RPG Codex's Top 70 PC RPGs

[Meshugger]

 

So any beer-connoisseur should consider Bud and Fosters as very, very good beers. It shouldn't even be a question. They included Guinness, which is exactly the same thing, so therefore Bud and Fosters should be there as well.

 

You're not making a good argument here.

 

 

1. Your beer metaphor is not a very good comparison. I mean, the whole premise that the Codex knows better what makes a good RPG and what doesn't is flawed.

2. I'm German and I don't know Bud and Fosters. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't compare Skyrim and Fallout 3 to either of them though, judging by what you're implying.

3. YES, if almost all beers are on the list, even some crappy ones, then excluding two that have lots of good qualities (and even "twin beers" on the list) and are more popular than almost any of the beers on the list seems like a very stupid thing to do. Especially if it's only because they're popular.

 

By the way, my whole point is that lists like this one are only useful as a guide for newcomers or for people looking for a good RPG. As has been said it's useless to make a simple list of favourites. If that's all they wanted to do, I'm completely fine with the ranking and the list. It serves no purpose but it's fine.

My point, however is that if it's also supposed to be a guide, then some pretty important RPGs are missing.

 

 

The list is exactly as you just said, a list of favorites. It's not a beginner's guide to the genre.

 

*Bud and Fosters don't taste bad, they do not taste like anything at all really, which is why so many drink them.

[Humanoid]

Fallout 3's world is the same as any other Fallout world insofar as any other generic blasted wasteland is if you put a Fallout sticker on it. Thematically it is in no way similar, indeed it can arguably be considered to be diametrically opposite, to the BIS/Obsidian games. The theme throughout the other games is one of civilization being rebuilt, each game progressively showing steps in the process as agriculture, regrowth of urban environments and the pursuits of interests beyond pure survival return. Fallout 3 features a barren, bombed out Washington and stops there, as if the fact that there being a bunch of rubble makes it equivalent to the prior games. Its habitations consist of makeshift repurposed shelters and there's no sign of any effort by their inhabitants to expand or even live beyond scavenging 200-year old food of which there is a seemingly infinite supply of. Fallout 3's world is nonsensical in context and reflects more a world two years after a cataclysmic collapse, not two-hundred years.

 

"Fallout New Vegas is one of the best RPGs around and Fallout 3 is a completely crappy one." I'm willing to make that statement and stand by it 100%. They share a programming technology and are similar mechanically, but that's only scratching the surface of what makes a good RPG, and what *is* ridiculous is claiming that because two games are mechanically similar, they are therefore similarly good. No, in the aspects of what makes for a good RPG, the games are in no way similar.

Edited May 15, 2014 by Humanoid

[Drowsy Emperor]

Morrowind > Skyrim > Fallout 3 

 

The rest aren't worth talking about. Personally I thought Fallout 3 was poor as well. Maybe Skyrim deserved to make the list, its definitely better than some of the games on it. But the codex hates everything post Morrowind apparently so it wasn't going to happen.

[Humanoid]

I guess the other thing, which while particularly relevant to Bethesda games also applies to games like KoTOR2, is how much third-party content should be considered (if at all) in the overall verdict of a game.

[Fearabbit]

The list is exactly as you just said, a list of favorites. It's not a beginner's guide to the genre.

 

 

Yeah I know. I said that at the beginning.

You can also see that I said "too bad that Skyrim and Fallout 3 didn't make it". I didn't say "Skyrim and Fallout 3 are missing for this to be a proper ranking" or anything of the kind.

 

@Humanoid: I admit there are some inconsistencies (after 200 years those supermarkets should've been raided empty). The lack of farming is explained by the strong radiation and infertile soils, however, and the non-permanent housing is a result of the fact that the area is a perpetual combat zone with supermutants roaming around.

But I don't want to defend the game, yes it definitely has flaws.

However, I didn't say "New Vegas and Fallout 3 have the same mechanics, therefore they're the same quality". Not at all. I'd say they're based on the same gameplay, and then both have different bad and good stuff. You could name dozens of flaws in Fallout 3 and I'd find you the same number of flaws in New Vegas.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I think it speaks volumes that more than 1/2 the games listed were released last century. At least to me anyway.

