50 best RPGs according to RPS

[Valmy]

Some, like Darkest Dungeon haven't actually come out yet.

Yeah I am looking forward to playing it again when it comes out for real.

A perverse result of early access is that a game may already be old news before it even comes out for real. But more damaging, it may already be profitable before it comes out so why finish it? I am looking at you survival games.

[Norgy]

What can I say, Valmy, I like to read. 

I know I am being an ass now. 
It may all stem from disappointment. I actually quite enjoyed what I played of the last Dragon Age game.
Turn-based combat is not wrong or bad. I found I quite liked both "Silent Storm" early on, and later "Dead State", both relying on turn-based combat and sometimes impossibly hard.

And both were quite full of bugs, none more so than "Dead State". The latest patch on Steam fixed it quite well, but some issues persist.

[viper37]

I think the main difference between DAO and Skyrim is that DAO is very story focused and doesn't give you much chance to leave the path the writers have in mind for you.

Skyrim, by comparison is improv theater. The writing is much thinner, and what you do with it (or if you completely ignore it) is for the most part your choice.

In DAO encounters will shake out in broadly similar ways. In Skyrim there's a hundred ways a fight might resolve, often with unintended results, or luck shaping the outcome.

Skyrim has therefore more potential to be "your game," whereas DAO by necessity will always feel somewhat limited in your options.

I liked both games.  I liked that I could do whatever I wanted in Skyrim.  DA:I is closer to Skyrim than DA:O, but I felt a little too constrained at some points.  In the moments you start Skyrim you get like a dozen quests where you have to go way out there in the world, while in DA:I, it's almost always constrained to the general area you're in.  It remains kinda linear in that way.

But in Skyrim, I never felt I was part of a bigger story.  Be it Dragonborn or Civil War, it was kinda meh.  That huge civil war you keep hearing of during the game is over in 2 or 3 battles.  Basically, there's no story.  You just roam around and do some stuff.  It's fun because it's big, there's a ton of characters, you can get married, have your house, adopt kids, but ultimately, not as fulfilling as a Dragon Age story where you are part of something, be it saving your family/friends from doom or saving the world.


Despite being low ranked in this list, one of my favorite RPG was Betrayal at Krondor.  Given the limitations of the time, I think it was a wonderful game.  The areas to explore were huge and you didn't always feel constrained by walls like Eye of the Beholder II.

[Valmy]

Well the whole point of Eye of the Beholder was a feeling of being trapped, claustrophobia and all that.

Still the worst ending I have ever seen to a game.

[viper37]

And I generally prefer party based tactical combat rather than first person single player stuff. But that is just me.

no, that's not just you

Party banter in the Dragon Age and Mass Effect 3 were sometimes pretty darn good.  Isabella and Aveline in act 3 was so funny
In ME:3, if you bring Liara to the salarian mission, someone will say "There goes the next Shadow Broker" when a yak breaks out of his cell