RPG Codex Top 50 cRPG's 2013 Edition (poll results)

[BlackAdderBG]

Yo when you have a 3-way tie for 9th place you should list the next title as 12th place

I thought of doing that, but my main intent was to get as many games on this list. Kind of a supplement to the HI AM AM NEW HERE AND TOTALLY NOT AN ALT LOL!!!! WHAT AREE PEEE GEEE SHOULD I PLAY thread.

That defeats the purpose of "Top list",you should change it.

Our Top 5 vs NEOGaf & IGN lists

This needed to be in spoiler tag!!!

 

[buzz]

felipepepe Actually if you remove the JRPGs and MMOs from the list, their top 15 would be something like this:

Mass Effect
Fallout 3
KOTOR
Planescape Torment
Diablo
System Shock 2
Oblivion
Baldur's Gate
Deus Ex
Ultima IV
Fallout 2
Neverwinter Nights

Planescape Torment
Baldur's Gate 2
Mass Effect
KOTOR
Witcher 2
Bloodlines
Fallout 3
Skyrim
Diablo 2
New Vegas
Deus Ex
Dragon Age Origins
Morrowind
Alpha Protocol
Mass Effect 2

So pretty much the major difference is that we don't like Bioware and Bethesda in general. Their lists are not that bad considering that most of them have origins in console gaming. I think the IGN list even has Pool of Radiance in the top 50.

 

[Wizfall]

I like this list.
Sure i don't agree with everything on it (Icewind Dale is barely an RPG IMO).
Pleasantly surprised to see JAG 2 in the Top 15, i discovered this game just one year ago and i'm still playing it. Really sad that in his category in almost 15 years it is still by far the best.
The same can be said about Wizardry 8 (or Wizardry 7 for those that like it better).
Two style of games that almost did not exist anymore and that did not progress at all.
Yep this list is quite good overall.

 

[felipepepe]

felipepepe Actually if you remove the JRPGs and MMOs from the list, their top 15 would be something like this:

You know what happens if we add jRPGs to our list? Almost nothing, first jRPG would appear at #39, tied with Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra.

So pretty much the major difference is that we don't like Bioware and Bethesda in general.

And that we love Mr. Tim Cain & Troika and tactical, turn-based combat (and "hate" jRPGs). That's the essence of the Codex, what sets it apart from "mainstream" tastes.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I also don't agree with some of these in the top 15, but mindx2 had it right that it's probably an age thing and more people played more recent RPGs, artificially bumping them up as opposed to games made prior to the mid 1990s. Still, it IS a good list. I completed almost every game on the top 15, and at tried them all except JA2. There's been a few strong comments on how JA2 is a great game in this thread.

Lo and behold, GOG has a sale on JA2 this weekend, so this list convinced me to make the jump and finally purchase the game. Thank you once again, Codex! I'm excited to try it out!

 

[buzz]

And that we love Mr. Tim Cain & Troika and tactical, turn-based combat (and "hate" jRPGs). That's the essence of the Codex, what sets it apart from "mainstream" tastes.

Wait, what? Only two games from our top 15 are tactical TB (unless you count Fallout as tactical as well, then we have 4).
Also, I wouldn't say that we "hate" jRPGs considering that there's a subforum dedicated to them.
Sure, we wouldn't put Chrono Trigger over Fallout ever but that's not impressive for what is usually counted as an extremely-niche website. We're on the level of RPG Watch, Game Banshee and maybe NMA (and 4chan) with that kind of list.
Not that it matters much, but it was exactly the opposite that attracted me to this place.

 

[Kalin]

Appalled to see KOTOR2, Morrowind, Icewind Dale 2 and New Vegas up there. Also, top 15 shouldn't start from the bottom, first comes first damn it!

And now that I've whined about it, good job and all.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I voted for 22 titles out of the 25 allowed. 5 of them made the Top 15, of which 4 are in the Top 5.

Of the titles I voted, only one didn't make it into the Top 50: Quest for Glory 1.

I did not vote for several big and noteworthy titles for one reason only: I haven't played them. That includes NWN2 and its expansions, Fallout New Vegas, ToEE, Bloodlines and Deus Ex.

Overall I'm pleased with this list.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Good job on compiling the list

It names most of the games I deem good crpgs, but the top 15 is very meh. The lack of at least one title that is not one of the standard favorites of the "Fallout/BG was my first rpg and I'm a prestigious expert because of that" crowd is disappointing. There's not a single fpp crawler there, really?

