I think mine has to be Mistmare. It was this RPG I thought might be fun, it was really cheap and I didn't have anything else to do, so I took it home. when I was installing it, I went to Gamespot to see the review. Dismayed was I to find out the reviewers gave it a 1.7/10. Not one to be scared off by a reviewer (I remember IGN gave Gothic II a 2/10 once, one of the best RPG's I can remember and it got a 2/10!), I went ahead and tried it anyway. It really is horrid. The entire way to play the game is clunky and annoying. It's all extremely confusing and soulless. It's like they made a 2MB computer file that generates its very own RPG without any human input. It just appears never to have been tested. It goes from realistic to far-out fantasy in a second. It's full of spelling errors, it crashes to desktop constantly, and even on the best of machines its framerate is terrible.



Anyone else has any horror stories?

I think I've forgotten it.

One of the Wizardy games, IIRC. I've played some pretty bad RPGs, but who ever thought that 'first person party based' was a good idea should really have thought again. I think the game was installed on my machine for about half an hour tops, and most of that time was spent creating a party.

Pretty much my entire thought process on my gaming experience amounted to: "I am being attacked. I have no idea where my party is. I have an interface that can most charitably be described as a joke. Turn based combat is bad enough, but endurable (Albeit with gritted teeth) if the game has a lot going for it in other directions. Oh look, I'm dying. Probably because I have no idea where any of my party is, so cannot get them to act effectively. This is beyond bad... Yeah, bye."

You will have guessed that I actually removed most of the words in that thought paragraph, because they were not nice words

Actually, I found with Wizardry 8 that the first person perspective (which I generally dislike to the point of not considering such a game) and the turn based combat (which can be ok, but I don't really care for) worked pretty well together. I don't know what the earlier games in the series were like, though (Wizardry 8 had icons along the sides of the screen for each character during combat, showing their status, health, etc).

Arx Fatalis was another first person game that I tried the demo for based on seeing positive reviews. Unlike Wizardry 8, though, the demo didn't last long. I recall reading in the intro text file how they made the game in first person perspective because that was much more realistic and immersive, and then shortly after that explaining the controls, where you clicked to attack, with the strength of the attack built up if you held the mouse button down longer. It struck me as rather funny how fast they could go from talking about realism and immersion to something so artificial.

When I first got a computer (Win95) I bought a few bargain bin games that ended up being stored in a box for awhile, and then eventually stored on a shelf, where they can be neglected in style. Recently I decided to re-try Daemonsgate, 'A Roleplaying Game of Epic Proportions'. It came on 3 3.5" floppies (a later release was on CD), with a 96 page manual, 2 fold-out maps and a 15 minute video on a VHS tape. Walking around the screen flickered a bit as the graphics were drawn, so I didn't get far enough into the game to tell how good it was. Obviously the graphics were not great, but I wasn't expecting much. The copy protection had the game prompting for a word on a given page, paragraph, line and number in the manual (a great copy protection mechanism... before the invention of the photocopier, not to mention scanner and OCR). IIRC from the first time I tried the game, years ago, this prompt happened during gameplay, as well, not just when first starting the game (probably part of why I quit the first time).

Oh my, Wizardry 8 is by far one of the best RPGs ever made

The GUI is complicated, okay, and the 1st person-party-system is uncomfortable at first, but after you've got some experience with it, it plays out very nicely.

Okay, and the worst?
I'm quite unsure, I have never experienced a complete disaster. But there are several games with serious flaws.

Well I think I vote for Gothic:
Absolutely horrible controls. The skill system is also not that good, and you can't customize your avatar by yourself. And the faction system is annoying since you must align with one in order to get better armor and quests, but I really dislike them all

There are very few games with a skill system I like more than Gothic.

Elder Scrolls, now those are games with awful skill systems. I still remember equipping heavy armor and buying a lot of healing potions, then standing still with three mudcrabs pounding on me for an hour or two so I could level my heavy armor to max. Jumping continually to level acrobatics, sneaking around the island to level sneak skill, etc. Absolutely horrible, even though Morrowind was definitely not a bad game. People nag about grinding in MMO's, but they forget that a lot of single player games they idolize necessitate it, as well. I can't believe they didn't radically change that for Oblivion. Tsk, tsk.

Last year I played a fighter class in oblivion with no mods (i know, i know, i'm crazy!), with heavy armor, etc,etc and i didnt do that grinding at all. I still ended the game and had fun. Those grindy processes to go around the leveling system (like your examples) is what made your experience bad, not the system in itself (imho), If you leveled normaly by killing mobs, etc and not worry too much about that, you would have a much better time.

Of course now i am re-playing oblivion with over 30 mods instaled (leveling addons aswell) and the experience is much much much better, but i still think the oblivion leveling system was not as bad as ppl say.


ABout the worst RPG i ever played i think it was Lands of Lore 2 and 3, but most people wont recall that game.

that's true, I only did that the first time I played Morrowind, but still, it means the skill system is bad. Even the tips said stuff like "Swimming is better for athletics than running" and stuff like that. You can have a better time by ignoring it as much as possible, and it doesn't kill the game (though it does make it harder), but ignoring parts of a game means that part isn't good. Why descend a mountain if you can just jump off it and level your acrobatics skill? You don't have to grind in MMO's you know.

Well yeah, Morrowind's skill system has definitively its issues with that.
But on the other hand, there's no pressure to resort to this "gamey" actions.

So the amount of "abuse" of the skill system is not something dictated by the game itself, but is just one of many possible ways to play the game. It's completely up to the player to decide.

And honestly I'm quite impressed you defend Gothic with your critique of Morrowind
Because in the end, the optimal skilling in Gothic is much more dictated by the game. There are certain portions of the game you won't survive unless you level in a very specific way. That's much more restrictive than Morrowind's system.

I think if there's one thing that emerges clearly from this thread, it's that one person's worst game ever is another person's fantastic experience.

I stand totally by my criticism of Wiz 8, which - to me - was an utter pile of steaming garbage. Yet others love it. Gothic also seems to be love or hate.

What a varied breed we humans are

Two old games that might deserve the title "worst RPG":

- Abandoned Places (for Amiga). At that time, it was common to include food and drink, and your party had to eat or they would starve. Unfortunately, the characters in this game had such a ravenous appetite that you needed to spend all the money you earned on food, so you couldn't buy any new equipment, and the opponents you encountered in the beginning didn't drop better weapons or armour, although they did become more powerful. I stopped playing very soon.

- Chaos strikes back (for Amiga), the sequel to Dungeon Master (which was a great game). There were so many teleporters (which you couldn't avoid) that it became very hard to keep track of where you actually were and where you were going. One could say that the game was aptly named, but the developers overdid it so much that the game wasn't fun anymore.

And some newer games that were very bad for one reason or another:

- Daemon Vector. It was included in a compilation I bought, and I had very low expectations. It looked ugly, I didn't feel inclined to play any of the available characters, combat largely relied on combos and reminded me of a brawler, and the few bits of story that popped up were lame. I wouldn't even label it "RPG", and it soon vanished from my hard drive.

- World of Chaos. It could have been a good game with some more balancing and bug-fixing, but unfortunately, fights were frustratingly hard in the beginning, the game often crashed and a bug prevented me from continuing the game after the first few maps. There is a patch and it supposedly fixes this bug, but it still kept me from playing on, although I installed the patch before starting to play. The publisher and/or the developer went bankrupt soon after release, so there won't be any more patches.

- Neverwinter Nights. Probably not the worst RPG, but the biggest disappointment. The game was severely imbalanced, I hated the controls, the story was lame and full of logical holes, you could have just one companion and the AI was annoyingly stupid. I was often tempted to stop playing for good, but completed the game, although the end was also disappointing.

- Throne of Bhaal (expansion for Baldur's Gate 2). Sadly, the best example of how you can ruin a great game's story (great game referring to Baldur's Gate). The tiny bit of story that was left in this expansion was completely predictable, though it mainly consisted of fight after fight after fight, all of them imbalanced. I played co-op with my brother, and the only challenge his paladin faced was to clear the opponents quickly enough before my mage/thief character died. Which still regularly happened because the game designers had the great idea to often teleport the whole party into close combat. Spells were almost ineffective because of the high magic resistance most opponents had, but when my character had a chance to lay traps, no opponent stood a chance to survive. Pen & paper D&D has some flaws with respect to high-level characters, but a good Dungeon Master can keep the game both fair and challenging. Throne of Bhaal utterly failed in this respect and also slowly dragged the story of the series to a predictable end - that's why I would probably call it my personal "worst RPG".

Well of course, because Morrowind's system is not restrictive enough.

If you can buy some pots and pans and stand among 5 mud crabs for five hours, you're suddenly an expert on heavy armor? In Gothic, you actually need experience before you can learn something. Even though it is definitely far more restrictive, as you say, I feel restrictive is a much better choice. It's like having a God Mode button in the corner of the screen. You'll be compelled to switch to god mode every time things get tough. But how much fun is a game in god mode? Gothic basically made you struggle to get better at things, struggle to get enough money to buy decent equipment. It's completely feasible for a Morrowind character to be a half god before it even leaves Seyda Neen. This is not to say I didn't like Morrowind, though. I loved Morrowind. It had a great character creation, a great environment, good quests and fun factions, and it's a game I rate about 8 out of 10, which is 3 more than Oblivion's disappointing 5. It would be up there in the 9 region, if it hadn't been for its godawful combat system, mindless skill system, afterthought 3d perspective and glowy item ugliness (which was modded out, thankfully).

Basically, creating a character has to be choosing your development. You can't (or shouldn't be able to) become a master at every type of weapon, every school of spells, and every type of armor in the game. Especially if it's all required. You don't learn how to levitate in Morrowind, you're basically screwed. You end up like a jack of all trades, except you're a master of all trades. Then you're not creating a character. You're not creating this craftsman, or this thief, because you can basically do it all and be fantastic at all of it. It really diminishes the 'role' in roleplaying, IMO.

