The "awesome fantasy rpg" thread

[Myxir]

So while I'm having a break from regnum because it eats to much of my precious time :D (I did not quit!) I prefer playing some offline fantasy (action)RPG. There are a lot of awesome games from this genre out there.
It's hard to say which is the best but here is my personal list of the best RPGs I played so far:

1. Dragon Age Origins
2. The Witcher
Those were the most awesome and epic RPGs I've ever seen. They are both far ahead of the Gothic series imo :D But I'd say that DA was even a bit better than The Witcher.

3. Gothic Series (Gothic1 > Gothic 2 > Gothic 3, G1 was the best, 2 was awesome too and 3 was a good RPG but not worth being called gothic!)

This list is by far not complete but those are the best offline RPG i played so far.

Games I have here but not played yet:
Risen (works on wine but has issues with mouse control :p)
Arcania Gothic 4 (Does not work in wine because of copy protection -.-)
Two Worlds (Don't know why it is here and I never played it xD)
Oblivion: Did not like it :p
Venetica

RPGs I am awaiting:
The Witcher 2 - Assassin of Kings
Dragon Age Origins 2
Personally I cannot await the two ones to appear :D

What where the best offline RPG you played and what rpgs are you waiting for? :D

[Freduardo]

Dragon Age Origins and Fallout 3 for me.

I started on New Vegas but kinda lost interest after a bit (plus, it requires me to log on windows ¬¬)
Looking forward to Dragon Age 2 as well.
I'll have a look at The Witcher on my next Regnum break :P

[Seher]

Waiting for The Witcher 2. (As well as for the last book of the series... Should get translated to German at about the same time as the game comes out)

1. Gothic 1
2. The Witcher
3. Oblivion (Shivering Isle \o/)

Gothic 2 counts as a Gothic 1 remake, as well as Risen, and Gothic 3 was just crap, as well as Arcania. :P

[Narzoul]

I haven't played most of the newer games yet, so my recommendations go back to some older classic titles. If you don't mind the outdated graphics, here are some of the great old games that a CRPG-fan can't miss out on:


Planescape: Torment - one of the best games ever made, twisted world, good humour, especially recommended if dialogues are your thing (you can play it through with very little combat if you choose).
Baldur's Gate series - epic game, the sequel is arguably better than the original but you shold still play through the whole story. Takes a while to complete if you don't rush it...
Icewind Dale series - similar to Baldur's Gate, but more combat oriented. Again, the second part is supposedly better, though I haven't gotten around to playing it yet.
Fallout series - erm... this is actually sci-fi (post-apocalyptic) but still heavily recommended. I've only played the first and second games, can't say anything about Fallout 3. Good humour.
The Elder Scrolls series - have only played Morrowind and that one's great. Large free-to-explore world, great atmosphere, and actually good 3D graphics. Have seen a bit of the sequel Oblivion, didn't seem as good, but I haven't played it so can't really judge.
Albion - old DOS game, now mostly found on abandonware sites. You can probably get it to run in DOSBox or some other emulator (try to get the midi music working, and get some better sound font than the default Windows one if you can...). Starts out as sci-fi but quickly turns more into fantasy. Great game for its age.


Additionally, some titles that haven't been mentioned and I haven't played (yet) but are expected to be great games: Arcanum (fantasy/technology mix), Jade Empire, Mass Effect series (sci-fi), Neverwinter Nights series, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic series (sci-fi... who could have thought? :P).

If you have a lot of time you could also try some of the Might & Magic games, I've only really played the 6th one myself.

Ahh and I almost forgot Wizardry 8, have only played the demo but it looked promising. Could check out the other parts of that series too.

Then there are some other ancient classics like Betrayal at Antara/Krondor, Eye of the Beholder, etc., but just look around for RPGs on abandonware sites if you're not scared of crappy graphics.

I'm not really waiting for anything as I have a lot of old games to catch up on still, but I usually keep an eye on whatever Bioware is currently making.

[KKharzov]

Finally, a thread like this. I had thought that most players in Regnum only knew Regnum as their only game.

