I honestly wasn't even sure what to make my first proper blog post about so I settled on just highlighting some of my all-time favourite RPG's. Now, I will only be doing CRPG's and TRPG's for this as if you include action RPG's narrowing it down to a top five is going to be something of a challenge. JRPG's I only have a few I've played but maybe they'll be something I get more into in the future, we'll see!
Now, I'll preface this list with a couple of points to make things clear. First off, this list is just personal preference and honestly all of them are equally good to me so you can put down the internet pitchforks. Secondly, I'm only including games I have actually finished as there is quite a pile of RPG's still sitting in my backlog waiting to be completed like Baldur's Gate 3, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and Wasteland 3 to name a few of them. Lastly and most importantly anything I mention about them will be spoiler-free, old game or not.
So, with all the preamble out of the way, let's get this list of some of my favourite RPG's rolling!
5 - Baldur's Gate: The Original Saga
Namely, Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 plus their expansions will always be high on any list of favourite RPG's for me. It was my first exposure to Dungeons & Dragons and I immediately loved it even if I didn't fully understand the systems in play until much later on.
The story, the characters and exploring the world all had me hooked and wanting to find and see everything. It remains not only a game I have purchased multiple copies of over the years (the original disk version, the DVD release and then the enhanced editions) but also one I still happily fire up and dive into on occasion!
Baldur's Gate 3 is also currently being played by me and I am enjoying the hell out of it, Larian did an awesome job with it.
4 - Witcher 3
Out of all three of the Witcher RPG's, the third one is without a doubt my favourite of the bunch by a wide margin. Now, I still enjoyed the first two as well but to me, the third game was a huge improvement in nearly every way I can think of. The first game was... Very janky to put it mildly, the second game was amazing but was a fairly condensed experience compared to the third part which was... Huge.
I think even to this day I still haven't seen and done everything in The Witcher 3 despite sinking a couple hundred hours into it. I wouldn't even mind sinking another few hundred hours into it again either if I ever get around to it. Even just roaming the vast world they give you to wander in and not even getting into Gwent or how amazing all the side quests were. It did make you genuinely feel like you were a professional monster hunter.
3 - Divinity Original Sin 2
Ah, Divinity Original Sin 2, where do I even start with this frankly epic adventure? I think what stood out most for me with this one are two key things above the story and characters. These are also good I think, the origin characters I found especially interesting (Fane for the win!)
Firstly, there was the interactivity of the environment and just the sheer number of approaches you could take to achieve things. Sneaky stealth action to avoid things? Awesome. Just charge into everything swords and spells a flying? Go for it! Want to move some explosive barrels or crates around to create your own ramps or death traps? If you have the patience, you surely can! You could block off lines of sight for sneaking, teleport yourself to otherwise impossible-to-reach places and it just genuinely felt like you were in an actual world, not a backdrop.
That interactivity brings me to the next thing that stood out for me: The combat. Now, I'm generally a fan of turn-based games so it was already a big point in favour of DOS2. I generally find real-time can get a little hectic and overly 'clicky'. As for the combat itself, the environment can become as much a weapon to use as your spells and skills. Enemies standing in water? Just freeze it and watch your enemies fall over or better yet, zap with electricity. Have a spell that causes oil patches to form in its wake? Now you can set fire to everything if you want. It just felt good, knowing you had so many options to approach things. Now it wasn't perfect, the 'armour' system felt a bit odd at times but it didn't detract from the enjoyment for me.
It's definitely another game I wouldn't mind playing again.
2 - Fallout: New Vegas
Of all the 'newer' Fallout games this one is definitely my favourite as it is the closest in feel to the originals that got me into PC gaming (more on that later.) I must've done at least four or five play-throughs on different characters and just loved exploring the post-nuclear Vegas Strip and engaging with all the characters and factions.
It's definitely not perfect though, you can see the places where Obsidian had to cut things to squeeze the game out in time and like many I feel the game could have been even better had Bethesda given them more time to do it in. It's definitely not as open as Fallout 3 or 4, railroading you a little with enemies being specific levels in specific areas but there was still a lot crammed into the Mojave desert to find for the inquisitive courier.
Maybe I should write a Fallout-inspired story? Something to ponder.
1 - Fallout 2
Finally, we arrive at the big one for me, the game that (alongside the original XCOM) made me really love PC gaming and turn it into my platform of choice. While I enjoyed Fallout 1, the time limit always felt a little restrictive to me in the beginning so I always gravitated more toward the second game which felt more open. To me, it truly felt like I was roaming the wasteland on an epic adventure rather than being forced to go for the main story as in the first game.
The turn-based combat also felt good to me, a simple action point system elevated by targetted shots. Want to stop a fast enemy from running away? Just take out their legs. Want to make sure that the raider you hit stays down a few turns? A hunting rifle shot to the head will probably knock them right to the ground. A speech bubble insult needing a reply? A swift punch to the groin should right the karmic balance.
The story I'll admit maybe isn't quite as good as the first game but that didn't stop me from loving it for just how much there was to explore without a time limit chasing you like a pack of Deathclaws. This game is why I love the Fallout universe and it'll always be on a list of my all-time favourite RPG's.
So, there we have it, five of my favourite RPG's of all time as it stands on a rather toasty September of 2023. Now for the hard part... Figuring out what to write about next week, til then!
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