Greatest RPG Ever.

[Vilcus]

No single RPG is the best, because there are so many different RPG categories. However within some of the categories I have:

JRPG: Final Fantasy 6/7, what? I liked both.

Tactics based RPG: Disgaea 1/2 and Final Fantasy Tactics (a tie).

Real Time/Western RPG: still out to lunch on this one, will probably remain so indefinitely.

Overhead RPG: Diablo 1/2 and soon to be 3.

MMORPG: No opinion, I am avoiding these because I don't want to get sucked back in.

Shooter/Open World RPG: Fallout 3 claims this.

Medieval/Open World: Morrowind.

Those are just some of my favourite RPGs within a select few of the RPG categories. There are many more that could be defined as RPGs that I won't list because my love for the genre is vast and expansive, and it would take me 2 weeks to write up.

 

[Lunar Templar]

Chrono Trigger, it to bloody awsome to not like, and it you don't agree...

srry couldn't help it XD

 

[likalaruku]

Neverwinter Nights & Baldur's Gate top my list, with Diablo & Dungeon Siege riding backseat. Of course, there is the Aveyond seires, but it's too new to have the notolgic value that makes great games awesome.

As for Dragon Age, I can't play it until I get a new computer

 

[Et3rnalLegend64]

I guess action RPG would go to Mass Effect 2 at the moment. I don't think I'm allowed to say much in terms of pure RPG's. I've only ever finished FFX, Kotor 2, and Pokemon.

 

[Grey_Focks]

ooh, tough call. KotOR, Fallout 3 and Mass Effect 2 in a three-way tie. KotOR and Mass Effect 2 for roughly the same reasons, great characters/story and a deep universe, etc, and Fallout 3 for being the most immersive game I've ever played. Also the only game that had me actually afraid. Those damn Deathclaws....

 

[Rayansaki]

I'm going with Deus Ex on this one

This. Deus Ex or Fallout 3 take the cake.

 

[f1r2a3n4k5]

For everyone who said things like Dragon Age: Origins or Mass Effect, you have to backtrack in time and pick up Baldur's Gate II. It's... a fair portion of the same employees, but back when the wrote the characters for the first time and bankrolled entirely on that immersion rather than graphics.

 

[Double A]

The best RPG is obviously Morrowind.

Hear hear!

 

[ElectroJosh]

My Faves:

Ultima VII (both of them)

Betrayal at Krondor (a PC RPG but it plays more like a JRPG with turn-based combat and a focus on a handful of characters that are chosen for you)

Chrono Trigger (already mentioned here)

Fallout 1 and 3 (I love 2 as well but its pretty much an upgrade on 1)

Baldur's Gate 2 (more than just some improvements on BG:1, this is the definitive game in the series, the only reason to play the first again is if you want to take the same character from start to finish)

Planescape: Torment (plot, characters, setting and the fact that your 'mental' stats had a massive influence on the game)

Dragon Age: Origins (yeah, I am digging this one)

Some of these are great but may not be 100% RPGs to some people:

Secret of Mana games (Seiken Densetsu 2 & 3)

Quest for Glory series

 

[themanwithsauce]

Hmmm...there can really be no best.

Most influential list would be

Strategy/Tactical RPG - Ultma: Quest of the avater. First modern tactics/strategy game. Very basic but also had a very freeform world

Mainstream RPG - Final Fantasy. Before that RPG's were crude adventures on the PC. As much as I hate to admit it Final Fantasy brought it to the masses very quickly and easily.

Storytelling - FF6/7 - 6 had a great story because it involved so many characters that you genuinly cared about. I wanted to know what was going to happen to everyone (well....most of them. Gogo needs to gogo die in a firefire.) which kept me hooked to the end. FF7, which I hated, introduced cinematic cutscenes to portray more life into a scene.

Action RPG - Toss up here but I'm going to have to go with Diablo 1. Story was simple but strong if you payed any attention to it. The action was also very smooth and just plain fun.