The greatest RPG's I've played on the PC are:

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002)
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003)
Mass Effect (2008)
Fallout 3 (2008)
Dragon Age: Origins (2009)

Of those games, KotOR, ME and DA had superb storytelling, truly the best in the industry. Fallout 3 had great exploration and consequences. Morrowind on the other hand is just a masterpiece of a game, anyone that has originally played the game without being a noob should know that. Nowadays, the newfag masses usually comment like so: "OMG OBLIVION IS BEST GAEM EVER WUT MORROWIND HAS SHIT GRAPHIX IT SUCK" Oblivion was for the most part a wad of shit, but I will admit the Shivering Isles changed some of it's shittery.

BioWare games have usually always delivered on storytelling and character story. Dragon Age in particular has been something of a gem, with it's darker story elements and mature themes. The other thing that is lacking in games in modern times in my opinion is depth in character backgrounds. When I try to think back as far as I can, I think of Baldurs Gate, then now I think of Dragon Age. It isn't your typical companion bullshit where they follow you and thats it, your companions have almost as much depth as your own character.

Dragon Age could have been a flawless 10/10 from me had they found a better composer (Not saying that the music was bad, but had they found someone like Jeremy Soule, then it would have gone even farther). Nevertheless, I regard Dragon Age as the second best RPG played in my lifetime.

I've never played the Gothic series, so unfortunately I can't comment on them.

[Miraculix]

Hm, best RPGs...

I would have to go with Baldur's Gate (the sequel especially) for the story-line and immersion, and I think for an RPG that should be the main criterion.

I also loved Morrowind but it was just too huge for a nearly obsessive-compulsive completist like me.

Star Wars: KotOR was another one that I also loved, although I'm not particularly fond of scifi-ish settings (Star Wars nerds will call the SW setting fantasy but well, fuck them :p)

Neverwinter Nights' main campaign had a terribly cliche storyline but it did provide the best PC experience of an RPG at the time, so I feel I have to add it to the list as well. The expansions had much better storylines and characters as well, so it's still one of the best out there.

[KKharzov]

Tbh, I hated most of KotOR's story elements. I found it was mostly the typical copypasta George Lucas. (Star Forge, Death Star. Darth Malak, Darth Vader. Ebon Hawk, Millennium Falcon.) Yet I loved the characters and voicing, there were many options. For a game at the time it was really something.

KotOR II was much worse in everything imo, but still generally fun to play as a sequel.

[Seher]

Oblivion was for the most part a wad of shit, but I will admit the Shivering Isles changed some of it's shittery.

Some? Are there other games with this madness? Where NPCs ask you to kill them because they're cowards and can't finish it on their own ? xP And so on, hehe...

But I definitely have to play Morrowind again, it has been quite a while... I can remember almost nothing.

[linearguild]

+1 for most of the stuff on Narzoul's list, especially Planescape: Torment, Fallout and Baldur's Gate. I'll add Disgaea, though it's more of a Final Fantasy Tactics type game, and speaking of FF I'm surprised nobody has mentioned it yet. Maybe it's a given among RPG gamers?

Arcanum had some interesting ideas but also annoying bugs and incomplete side quests from being rushed into production. Betrayal at Krondor is a classic but stay far, far away from the sequels, they're both crappy. Betrayal at Antara has generic storyline and Return to Krondor has "chapters" consisting of a single battle lol.

I haven't played much of the newer games though. Dragon Age was a nice return to old style CRPG but it seems like the Diablo clones are determined to take over.

[KKharzov]

I don't see how anyone but a Blizzard fanboy could call DA a Diablo clone.

If you want to talk Final Fantasy, then I haven't seen a good one in years. Square Enix has been milking the franchise for everything it's got. Imo, the best FF is probably 6 or 7. I DID enjoy FFX, but it wasn't exactly perfect either. FFXII was also enjoyable, the art style was the best I've seen so far from a FF title, yet the story was so cliche.

As far as recent titles go, FFXIII is a decent game, very engaging. However there are many moments in the game where I just get bored to death from it's super long gameplay. They also upped the game's difficulty to a considerable level.

And I'm sure no one wants to discuss their latest failMMO, the one that was going to be the "WoW-Killer"? Games like those are just everything that is wrong with the MMO genre as a whole.

[Myxir]

Dragon Age a Diablo clone?
Never :) DA is so unique in many terms.

To be honest I never tried Final Fantasy games :D

I had a look into Venetica after finishing some test results and debugging attempts for the wine AppDB. It runs very fine now.
Though I am not sure if that game is yet available in another language but German.