[Humanoid]

The ability to enumerate the flaws a particular game possesses has little correlation to the quality of the end product. What it does show is that we value different aspects of a game's construction differently, and that is entirely reasonable. Someone who likes the mechanics of a TES game might be sufficiently be entertained by them to genuinely be able to place a game in their personal favourites regardless of any other aspect of its design. That's totally fair and legitimate. My valuation of game mechanics in an RPG, unlike in that of other genres, is comparatively low such that I'm perfectly willing to name a game I believe to be mechanically poor to be a good product overall, and some people might rightly find that horrifically incomprehensible. So be it.

 

In my view New Vegas has poor mechanics, has a well-developed gameworld, and features a good sense of character, and that is sufficient to ensconce it firmly within any top ten list of RPGs I might name. Fallout 3 has the same poor mechanics, terrible world-building, and an abysmal sense of character and agency, and that drops it out of contention in terms of making it a game I could enjoy, let alone put on a best-in-genre list.

 

Further, it raises the question: what does the presence of a title on a list like this mean? Does Fallout 3 belong in a top 70 list of RPGs? Frankly I don't think I've played 70 genuine RPGs, so that's a pointless categorisation. But even if I say I've played 30 RPGs, and a particular game is the worst I've played. Would I then technically have to put it in the list at 30 in a list of "30 best RPGs ever!" No, a game I would rather not play at all doesn't place anywhere because it's a negative value in terms of being a use for my time. The reasonable way to construct such a list would be to list the games that merit playing, even if that means only five or fifteen titles end up in the "top 70" with no further entries.

 

Hyperbolically perhaps, this means I'm totally fine saying Fallout 3 doesn't merit a place in the list of top billion RPGs ever. But there's only be 20-30 items in the list with the remainder left blank. Or does E.T. merit a place in the best million games ever?

Edited May 15, 2014 by Humanoid

[Volourn]

"I think the only problem with that list is that Skyrim and Fallout 3 didn't make it. You can say what you want about them, but they're not bad RPGs and I'd recommend them to any newbie of the genre."

 

No. They suck. Plain and simple. There is NOTHINg good about them.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

"I think the only problem with that list is that Skyrim and Fallout 3 didn't make it. You can say what you want about them, but they're not bad RPGs and I'd recommend them to any newbie of the genre."

 

No. They suck. Plain and simple. There is NOTHINg good about them.

 

You could say pretty much the same about Morrowind, and it's in the top 10. Considering that Skyrim has improved on every single aspect of that game with the exception of story, the hypocrisy is baffling.

[Chilloutman]

 

"I think the only problem with that list is that Skyrim and Fallout 3 didn't make it. You can say what you want about them, but they're not bad RPGs and I'd recommend them to any newbie of the genre."

 

No. They suck. Plain and simple. There is NOTHINg good about them.

 

You could say pretty much the same about Morrowind, and it's in the top 10. Considering that Skyrim has improved on every single aspect of that game with the exception of story, the hypocrisy is baffling.

 

 

Well Morrowind have at least interesting setting and was quite revolutionary in time it come out. (in terms of graphics and size of world)

[aluminiumtrioxid]

Well Morrowind have at least interesting setting and was quite revolutionary in time it come out. (in terms of graphics and size of world)

 

While Skyrim also had an interesting setting (well, a setting with the potential to be interesting - then again, Morrowind has also squandered its potential with the thoroughly uninspiring quests and dull dialogue, so I'd call it a draw), more enjoyable gameplay, a much denser gameworld, and an actually smarter and deeper character development system which had complexity without forcing you to jump up and down thousand times in a row in order to level up your Acrobatics, and therefore gain a 5x bonus to Strength.

[Nordicus]

Oh the quests and dialog in Morrowind are definitely boring...

 

...if by Morrowind you mean Balmora guild newbie gruntwork

[aluminiumtrioxid]

Oh the quests and dialog in Morrowind are definitely boring...

 

...if by Morrowind you mean Balmora guild newbie gruntwork

 

I'm fairly willing to back down from this stance if you can point out 10 quests not in the main story which satisfy these requirements:

 

- isn't a glorified FedEx mission

- doesn't essentially boil down to "go to this place and kill people, possibly take their stuff, too" / "go to this place and sneak past people, also take some stuff"

- can't be solved essentially by clicking repeatedly on the admire/intimidate button for 10 minutes

 

OR: has elements of the above, but is saved by some twist that makes these activities somehow interesting.

