Morrowind is good but Dungoens and dragons was the best along with ultima 7.

Baldurs Gate 2.


pharzon..

D&D with a good DM. No computer rpg can come even close to the quality of a good pen/paper game.


If you're limiting this to computer games, then Morrowind. Insanely detailed world, excellent story, few limits on freedom, beautiful architecture/graphics which still look good years later. What more can you want from a game?

Final Fantasy 7. The story was amazing. It actually made you use your brain. Not only that, the gameplay was something noone ever saw in the FF series. The art was great too, it was very dark, it almost had a Tim Burton feel, especially in the slums.

I'm not sure I should even get started on the characters...you actually hated and admired Sephiroth at the same time. It seems like everyone has a friend like Barret, and Vincent was just flat-out cool. I can't forget the Turks, now that was a badass gang.

Last of all, there was when Sephiroth killed Aeris (sp?). You actually had emotion when that happened, be it anger or sadness (both for me). This moment was even in Gamepro's 10 greatest moments in gaming history.

I know this is just nostalgia talking, but Dragon Warrior 4 is still my favorite RPG of all time. Granted, it's graphics are beyond the pale compared to the graphics today, but there was just something about that whole world that caused my imagination to soar.

AMong the current crop of RPGs, Morrowind obviously takes the cake. In terms of atmosphere and world-building, there's nothing else out there quite like it.

If people are going to start calling Final Fantasy an RPG, and not only an RPG, but THE BEST RPG, then I'm going to have to add it to the unmentionables list...or kill anyone who ranks FF as their favourite RPG of all time...

I'm not joking.

May we ask why?

Yeah, i can see where Darkone is coming from... FF isn't really an RPG (Role Playing Game)... it's more like an adventure game... Now Morrowind is an RPG. Everything is up to the player... RPG should be non linear... I don't see a reason in banning it, but what we should do is educate the people with what a true RPG really is...

In that definition of an RPG, I would have to say Morrowind and Pen and Paper D&D... I actually don't have too much experience with D&D but it seems awesome...

Best RPG of all time... hmm...

I'd probably have to go with Chrono Trigger. It was well done, very atmospheric and interesting. Of course, it was an FF style RPG. I really like FF, but I agree it's nothing like your typical definition of RPG. But neither is it an adventure game.

As for non-FF style RPG, I'll probably go with Morrowind. DnD is all fine and good but it's never really wowed me that much. NwN is nice though. ^^ Though people tend to say that's not very DnD so... who knows.

Before FF becomes banned I must quickly force my two cents upon you.

Hmmm...


I so agree with tyjet3 and Switch, Chrono Trigger was superb. The Story, Music and the ff style was terrific.

But i must say that Might And Magic VII: For Blood And Honor is MY OPINION the best RPG game in my life(yet)!

It laks graphics and stuff but the story and the crap combat engine was something that
you just can not find today, but that i loved the most was the music! it was played with
Sembal (i think it´s spelled that way ) this fantastic instrument .

Final Fantasy is somewhat of an RPG. It's the general, always and still overused Japanese RPG. Turn based combat, now you can't even tell the difference between male and female, the guys wear such fruity clothes...

KOTOR was WAAAY too overrated. Good, but not game of the year material.

BGII still stand champion.

Minsc [sp?] is the jam.

JRPGs are still not RPGs. Or something along those lines.

I'm not sure which one is "best" but the one I had the most fun with is Baldur's Gate.

Best RPG ever is tough, since I probably haven't played it

~Val

The following people are wrong:
tyjet3
valdir

If a game is called a Japanese Role Playing Game, then do you suggest it's not a role playing game?

A game doesn't have to be nonlinear to be an RPG. You guys all have your definitions screwed up.

There's no set definition for an RPG. There're Japanese RPGs, American RPGs, Pen and Paper, etc...

American RPGs tend to lean more towards adventure OR heavily pen and paper based.

If you need to know what a pen&paper RPG is, go look up Dungeons and Dragons.

ANY Final Fantasy (excluding 11)
Sword of Mana and other Manas
Crono Trigger and Cross

Without those, 99% of the American population wouldn't even know what the term RPG means.

Some people fail to recognize sarcasm over the internet.

Also, you overestimate the effect Final Fantasy and Co. has had. Dungeons and Dragons had a much bigger effect on what people define as a role-playing game.

But yes, tyjet. You are wrong.

However, the definition of a role-playing game has been lost in time. By the sound of it, EVERY game is a ROLE playing game, since you play some sort of role in every game.

~Valdir

I agree with what Peregrine said, as he said the words I could not think of at the time.

Console RPGs tend to be interactive movies, rather than video games. It's mainly going from cutscene to cutscene with battles and mini-games in between.

However some of these "interactive movies" are good (Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger are the only two worth mentioning IMO).

Once again, thanks to Peregrine for saying what I didn't.