[HidraA]

Gothic series ---all version First place for me;
Star Wars series ---Second place;
Tomb Raider series;
And ofc Final Fantasy series;
Finished all of them.

[backe]

I can't say I've played too many "modern" RPG games (other than KotOR), but I would probably say these are my favorite RPG's based what I have played:

SSI Gold Boxes
Wizardry series
Final Fantasy 4 and 5
Phantasy Star 3 and 4
Dragon Warrior 2-6 (or Dragon Quest)
Shadowrun (Both SNES and Megadrive versions, but I preferred the latter)
Breath of Fire series
Suikoden 1 and 2
Fallout (not the sequels, but that's only because I haven't played them :wink:)


Edit: I totally forgot the following:

Might and Magic 1-4
Dark Sun 1 and 2 (although they were incredibly buggy)
The Eye of the Beholder series
Stonekeep

[novinalogignis]

I don't have much time to play, but I also can't wait The Witcher 2, Dragon Age Origins 2 and a new TES, to appear.

Unfortunately, as far as I know, the story does not continue after KOTOR 2, at least not as a single player.

Not FRP, but the RPG is. I'm looking forward to Deus Ex 3 - Human Revolution. The second part was a little disappointment, but the original Deus Ex is a game that was once left the deepest impression on me. Masterpiece, imho.

[KKharzov]

TES V, fuck yeah.

From what we know though so far it will be a direct sequel to Oblivion. Which already makes me go "meh"

[animalartist]

sorry, my bad :/

[KKharzov]

Halo series will always be a fav
Gears of war/s and
army of 2
Rainbow series
Usually play co - op anyhoo
Those are First Person Shooters. (FPS games)
We are talking about Role Playing Games (RPGs)

[Altara]

- Dragon Age Origins. Not really looking forward to the second.
- Oblivion.
- Fable 1-2. The third isn't growing on me. But I do love the finishing moves and the blood splatter. Adds a lot of realism.
- A really old JRPG. Suikoden 2. Still has replay value to this day.

[Immune]

Dragon Age Origins
KOTOR 1 + 2
Fable 1 + 2
PSO (Phantasy Star Online) Ep. 1+2
Oblivion
Fallout 3
Mass Effect 1+2
FFCC, even though most people seem to hate it, I grew fond of it.

And last one's an FPS, but since it has some RPG elements, going to list Bioshock 1+2 also. I love this series, can't wait for next sequel (Bioshock Inifinte).

Also awaiting the release of DAO 2, TES 5 (maybe), ME 3, a possible PSO #2, and SW: The Old Republic (mmo). Have to get Fallout New Vegas too.

[Arafails]

I think the last RPG I played was actually that Knights of Pern one, back in the day. It was a piece of s**t. For offline I prefer adventure games – Zelda series is favourite.

Although, I do try my hand at nethack again everyone now and then.

[KKharzov]

SW: The Old Republic (mmo)
Seriously? I wouldn't be surprised if SW:TOR fails harder then Galaxies. I had the opportunity to play the demo at gamescom in Cologne, and I will tell you that the gameplay is twice as static as the gameplay in Regnum. Ranged classes especially are a joke, because they just STAND there while getting shot at.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlITKY9hjVI
This video is a perfect example of what you can expect from TOR. Not even mentioning the ranged combat was atrocious, what about those dialog options? "I want you dead you sick filth"? The space combat is on rails, the graphics look like from a decade ago, crude animation, sorry, I'm just not interested at all in TOR, and from the looks on its developers faces - neither are they. Just another copypasta MMO made to make money. Compare that to a game that is changing the stale MMO genre for the better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frwLktirnYo

For offline I prefer adventure games – Zelda series is favourite.
I enjoyed the Zelda series as a child. Like for many gamers out there, Ocarina of Time still remains my all time favorite. I'm not so intrigued by the new direction Nintendo has taken, aiming the franchise completely at children. Wind Waker had a great, long story, exploration, and item collecting. I actually enjoyed Twilight Princess. The beginning was strong, and then it spiraled down drastically towards the end. Zant for example was thought to be so badass throughout most of the story, and then in the end you fight some kind of crazed monkey and the reaction is just like wut. They also chose once again not to orchestrate the music, and just made everything in MIDI files.