Edited May 15, 2014 by aluminiumtrioxid

[Chilloutman]

 

Well Morrowind have at least interesting setting and was quite revolutionary in time it come out. (in terms of graphics and size of world)

 

While Skyrim also had an interesting setting (well, a setting with the potential to be interesting - then again, Morrowind has also squandered its potential with the thoroughly uninspiring quests and dull dialogue, so I'd call it a draw), more enjoyable gameplay, a much denser gameworld, and an actually smarter and deeper character development system which had complexity without forcing you to jump up and down thousand times in a row in order to level up your Acrobatics, and therefore gain a 5x bonus to Strength.

 

Do you want imply that Skyrim have inspiring quest, rich dialogues, same gameplay and deeper cahracter development? Bold statement. And in Morrowing noone force you to jump whole day but at least you can

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Morrowind is pretty over rated. Most people seem to be forgetting about the terrible mechanics, and I can confirm from recent experience that missing some dude with a great-sword right in front of you isn't very fun.

 

The best thing Bethesda ever did was publish New Vegas.

Edited May 15, 2014 by KaineParker

[Chilloutman]

Morrowind is pretty over rated. Most people seem to be forgetting about the terrible mechanics, and I can confirm from recent experience that missing some dude with a great-sword right in front of you isn't very fun.

 

The best thing Bethesda ever did was publish New Vegas.

While I agree that its not best RPG of all times but you have to judge it against time when it come out.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

Do you want imply that Skyrim have inspiring quest, rich dialogues, same gameplay and deeper cahracter development? Bold statement. And in Morrowing noone force you to jump whole day but at least you can

 

 

No, I'm saying that putting Morrowind on the 7th place while saying that Skyrim isn't even in the top 70 is an extremely hypocritical stance to take.

 

Also, while nobody forces you to do it, it's still the least painful way to level Strength. (And let's have a moment of silence for that to sink in...)

Edited May 15, 2014 by aluminiumtrioxid

[Fearabbit]

While Skyrim also had an interesting setting (well, a setting with the potential to be interesting - then again, Morrowind has also squandered its potential with the thoroughly uninspiring quests and dull dialogue, so I'd call it a draw), more enjoyable gameplay, a much denser gameworld, and an actually smarter and deeper character development system which had complexity without forcing you to jump up and down thousand times in a row in order to level up your Acrobatics, and therefore gain a 5x bonus to Strength.

 

 

Let's just all agree that Skywind will be amazing.

 

I think Skyrim was a great game and it definitely had the better balance and better gameplay.... but otherwise, you just can't beat Morrowind. I'll be honest, I'm a diehard fan but... in my opinion the dialogue and the various questlines are highly underrated, and the world is simply the best I've ever seen in a fantasy game.

Also as a freeform RPG I really appreciate the fact that it had like 13 (!) different guilds that you could join PLUS the main questline, and that all these questlines didn't end after 5 quests but actually really took a while to complete. All while actually having interesting plots abundant with intrigue and twists. I forgive them the fact that lots of the actual quests were fetch quests or something like that.

 

I mean.. that's really the thing that Morrowind did. When it offered you something, it offered it to you in abundance, but the individual thing was a bit rough. Yes its NPCs were a bit bland at times, but it had over 3000 of them. Combat was weird, but it offered you hundreds of different armor and weapon types (remember shurikens, spears, crossbows and individual armor pieces?). And so on and so on.

 

Edit: And yeah this is a little bit off-topic, sorry. I just really really like the game and I think it deserves a top ten spot on the list easily. And I haven't yet played one single RPG that didn't have horrible mechanics in some way or another.

At least jumping to improve your Acrobatics was highly meditative.

Edited May 15, 2014 by Fearabbit

[Nordicus]

 

Oh the quests and dialog in Morrowind are definitely boring...

 

...if by Morrowind you mean Balmora guild newbie gruntwork

 

I'm fairly willing to back down from this stance if you can point out 10 quests not in the main story which satisfy these requirements:

 

- isn't a glorified FedEx mission

- doesn't essentially boil down to "go to this place and kill people, possibly take their stuff, too" / "go to this place and sneak past people, also take some stuff"

- can't be solved essentially by clicking repeatedly on the admire/intimidate button for 10 minutes

 

OR: has elements of the above, but is saved by some twist that makes these activities somehow interesting.

