Squeenix NeoGAF's Essential RPGs (Top 50)

[TheGreatOne]

Fair enough, though the writing isn't bad in P4. There's a big difference between 3 and 4

I still can't get over of all jrpgs they could have chosen like for instance Valkyria Chronicles or Gungnir, or devil survivor and SMT3 in the same fucking setting they choose persona fucking 3. At least it's not either of the Persona 2 games *shudder*

Those games are way too hard and combat centric, and they don't have pandering characters to remind the player how awesome they are. In other words they are the opposite of inclusive. How do people who've never played a RPG could know what they should like if you don't direct them to play all the popular games?

It is a JRPG site. It is a miracle there are CRPGs on that list at all.

Torment is popular even outside CRPG fans due to its story and "old school computer RPGs" translate to Baldur's Gate 2 amogst the popamole crowd (and it has that Bioware lineage) so it's the first/only CRPG many try besides Torment (and possibly Fallout 1/2)

 

[felipepepe]

Well, let's be serious... how many RPGs the average casual gamer played? I bet they played the 3 Mass Effects, 3 Dragon Ages, 2 "Fallouts", Oblivion & Skyrim... and at most 2 popular older ones, like Baldur's Gate II and probably Planet Escape: Tournament. Then add 2-3 pixelated indie "roguelike-like" and like 5 JRPGs.

That's what, about 20 games? Of course they don't have enough reference to do a decent voting...

 

[CryptRat]

There's worse, but with the exception of Dark Souls and Chrono Trigger, none of these games are particularly good either. The writing in the mainline FF and Persona games isn't what I'd call good, and the combat is the classic random encounters/static menu-driven combat from the 8-bit era (i.e. awful).

You don't consider FF6 as the best game in the main serie and as one of the best j-rpgs ever?

FF12 apart, the few games i've played from this list (Darks souls, FF6, FF7,Torment, FF9, Demon's Souls, Earthbound) are good games.

I can't consider it as a best-jrpg list (no Nocturne AND no Baten Kaitos AND no Shadow Hearts AND no Front Mission,..., or maybe i have got shitty tastes), but it's definitely not a "games to avoid" list.

And if you think they haven't play many RPGs, and the only ones they have played and have not voted for are FF8 and FF10, they are not retards.

 

[Average Manatee]

Maybe I'm missing something but... it's fucking NeoGAF, who cares? If someone posted a top 20 RPG list in the comments of a random youtube video I'd be more interested to hear what they have to say.

 

[Avellion]

Maybe I'm missing something but... it's fucking NeoGAF, who cares? If someone posted a top 20 RPG list in the comments of a random youtube video I'd be more interested to hear what they have to say.

I wouldnt care. But this thing so far has been such a fucking trainwreck so far I cannot help but to stare.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Eh, the list isn't so bad. Could've had Mass Effect 2, Skyrim and FFX at the top.

 

[Roguey]

Why would anyone mix wrpgs and jrpgs together?

 

[Avellion]

Eh, the list isn't so bad. Could've had Mass Effect 2, Skyrim and FFX at the top.

Now that I think of it. I haven't seen a single game TES game on there yet.

 

[Whisky]

That's a pretty decent list of JRPGs.

 

[Muty]

Boulder's Gate II at 13th position. Makes sense: it IS a jRPG and definitely not the best one around. I believe the usage if IE and action taking place in AD&D setting was accidental.

 

[Morality Games]

... amazed they put Mass Effect ahead of Mass Effect 2 on a list like this. God bless them, they are trying.

 

[Malpercio]

At least no trace of Bethesda so far.

Pretty sure Skyrim was on top last year or so, eh.

I still can't get over of all jrpgs they could have chosen like for instance Valkyria Chronicles or Gungnir, or devil survivor and SMT3 in the same fucking setting they choose persona fucking 3. At least it's not either of the Persona 2 games *shudder*

Persona 3-4 are pretty much the ME-DA of modern rpg. Tons of pandering and people who usually don't play RPG played them.

 

[CrimsonAngel]

I never got why morons insist on speaking about Jrpg's and Crpg's in the same sentence.
They are two different genres and if you like one you might not like the ohter and as a fan of both i like them for different reasons.