I guess this one's also one of the hit/miss games. This is one of my favorite RPG's ever, because of the multiplayer ease, modding ease, memorable characters (Deekin definitely being up there with Minsc for best companion ever) and great expansions. Even though I've heard it being criticized a lot, it set my expectations for NWN2 so high that NWN2 was most likely the biggest disappointment I've ever played. NWN1 is not party-based, but they never said it was, and its AI(while being less than great) is still much better than NWN2's. I loved the Graphics NWN had, and its low system requirements. Never had it stutter or spend ages loading, always very smooth and very animated. For a game coming out in 2001(or 2002?) it was by far the prettiest RPG I'd ever played, and I felt the controls were the easiest I'd ever used.

@ Morrowind: It's a different role-play conception. In games like BG, Icewind or similar you have some kind of "specialist" approach. A thief is good in lockpicking, a fighter can mow down hordes of enemies and so on. Everybody has its specialty.
Morrowind on the other hand has a "universalist" approach. You can build the hero you want, you can choose the skills you like without any real limitations.
So in the end it's just a complete different role-play philosophy, but not less role-play. At least that would be my point of view

I decided I hated Morrowind after one too many trip into a shop where the owner with the x-ray vision told me he wouldn't deal with me AT ALL because I had contraband in my pack. So I put it on his counter, which he was fine with, apparently, and shopped. That happening once was twice too many. At least. When it kept happening repeatedly... Well, the game wasn't so good that I could ignore it, grit my teeth and carry on. Even without that annoyance, it was mediocre at best.

Gotta agree with the hatred for the first NWN game. What kind of sense it makes to take a system designed for party based play and try to create the next Diablo out of it, I don't know. Add in a bland plot (Generous description I know) and so many glitches that it was almost more bug than game... I completed it once just because, but I doubt I'll ever play it again. Just a bad game from the design stage on.

Two of the three points you touched are far more valid for The Witcher than they are for NWN (system designed for party - based play / Witcher has no companions/pets; and Witcher had a lot more bugs than NWN (I never had one single bug in it, personally)).

I take it you think the Witcher is a bad game also?

Actually, I think The Witcher is by far the best single character RPG I've ever played. I really don't know where you get the idea the system is designed for more than a single character, though. It's clearly not. Given the way combat is set to timed moves, you'd have real trouble with more than one character, don't you think? It had its problems, yes, but nowhere near the level of bugs that NWN had. The main problem with Witcher was horrendous load times, which were annoying but far from game breaking.

As for being MORE valid, I take it you do know that D&D is a system designed for a MINIMUM of four characters and preferably five or six, right? The classes are all balanced the way they are for that reason.

Witcher's based on the same game engine as NWN, no? That being said, I can't remember any bugs in the Witcher, maybe two or three CTD's in a year and a half of playing. Load times are nothing either (in EE at least).

Never played NWN, so I can't really weigh in on that one, or on what the worst RPG is. Like most bad RPG's, I played the demo and then forgot it.

I think I remember they used the engine of NWN2, but quite changed in some parts, I think.

They used the Aurora 2 engine to build The Witcher, yes. But the Witcher gameplay is not even remotely based around the D&D game system. There's none of the deliberate character weaknesses that mean Geralt would need support to be effective.

Lionheart. cos it built my expectation up so much then dash it to the rocks.

I understand that, Jang. Up till you leave New Barcelona, it's on course to be one of the best of all time... I still can't play it again. It broke my heart...

I didn't say The Witcher's system is designed for parties, I simply said if you pretend to claim NWN IS designed for party-based play, then the Witcher is, even moreso. The engine was designed for NWN, not for some party-based game. NWN never even supported single-player party-based play (multiplayer != single-player party-based). I would say NWN2 proves that party-based play was never the idea of Aurora engine, because its party-based play is a nightmare.

I loved the Witcher as well, but up until the EE, its performance was absolutely dreadful. I was playing with a top-notch PC when the Witcher came out, and graphically it was a nightmare, especially the cutscenes. It also suffered from stuttering a lot, even on lower graphic settings, and its response was also very slow at times. Loads of weird framerate drops and insane loading times really diminished the game experience in the early days. There were also a couple of crash-to-desktop bugs, and with AA on, my PC would hang every time on reaching Vizima.

The EE fixed most of these issues, but that was a lot later. And if I'd known, I'd have bought it when EE came out, cause it would've saved me a bunch of money. Still, I agree that it is easily the best single-player RPG since Gothic II.

When I bought NWN, I by no means had a top-notch PC for the time, and it played beautifully. I never had a stutter, much less a bug in it. Graphically, there was nothing even close to being in its range at that time (Morrowind looked really nice in terms of colors and stuff, but it was no match for NWN), and it was the only game in which I ever played around with the mod tools myself; because it was so user-friendly.

Even though the D&D system is designed for parties of at least 4, that doesn't mean every D&D game is designed for parties of at least 4.

The Witcher's biggest drawback for me just also happens to be one of NWN's strengths: character creation and development. Witcher's story, quests and characters are far superior, I fully agree, but those are not the only things that matter. And NWN's story, quests and characters, while rushed towards the ending and not being Shadows of Amn-worthy , are definitely not so bad as they're made out to be.


*shrug* different experiences, different opinions. Did you play The Witcher right when it came out? I never encountered bugs in NWN, but I didn't actually buy it right when it came out.

I think we have a confusion between ENGINE and SYSTEM, Swordscythe. As I played D&D for over 20 years, I don't have to 'pretend' anything with regard to it - I know it pretty well, including the way it was deliberately designed to encourage teamwork and group play by making sure no single character class could do everything. That is the SYSTEM that both NWN games use. That is simple fact and easily verifiable, should you care to do so. Trying to make a single character game with a SYSTEM designed for multiple characters is a pretty bad design decision, as I'm sure you will agree.

Witcher and NWN2 use the same ENGINE, not the same SYSTEM.

As for both original NWN and The Witcher - yes, I have the original versions of both and played them straight out of the box. NWN was an appalling mess where Witcher's main problem was with the dreadful load times, as noted.

I still think NWN - while not exactly perfectly balanced - still has reasonable balance, to the point where you can finish the game with any class. Of course, classes like Sorcerer or Paladin are easier to play than, say, Ranger or Rogue, but that kind of imbalance exists in any game; in fact, NWN2 - while being based on the same SYSTEM, AND being a party-based game, was balanced much worse than NWN was. The Witcher, on the other hand, doesn't make an issue of balance, it just makes skill allocating redundant and any choice other than morality obsolete. There goes character development, right into the same water character creation jumped in earlier.

I believe we have had opposing experiences with NWN - our difference in opinion must stem from that - but still; if you feel that way, perhaps you should try it again and see if it still is that bad for you? It may also be your D&D background preventing you from enjoying the game - if so, there's nothing to be done.

To be honest, Swordscythe, the original NWN campaign was SO awful there's no chance of me trying it again. I DID get talked into trying the sequels, though, and although they are nowhere near being in the league of the Baldur's Gate games, let alone PS:T, I found them both playable and Hordes Of The Underdark was actually rather good.

NWN2 original campaign is OK rather than great, and I found Mask quite boring, but neither belongs on a worst list, to me. Storm of Zehir is actually good, and arguably the best of all the NWN games to date.

As for Witcher, you'll have real trouble making a moral decision as such, considering that a lot of the time you are faced with 'least worst' and skill allocation is actually crucial. I'm starting to think there are two games called The Witcher, because the one you describe is not the one I played.

I didn't find NWN2 to be unbalanced at all, so I suspect that we are bringing very different strengths and weaknesses to these games, hence the immense gulf between our opinions of them. I could throw a lot of criticisms at NWN2, from the railway tracks that direct your every movement to the stupidly limited party size, to the sheer annoyance of not being able to get full party control. But it's more irritating than outright bad.

I just hope if there are ever any more NWN games that the makers actually pay attention to the system they're using, rather than try to create the next Diablo with a completely inappropriate system, again. Storm Of Zehir is certainly a very promising step in the right direction.

Hmm, perhaps I should try Storm of Zehir, then. (Where I've heard only good things about MotB, I've heard only mediocrity from SoZ) I will certainly negate your calling of NWN's OC 'awful' and NWN2's OC 'OK', which implies that NWN2's was actually better than NWNs. Longer, yes, but more boring than long. As for the balance issues, firstly if you're in a one-man RPG and you have low charisma, I can verily understand that you cannot be very persuasive. However, a four man party with two members with somewhere around 26 CH and good conversation skills that can't persuade a damn kobold because the main character happens to be a ranger... that's pretty friggin' ridiculous to me. At least Tomi Undergallows didn't get stuck behind a rock every two seconds like Khelgar or Neeshka. In my experience, NWN2 is no more party-based than NWN1, except you get one more henchman than HotU, but with FAR worse AI. I'm not a Diablo player, I really dislike pure hack'n slash games, but you make NWN sound like a hack'n slash game Diablo-style, while it is definitely not.

NWN1 pretty much IS a hack and slash game, especially the endless-seeming last section. IMO, NWN2 is definitely a better game and vastly more worthy of the title RPG, not least because you can actually talk to your party members and interact with them. It could certainly be improved a lot, though, which is why it is merely OK rather than good. SoZ actually allows your whole party conversation options, rather than just your main character, so you'll like that part, at least (As I did myself). It's not got the most amazing plot and you'll see every twist coming a mile off, but it gives you a lot of freedom and a real sense that a party is involved rather than one person plus henchmen.