I won't comment on the new Zelda games for the DS. Zelda and trains? I guess next Link dresses up as a cowboy. But thats typical Nintendo destroying their franchises. I was disappointed with Metroid: Other M, they took the strong personality of Samus Aran and made her some emotional kitchen housewife.
http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/0/0f/PERFECTPLAN.jpg

[Altara]

Everything this guy said.

Zelda was an amazing series. The direction, as you said has made it... *searches dictionary*
Fail. Its cartoony and silly. Nintendo is almost scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas. Windwaker, was one I liked actually. The concept made as much sense as it can in a game like Zelda. But the newer ones, Phantom hourglass and.. Spirit tracks (?) made me want to bang my head against a wall. Twilight princess on the other hand. Was stunning. I loved every part of it until the last boss. I even bought it for Gamecube worried that playing it on the Wii would ruin it for me.
Nintendo announced a new game, The Skyward Sword. At first, watching the trailer, I was excited, hoping it would be something like Twilight princess. Then as it goes on, Nintendo slowly broke my heart yet again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dYgrMz_XBI

As a child I loved Metroid. Finding out she was a girl was also a wonderful surprise. At last a strong female figure in gaming. Shes not the one that needs saving, or the one who tags along only because shes a girl. She was a strong independent woman. Then, Metroid other M came out and she became a whining, crying, man dependent, typical woman. Sad days...

[Pizdzius]

I'm so happy to hear that polish production is so famous ^^ There's the Witcher 2 coming around very soon, keep an eye on it!

And well I am no RPG fan, but there's one game that stole my life and it was Morrowind. And later on, modded Morrowind to the point it wasn't the same Morrowind so you can actually play a new game. ;]

[Syd_Vicious]

Let me see, I frequently take breaks from Regnum to play some offline titles (my ISP sucks up in the mountains on the US/Mexican border). Here are some of my favorites:

Dragon Age: Origins and Awakenings with all the DLCs (I would recommend waiting for Awakenings to come down in price since it is just a way overpriced DLC distributed via disc)

Mass Effect 1 and 2
Diablo 1 and 2
Fallout 3 (patched to 1.7) and New Vegas fyi 2012 is Fallout MMORPG xD
I prefer Morrowind to Oblivion as far as the TES series goes
The Witcher was pretty fun as well
KotOR I & II
Dink Smallwood
Baldurs Gate I & II
Neverwinter Nights I & II
Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magicka Obscura

Those are the more recent ones, I could list some back to the days of the monochrome monitor and the multiple 5.25" floppies if ya want xD

[Znurre]

Skies of Arcadia
Final Fantasy 10
Neverwinter Nights 1
Starfox Adventures
Paper Mario

All old and pretty childish, I know.
I stopped playing RPGs after I sold my last game consoles, which was quite some time ago :p
Played trough NwN when I bought the diamond pack after learning that it was native for Linux.

[KKharzov]

Zelda was an amazing series. The direction, as you said has made it... *searches dictionary*
Fail. Its cartoony and silly. Nintendo is almost scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas. Windwaker, was one I liked actually. The concept made as much sense as it can in a game like Zelda. But the newer ones, Phantom hourglass and.. Spirit tracks (?) made me want to bang my head against a wall. Twilight princess on the other hand. Was stunning. I loved every part of it until the last boss. I even bought it for Gamecube worried that playing it on the Wii would ruin it for me.
Nintendo announced a new game, The Skyward Sword. At first, watching the trailer, I was excited, hoping it would be something like Twilight princess. Then as it goes on, Nintendo slowly broke my heart yet again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dYgrMz_XBI

I think Zelda slowly lost it's appeal not only because of the switch to cel-shading and childish themes, but also because of several other reasons:

- Zelda has no official timeline (Even though Miyamoto rages and claims that there is some "top secret" timeline that no one can read)
- Recycled themes.
- Destruction of Link's character. In Ocarina of Time, at least he had some sort of background, story, and he suited his role. In every Zelda game thereafter there was never any real background, Link became more super Asian, a mute, gay, whatever.

Wind Waker's cel-shading didn't even bother me, the story itself was kind of interesting (although some things didn't make sense) and it is roughly the Zelda game with most content, leaving to with hours upon hours to spend ingame. The ending was praised by critics, I for one found it kind of cheesy.