 

Alright, I'll give it a shot.

 

1) Gradually building your own Great House stronghold and getting the needed staff for it.

2) Find Athyn Sarethi's son who has been hidden in Venim Manor as if this was a Thief game, while fittingly being on the lookout for guards who will become hostile if you're seen doing anything suspicious (not a loss state, but turns this quest more combat-oriented)

3) Blackmail Cunius Pelelius into giving Imperial Cult 500 gold. Granted you can pay the sum yourself, but you're supposed to either break into his office or interview various employees around town and the mines to see that he's skimming off the ebony shipment. Disposition is irrelevant.

4) Collect 1000 gold from East Empire Company. Again, you can pay yourself, but when you actually go and ask for the money, it turns into a 3'000 gold embezzlement case where you're supposed catch the thieving clerk, with the clues that his girlfriend is a Telvanni and that he's been using Guild Guide services. Once you track him down, you have multiple options to deal with him.

5) Memorize and act a play while watching out for any assassins

6) Work as a bouncer for Winged Guar bar

7) Discover the Telvanni spy among Mage's Guild members. Through interrogating guild members in the various places, you'll find the most likely office, hear about one member's oddly perfect alibi and then finally see that their credentials are badly written forgeries. You can also succesfully accuse the original questgiver just for laughs if previous Mage's Guild quests ended a specific way.

8 ) Do a pilgrimage to 7 different shrine across Morrowind to become a proper member of Tribunal Temple. In one of these shrines, you must deliberately drown yourself to solve a riddle

9) Re-enact the historical event of Vivec getting Mehrunes Dagon to throw a rock at him (by taunting the calm Dremora next to this before mentioned rock in Maar Gan)

10) Deliver an important report to Carnius in the middle of a hostile and dangerous forest in Solstheim within 10 (real-time) minutes. However, Constans put a trap at the start which causes excessive burden and a debilitating decrease of speed and agility. Chances are that you'll have to do the delivery basically naked like I did.

 

There, that should fill your requirements decently. No main quests from vanilla or expansions, no Daedric Prince stuff, I only touched a few factions mainly based on my last playthrough. Not even the quite remotely related main quest stuff like faking a high Telvanni wife out of a slave for an ashland tribe leader

Edited May 15, 2014 by Nordicus

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

 

Oh the quests and dialog in Morrowind are definitely boring...

 

...if by Morrowind you mean Balmora guild newbie gruntwork

 

I'm fairly willing to back down from this stance if you can point out 10 quests not in the main story which satisfy these requirements:

 

- isn't a glorified FedEx mission

- doesn't essentially boil down to "go to this place and kill people, possibly take their stuff, too" / "go to this place and sneak past people, also take some stuff"

- can't be solved essentially by clicking repeatedly on the admire/intimidate button for 10 minutes

 

OR: has elements of the above, but is saved by some twist that makes these activities somehow interesting.

 

Alright, I'll give it a shot.

 

1) Gradually building your own Great House stronghold and getting the needed staff for it.

2) Find Athyn Sarethi's son who has been hidden in Venim Manor as if this was a Thief game, while fittingly being on the lookout for guards who will become hostile if you're seen doing anything suspicious (not a loss state, but turns this quest more combat-oriented)

3) Blackmail Cunius Pelelius into giving Imperial Cult 500 gold. Granted you can pay the sum yourself, but you're supposed to either break into his office or interview various employees around town and the mines to see that he's skimming off the ebony shipment. Disposition is irrelevant.

4) Collect 1000 gold from East Empire Company. Again, you can pay yourself, but when you actually go and ask for the money, it turns into a 3'000 gold embezzlement case where you're supposed catch the thieving clerk, with the clues that his girlfriend is a Telvanni and that he's been using Guild Guide services. Once you track him down, you have multiple options to deal with him.

5) Memorize and act a play while watching out for any assassins

6) Work as a bouncer for Winged Guar bar

7) Discover the Telvanni spy among Mage's Guild members. Through interrogating guild members in the various places, you'll find the most likely office, hear about one member's oddly perfect alibi and then finally see that their credentials are badly written forgeries. You can also succesfully accuse the original questgiver just for laughs if previous Mage's Guild quests ended a specific way.

