Best RPG you've ever played

[Kyuuseishu]

My Favourite JRPG ive played is Lost Odyssey, even though it was spread across 4 disks I absolutely loved the story and really got into it. Couldn't stop playing it for weeks.

Another few of my favourites are FFX and Baldurs Gate they were fun in my PS2 era

 

[mathadawg]

So far, it would be the Mass Effect series, but I'm currently only a few hours into KotOR and The Witcher. Plus, I'm getting Chrono Trigger DS on Friday, so one of those three games might be able to take that title away from Mass Effect, as I've heard great things about all three of them.

 

[Deacon Cole]

Troll or n00b? Zelda is action/adventure, not an RPG. L 2 Genre-Identify.

If you are referring to Legend of Zelda's lack of things like character stats and gathering bits of goblin nose hairs to upgrade your Elven back scratcher, then I say those are my least favorite elements of any RPG and every RPG that reduces their presence gets high marks in my book.

Which may be why I enjoyed Bioshock. It had some of those elements, but it was all simplified to make for a fun game rather than some tedious chore I do for fun.

I really don't give a shit what people consider an RPG or not, to be frank.

 

[LordWalter]

Troll or n00b? Zelda is action/adventure, not an RPG. L 2 Genre-Identify.

If you are referring to Legend of Zelda's lack of things like character stats and gathering bits of goblin nose hairs to upgrade your Elven back scratcher, then I say those are my least favorite elements of any RPG and every RPG that reduces their presence gets high marks in my book.

Which may be why I enjoyed Bioshock. It had some of those elements, but it was all simplified to make for a fun game rather than some tedious chore I do for fun.

I really don't give a shit what people consider an RPG or not, to be frank.

Don't get me wrong, I adore almost all of the Zelda games, but they're Action-Adventure games, not RPGs. Neither is any game that does not have a statistical setup of character traits ("stats"). You're more then welcome to say you don't like that, of course, that's not what I'm taking issue with. But you can't have an RPG without stats. (Also, fetchquests are the hallmark of universally bad game design and aren't a requirement for RPGs whatsoever. Golden Sun had nothing of the sort, for example.)

I like your example of Bioshock as a case study in this, though. I adore Bioshock as well, and would also classify it as an FPSRPG, but there are crucial differences between Bioshock and LoZ. To give you one (massive) one , think of Customizability.

You, as a player in Bioshock, actually make choices about how to develop your character. From limited resources (such as Adam, Tonic Slots, Weapon Upgrades etc.) you build a character to your own specifications within the limits of those resources (e.g. I want Lightning Bolt over Insect Swarm or increased Eve over increased Health, or I want damage resistance over easier hacking, etc.) Likewise you choose how to upgrade the "stats" of particular forms of attack (your weapons). While the numbers themselves are behind the scenes, this is no different from stats or abilities found in Fallout 3 or any Final Fantasy.
In LoZ there is nothing of the sort. You proceed along picking up new abilities/equipment in EXACTLY the same order each time with no possible permutations (except perhaps the number of heart containers you're willing to get, which hardly qualifies as customization.)

You can get the technical definition and traits of an RPG here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_video_game

Also, this isn't a matter of opinion. We're talking about the objective definition of a word. Though it would be amusing to write on every vocabulary test "I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT DICTIONARIES, THIS IS MY DEFINITION! GO AWAY!"

TL;Do Read. =p

 

[DarkHourPrince]

Final Fantasy IX, closely tied with Persona 3

 

[theamazingbean]

For all its flaws, Exalted. If only the combat system wasn't so vulnerable to optimization it would easily take beast RPG ever.

 

[kannibus]

Mass Effect, it let me realize one of my childhood dreams: be an interstellar superhero and nail a sexy alien chick.

 

[Lord_Jaroh]

Diablo II wins for amount of time spent on it. KOTOR was also high on my list for immersing me in the Star Wars universe. Baldur's Gate was great (I actually haven't played the second one). Oblivion for the world and the modability is also great.

 

[Kryzantine]

I'm gonna go with Jade Empire. The setting, atmosphere, supporting cast and overall plot were amazing; the game actually made you think about decisions. Example, one side quest. Captain in the Imperial City asks you to collect on a few bounties, the last one being a dangerous female assassin. You get to the assassin, and you COULD just kill her and collect the bounty, but she asks you to listen to her story; listening reveals that she assisted the Captain in childhood in killing a friend, and wants you to help her kill the Captain (that's right, you kill the motherfucking quest giver). The game asks you to judge responsibility, rationalize between two choices (closing a dam gets the nearby town out of recession, keeping it open helps the merchants), etc.

But perhaps the best thing about Jade Empire is that for the most part, it eliminates numbers. There are no armor statistics, no weapon statistics, and you won't look through hundreds of items to decide which pair of trousers has marginally better stats than your current pair. The progression is in your fighting styles, health/focus/chi bars and gems.

And besides, they invented a language just for this game; a Canadian linguist actually invented Tho Fan for Bioware so they could have a fantasy Asian dialect. How many other games can say they invented a language just for itself?

 

[bob-2000]

Everything BioWare.

 

[sindremaster]

Anything from Bioware is my favourite RPG. I mean seriously: Knights of the Old Republic, Baldurs Gate 1 and 2, Dragon Age, Mass Effect 1 and 2... how can you not love them?

exactly what I was going to say. I think the best one is Knights of the old republic, but the other ones are not far behind.

 

[zaddra]

I mostly play internet RPGs... So I really like stuff like Alien Adoption Agency and Frontier... but I also like Runescape and Maplestory... basically I just like having control of someone...lol

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Dungeons and Dragons. The tabletop game with my buddies is far more fun than any video game. If I had to pick a video game though I'd probably go with KOTOR.

 

[Peteron]

I like Fallout 3, the Pokemon series, and Oblivion. 3 great games right there.

 

[gregitaly]

Final Fantasy X. Full Stop.

 

[3asytarg3t]

Fallout 3. Full Start.

 

[AllLagNoFrag]

Wow, huge tossup between so many RPG's I have played... I am going to have to base my choice on Story and Characters this time because there was not a favourite battle system or a system of gameplay mechanics out of the games I have played, I liked the different ideas each of them brought in (except for Final Fantasy which was either I hit you, you hit me or I hit you, you hit me with a timer).

Disgaea and the Kingdom Hearts (1&2) are up there. Story wise and character wise, both these RPG's are hilarious and have a really good story. Laharl FTW!

 

[Retardinator]

By all means, Fallout 3. It actually managed to keep me playing for more than a few days.

 

[Custard_Angel]

Probably Morrowind.

I don't consider JRPG's to have very much at all in the whole "role playing" aspect, because for the most part you're just playing as other people who have their own backgrounds, looks, skills etc.

Bethesday do pretty good games in that respect. You have a fair amount of say over how your character looks, acts and progresses, whereas in games like Final Fantasy (whatever number...) your role playing is that you are a person that controls the attack patterns of a group of people of mixed ages and sometimes ethnicities.