Now they need to fuse the openness of SoZ with the character interaction of NWN2 and we'll finally be getting there... Although from the sound of things, Dragon Age may have beaten them to it.

best rpg i ever played is breath of fire 3 no doubt
i havent played divinity 2 ego draconis
that will prolly be my new fav thogh

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on the NWN thing. Dragon Age does look good, and I'm glad they chose to do without the D&D system this time. I tend to like many D&D books, but the whole ruleset is not my cup of tea... Too magic-oriented. I won the Dragon Age book (even won two copies, if anyone wants it) and even though it's no R.A. Salvatore, it sounds pretty good.

In which language is it ?

wow lol i feel stupid i misread it it says worst rpg
worst rpg is oblivion i mean first person sword combat is wack lol

Guess we will, Swordscythe. World would be a boring place if we all liked the same things, though

It's in English


True enough, EK, true enough

If no-one wants it, I might be interested ... But first I need to know whether it has an happy ending or not.

I don't buy books anymore without an happy ending.

If you've looked into dragon age, you'll know that dragon age is not a 'happy ending' type of world, but more of a 'bad things happen, life goes on' type of world... and that's also the book's premise, really. So no, I wouldn't call it a happy ending... but it's no "Dog of Flanders" type tragedy either... It holds the gray middle area, really

I'm not surprised about that.

True, but the presentation is just horrible. Completely sterile interface (especially compared to the nicely designed interfaces of Icewind Dale... imho by far the most beautiful Infinity Engine-Game ever), crappy dialogues, extremely awful graphics.

That's the reason why NWN never really reached the level of Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale. It's not the rules or the game mechanics. It's not the story or the characters. No, it's the awful presentation of the game

btw: Because of your criticism of Wizardry 8 I've restarted the game. Awesome as ever. I'm currently invading Bayjin and evading evil Nessie

Do tell you the truth I hated Beyond divinity....
I even don't know why... Maybe the fact of being soulforged and you have to take care of 2 things instead of one..

Playing a warrior/warrior (through most of act 1) and an archer/warrior (from the citadel onwards) in BD, I almost always had both characters selected and directed them in combat as one. Other than the occasional tough fight or to use potions, there wasn't much need to micromanage or swap control back and forth.

Didn't like BD much myself. Quite liked having two characters, it just wasn't a very good game, IMO. Far too linear and too many real pain-in-the-butt moments, like accidentally declaring war on entire animal species because they move so fast they zoomed under your cursor when you were trying to move.

Didn't like the skill system, either. Lacked the simple elegance of the DD system. It seemed to be contrived more as a money sink than a genuine skill progression tree.

To me it was rather an experiment than a money-sink.

I didn't like the skill system either.

I loved the game though, except for the final act.

Hmm... probably Jade Empire... I somewhat liked the story/characters & the game setting, but the combat really drove the game into the ground. Nothing but mindless button mashing.

At least in The Witcher one needed to time the moves right (on hard difficulty).

Before the community patch saved the game, I would have nominated Gothic 3.

Oblivion, easily.

I was the biggest Bethesda and TES fanboi before that disaster (Morrowind and the expansions were downright enchanting). So I had great expectations for Oblivion, and instead it turned out to be a dumbed-down, bug-ridden, soulless excuse for an RPG. Seriously, World of Warcraft had more soul to it than Oblivion. No amount of modding could fix that piece of crap.

Second worst is Fallout 3 (notice the trend here?), which was basically Oblivion with guns. I finished it, but it was such an unoriginal borefest. They couldn't even come up with an original story - instead, they took the main quest of Fallout 1 (water purification) and mashed it together with the main quest of Fallout 2 (Enclave).

I'll never make the mistake of buying another Bethesda RPG - at least, not until all the idiot hacks are either fired, or quit.

I can understand your frustration

I still didn't play to the end of Act I (but I think "almost" to the end).
I find it funny (humor) and good music .... only for my the Skill Tree I find a minor thing,
BUT I still find BD even better than:
Risen and also Oblivion.
And I must be honest: the more I try to play both games the less I will play them again .... give me rather a game for kids(?) to play, Bugs Bunny or something ... I'm sure I have more fun with it than playing Risen or Oblivion !

The worst RPG i've ever played is Sacred 2. It made absolutely no sense. Here are a couple of samples:
In one quest, you have to defend this farm from wolves, then go adn clear out the wolves' lair, but when you get back, the farmer turns randomly into a werewolf. worst of all, i think his name was Jacob.
In another, you have to hunt down an alien. You talk to this one guard who claims it ruined his life, investigate crop circles, then, at the conclusion, fight one of those aliens from AVP. Seriously?!?
In one more quest, you have to find and return rock instruments to this heavy metal band. No joke. Meanwhile, the guy who gave you the quest just stands there and tells you about heavy metal and instruments and stuff while you kill things. When you go to get the drumsticks from this lich, the lich says something along the lines of, "You mortals must die!!! Wait, you're that guy from the band! I love you guys! If i'd have known these were yours i never would've stole them in the first place! Can you ever forgive me? I still get tickets to the concert, right?" And when you finally have everything, the game shows you a cutscene of a heavy metal concert. It does. And when that's over, you get the instruments as weapons.
There's like 600 quests in that game and only about 20 are serious or make any sense. The graphics suck, the combat sucks (push this button, push it again 26 more times, push a different button, push the first button 42 more times, etc.), the co-op sucks, the voice acting (when there is any) sucks, and the whole thing is full of bugs. I don't think they ever beta-tested it. This has gotta be the worst game i ever played.

P.S. I know what you're talking about, Damar, about Oblivion and Fallout 3, but they were still good in terms of the sheer size of the game. It takes about 100 hours to go through all the quests and find all the collectibles, legendary weapons, etc. Plus it's still fun to nuke raiders eight times at once with the experimental MIRV :P.

P.P.S. I forgot to mention that Sacred 2 is a medieval-ish game, so there shouldn't be heavy metal or aliens.

Worst RPG that "I" played is Throne Of Darkness. Don't know if anyone has heard of it. It's not horrible but it's just boring, and not interesting in any way compared to Diablo, Divine Divinity, Lionheart: Legacy Of The Crusader, Revenant and all these great games...

Throne of Darkness...yeah it took place in medieval Japan right? I played the demo and never touched it again.

I think the Sacred games are meant to be really silly and fun. It started with the first one, and then they just really went overboard.

The Sacred game - the first one ... Well, it has a long history beginning with Armalion, and then ... Okay, it *did* become kind of silly ...

Easily Two Worlds. The entire game was a mess. Luckily, Two Worlds II looks extremely solid so far.

Alrik: I do know that Sacred in its formative days was supposed to be a fully fleshed out RPG before it was reduced to the action RPG it eventually became.

I know even more about it than you.

I was a member of the old Armalion forum.
Armalion was meant to be that RPG first, an TDE RPG, then the development studio foldet, rests were bought up by Ascaron, who didn't have the TDE license, but first still wanted to make a full RPG - and at one point everything was turned into an Action-RPG.

In my theory the constant stream of comparing Armalion with Blizzard's Action-RPG (which was "high" at that time) made it inside of one rep's head "click" and he or she decided to make an Action-RPG out of it.

If ou are very familiar with TDE, you can still find fragments of TDE in it.

I didnt care for Gothic 1 2 or 3.

yeah exactly in Japan. It has a unique concept but it's BORING! lol

I really dug Gothic 1.

Gothic 2 was good, but nowhere as good in G1 - especially since some of the issues of Gothic 1 are more apparent in G2.

Gothic 3 is just a mess with absolutely horrible load times - and yet to finish it; even w/ the Enhanced Edition community patches. Ain't even touched Forsaken Gods, which I do have on disc.

I know you know more than I know. YOU are the reason I know about Sacred, and the Dark Eye games like Drakensang. You posted quite a bit about Sacred/Armalion on here years ago and about TDE on Chaos Cascade.

I would say the worst I have played is Dawn of Magic II / Time of Shadows. Its only redeeming feature was the magic system (which was interesting), but everything else was bad. At least it was free (due to issues with the disc version of Disciples III).

*cough* Fable 1,2 and 3 *cough* ...oh sorry...you're talking about ROLE-PLAYING GAMES, not crappy sim-lites. Never mind...

Then you probably won't like "SIMs Medieval" at all ...

Fable 2 - Game killing bugs. Crappy NPC AI. No sense of achievement. Poor quests and poor quest system. Very easy combat and rubbish spell system.
*I didn't get Fable 3 after this mess since it looks exactly the same and reviews even mention how everything is handled the same.*

Oblivion - Terrible combat system. Empty world. Caves were copied and pasted and while a few copy and pasted things can be forgiven, this cannot since 200 caves were pretty much all copied and pasted. NPCs were boring, had terrible AI and their voices became repetitive which made them even more annoying. No secrets to be discovered, every treasure piece always was part of some quest. You wouldn't just be exploring some random cave to find a legendary item. Story was too short and boring.

The Witcher - Terrible combat system. Stupid NPC AI. Uninteresting NPC dialigue. Poor main character, poor skill tree system and terrible story. Some dialogue also seemed broken at times. When I played through, I kept stopping and going to play something else before eventually coming back to finish the game. That's how bad it was for me.

NWN2 - Poor sequel to a great game. The camera is a mess. Even patches haven't fixed it. Annoying companions, annoying NPCs, boring quests and stupid animations.

Fallout 3 - By far the worst. The story was so boring, uninspiring and common that I didn't even feel obliged to continue with it. Side quests weren't really interesting and the world was just empty and there was nothing to explore. All underground areas that were explorable were just copy and pasted areas of the same sub way station. Combat was terrible and bullets seemed to fly left and right and never straight even if you stood in the same spot and fired in short bursts. Terrible game and just like Oblivion - it used the enemy level scaling system.

Fable 3
If you ask why I didn't like it. It would be shorter to explain what I did like about it..nothing.