Multiplayer RPG - PSO (Phantasy Star Online). For those of you who think Diablo II desrves this I ask you - which game was played on more consoles? That's what I thought. PSO brought dungeon crawling online to the dreamcast, the gamecube, the xbox, and pc and its other iterations have been found on the ps2 and ds as well. Diablo II only came out 4 or 5 months before PSO so no crying "PSO riped off of D2!"

Beyond that, my favorites are as follows
-Ultima:QotA
-Chrono Trigger
-FF6
-FF8 (shut up! this is my list!)
-PSO for the GC
-Tactis Ogre:TKoL
-Super Mario RPG

My view as the "best" rpg?

Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis
Excellent tactics based RPG with a very political yet romantical story combined with a great class system and a vast array of weapons and armor along with it being on a handheld meant it had always been a great standby game for me. I even got it in rom form on my motorola droid now that my cartridge is beginning to show some age. It also holds a special place in my heart since it was one of the first games I bought with my own money from my first "job" of mowing lawns in the summer.

And really, isn't that special X-factor what makes a certain game our favorite? It's not the graphics or the features or originality. Every one of these games can hold a special place in someone's heart be it the time they spent playing it with friends or their parents, or just a certain moment they had while playing it or maybe even a parallel to their life at the moment.

off-topic opinion - LoZ:OoT sucked. Story was crap. Gameplay was crap. Graphics were meh. Link is a tool.

 

[Mercy Flush]

Yeah... Zelda isn't an RPG at all. But I'd have to go with Mass Effect, both 1 and 2.

 

[Daedalus1942]

Digital Devil Saga, Mario RPG and Earthbound are my winners. Maybe White Knight Chronicles as well if that counts since I haven't stopped playing it since I got it.

Is white knight Chronicles any good? I've seen it numerous times and it interested me when it wasn't already out, but now the reviews of people and reviewers alike have kind of warned me off it.
Any apt and quick way you could describe what it's like?

I'll be honest. It's a grind fest. It's basically a console MMO. Pretty similar to PSO to be truthful, which might be why I love it so much. The single player is...clearly not the focus of the game, it's made mostly for the online. If you like grinding and playing online you should try it. Rent it first if you can I guess. It's a fun game, the combat doesn't just amount to "click target and wait until your character auto-attacks it to death" especially as you reach the higher ranks. The crafting system (not really, it's more like you buy weapons and armor with hard to get items)is pretty interesting as it gives you motivation to do a wide variety of quests and kill a lot of different enemies. Level five supports the game a lot with free DLC quests and suchlike. But as I said the single player mode is pretty lacking so if you're just going for that I'm going to have to say don't get it.

I fucking loved PSO, and I have online capability with the ps3, so that's not an issue.
You've sold me. Once it comes down a bit I'll grab it for sure.
Cheers.

 

[TheEndlessGrey]

Beyond question Fallout 2, but second place is a 30-way tie.

 

[tobydied]

Xenosaga Episode 1 changed my life. Everything else can just shove off... Yeah.

 

[Marter]

Right now, my favorite is Pokemon, but I'm going to be starting Final Fantasy VI tomorrow, so we'll see if it deserves all the praise it deserves.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

[rant]
...Must... supress... RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
Zelda is not an RPG dammit! Stop calling it that. RPGs are based on points systems and NO zelda game, besides Zelda 2, has had anything close to this system. Just because a game has upgradeable life and weapons does not make it an RPG. Defining an RPG that broadly makes every game an RPG thus making the term meaningless. RPGS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!
[/rant]
Ahem, well ugh... yeah, sorry about that. People calling The Legend of Zelda an RPG makes me very angry.

As for me, I'm not going to say any particular RPG seem to be the best to me. Each has different cool things and its own problems. Still, I liked Dragon Quest, Rogue Galaxy, Kingdom Hearts, Diablo 2, and Fallout 3.

 

[Snotnarok]

Phantasy Star IV, let's see another game that has comic book cutscenes instead of sprites bouncing around. On a 16-bit system that is.

 

[TriggerHappyAngel]

Neverwinter Nights

ooh yes! certainly this!

glad to see that someone agrees with me :]
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