 

[MRY]

I've most of these, and the list really makes no sense to me -- it's largely a problem of a decision by committee mixed with an outlandish title ("Essential"!). If the list were just, "Aggregated RPGs We really Like," there'd be no grounds for objecting, but -- for example -- I cannot conceive of a definition of "essential" that is capacious enough to include FO:NV or Witcher 2, and their mission statement ("[T]o help people find great games that they might not have heard of previously, and to remind people of the classics they never got around to playing.") doesn't fit that game either. Nor is there any defensible explanation for having both Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2. Unlike many people, I think both are very good, in different ways, and I think Mass Effect is a significant game. But you can't squander a second slot on that series.

If I were writing a list of RPGs that kind of mattered to me, it would probably include several of these -- including the jRPGs, if they count -- but it seems like any list that has Final Fantasy III also has to have Fallout, simply for generational reasons. Bah, humbug.

Incidentally, I feel like lists like this have a certain crappiness in part because if you ask people to rate their top 20 of anything what you're really going to get is the only twenty things they've ever bothered to consume. I try to read serious literature, but if you asked me to write a top 100 novels of all time, that would cover most of the serious novels I've read in my whole life; for a "top" ranking to be meaningful, you have to have at least two orders of magnitude more items under serious consideration as you have items on the list. (Says my arbitrary thinking.) Even if people are just listing their five favorite RPGs, I suspect that none of them have even played 30, let alone 100, and even if they have played 100, it was over 20 years and it's impossible to distinguish nostalgia / temporal significance from quality. For example, I adore(d) Final Fantasy III and Chrono Trigger, but I'm intensely skeptical that either is any good. It just happened that when I was 15 and had infinite free time, they were the finest multimedia fantasy you could find, not to mention the kind of story that a loser teenager would love. When 30 year olds say they love Final Fantasy III, what they mean is that in the miserable life of a teenage nerd, it was a bright spot.

 

[GarfunkeL]

I never had the impression that you are bitter, just rightfully "elitist" about that not all opinions are equal, unless it's a popularity contest.

But he's right. Not all opinions are equal. The opinion of some retard who has only played Skyrim and Mass Effect is completely worthless when it comes to "essential RPGs".

 

[vonAchdorf]

But he's right. Not all opinions are equal. The opinion of some retard who has only played Skyrim and Mass Effect is completely worthless when it comes to "essential RPGs".

Of course he is.

 

[TheGreatOne]

This is why I hate video game top lists. There's a channel called WatchMojo on youtube that does nothing but Top 10 lists and they're always wrong because manboons hate doing research.
You should have two different lists, one for historical significance, another for user votes.
Even the lists of more monocled individuals like Felipe and Matt would probably fail because 1 guy simply can't play all the games there are to play that are required for making any kind of objective statements. When you focus on game history at large instead of just an individual genre, like making top 200 best games of all time list, the number of titles you must play becomes tenfold. You'd really need to gather a group of genre enthusiasts and game historians from all around the world to make any kind of respectable list of the best and most siginificant titles. Games are just more complex than movies, books and music in that sense. There are so many different platforms and each game/genre has its own learning curve, an expert at one genre would still have to a lot to learn and play years worth of games in order to make objective judgements regarding another genre.

You don't consider FF6 as the best game in the main serie and as one of the best j-rpgs ever?
I can't consider it as a best-jrpg list (no Nocturne AND no Baten Kaitos AND no Shadow Hearts AND no Front Mission,..., or maybe i have got shitty tastes), but it's definitely not a "games to avoid" list.

RPGcodex top 10
http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=8869
FF 6, 7 and 9 all made the cut.

And no, you haven't got a shitty taste, Nocturne should be in any "Top 10 JRPGs" and "Top 10 RPGs released during the decline era" list.

For example, I adore(d) Final Fantasy III and Chrono Trigger, but I'm intensely skeptical that either is any good.

Chrono Trigger is objectively good: time travel C&C and multiple endings, other novel ideas like team attacks and showing enemies on the screen, audiovisually impressive given the platform (great soundtrack). But it's a baby's first RPG, not very challenging nor complex and the story isn't going to blow your mind away as an adult. But then again, perhaps the same could be said of all multiplatform RPGs from A/AAA studios released during the last 10 years.