I also thought that New Vegas took the title of the most overrated game on the codex from Arcanum, but it seems not to be the case. That's still an incline as Arcanum, while hilariously overrated, is at least not shit

 

[Roguey]

It's totally obv that most people here started playing RPGs in the mid-late 90s.

The good: No Dungeon Siege 3, MEh or other craptastic "modern RPGs" on the list.

9 - Fallout: New Vegas 95
19 - The Witcher 58
40 - Dragon Age Origins 24
41 - The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings 23
45 - Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga 18
48 - Deus Ex : Human Revolution 14

Kotor 2 at 15 and Vtmb at 6. DAO way way down the line and AP is nowhere to be found. SUCK IT ROGUEY ! You're tastes are too for the rest of us.

Um what, I dislike everything.

AP's absence is funny. Whatever happened to "THIS MUCH"?

 

[Infinitron]

Even the people who like AP probably don't think it's a good RPG. They think it's a good C&C-centric "concept game".

 

[Roguey]

I counted ten votes. Even DA:O has more than twice as many.

 

[evdk]

I counted ten votes. Even DA:O has more than twice as many.

Masses cannot into quality.

 

[Gozma]

I kinda hope Might and Magic starts creeping up even further in these, they are pretty much the ideal "My First Early '90s RPG" for getting people acclimated to old shit.

 

[Wolfus]

Big for your effort Jaesun. Thanks a lot.

 

[Kz3r0]

I think that the most interesting thing of this list is the honesty, many, as me, only included RPGs they played not just for few minutes or hours or read some LP of them, not even all the available spots were filled.

Spoiler

We should have lied to prevent the Decline.

Spoiler

And ban Potatoes.

 

[Azrael the cat]

It's totally obv that most people here started playing RPGs in the mid-late 90s.

Not really, I started with Wizardry 1 in 1983, yet as much as I still like blobbers, my top 10 would be overwhelmingly dominated by games in the late 90s (essentially Fallout through to Bloodlines in the early 2000s) because that time-frame covers the peak of two distinct schools of game that are no longer made, and were not often made beforehand:
- the isometric party crpg with story (FO, PS:T, BG2 - yes there was Dark Sun and the Gold Box games, but the genre peaked in the late 90s)
- the System Shock / Ultima Underworld / Deus Ex / Bloodlines FP-hybrid games (yes, hybrids are still made today, but the genre nonetheless peaked during that period).

I don't claim to the be the arbitrer of objectivity, but you can't say that my tastes are determined by nostalgia for my childhood/teenage gaming years, as my favourite gaming era (yes, the late 90s / start of the 2000s) was well into my mid-to-late-20s. I'm far from the only one who that applies to here.

Yes, believe it or not, some of us grew up during an era when gaming actually got BETTER over time. If you had asked me in 1999 whether I'd still be rating FO and PS:T as my favourite games in another 10 years I've had emphatically said no - after all, my favourite childhood games had been eclipsed by what came later, and gaming had improved almost every year for the past 25 years of my life. Sure there was nostalgia - I probably wouldn't have still been playing blobbers and old arcade adaptations if I hadn't grown up playing the Wizardry/Ultima series at home, and Double Dragon and wonderboy at the arcade - but the idea of nostalgia making you think that our old 1980s games were better than the games were were playing as adults simply wasn't credible back then.

 

[PorkaMorka]

Unfortunately this list is extremely boring, vanilla and mainstream. I'd say it makes us look bad.

You're just too deep in the bubble, allow me to show you what is REALLY mainstream:

Our Top 5 vs NEOGaf & IGN lists:

#1- Fallout 1
Was #94 at NG, #34 at IGN.

#2 - PS:T
Was #6 at NG, #13 at IGN.

#3 - Fallout 2
Was #54 at NG, #28 at IGN.

#4 - BG2
Was #9 at NG, #3 at IGN.

#5 - Arcanum
Was fucking #130 at NG, and did not even appear on IGN's list.

It's hard to analyze those lists because they include JRPGs and primarily console RPGs, both were forbidden by the rules of this poll. You'd have to go through and exclude the games that we were not allowed to vote for. Too much work.

I didn't include FO1, FO2, PS:T or Arcanum in my top 25, so I'm not particularly upset by their low ranking. My opinion of those games decreases every year. I kind of want to kick them out of the genre, but it is probably best not to re-ignite the storyfag wars. Too many have suffered already.

