New and improved list of decent to must play cRPGs

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The reason I don't think I put Jagged Alliance 2 on the list is because I didn't want this thread to turn into a debate about whether it's an RPG or not. To me it is an RPG and should definitely be on the list.

However, there's no point in recommending anything because I can't edit the op.

That's weird. I can edit my first, almost a year old post in this thread.

I see. But it means leaving out the best game of all time.

You could still link to a word document or html page. The list so far is actually quite good, much better than the sticky.

The edit button isn't there. I can't even edit my previous post in this thread now.

Awesome. I've got some big plans for this.

That's too fiddly. I end up messing around with the formatting and fixing inaccuracies or spelling mistakes all the time. I'd also hate to batch up a number of changes. It's too inconvenient to deal with.

But thanks for the offer.

Would be nice to see this list completed. I just figured the Codex was too busy playing/shitting on the new games that they couldn't be bothered to complete this list or perhaps the majority hadn't played all the older games being mentioned.

Still would like to see something separate the "must play" games that are still good to play now from just the decent games or games that were great or innovative at the time of their release.

Well that's hard because someone like me prefers old-school games in which you make an entire party, explore an open world and kill things in turn-based combat. If it's just the Codex' consensus you want then just look in any of the Codex' top cRPG polls in Jaesun's signature.

What does "must play" mean anyway? Some people here only have time for 1 or 2 cRPGs a year, while others can play through 10 to 15. Is "must play" a list of the best 5 cRPGs? The best 10? The best 20? I don't know, and the only way to find out what those games are is to poll the forum users, which as I mentioned above has already been done numerous times before.

Anyway, when I say I have plans for this list I mean that I want it to be more informative and more organised. I want to perhaps break games into categories or give them tags such as "turn-based", "sci-fi", "party-based", "puzzle heavy" or whatever. I also want to include small rows of screenshots below each game's paragraph to show the different views each game has (dungeon, town, dialogue, character screen).

The idea of this thread isn't to dump MobyGames/Wikipedia into a forum page. I want to filter out the truly crap games that pop up in those, as well as games for console platforms only. I just want a page for people who are either looking for a new game to play or for newbies to scan through to see if they can find something of interest with minimal effort. Turning this into a comprehensive list of anything that can be called a cRPG by the loosest definition is a truly pointless aim. Similarly, restricting this to the Codex's top 10 cRPGs is also pointless because everyone has played those games (Fallout, Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate II etc.)

I think the Edit button is missing because you've been a registered user less than a year. Might be wrong, but I think unlimited editing was enabled for me at the same time as brofisting etc. (at 1 year mark).

Edit: edited for clarity

Well I knew that was the case for brofisting, but I didn't know that was the case for editing posts too. Thanks for the information.

Must play meaning it's still a great game or unique in some way that makes it great and worth playing to this day. For example, Wizardry 1, 2, and 3 are pretty much the same. You may put them in the "decent" list but you really only need to play Wizardry 1 to get the full experience of that series of games. Something like that.

I hear a lot about playing the older games, but when it comes to something they may have missed, it's hard for most or a lot of people to get into and enjoy the game. But there are several that the majority enjoy no matter what. Not every good game is going to be someone's cup of tea, but the majority do tend to like some of the older classics no matter when they first played them. That's basically what I mean by "must play".

It just seems like, when this list was first created, that a lot of RPGs people played as a kids were being listed regardless of whether they are actually good. Nostalgia seemed to take over and pretty much every game we enjoyed as kids regardless of whether it's objectively good to this day was being listed, that's why I think it was changed to "decent" instead of good or great RPGs to play.

I also like your idea for tagging each game for what type it is so someone interested in a specific type of RPG can find something new to try easily.

Good idea. Maybe even throw in links to any good Let's Plays or blogs.

Heh, I've barely played Fallout and not even tried PST yet. I have have them both in my collection and on my to play list, though.

Why does someone only need to play Wizardry 1? It sounds like you think old cRPGs are a chore to play and are only interesting for historical reasons. The whole point of the thread is to not pander to that philosophy. If Wizardry 1, 2 and 3 are all good games then why shouldn't they all be on the list? Similarly, why include only Pool of Radiance (for example) out of the Gold Box games when the next best Gold Box game beats plenty of other cRPGs on the list?

I understand that. The point is for people to look through the list and read about each game so that they can decide what they want to play. If someone can only stomach post-DOS games then they can skip over the DOS ones. It's worthless creating a list of cRPGs everyone will enjoy because no cRPG is enjoyed by everyone. However, some cRPGs are just bad for their time or are too hybridised to be worth including. Games like Questron and Rings of Zilfin are two such games from the 80s that spring to mind, though of course others can disagree and put their point of view across.

