with C&C.

Yeah it's a flawed game, but it did contain a lot of choices which impacted heavily on the story.

While DAO failed to impress me as a complete package, it did have some good elements and its C&C was not that bad. It is nowhere near the best I have seen, though.

I also liked DAO when it came out. But there are just so many better games out there, in C&C department too.

 

[Serus]

1) story/narrative; (not planescape torment)

Hard question.

Betrayal at Krondor is not bad in that area, for a relatively story-heavy CRPG.

Icewind Dale - For its simple and straight to the point narrative, for a dungeon crawler.


2) exploration and overall ambience;

Damn. Another hard one.
I liked that aspect in Baldur's Gate 2 back in the day. Amn had a lot of interesting optional locations
and quests to look, enough to keep the sense of exploration.

If roguelikes are allowed. Cataclysm DDA for completely different reasons.

I'd need to think about this point a little more.


3) choice and consequence system;

Age of Decadence perhaps.


4) strategic (mostly tactical, not much strategy in most CRPGs unless one includes party building) battles;

Jagged Alliance 2 as the winner

Knights of the Chalice as a honorable mention.

Battle Brothers as a honorable, not-fully-a-RPG-but-very-close, mention


5) character creation/progression.
Hmmm.

Arcanum had a very good character creation (first place in character chart prettiness category !). Unfortunately once you start the game character system doesn't work that good with the rest of the game. It is as much a problem with the combat part of gameplay as it is with the character system itself.

Honorable mention to Jagged Alliance 2 - because characters start with high stats there is no problem with power level inflation. Most of your people improve during the campaign but not by a huge margin. Not because of stats anyway. Basically one of the most well balanced systems because of that. (But not in the Sawyerist way).

I'd really need to think about this category more. I have a feeling that i am forgetting something obvious.

 

[Falksi]

Reading through all these, I'm surprised that Dragon Age:Origins hasn't had a mention yet, especially with C&C.

Yeah it's a flawed game, but it did contain a lot of choices which impacted heavily on the story.

While DAO failed to impress me as a complete package, it did have some good elements and its C&C was not that bad. It is nowhere near the best I have seen, though.

I also liked DAO when it came out. But there are just so many better games out there, in C&C department too.

Yeah, I guess I'd have it in my top 20 C&C choices of all time, but your right a lot of other games still beat it to the finish line.

 

[Count Grishnak]

Reading through all these, I'm surprised that Dragon Age:Origins hasn't had a mention yet, especially with C&C.

It has had a mention, for that reason.