Also, Temple of Elemental Evil, Gothic 2 and Jagged Alliance 2 didn't make ANY of both lists as well.

Well, TOEE is a bad game and they probably classified JA2 as a squad based tactics game. We've slowly convinced the Codex that JA2 is an RPG, but most other sites probably only count it as a game with RPG elements, so they leave it off this sort of list.

/V/'s list is the only one that we can compare with ours, since it is also CRPG only. It is basically the same as our list, with a few slight changes in order. TOEE deserves to be called average and JA2 was almost certainly excluded due to the genre issue.

So we are about as monocle as 4chan.

I think it would be very difficult to argue that ... Temple of Elemental Evil ... are actually good games. They're pretty clearly mediocre or "flawed gems" at best.

Wait, what!? This might just be the rye talking, but I'd say it's the best implementation of D&D in a game (with the possible exception of Gold Box stuff if you prefer 1st and 2nd ed). Yeah, maybe they stuck a bit close to the module, including boring-ass walking around Hommlet, but the system they put in there is fantastic.

I included it in my top 25 for idiosyncratic reasons, but TOEE is a pretty bad game. It has a good engine and a good implementation of the D&D ruleset, but the encounter design is bad, which makes the combat more boring than it should be. Additionally, the quests and story are bad, so bad that they fail to provide an adequate motivation to continue exploring the tower. The game is also extremely buggy. Finally, Hommlet is one of the worst starting areas of all time. It's basically three hours of solving problems for peasants... longer on a first playthrough where you don't know where to go.

 

[Vault Dweller]

WHAT?! These are our top 15?! No ULTIMA... no MIGHT & MAGIC... no Wizardry?!!! Did people FORGET everything before 1998?!!



Seriously, these are great games but just seems to be a "best modern cRPGs" list, not of "all time". Man, maybe I'm just getting old......

But look on the bright side! ALL Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate games made it!

 

[Shannow]

The good: No Dungeon Siege 3, MEh or other craptastic "modern RPGs" on the list.

9 - Fallout: New Vegas 95

Didn't like it much, but it's certainly not a 10 hour-over-the-hip-cover-based-shooter without stats having any noticable effect/being a completely moot feature due to level scaling.

19 - The Witcher 58

Didn't like, but again, gameplay was not yet craptastic (only on the way).

40 - Dragon Age Origins 24

Was ok for the first third or so. Again not (completely) craptastic, only only the way.

41 - The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings 23

... Well, at least it was so hard that it made the console-tards spill all their chocolate milk.

45 - Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga 18

Was an OK'ish action RPG. I don't understand why you'd even mention this? Though I never finished it and you'd never find it on my personal favourites list.

48 - Deus Ex : Human Revolution 14

Didn't play it. But if I had, I might consider it craptastic. Who knows.

In the end you are trying to argue with me which games I consider craptastic "modern RPGs" and which not. Do you really think you can win an argument that's solely based on my opinion?


More importantly: Damn, I missed ADOM even after casually browsing the list twice...

 

[SearchEngine]

Everyone knows that the truly elite rpg list should be made by 40-year old gamers, who of course have absolutely no nostalgia or bias on the matter, to only include games that are solely about walking around in long-ass dungeons and taking turns playing calculative combat from the 80s. Games that focus on story faggotry, atmosphere, etc. should never be put into consideration whatsoever because everyone knows that rpgs that do nothing but combat in limited frames or ASCII graphics can never get old and tiring after awhile. Everyone also knows that all story-fag games are trash, vanilla, and mainstream that have absolutely nothing going for them. They should be adventure games because adventure games are the inferior genre. Also it should only be from the West because the Japanese obviously can't make rpgs.

 

[BobtheTree]

For those interested in picking up some of these games, I went ahead and made a GOGmix list of all the games GOG has. Yes, the formatting of the list is ugly as hell, but that's GOG's fault, not mine.

 

[dnf]

Shitty list is shitty. Too much non experts(including myself) allowed to vote...

 

[Black_Willow]

Good to see a Bioware game rated better than any of Troika's titles.

Also, butthurt Kz3r0 =

 

[Zetor]

Eh, I started playing RPGs in the late 80s, and I fully admit that a lot of my old favorites are favorites 90% because of nostalgia. IMO the first 25 titles are all worthy, except for Arcanum (good story/world, blah execution) and IWD1/2 (why am I playing a 'tactical' ad&d / 3rd ed game in realtime again?).

I guess you could say the list is good for what it is