Not at all. Some of the games may be in there due to nostalgia and if they are found not to be any good on recent play throughs they can be removed from the list. Like I've said all along, no game on that list is guaranteed to remain there indefinitely. The list can chop and change. Games can be added and games can be removed. I'm tempted to take out The Bard's Tale III from that list due to the CRPG Addict's recent playthrough, but on the other hand my experience is with a less buggy version of the game and so next time I try it I'll assess it myself. In fact, a few years before making the list I went back and played the pre-Gold Box SSI games and found both the Phantasie series and Wizard's Crown very enjoyable today, which is the reason I added them to the list early on.

Thanks.

Indeed. Even if you haven't played them you'll be well aware of them by now.

So, did anyone else get the distinct impression that there was a severe RPG drought in the mid-nineties, or was that just me?

It ended with Fallout, obviously. For me personally, it started with Ultima's decline after Serpent Isle.

Nah, a million of those Ravenloft games, Al-Qadim, the entire Realms of Arkania Series, Dark Sun, Ambermoon, Albion, Betrayal in Antara, Stonekeep, Arena, Daggerfall, World of Xeen. There were a million games from that era and nobody had the internet or FAQs so they'd keep you occupied a lot longer than they do now. It just looks like that because he hasn't updated the original post in a while. Don't get caught up in this incline/decline binary bullshit.

Wikipedia said it, so it must be true.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Western_role-playing_video_games#Decline_.28mid_1990s.29

Fixed

The mid 90s decline of RPGs was definitely real, and was recognized even back then (not just in retrospect)

Decline in what regard? Quantity of games? There are a million games from this era I didn't list - Ishar, Thunderscape, Perihelion, Eye of the Beholder, Anvil of Dawn, Dungeon Hack, Quest for Glory IV, way more. The point is that nobody on this site and nobody on Wikipedia has played them all. Quality? No, and if you don't think at least a handful of the games I mentioned are classics then you're just posturing for cred (I can't even imagine what kind). I think games from the mid 90s focused on different (and equally valid) aspects of RPGs - Dark Sun was the first RPG (I think??) to use dialogue trees, Daggerfall and Dungeon Hack experimented with random generation, Betrayal at Krondor and Betrayal in Antara did things with narrative, Realms of Arkania did things with player stats. All of these games contributed ideas and components that are now essential to the genre. The only decline I can imagine is popularity, which had to do with the rising expectations for presentation and in this regard, all genres suffered.

Also look at the very last sentence on that Wikipedia article.

Oh, there were probably as many cRPGs all right. Probably even more than the periods before and after. The problem was that the games lacked quality compared to what came earlier and later.

It's true. Even though cboyardee mentioned a number of cRPGs that came out during that period, they weren't all that good. Real-time combat was on the rise and some of the bigger series were on the decline. 1993 wasn't a bad year, but 1994, 1995 and 1996 are the ones we're really looking at here. The D&D games declined massively, while the Ultima series turned to shit and both the Might and Magic and Wizardry series went dormant.

Regarding the games cboyardee mentioned, the Ravenloft games were a decline on previous D&D games, Wake of the Ravager was far worse than Shattered Lands, Betrayal in Antara was worse than Krondor, Stonekeep was poor, Ambermoon, World of Xeen and Blade of Destiny came out in '92/'93, Al-Qadim wasn't an RPG, Albion is massively overrated etc. Sure, you've got Daggerfall (and Arena, which is a rather poor game), which is a single character and real-time cRPG, and you've also got Star Trail which is the best game in its series, but that isn't all that many. There were probably more good cRPGs in 1992 alone than in the entire 1994/1995/1996 period... if you exclude lower budget independent cRPGs.

Yeah, there were lots of them in the mid-90s. In fact, the mid-90s was when indie cRPGs became better than higher budget games. You've got the Exile series, which started in 1995, you've got Realmz which inspired Exile and came out a year earlier in 1994, you've got The Aethra Chronicles which also came out in 1994 and you've also got Yendorian Tales books 1 and 2 which came out in 1994 and 1996 respectively. You've also got Nahlakh, which came out in 1994. If you add all these games into the mix it wasn't too bad. Unfortunately these games were harder to come across back then compared to games from large publishers.

What MMXI said.
Also, while CRPGs declined in quality, other genres saw an incline in quality: Tactical games with X-Com and Jagged Alliance, turn based strategy games with Master of Magic and Heroes of Might and Magic, and the FPS genre was born and we had games like DOOM and System Shock.
Unlike the previous 10 years, CRPGs were no longer the computer gaming connoisseur's obvious choice. So unless the only thing you liked were turn based CRPGs, there wasn't a decline for computer games in general. That came around 2002 with the X-Box.