I don't like you now

Dungeon Siege 1. It was a RELIEF when I was finished.

If these games are so bad, one must wonder, why play them through to the end?

The story, of course.
I'm a very story-driven player.
Of course I want to find out how it ends.

One Life To Live, Days Of Our Lives, Ryan's hope and General Hospital

I am the same way. But there are games (dragon age 2) which are just so bad that the story isn't enough

There's a story in Dungeon Siege 1? I finished it a couple times and I never noticed!

Okay, it was as thin as water with a few taste molecules in it ...

I think we can agree on that one, yeah!

Among the recent RPG-s Arcania: Gothic 4 without any doubt. The first two were brilliant, the third is okay after the community patch. Even Forsaken gods is passable with the community patch.

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King
~boring, monotonous, predictable...
Blue Dragon
~pretty much the same as DQ8
Final Fantasy X
~horrible characters, bad story, some really annoying boss fights...
Infinite Undiscovery
~tentimes worse than FFX...

Two Worlds

I actually enjoyed Two Worlds and am currently playing the sequel with which I am impressed greatly with. The cities are the biggest cities you'll ever find in an RPG and are brimming with life more so than The Witcher (which was an average game to me), the combat system is great and the crafting has great depth and you can basically go to town on creating a weapon and upgrading it non-stop. There are also many choices in quests. There are flaws but the good stuff covers them. There's a great amount of detail everywhere and is a very beautiful game compared to the first and even to current games. Put frankly, it looks more smoother graphically than Skyrim and that's really saying something considering TW2 was developed on a lower budget.

Recently: 'Fable 3'. They threw away almost every good part of an RPG (inventory, character customisation, a story line that made sense) so they could focus on playing dressups, and have 'human interactions' that mainly involved burping at people. For a supposedly 'adult' game it's probably the most chidish thing I've ever played.

And I'll also add my vote for 'Arcania: Gotic 4'.

KOTOR 2 was also pretty awful, especially when they forgot to give it an ending. Which was a shame, because the original KOTOR was awesome.

Fable II : I find it not my cup of tea, so I never buy Fable III !

Most PC players don't even know Fable II ...

That's why my first exposure to Fable was Fable 3. Fable 2 might have been OK, but I couldn't play it...

Try the Sith Lord Restored Content Mod;
http://deadlystream.com/forum/files/file/13-tslrcm/

I like Fable for its charm. It's got a great stylized look, IMO. However, it's sad that Lionhead doesn't play up the role-playing mechanics, instead they dumb them down more with each iteration.

And am I crazy for liking KOTOR II more than KOTOR?

No. Better story (personal storyline vs the usual epic save-the-world/universe BioWare story), better characters, better writing.

Also, pretty interesting crafting system and guns/rifles were no longer underpowered like the first game.

That would make me even crazier then ;P.

And I'm also crazy ... to have fun with "Arcania : A gothic Tale" (on Xbox)

Especially the skilltree is stupid maked, but further this game is okay. But yeah, just "okay" is also the best I can say about it for now (level 5 now) ... the way the dialogs are maked is also strange ... but funny, so I look now only on the bright side of the dialogs: funny to hear and see

The way the bow/crossbow system works I find very nice done. I start to love using a bow in a RPG since playing the DKS and now I'm "testing" the ranged weapons (not guns please!) in each RPG I try .

Two Worlds has been my only regret in buying. It was worth the $9.99 I spent, but a penny more and it wouldn't have been. I have yet to play Two Worlds 2, so I don't know how much of an improvement was made, but I will forever dislike Two Worlds. Main reasons being:

1. The graphics were absolutely terrible. This game coming out about a year AFTER Oblivion, you think they would have tried to do something less grainy and pixelated.
2. The voice acting was a joke.
3. The animations showed you what would happen if you got a stick shoved up your ass.
4. The UI was cluttered and disorganized, by far the worst thing I have ever seen.

I could go on and on. It was basically Morrowind cept on a $50 budget, shitty in every way and created about 6 years later. It sucked.

I quzite enjoyed the game. It is an explorer's dream, imho.

But what I could NOT STAND AT ALL was these wobbling heads ... During each dialogues ...

Like I said, it was nice for the amount I paid, and I do agree it had nice exploration. It had a lot of great ideas, they just weren't executed well. Which is sad because I'm fairly certain it could have outshined Oblivion...

Two Worlds II is fantastic and comes highly recommended. A huge improvement over the awful first game.

Two Worlds is only godawful on console.

On PC there's the 1.7 Gig patch that turns it into a decent game.

What I get for being a console gamer. The only thing I will ever play on PC will be MMORPGs because I just love the consoles so much. NO idea why, I just like the way they play better I suppose. And the thought of upgrading my PC every gen just doesn't settle well in my mind... >>;

Libertarian, I will definitely be buying it once I get the money, but right now I'm waiting for a price drop. I buy games once they hit $30 usually. There's a few exceptions to the rules, namely anything Bethesda touches...because it's always golden.

Oblivion was golden...

A GOLDEN TURD!

:P

I don't think Two Worlds is a good game anywhere. Even when it's running at a stable clip, it's still a piss poor game. Just my opinion. :P

What exactly did you dislike about Oblivion? Just curious...

Two Worlds is a piss poor game, yes. But it's not so horrible I wouldn't say "Don't buy it" if you came across it for $9.99. It's got A LOT of lows, but there are some highs too, examples being:

1. Just the fact that it's free roam and the world is decent AND accessible.
2. Said it before, the exploration factor.
3. The quest, I actually enjoyed them. What I didn't enjoy was how they could be failed so easily and you not even realize it. Not cool.
4. The skill trees were grand, and I wish most games would take the time to do something to that extent. Like Risen, Gothica 4, Fable, or even Divinity.
5. And something I like, but I assume not everyone does is the no respawn mob factor. I find it a nice touch on modern gaming when something fresh like this is thrown into a game.
6. The amount of Guilds available to the player.
7. The fact that you CAN respec your skills, should you so choose.
8. Decent main quest, even if the ending is horrible.

Bout all the highs I can think of for this game. And there are many more lows, but saying it's not a "good game anywhere" just makes you sound ignorant, because it has it's high points, they are just buried beneath all of the low points. It's still my least favorite RPG ever, but it doesn't mean I didn't find something to like about it.

Oblivion is a serious downgrade on all sides from Morrowind.

Hopefully they don't fail again with Skyrim. But I fear the worst, so I am not looking forward to it at all...

I do agree it was a downgrade from Morrowind in every area but graphics, obviously. But because of the graphics alone, a lot about the series was improved. I personally, don't care what the graphics look like, some do. With Oblivion, the graphics seemed more realistic, and I have friends that need that realism to get into the roleplaying aspect of the game. As to where I'm fine with Morrowind and all of it's glory. <3 Still going on about graphics here, but the armor, weapons and just everything involved with graphics, from lighting to the reflection in waters, etc. ALL increased it's gameplay value. Yes, it was a downgrade from Morrowind in most areas, but it still holds it's own as a great modern (Or less so now) RPG. With Skyrim, they are trying to make it more simple also, which I don't know if a like or dislike. But because of this new simple idea, maybe they will focus more on certain aspects that people disapproved of with Oblivion. Which still to this day I haven't heard any real disapprovals that warrant all of the dislike people seem to have for Oblivion. Morrowind is a good game and so is Oblivion. I really wish people would stop lumping all RPGs together like it's a giant competition. Play the game and enjoy it for what it is, not for what you wish it was or could have been. Not to say everyone is perfect and the world will be coated in sugar and flowers. Of course there will be things that people dislike, but there has to be some nice experience you had with the game. For example, take me and Two Worlds. I despise the game, but I am not ignorant to the fact it had some decent aspects about it.

And can I ask you what specifically you disliked (Or liked) about Oblivion? What you loved/hated about Morrowind? And what you hope to see (Or not see) in Skyrim?

I think people - I mean most of the gamers - bought and loved Oblivion BECAUSE OF the graphics - not for anything else, I fear.

And this trend still goes on.

Agreed. With the growing technology, I too fear we are losing what RPG's are actually meant to be. Or at least my definition of what it is meant to be. It's not always about the flashy graphics, but the game play and the depth in which you can get consumed in. Take Mass Effect 2, I liked 1 better. I also liked Dragon Age: Origins better than the second. It's because they stuck to what an RPG was as to where the second games started to stray away from it.

The trend I see with the ME series is that of turning RPGs into "Shooters with RPG elements" - globally.

It's because shooters are currently the games with the far greatest established fan base - plus they are also the games with the far shortest life-span (in SP moe, at least), which is also like selling consummables that are FAST consumed - which ensures lots of ongoing profits to he publishers (which are usually the driving forces behind everything).

It's a bit like ... making a product so weak it breaks through rather easily (and rather fast) so that more of the same thing (or of a similar thing) can be (re-)sold again ...

Twilight,

I see you have yet to play Witcher 2 That should give you much hope for the future of CRPGs, should you try it

If you want immersive story, meaningful choice and a world that lives and breathes, you'll have trouble finding better

Prettier graphics aren't a good replacement for lacking art. The world of Morrowind looked unique, majestic. Oblivion? Generic and boring.

Exploration was destroyed by lack of reward... don't even mention the extremely stupid "enemies level with you" system.

Conversations weren't too long in Morrowind, but the VO requirement made them even shorter, and less frequent in Oblivion. It was a pain.

Then there's the consolised inventory, "easier" made skills (read; a lot less), and far more mistakes.

Sequels should build on their predecessing game, not give less.

Yay! I have things to answers! ^^; Okay~

Alrik, again I agree, but there are some of these new FPS RPGs that don't suck. Fallout 3, Fallout: NV, and ME1 were good. BUT! I still agree with the fact they are over too quickly so it leaves you wanting more. At one point I figured Fallout 3 was god's gift to the world because it was just that amazing. Looking back now, I see that it was indeed a great game (NV was better imho, even if people see it as an "addon') but it is not on par with other modern RPGs. If I could get another Deus Ex, I'd be happy.