8 ) Do a pilgrimage to 7 different shrine across Morrowind to become a proper member of Tribunal Temple. In one of these shrines, you must deliberately drown yourself to solve a riddle

9) Re-enact the historical event of Vivec getting Mehrunes Dagon to throw a rock at him (by taunting the calm Dremora next to this before mentioned rock in Maar Gan)

10) Deliver an important report to Carnius in the middle of a hostile and dangerous forest in Solstheim within 10 (real-time) minutes. However, Constans put a trap at the start which causes excessive burden and a debilitating decrease of speed and agility. Chances are that you'll have to do the delivery basically naked like I did.

 

There, that should fill your requirements decently. No main quests from vanilla or expansions, no Daedric Prince stuff, I only touched a few factions mainly based on my last playthrough. Not even the quite remotely related main quest stuff like faking a high Telvanni wife out of a slave for an ashland tribe leader

 

 

*sigh* Fair enough. I should have specified before that I don't think quests from the expansions should be valid (firstly because they require you to have invested over 20-30 hours in the base game in order to be survivable, which is a fairly unreasonable amount of time to wait until you get to the good stuff, secondly because the list didn't make note of the fact that they are a huge improvement over the base game - which they are -, and thirdly because Oblivion+Shivering Isles and Skyrim+Dragonborn are also vastly improved upon by the inclusion of the expansion).

 

Still, I am willing to concede the point that Morrowind did have some interesting quests among the heaps of garbage it threw at your face.

 

Doesn't make having it heavily praised while bashing its successors any less hypocritical, though.

[Volourn]

The entire ES series sucks. Trying to argue over which is worse/better is laughable. L0L

[Drowsy Emperor]

I suppose Morrowind must have had some good points but I was bored to tears from wading in brown after 10 or so hours. Kinda my experience with the ES games. Oblivion went up to 20 and Skyrim under 10. I think what kept me going in Oblivion was vegetation.

[Mor]

Btw, people should bear in mind that according to my last count (back in the day when I had a higher tolerance for tedious tasks) there were around 170 or so cRPG's (minus MMO) released altogether, so getting into the top 70 ain't exactly as prestigious as it sounds. The number is a guesstimate now, since I stopped maintaining the list ages ago, but it shouldn't be too far off.

Bear in mind that list isn't exactly cRPG's only e.g. Jagged Alliance is great game classic but cRPG? I don't know what the guys at the codex has been taking, but even the weakest most hyped bioware Action-RPG is better

 

Morrowind is pretty over rated. Most people seem to be forgetting about the terrible mechanics, and I can confirm from recent experience that missing some dude with a great-sword right in front of you isn't very fun.

Its nostalgia\POV googles, at the time it was amazing and if you had put the time\effort finishing it, then ranking it high among most "modern" games is easy. Especially, if at this time in your life you don't have a lot of time to fully explore game and prefer more causal games.. Edited May 16, 2014 by Mor

[Undecaf]

Morrowind is pretty over rated. Most people seem to be forgetting about the terrible mechanics, and I can confirm from recent experience that missing some dude with a great-sword right in front of you isn't very fun.

 

 

I actually liked the mechanics better than what was in the later games. There was a lack of visual response, but the underlying mechanic about failing and succeeding felt good to me because the the action was more about the character and his strengths and shortcomings (in a more meaningful manner than simple damage multipliers) than about how well I was able to control him. It felt more of an RPG and less of an action game.

 

The best thing Bethesda ever did was publish New Vegas.

 

 

Indeed; though they could've allowed for longer developement time and more free hands designwise so as to not just have the game just a refurbished version of theirs.

[Guest Slinky]

 

Morrowind is pretty over rated. Most people seem to be forgetting about the terrible mechanics, and I can confirm from recent experience that missing some dude with a great-sword right in front of you isn't very fun.

 

I actually liked the mechanics better than what was in the later games. There was a lack of visual response, but the underlying mechanic about failing and succeeding felt good to me because the the action was more about the character and his strengths and shortcomings (in a more meaningful manner than simple damage multipliers) than about how well I was able to control him. It felt more of an RPG and less of an action game.

 

True enough, but a system like that works way better on a top down view game than on a first person. I haven't personally seen more boring melee combat system than Morrowind's, even NWN's horrible combat felt more engaging.