~Val

Whoever said that all games are like role playing games, that kinda makes sense, a game in which you take the role as somebody, not a "make your own adventure" game. I can't say EVERY game, but most games you at least have a choice on something. A game wouldn't be a game with decisions you have to make, if you are saying that these games do not have you playing any role in the story, the game would be EXACTLY the same for every person who "plays" it. It would literally be a movie, not a game. it just depends on which game you play for how much freedom you have in that role.

but hey, i'm no exspert, just speaking my mind. its my 2 cents here.(why 2 cents anyways??)

As a person who had his start playing such pen and paper RPGs like D&D, I tend to agree that they are really the only true RPGS. The whole game is based on the way you want it to be. If you want to go on a killing rampage and destroy everything that stands in you way, you can. To me, a true RPG should reflect how you would react to certain situations. There have been few RPGs that I have played that envoked that kind of feeling in me. D&D is an oldy, but still clearly a head above the rest.

The final fantasy series, though it believes itself to be a RPG because of it's turn based system in combat isn't in fact an RPG in the traditional sense. You don't get to choose your characters, they're given to you. There's no such thing as alignment in most PC or console RPG's, another rather important element to RPGing because a character's alignment is a representative of the personality YOU choose to place upon that character.

Morrowind is different because the game creators made it so freeform that you can choose what you want to do and furthermore have a choice in the method in which you execute those actions. Final Fantasy is what I would consider a Linear Role Playing Game because the player can only opperate within an extremely limited field of options in terms of how you get things done. Also, your actions, in Final Fantasy and like LRPG's will always, 100% of the time have you reach the same conclusion, regardless of the method in which you execute them.

PC and Console RPG's will never match the magnitude of freeform that traditional table-top RPG's enjoy, simply because in that setting, you aren't dealing within a programed world with a designated set of rules that the character, no matter how creative the game makers were, must opperate within.

People should reevaluate what their conception of the definition of a PC RPG is; although Morrowind is still a fantastic game that raises the standard for what PC RPGing should be, there is still a long way to go before I would consider PC or console games RPG's. Just because it has a leveling system or a turned based style of combat does not mean a game qualifies as an RPG.

I'll admit that they are linear RPGs, but they are RPGs nonetheless. In no way do I feel that they are the best. FFVII had a great storyline and setting. FFVI was just awesome. But Baldur's Gate, The Sword Coast, BGII, and Throne of Bhaal completely dominate in the rpg category.

KOTOR allows you to choose good or evil, but it's still linear.

In no way, shape, or form is Sudeki a JRPG. FF are JRPGs. Tales of Symphonia is a JRPG. Super Mario RPG is a JRPG.

Slaiv... you are calling DarkOne wrong...

If I'm correct in my thinking, rpgs originated from D&D (the rpg). D&D has certain characteristics:

1) All of the living entities in it have health. They aren't just dead or not dead.

2) The concept of leveling, experience, and skills.

3) And most importantly, it contains the character that you want to be, who interacts with others any way imaginable in a general story that does not have a set outcome.

I agree with CecilofLore that D&Ds are the only true RPGs because they are the only game that meets all three of those criteria. Morrowind doesn't, for example, because you can't kick people, or even talk to them.

Slaiv, you say FF is an rpg: The mainstream definition of rpg is numbers 1 and 2; that only partially meets the criteria. If we said that just partial conformity made a game an rpg, we might as well call Doom an rpg because, after all, it meets #1. You can't say four wheels is a car, where's the engine and body?

you know what i say, forget what genre it is classified as, as long as its fun just play it. if you dont like it then dont play it. besides this thread is way off topic anyways...

That's why it's in the off topic zone.

I have to give the original Genma Onimusha a thumbs up. Also loved Diablo 2 A LOT.

I'm not a huge RPG player, more of an FPS player (but RPG secondly), so make that what you will.

While I realise the post prior to this was thread necromancy, but I'd still like to add something.

By the definitions many of you are giving as to what an rpg is, with the definitions you give... "an rpg is a game where you chose your character for the storyline, you do what YOU want and you can raise skills get new items etc."...

But then... we could classify many games that aren't rpg as rpgs. Off the top of my head NSFU 2 think about it, you chose your car, you mod it, you chose which races you race in or just cruise around... fits the description BUT YOU'D HAVE TO BE INSANE TO COUNT IT AS AN RPG.

Because if this is the definition for rpgs then 1) it opens the floodgates for games that aren't rpgs to be called rpgs.
2) games that ARE rpgs are shut out because they were somewhat lacking.

Okay, so perhaps that's not the CORRECT definition of an rpg, so what is? D&D perhaps? but if this game counts as "the rpg" then D&D has become it's own genre whereby games are ranked to it by their likeness to it?

So what am I saying an rpg is? I'm not, I'm saying that rpg's should be able to be different and NOT have to stick to some code that one another game came up with otherwise the only thing different between one rpg and the next is the storyline, and the visuals.