Elliot, I will most definitely play Witcher 2. Played the first, and have only put off buying the 2nd due to me being broke and other things grabbing my attention sooner. While I don't gamer on PC, and I think I read a post about you saying the graphics were godlike for PC, I will still grab it because I like the series.

Hassat, I agree. Prettier graphics shouldn't replace what makes the land unique and the experience better. While the graphics were beautiful enough to grab my attention and hold it for awhile, I soon became annoyed by the same landscape copy and pasted 999 times over. There is a point where no matter how grand the graphics look, if game play sucks, you won't like it. Oblivion for some people, rides that line due to the still amazing Morrowind. People who just picked up Oblivion, BEFORE playing Morrowind I find enjoyed it more because they don't understand how amazing the predecessor is and what a let down Oblivion was. Then, once they pick up Morrowind all you hear is them complaining how it's too hard and they can't find nothing and they die a lot.

As for the enemies level with you system, that was the biggest mistake they made imho. To have even a survivable chance when you reach the 20's on 50% diff, you need to efficient level. 5/5/1 is what I normally do, going with END and INT first, then working on whatever my other means of damage is. STR or AGI +SPE. I have also fallen in love with staying level 1 playing on max difficulty. Both remedy the situation, but a gamer shouldn't have to look for loopholes to justify his/her playing of a game. It was off balance and a failure.

lvl 1 - 13 were easy
14 - 24 were hard as hell
25+ was easy again

Oblivion's dialogue and Morrowind's for that matter were lacking. And I think what Skyrim is doing will enhance it a lot. If you haven't heard, they continue about whatever they were doing before, casually glancing at you so to not seem rude. They also no longer wait around for you to talk to them. They might be working at a lumber mill or smithy, which you can assist with now.

I never have a problem with the inventory... I hear people talk about it, but I don't understand why. Someone said it was because if you carried a lot of stuff that it took forever to find anything. ...carry only the things you need? Skyrim being tailored to the console AND THEN ported to PC will indeed remedy this situation. As for the skills, yes they sucked and it was a grindfest for little to no reward.

The only area I found Oblivion building on top of was the graphics, where everything else was ran over with a bulldozer.

Twilight,

The graphics on Witcher 2 are quite possibly the best ever seen in a PC game, assuming you have a machine that can handle them, yes. But that's not the reason why RPG fans should get it, though it surely doesn't hurt.

Witcher 2 is a true RPG to its core. Decisions you make matter, even more than they did in the first one. Every character in the game has motivation, personality, etc. They have night and day routines, as in Witcher 1. But you get the idea. I hesitate to say 'best single character RPG ever' as I hate being that unequivocal, but if there IS a better single character RPG, I have never seen it.

But, well. You can tell I'm impressed already, I'm sure, so I'll leave it there If you are a fan of RPGs, though, you'll probably love it

RPGs is all I play, lol. So, yes I will love it. c:

Heh. In that case, I'm sure you will, yeah

After reading some of the peoples complaints about TES series, I have to jump in and say you're not a true fan of the RPG if you don't play TES for the lore. That has always and will always be the most driven factor of any of the games. The fact that these games were so large, made it capable for that amount of lore to be spread. I spent out hours in oblivion (first release,pc) just searching for books, because if actually gives you a good sense and perspective of the world you're apart of. Oblivion's combat system is obviously better then morrowinds, and makes for a more action-oriented stretch from it's prior titles, but each of these games have set the standard for anything open-world related. Unmatched, and unbeaten, the Elder Scrolls series is the BEST thing that's ever happened to RPG's. I expect Skyrim to continue to advance much in the way Oblivion did. To each their own story.

Bethesda always makes a good game.

And this is coming from a guy who breathed D&D since he was 8.

Worst RPG has to be a toss up between Fable 2/3 and 2 Worlds. My reasons are simple.

A) They both rob you of your hopes prior to the release.
B) You'd spend double the amount of money you would of these two and still not get the experience you would get from games such as Divinity.
C) Fable 2/3 destroyed the definition of "Open'world." Dev's practically lied about going anywhere.
D) Two Worlds have the most boring combat of anything that I've played, and has yet to devilver a story I can't predict (in both games).
E) Fables Inventory system was horrible.
F) 2 Worlds UI was horrific on some televisions, putting it right dead smack on your character, or didn't display everything because the ui was too big.
G) Horrible Translations in 2 Worlds/ Voice Acting.
H) Both games need a REAL overhall -- More inspirational story, excitement and surprise! Fable two needs to be completel open-world, more discoveries, more loot, and a way better magic system... 2 Worlds needs to improve their combat further and get some better voice actors.

I go on and on about H, but I simply don't have the time, haha. So that's my 2 cents, enjoy it, and add to it if you care, I really don't. I just figured I'd throw all that out there..

Vondred, if you are interested in Lore, then check out: http://www.imperial-library.info/

I spend most of my time on the interwebs in there now. Even more so the closer Skyrim gets... Searching for possible clues and other such things that would be of interest to the evolving world of TES. (:

Fun fact though, I have an Oblivion character whose main goal is to collect (And read) all books available in the game. Almost done. C:

Agree though, Lore is a big part of TES, though I don't think that is the main attraction. It being a open and free world is the main selling point of Oblivion, on top of graphics. Not saying Lore shouldn't be the main attraction, but most gamers don't really take the time to invest themselves in a game. They just want to beat it.

For example, I had this one friend who beat the game at level 14 I think it was and he went on and on about he was unstoppable and blah blah. He was on 0% difficulty... But I mean, that was all that mattered. That fact that he was good and could kill anything in one hit. He treated it like a hack and slash or something... >>; He didn't care that his race was from Black Marsh and that [most] of their names were based off of the first action they do out of the egg. He named it his name. He went around fighting, just fighting. Enter cave, exit cave, enter another, exit that one. Never bothered to read a book ingame, nor talk to people or anything. As I took god knows how long to level to 14, but I efficiently leveled (5/5/1) and took my time and enjoyed the game. Reading, talking, etc. Read the Lore that is in the lovely Imperial Libraries and I hate to sound like a bitch, but I played the game correctly. Like an RPG is meant to be played. Guess who is still playing the game and enjoying every moment? Yeah.

TES will forever be my favorite RPG series no matter what anyone says. /rant

Some people just have a taste for something bigger in games. Why have people make stories for the players who play these games if they don't bother to read them? I say if you're going to make a purchase, you should explore everything the game has to offer. Get the maximum experience.

Thank you for the link! It's already come useful in answering some questions I had in mind.

The friend I mentioned above has moved onto CoD, which I wouldn't exactly call "bigger." Agree once again. (: And you are welcome.

If the general gameplay is bad, no amount of lore can save it...

Maybe Bethesda should spend less time in lore, and more time in making... a good game?

Guess people just have different taste because I find the game, while it is flawed, to be better than any RPG today's gaming industry has spit out.

Alpha Protocol. Its the first game where i actually laughed when i started it and saw how bad it was. To be fair, some of it was enjoyable and the characters were ok. I'd also put Fall Out New Vegas down as well because its such a broken mess

First post is an anti-Obsidian rant.

I'd say troll. Bad one being on the wrong boards too, but maybe not...

Dunno, Hassat. Its on topic and stronger opinions than that have been voiced in this thread (Sometimes by me, I shouldn't wonder :D).

Doesn't look particularly inflammatory, to me...

It's very hash (harshly ?) formulated, however.

The only thing I know of "Alpha Protocol" is, tht it is clearly a "love or hate" thing.

There's only few games that manage to divide the gaming communities that much.

Interestingly, the rather bad reviews often came from the U.S. (nd somebody has thought at least part of these bad reviews came from the mi-conception of "Alpha Protocol" bing rather a shooter game), an the rather good ones from Europe.

Or so it seemed to me.

Well I know this:

I've hated every Obsidian game. They ruined the NWN series. All their games are apparent messes and judging by NWN2, this is true. I believe they also destroyed The Dungeon Siege franchise. They're just as bad as Bethesda in my opinion. God, I will never buy games from either of those companies for as long as I live.

Just saw Drakensang Online described as 'like Diablo'.

Alrik must be heartbroken...

I love Obsidian.

Alpha Protocol has faults, but it's easily one of my favorite games.

New Vegas is way better than Fallout 3.

KOTOR II > KOTOR.

Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer was an absolutely incredible expansion.

Dungeon Siege III is different -- yes -- but I honestly think it's a fantastic ARPG in the vein of the Dark Alliance and Norrath games.

And speaking of Dark Alliance, most of the Obsidian team were Black Isle and worked on Dark Alliance with Snowblind, and then they were completely responsible for Dark Alliance II. Black Isle also developed the masterpiece known as Planescape: Torment. Oh, and let's not forget the Icewind Dale series of games.

A lot of these same people worked on both Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines.

I don't care for Bethesda at all, but Obsidian is easily one of my favorite studios.

I know that Drakensang Online is a complete hack & slash game - Bigpoint wanted it so.

I've disconnected myself from it.

At the RPC here in Germany, I had the chance to talk to Bernd Beyreuther a bit, and got my Personal Edition of Drakensang 2 signed by him (the certificate, in fact).

He sounded a bit sad as he said that "not enough people bought it".

My honest first thought was 'poor Alrik'. I know how fond you are of The Dark Eye.

On the bright side, though, a signed edition of Drak 2 isn't a terrible consolation

Yes, it is.

By the way, a "PLatinum Edition" has just been announced for all of the Drakensang games ...

... And - shame on me - I still haven't got the expension ...