 

[Avellion]

According to NeoGAF

Divinity: Original Sin>Any Dragon Turd and Nocturne finally got mentioned and it is higher than any pokemon (I like Pokemon too, but I prefer Nocturne). Skyrim has yet to make it to the list.

I have to say, despite the lack of cRPGs, PS:T only being 10th place and the worst fire emblem being in the top 10. This list is getting slightly more tolerable.

 

[Baron Dupek]

So their list of top10 rpgs contains around 1 rpg, 6 jrpgs, 2 arpgs and 1 strategy game?

What you expected from forum where ~75% of avatars are animu uguu crap, furry or similiar stuff?

Not to mention neoFAG in terms of PC games is about:
-graphic whores thread with modded 4k games,
-lament about their Steam backlogs
-emulation

 

[NotAGolfer]

I picked up Chrono Trigger recently to see what all the fuss is about.
And tbh after playing it for about 2 hours I don't quite get it.
I don't like the dialogues, they are short as hell and fail to transport personality.
I don't like the characters, they are immature and feel like your run of the mill wapanese animu shit.
And first and and foremost I fucking hate the battle system. This is completely braindead, no challenge, no thought required, no twitch component that would make up for it being mindless. I sigh every time a new enemy shows up, and then I just keep clicking away at the basic attack to make them go away. Works very well so far. ^^
I figure the main appeal of this game is the story, but with such childish characters and dialogues I don't see how it could get any better soon.
So ... does it? Get better I mean. Please tell me that in the next chapter they will suddenly stop with the cutesy crap and start to tell a story that is worth telling. Or at least tell it coherently instead of this stenographic approach to storytelling (here's a teleportation device, hop on it, let's talk later - great introduction to Lucca )
Have to play some Mario Land or Zelda to remind me that japanese games can indeed be fun after this shit.

 

[MRY]

Chrono Trigger is objectively good: time travel C&C and multiple endings, other novel ideas like team attacks and showing enemies on the screen, audiovisually impressive given the platform (great soundtrack). But it's a baby's first RPG, not very challenging nor complex and the story isn't going to blow your mind away as an adult. But then again, perhaps the same could be said of all multiplatform RPGs from A/AAA studios released during the last 10 years.

I guess. I suspect that my experience today would be more like that of NotAGolfer (in the post above). But I suppose if Chrono Trigger still connects with people, then that is a strong sign that it is good (I don't know what "objectively good" would mean). My suspicion is that it suffers from a combination of (1) maudlin story-telling; (2) thin characterization; (3) grind-based gameplay; (4) mumbo-jumbo in lieu of real themes; and (5) disconnect between gameplay and themes. The graphics were wonderful at the time, and I'm sure they're wonderful still. The combat-based innovations made jRPG combat less lame, but they failed to address the underlying problem, which was combats were the main form of interaction but lacked significance because they were too easy and too cheap to recover from. There's certainly time travel consequence, but I don't remember any meaningful choice, and I'm not sure the time travel stuff was that much more sophisticated than in the NES game The Magic of Scheherezade (which I loved as a kid, too, for the same reason).

But I guess there's no reason to think that what a 34 year old likes is more important than what a 15 year old likes, at least when it comes to video games.

 

[NotAGolfer]

To be fair I only played it for a couple of hourse so maybe this is just some half-assed tutorial part I have to endure to get to the fun part.

Spoiler

I just cleared that cathedral and rescued the pretty princess

But the combat system being that underwhelming is not a good sign, because for me story in games was never as important as entertaining game mechanics. So best RPG evar?


For example I very much enjoyed Secret of Mana. That game isn't really difficult either but the action combat system was fun and I loved how the game opened up later. Can't for the life of me remember if it was equally immature though, didn't bother me if it was.

 

[felipepepe]

Just got banned at NeoGAF for discussing the Codex's own survey methodology with the organizer of the GAF's survey. "Self-promotion".

Oh Codex, you are irreplaceable.

 

[His Majesty]

Your efforts in trying to bring enlightenment to these barbarians are appreciated

 

[felipepepe]

To be fair, I called MYSELF a newfag and asked about making their survey a sticky thread. I clearly deserved it.