The "awesome fantasy rpg" thread

[Myxir]

So while I'm having a break from regnum because it eats to much of my precious time (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 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 )
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 )
Oblivion: Did not like it
Venetica

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

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

[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 If you don't mind the outdated graphics, here are some of the great old games that a CRPG-fan can't miss out on: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 )

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]

Originally Posted by KKharzov

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.