I love Kotor II, but it's the only Obsidian game I truly consider to outshine its predecessor (because gameplay in Kotor I wasn't all that stellar either). Obsidian games have generally better characters and writing than their predecessor from another studio, but gameplay-wise they're usually worse.

Even though KOTOR II is one of my favorite role-playing games, it's actually my least favorite Obsidian game.

Dungeon Siege III didn't even have good loot like Dark Alliance. Arcanum was terribly unbalanced and buggy. They have potential but they just seem to rush their games. When they were Black Isle, they were defiantly better as they made Planescape but they'll never revisit that glory in my opinion.

Well, to be fair, no-one else has ever matched PS:T either

The last 'Gothic' (Arcania) game is quest and skill wise a big looser !!! Almost all the quests are the same kind of "Go here, go there and find this or that ... boring and this game has NO Soul, totally no creative investment the devs did for making it more ...

The game takes itself too seriously ... but I must say I laught many times hearing the NPC's speaking ....

My most hated RPG is (Sorry Demonic I know you like it) Dragon Age Origens. That game for me was a big let down, I wish I never tormented myself & my console by playing it. That game did nothing toward making me like it, all it did was make me angry for wasting my time. I feel ashamed just seeing it on my Achievements list on the 360, in my opinion that game had no passion heart or soul put into it.

My rant on Dragon Age 1 : http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1061088363&postcount=5

your spot on with that discrition of DA Alrik if you have'nt alrady seen my rnt about DA then check out the DKS sales thread

If you played it on console, I can understand that entirely. It probably should not have been released to console, as it's blatantly a PC game. Of course the reverse is true of DA2. Bioware are weird...

On PC, though, it's probably the best actual RPG since the Baldur's Gate series...

I could see how the battle system might work for the PC, but I just couldn't get into the story.

The plot is nothing to write home about in DA, but it's the characterisation that will draw you in. You slowly build up a team of fellow eccentrics, if you will, to save the world with - and they all have a reason to be there. You can talk to them at any time and they will offer thoughts and opinions.

Every character you meet in the game, however minor, has their own reasons for acting in the way they do and their own motives for why they do things. There are points where NPC reactions will depend on who is in your party. The world itself is so well thought out it seems to live and breathe - there's a real sense of history to it and you don't have to read codices or manuals to get it, because it's all there in play.

It's probably the most realistic world ever developed for a computer game (Rather than adapted from novels, tabletop RPGs, etc).

It's not a perfect game, don't get me wrong. There are some areas that are just too much fighting with no variation and others that get old fast in subsequent plays through. But it's still the best party based RPG of recent years.

(Best single character RPG being Witcher 2, of course. That is... incredible!)

I understand there are people that love the game but I could just never get into it, I made 3 different characters but gave up trying to like it halfway through my 3rd playthrough. I will give DA this much though & that's the fact that I actually completed it which is more than I can say for Two Worlds which I only made it halfway through the story & thought this is s***

So yeah actually I change my mind Two Worlds is the worst with DA in a close 2nd

Can't have been THAT bad if you completed it twice!

Well it was all down to my friend, I'd been trying to get him to play Final Fantasy because he was always winding my up calling it S*** even though he'd never played it before. So we agreed to trade I would play DA & he'd play FF but because of the whole multi character aspect of DA he made me promise to try more than 1 so I agreed & he played through 8 & I did DA.

Turns out he liked FF but I hated DA

ROFL! Clear win for you, then!

Gotta admit, I like FF8 a lot myself - except for the dreadful draw system! Played that for the characters more than anything. I even have a save game deliberately kept from just before the ballroom scene, which is still my favourite cut scene from any game, ever

Probably the laziest port to PC I've ever seen, but I love the ballroom scene

Yeah 8 is my favourite Final Fantasy & it's also one of my alltime favourite RPG's, The draw system could be a bit annoying but I love the charaters & the story.

Like yourself I've got a save just before the ballroom scene as well, I have 8 on the PS though but I have 2 memory cards soley for 8 lol. I have to have a save just before the dance 1 just before the scene in the Ragnarok & I always keep 1 for the ending.

Endings funny! I love the home vids!

My favourite FF game is 12, though, because of the actual gameplay. The summons might be completely useless, but for the first time FF games have a real time system, positional tactics and you can see the opposition coming because they are on screen rather than appearing out of thin air. It plays like a proper RPG, in other words! I really like the skill improvement system, too. For probably the first time in an FF game you can create a party you want to play rather than the one they give you.

8 is all about the characters, which are so well done, and the cut scenes which are so beautifully styled. The ballroom scene, especially, is so perfect. The body language is brilliant on every level. I was in awe of that the first time I saw it, and it's still as wonderful to me today, even though graphics have advanced so much since that time.

I wish they'd remake 8 with the 12 engine, though I know that will never be, sadly. Then port it to PC to allow for fantastic graphics, of course!

I did like 12's battle system but the story was nothing next to most of the FF games. I think that FF 13 would have been an amazing game had they'd used 12's battle system instead of the good for nothing pile of moogle fodder they uesd in it.

Story of 12 is not great, yeah. I couldn't even work out why most of the characters were there and I definitely had NO clue why the lead was the lead, or why everyone thought he should be in charge.

Ashe or Balthier would both have been far better leads, IMO.

yeah I agree Vaan had no right to be the lead, I could never work it out either, I think Ashe should have been the lead. After all we were fighting to free her kingdom, so why did Vaan end up being the hero & not Ashe I'll never be able to figure that out.


but if you asked Balthier he WAS the leading man lol

Both Balthier and Ashe had clear claim to the lead, I think. Ashe because of her kingdom, yeah, and Balthier coz he was trying to win Ashe. Plus he was easily the best character in the game, which never hurts!

Vaan was a really weird choice because he actually has no real purpose in the story. Ashe does all the 'Royal descendent' stuff, Balthier is the one with personal ties to the other side. Vaan is just sort of there. He doesn't even get a single moment where the plot turns on him alone. Very weird choice.

It's odd for FF, where the lead usually has some vital role to perform, whatever their personal shortcomings.

It's a shame that the story is so poorly thought out, because the system is easily the best and I genuinely like most of the characters.

Yeah same here I like most of the characters from 12 but Fran & Balthier are by far my favorite ones.

I think that Vaan might have bumped his head at some point & it made him think he was Balthier lol

Maybe thats why Balthier was always insisting he was the lead

"Listen Vaan I'M THE REAL BALTHIER NOT YOU"

ROFL! Makes more sense than the actual plot of FF12, so why not?

I actually loved it on the console...when I mean "loved" it, I mean I enjoyed it greatly. The only difference between versions is that the PC has more keys and the tactical camera but you can handle without those.

It didn't feel awkward and unwieldy on console, Demonic? I stand corrected, then. Though how you could play it without the tac camera, I will never know...

Elliot, have you read my (liked) rant ? I'd like to hear from you what you think about it.

Alrik,

I think you are looking for a very different type of game to what DA:O is.

In a High Fantasy world, the Darkspawn would be the main enemy and the rulers of the various factions would be noble, good and just. There'd be no betrayals, no power politicking and the hero would be a Paladin who gathered a group of altruists around him to combat the Darkspawn for the common good.

I suspect that is what you are looking for and hoping for in a game.

DA:O is Low Fantasy - which means it's a much more realistic world. There are no 'Good Races' (And as the Darkspawn are mindless and mind controlled, arguably no 'Evil Races' either). The main enemy for most of the game is a member of (What should be) your own side who betrays his own king for what he thinks are good reasons. Other factions are paralysed by their own power struggles and/or the results of terrible things done to them and terrible things they have done in their turn. Your character can make a better world, by the end, but it's hard won and does not solve all problems. The group you build is made up not of noble altruists, but damaged and scarred people, some of whom have done terrible things.

This, I suspect, is more your idea of nightmare.

So overall, Alrik, I'd say you are both right and wrong in your analysis. Anyone playing the game and trying to be a High Fantasy hero is going to be frustrated and disappointed. Not all the quests end neatly or nicely, not everyone who should be good and noble is even a bearable person. Everyone in your recruited party is a deeply flawed failure as a person (Though you can help some of them become better people).

Anyone playing the game for the happy glow of Good always triumphing over Evil and Justice reigning over all will hate DA:O. Anyone looking for deeply nuanced characters and a thoroughly believable world will love it, as I do.

See, personally I don't care if a game is High Fantasy or Low. I enjoy strong characterisation, great storytelling and a world that lives and breathes. That's what makes me happy, as a player. I get the same joy from a well crafted tale that is High or Middle or Low Fantasy, and the same things annoy me when done poorly in all. I want to walk into a new world, full of believable people. Give me that and I'm going to enjoy the game.

Yes, I felt sorry for the ghost child you mention and wished there was some way to re-unite it with its mother, but I see the fact that the game engaged me emotionally as a positive where you see the way it engaged you as a negative.

Your perspective is entirely valid and right - for you. As mine is for me

^
I agree and disagree with this. The Archdemon is presented as being evil (it's the being controlling the Darkspawn) and it's the true antagonist of the game. The demons in the game are presented as evil and you fight them on many occasions.

I agree that companions aren't your typical knights in shining armor as some have dark pasts but you can try to build a group of good people just as you can build a group of bad people but even the "bad" people have their own codes and morals and one might argue that they aren't "bad" after all. Some of the things Sten says can be called evil but he ultimately wants to destroy the Archdemon and more or less cares about that only and doesn't care about the little things in the way. One could compare him to Renegade Shepard from Mass Effect who doesn't care about anything else other than stopping The Reapers and anyone who gets in his way can die. Morrigan on the other hand...yeah, she's evil.

But yes, Dragon Age: Origins is called a "dark fantasy" for a reason by the developers. It's not your happy little game with a happy ending where the world is saved forever. There's a feeling of victory at the end but you ultimately know that there's still chaos in the world and that the Darkspawn will return. Your victory is just a hint of good in a dark time.