Twilight Princess has been dubbed by some people as the best Zelda game out there, even surpassing OoT (IGN.com: "Ocarina, your time is up"). It started out with much darker themes, and amazingly grew on them even as the game went on, the momentum was being built and built, and then the ending was... kind of rushed. Zant, who was the big bad shit through 90% of the story turns out to be a jumping chimpanzee. Ganondorf obviously reveals himself to be behind everything once again, yada yada yada. Ultra dramatic ending. I also didn't like it for other reasons, like Nintendo trying to remove magic from the game. Hyrule Field never looked better though.

About Skyward Sword, I think I will skip it altogether. Because I am tired of seeing "Sky Town" themes from Nintendo. I already saw "Sky Towns" in Twilight Princess (Oocca lolseriouslywtf), The Four Swords Adventures, the Minish Cap, Megaman Battle Network 6, and so on and so on. Not a fan of the Sky Town stuff.

[Seher]

Dink Smallwood

xD

Yeah nice game. 2D ftw!
Although it starts getting boring soon... Arunderan is funnier, imo. :P

[Raideniza]

well, basically... i do have baldur 1&2 (exps included), nwn 1 (+exps), fallout 1 & 2, icewind dale 1, etc. you could say i'm a bioware fan mostly ;P

anyway, i didn't play any of those in a looong time, but i certainly enjoyed them a lot. only rpg i play aside from regnum is guild wars, and that's really rare, rarer then me logging on to regnum. i'm not really interested anymore in mmorpg's, same old soulless crap every last one of them, not even the AAA titles are much better then the asian crap.

anyway, killing time now mostly with quake, xonotic (really great new shooter based on idtech3 with kickass features and physics) and from time to time sc2.

[Syd_Vicious]

xD

Yeah nice game. 2D ftw!
Although it starts getting boring soon... Arunderan is funnier, imo. :P

Yeah too bad rpg is the main game it seems for the OP, my all time fav game is an old Konami game called Snatcher. Adventure game where gaining skill was an end user requirement as the game got harder (no character points, you had to get better or you lost) and your own skill is what moved you through the story. Unfortunately it is now pretty much out of circulation for English markets.

[Sentrii]

Ahh wow some of the titles in this thread take me back to the good old days. I remember waiting ages to boot up the C64 and play Bards Tale 1 then buying a 386sx so I could play Eye of the Beholder. Ive bought and still have boxed almost 300 RPGs since then across 7 consoles and ofc PC (a lot of box scans on abandonia are mine XD). Imho the RPG series that has done the most for the genre is the Ultima Series. Ultima 4 to 7 part 2 are epic ... back when a game had to use story line to hold a player and not graphics. Also thats where the name Sentri is from (for all the ppl who think I'm trying to spell Sentry :wink: )

[nkombose]

Fallout 1 and 2, and Jagged Alliance 2 were badass games back in the days... I just wish there would be more stuff like'em. :rolleyes2:

[time-to-die]

xD

Yeah nice game. 2D ftw!
Although it starts getting boring soon... Arunderan is funnier, imo. :P

ahhaha i played this game for a long time when i was a kid :)

[blood-raven]

the only good rpg's i can come op with atm are: elder scrolls oblivion/morowind (why is oblivion shitty? yes it ain't as good as morrowind but to call it shitty is a bit to harsh imo)

but i'm more into rts actually good titles: c n' c generals (zero hour), all total war games, age of empire 2, age of mythology etc

[Pizdzius]

Fallout 1 and 2, and Jagged Alliance 2 were badass games back in the days... I just wish there would be more stuff like'em. :rolleyes2:

Yeah but I thought there's a "Fantasy RPG" topic here

[Matrak]

Assassin's Creed I and II (IMHO Brotherhood is bullshit, you're an Assassin, not a maniac that needs to use bloody guns and apprentices to kill someone, or leave a person alive after interrogation)
Space Rangers II (boy that was the hardest game I've ever played...bloody Russian difficulty xD)

[tikinho]

Try Arcanum its old 2D but was lots of fun 5-6 years ago.

[Dark_Barbarian]

id like to say Divinity 2 Ego Draconis. and star wars the Force Unleashed. best games id loved. fable 1 2 and 3 was good but they where too short for me.