I read Alrik's thoughts on Origins and I know what he's talking about, I remember in one of my favorite quests (the one with the almost blind Templar - Ser Otto), you go throughout a orphanage fighting demons, seeing children's ghosts running about and seeing all sorts of demonic and weird stuff. In the end, the Templar is killed but you defeat the demon that was causing the evil in the house. So it's a victory but at the same time, a good man dies.

Demonic,



Yeah, they don't know what 'Dark Fantasy' means! In Dark Fantasy, there are no good people at all, only varying degrees of bad, and everyone is out for themselves. It's a vastly more brutal genre than DA:O is. If you can find the old Theives World novels, they are Dark Fantasy...

***

As for the rest - I never said the group you recruit are bad people. Broken, scarred and damaged, yes, but not 'Evil'.

Morrigan is the way she is because her Mother raised her in isolation like that and she has no idea how else to be. That's not 'Evil' because she has made no concious choice. Leliana has a vastly darker background than Morrigan does, and most of that was by her choice. Her old self could easily be described as 'Evil', but she's fled from it and is attempting to become a new person. Sten has his own codes of honour that are those of his own people. Alistair is a completely hapless moron, Oghren is a drunken wreck, and Zevran is a bit of a Morrigan in that he was thrown into his career with no choice. Wynne, for all her good advice, is more neutral than outright good. You might say Zevran is evil, or that he's a survivor. You could say Leliana was. The rest - no.

As for the Archdemon being 'Evil' - are you sure? Do you ever get the slightest idea of what the thing actually wants or why it does what it does? It and the Darkspawn are inimical to the Dwarves, Elves & Humans, but, as the Architect proved in Awakening it doesn't always have to be that way...

Oh, I'll agree the Sloth Demon and the like are 'Evil', but they are a minor sidebar, not part of the main opposition. They aren't allied to the Archdemon or to anyone but themselves.

I wouldn't call a setting where mages need to be locked up in towers because they can possibly be possessed by demons and tear apart the land, not to mention where there is a country where magic is practiced in the streets, "low fantasy". "Low fantasy" settings have few to no supernatural elements.

"High fantasy" also doesn't exclude political intrigue and betrayals, Lord of the Rings is an example of this. Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance settings are other examples of staple high fantasy worlds, and both feature plenty of political intrigue and betrayals. The main theme of high fantasy is a grand struggle to save the world, which Dragon Age is all about.

About Morrigan: she only cares about herself and at many points is against helping people, at some points even supporting killing of innocents. That's the very definition of "evil" in a fantasy world.

Whether or not she had a choice into becoming who she became (this is also true for the other characters) doesn't exclude her actions.

'Low Fantasy' is not about the level of magic, Virumor, any more than 'High Fantasy' is. You won't find a whole lot of magic in LotR, for example, beyond the rings and a few other equally scarce items. You're probably thinking of 'Low Magic', not 'Low Fantasy'.

'High Fantasy' is not necessarily a grand struggle to save the world (Though often it is). Look at your own examples - is every adventure set on Toril about saving the world? Not even close. It's a standard RPG setting, with 'Good Races' and 'Evil Races' and the lines clearly drawn. There is definite 'Good' and 'Evil' and little of the grey lines that denote Middle or Low Fantasy.

I agree that in a High Fantasy world Morrigan would certainly be considered 'Evil'. The fact that she was brought up the way she was and has had no chance and no choice would not count as mitigating factors in any High Fantasy setting. Brainwashing from birth (Or near as) would cut no ice.

But to me 'Evil' (And 'Good' for that matter) must always involve conscious choice. To be either, one must know there are alternatives and either choose to act solely for oneself ('Evil') or choose to act for the benefit of others ('Good').

Evil is also about action - and that's true in any setting. What does Morrigan actually DO, in the game, that you could honestly describe as 'Evil'? She can be abrasive and unpleasant and if the player chooses to do evil things she will certainly not object, but she takes no action of her own. Even in her past, as described by her to the player, she hasn't done anything that could be considered 'Evil'.

Compare with Zevran and Leliana, both of whom have done some very evil things.

Morrigan is certainly no angel and she's neither a nice nor a pleasant person, but none of that makes her 'Evil'.

Morrigan may have been raised in isolation by a witch or dark being but I think - if given the choice - she would carry out evil deeds as she often enjoys seeing The Warden doing such. If we were to judge her by her actions, then she's evil because she wants to bring an "Old God" baby into the world from the soul of the archdemon. She's selfish and only out for herself unless you romance her which makes her care about you too.

Leliana was evil once but she turned from her ways and can be described as lawful good. Alistair can be described as chaotic good (killing Loghain if you let him). Duncan can be described as Renegade Shepard but sympathetic too. He too has a dark past but repented. Duncan mostly only cares about stopping the Darkspawn threat (and if you read the books or history on DA Wikia, Duncan was to protect their (Grey Wardens) guide in The Deep Roads, King Maric Theirin, or, should the king learn information detrimental to the Order, kill him, this shows that The Grey Wardens only care about the Darkspawn threat and while they would probably feel bad about killing innocents - if need be, they would do it because the Darkspawn are the greater threat) mages, Templars and politics can go to Hell for all he cares.

Zevran can be called selfish too and probably lawful evil.

Since this game is the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate (a D&D game) it's not hard to see how the characters in the game have alignments from D&D.

I mean the player is given the option of healing a wounded soldier in the Korcari wilds or killing him for no reason. The neutral choice is to patch him up a bit so he can make his way back to camp himself. Let's not forget how many innocents you can kill at times, from the Doomsayer in Redcliffe, to the bartender and even that prisoner in Ostagar.

I'd like to point out that this is why I love Dragon Age. People have different views on the characters because of the depth surrounding them. As I was telling Divine Avenger in the DKS sales thread, DKS doesn't have this kind of character depth with characters to warrant people to even discuss or debate about them. I'm hoping this changes with the Dragon Commander game, having characters with extensive backgrounds and depth helps immerse you with them. I'm only immerse with The Divine One because I played as him and can feel attachment with him whereas with Damien - he (along with Zandalor) - is the only NPC (while we can control him in Beyond Divinity, he's not the protagonist and is simply our companion throughout the game) that I feel has some depth.

The Divinity series basically only has Zandalor and Damien as the most interesting characters. Bellegar and Ziz-Zax are simply just there and slightly interesting but only their dialogue remains memorable and not them themselves. Maxos is also somewhat memorable because of how the game hints to him, his adventures, importance to the past and his sudden disappearance. There's also a lot of lore to his background.

Zandalor is interesting because of how he sees things. He's not presented as the mentor or the guy who you could fall back too. He's not presented as the guy who knows everything too. He's powerful and a force to be reckoned with but he's not Gandalf (despite the similarities). If The Divine failed, Zandalor wouldn't have been able to save the world. He's presented as having hope in his heart but also seeing how things could be bad if all fails. He's also presented as being a man who loves all that is good. This can be seen when he meets The Demon of Lies who he absolutely despises.

In Divinity 2, he's forgettable because he's presented as the mentor, even his voice and hand/arm movements hint to him just being there as the DKS mentor and the guy who can be relied upon. He just appears from nowhere to debate with Damien and then to tell you to take dragon form. In Divine Divinity, after The Divine One's death and resurrection, you see how Rivellon has gone to Hell in the time you've been gone. In Divinity 2, he saves the day with the help of the Dragon Knight. Also in Divinity 2, he's far more optimistic. "FEAR NOT ALEROTH FOR I WILL SAVE YOU YET!" and then speaking poetry about The DK's journey "An epic in the making! You are part of a conflict, the conclusion of which you shall decide!" In Divine Divinity he's more down to earth.

Damien is interesting because of his motives, because of how he loves Ygerna and because of his colorful background and history. There's some mystery to him and that's what makes him interesting. He's not presented as a depthless villain who you just kill and then "Game over". There's so much more to him.

Dragon Age: Origins has Alistair, Duncan, Loghain, Calian, Morrigan, Leliana, Zevran, Sten, Oghren and Shale who all have their own personality, goals, morals and code that they live by and there's more to them than meets the eye. Oghren - while always being drunk - was actually a warrior for a noble dwarven house and he was married to the Paragorn Branka who later ditched him because she was lesbian...ahem. While he may appear insensitive to things at times, he does care about those that he loved and in Awakenings, you can even get him to finally spend time with his son. Sten - while appearing all stoic - actually has a good side to him and actually turns out to be quite honorable where at first, I thought he was evil but he simply follows a code that I disagree with but even still, he has honor and approves of you bringing an injured warrior (in the Brecilian forest) back to his camp so he could be healed.

This is why I feel Origins is the better RPG. Characters have more depth.

Demonic,



In this we are entirely agreed!

As for AD&D alignments for party members, I think I would go with this:

Alistair: NG. He doesn't do much in the way of impulsive things, but he isn't really into planning, either, preferring to allow others to do the thinking. The 'Goodest' member of the group, though.

Leliana: was LE (Planner, assassin), is trying hard to be NG when you meet her. By the end might be NG or NE depending on your choices.

Sten: LN. Follows the laws of his own people to the absolute. The evil thing he does to land him in the cage is the result of temporary madness and not a part of his usual character.

Morrigan: LE (Yes, the AD&D alignment system is very High Fantasy). Seemingly more interested in her own amusement than anything else, Morrigan nonetheless has a long term plan that is mainly of benefit to herself and can plan on the fly when she has to (As with her personal quest).

Zevran: NE. Zevran is totally amoral and goes where the winds of fate take him. He is not going to protest at very evil acts, nor at very good acts, either, but at the same time he doesn't perform good or evil acts himself unless he feels he has to. Zevran is probably a sociopath in that the only person he actually cares about is himself (Although if befriended or romanced, he will care about what happens to the PC, too). I nearly went with TN for him because he's entirely a reactive character. He's not ever going to do anything unless forced to by other people or by circumstance.

Wynne: LG. Planner, cares about others. I get the impression that Wynne has sort of become LG through slow progression over many years, so she's more lg than LG, if you get me. She's a bit relaxed in both and has certainly done many things in her past that are not really either.

Oghren: CN. Oghren is a creature of impulse, who stumbles from one train wreck situation to the next, usually while drunk or pursuing the next skirt, or both. Hopeless at anything that involves planning, he's simply there to hit things.

Loghain: LE. Master planner who is out to accomplish his own goals come what may and who could not care less who might get hurt by the fallout - including his own daughter! The very definition of LE, in fact.

Duncan: LG. Believes that the greater good trumps all else and is wiling to risk all in order to defeat the evil that threatens his land. By any measure, Duncan is LG.


And the really great thing with DA:O is, as you say Demonic, that every one of those alignments could be debated over with plenty of evidence for and against, because the characters really are that nuanced

"Dark Fantasy" - yes, that's in a way the term that most describes it for me.

Thanks for your view, Elliot, I appreciate it.


My main grudge right now is that *everyone* is currently going the "Dark Fantasy" route. It's like a kind of fashion to me. It's as if the whole industry says to me : "na, you don't want that", regarding "Light Fantasy" as a contrast.

I'm definitively keeping my eyes open for the Medieval SIMs, and I plan to buy it one day.

Alrik,

I think the real problem is that the larger a company gets the more it fears to innovate, honestly.

Games cost more and more money to produce, so games companies want to get maximum return from their investment, so they play safe by following the trends. Occasionally, one will break the mould and try something a bit unusual, then if it does well it will be proclaimed 'The new Big Thing' and done to death by everyone.

You only have to look at the number of franchise titles that basically churn out slight variations of the same game, over and over, to see that's true.

You know as well as I that the people at the top of these companies don't actually talk to gamers. The smaller the company, the more likely they are to actively engage with their customers, get feedback and innovate. The people at the top of the bigger companies are totally walled off and they study their statistics without any proper frame of reference.

So we get ludicrous conclusions like 'Many gamers stop playing our game before Point X, therefore our game is too long' when the real reason is that the lead up to 'Point X' is intensely boring. 'Poor sales must be due to pirates' when they put out a poor game that is so graphically advanced it will only run on one in a hundred PCs anyway... But you get the idea. The top people are just not living in the same world as their customer base.

So what you have is a set of large companies pouring immense amounts of money into games that the top levels of the company - the people okaying all the projects - don't really understand. Of course they slavishly follow fashion. With that set up and that amount of money at risk, what else can they do?

Is it possible to create a High Fantasy game that is as deeply nuanced as Dragon Age: Origins or Witcher 2? Of course it is. But it requires a studio head to realise that the real draw of both is immersive worlds combined with great characterisation (And, in W2's case, great plotting). Fans of Fantasy RPGs tend to like Fantasy RPGs. There are a few people with definite darker/lighter preferences, but most of us don't care.

Sometimes it's the simple things. There can't be too many gamers who don't feel a thrill the first time it starts raining in the Witcher games and the townsfolk all react to it by running for cover. That's not 'Light' or 'Dark' - that's just a really effective way of making your world come to life.

So yes, High Fantasy RPGs could be created as AAA titles by major companies and they would probably do as well as Low Fantasy games. But to get that, you'd need a major studio to abandon their attempts at statistical analysis and genuinely look at what made games like DA:O and The Witcher sell so well. It's never been about 'Dark'; always about 'Depth'.

It's less about the developers but more about the publishers that want a return of investment and hence eschew all risks... which is the reason why most games nowadays are so formulaic.

Not a single (big) publisher for instance wished to support Dragon commander, for instance, because it was deemed too unusual, too risky... hence it's being self-funded.

& thank god it is because I'd hate for a company like EA to get there hand's on the Divinity game's.

I think it's both, Virumor. You only have to look at Bioware to see what I mean. I don't think for a single moment they set out to completely alienate most of their fanbase with DA2, yet they clearly failed to understand why DA:O was popular in any way, shape or form. That extreme disconnect between creators and gamers is, sadly, all too common.

But that's why I love Larian because they actually make time to talk to there fanbase which is part of what makes them so special in my eyes.

And Larian Studios not only "talk" with the fanbase ... but also they read many of the posts on these forums .. but have most of the time no time to react (and in fact, it's most of the time not needed),
because the fans here are almost begging the new upcoming projects D & E are coming as fast as possible !

Yes indeed ... BIG MACBETH IS WATCHING YOU

I don't know if I should feel honered or scared lol

oh well i guess i'll just have to be carefull who I hurl a fireball at when my dragon form go's on it's time of the month lol.

There is currently one or more discussions going on right npw at RPGWatch, and in this, vbasically the same observation was made : http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14701


Another thing I mentioned at the Games Com is this : Things can become a self-fulfilling prophecy as well.

"This won't sell" -> won't be deveöloped, or only so s"sloppily" the finished product is of good quality -> it really doesn't sell enough.

Another thing is what I call "training/educating" the customer/potential buyer". It goes like this _ The customer is offered only several varieties of ice cream flavors. This makes them believe that only these would sell -> "no experiments !" , which is a very conservative point of view (this sentence was actually used by the conservative parties in the 50s I think).

The other point is when marketing says : "this is great - go and buy it!" aka "This is the new shit !" -> Dragon Age marketing campaign. It's like ... using marketing tools to nudge the (potential) customers into a certain direction. And marketing can do quite a lot, psychologically !

Just look at all of these shooter games nd WWII games nowadays - they're all basically of the same breed - but marketing keeps telling is they're all great and improved.

Alrik,

Marketing is important, because if no-one has ever heard of your game they can't buy it. A lot of really good games have gone under the radar for that reason. However, you're right that marketing very often makes claims that are, shall we say, barely justifiable in relation to the facts.

There's no doubt a lot of people (Probably most of us) can be persuaded to buy things by good advertising, but I don't think it deters them from wanting other things, too.

You only have to see how things like Minecraft and The Witcher came out of nowhere to achieve great popularity because they were offering something genuinely new and people responded to that. The main initial 'advertising' for both was simply a lot of gamers telling each other how great they were.

I didn't think people are ever deterred from innovation. What they (We) all do, however, is continue to buy games that are often very similar to each other because we know we will like them.

There's interest in the new, but comfort in the familiar. That's just people

Oddly, I've seen Bioware post on their forums and speak with people...shame they didn't take all that positive feedback they got with Origins and make Origins 2 instead of Dragon Age 2. We were happy with Origins. Still, Bioware claims that they have learnt their lesson and Dragon Age 3 is supposed to be set in Orlais and the Tevinter Imperium and judging by reviews of their Legacy DLC for DA2, they have got enemy positions and environments right now and I doubt we'll be seeing the waves of enemies falling from the sky and I doubt that there will be recycled environments now for DA3 and future DA2 DLC's.

Dragon Age 3 will probably be a great game if they have truly took fan feedback to heart as they claim so but it's obvious we still aren't getting an Origins 2...

Demonic,

They post, they speak - but until the storm hit I'm not sure they actually listened. Whether they're listening now, of course, we won't know until DA3 comes out... And if that's Origin exclusive or has to be tied to an online account, I'm going to assume they still aren't hearing very well...

of course there not EA is there publisher, when does anything in a game go the way the fans want when EA is involved with it.

Bioware do sometimes manage to win their battles with EA. Just not enough, sadly...

Yeah tell me about it EA just seem to have a bad habit/talent for distroying potentially amazing game's. I might have ended up liking DA if it had'nt have made me feel like killing myself from deprestion & boredom come the end. I blame that on EA because 90% of Biowere games I've played I've liked so it's easy for me to just blame EA because I just don't like them lol.

The way Origins was developed isn't to be blamed on EA. They're only to blame for DA2 being rushed and we know Origins wasn't rushed. The only good I've seen from EA is The Lord of The Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2.

Battle for Middle earth was better than 2

2 was good still and it's an opinion anyway. In 1, you could only build in certain places. Though it had the Isengard faction for the story and they are my favorite evil faction.

I had played one of both ... It became too repetitive for my taste after a while ...

Yeah liked the fact that you could build anywere on 2 but I loved that you were able to play as the 4 different factions on 1. Also the maps were awsome & I liked the fact that your team rank went up the more you played with them. Another thing I liked was that the maps showed what difficalty you beat them on so your friends would know you were'nt lying when you said you beat all the maps on the hardest difficalty.

The campaigns were pretty good too and I liked the heroes and how they leveled up. Skirmish mode added even more fun as you could play as Isengard and have Gondor as your allies. I remember once, the Dwarves (who were my enemies along with the goblins, Gondor were my allies) built these walls around their area which I was surprised with since I had never seen the computer AI do that before. I believe this only happens on certain maps though (as I saw it several times on the same map and several times in The Shire map). The battle against the Dwarves was fun and actually lasted for hours. Both of us destroyed the entire battlefield and you could see the fire scorch marks everywhere. Best battle ever, it almost resembled an apocalyptic battle.

Yeah you could have epic battles on both games, but I don't know exactley why but 2 just did'nt seem as good too me. I love no1 & it is forever installed on my PC the only time it's ever been removed is when my computer braeks & is in need of reformating. Then it just goes straight back on & I start again lol.

Worst RPG's?

FFX- bad characters, overhyped, newb's just as rabid over this game... bad horrible game.
Grandia III- i loved Grandia II. Grandia III was horrible. also, the game i had bought was scratched so a lot of the cutscenes would freeze and i had to skip over them... so i didn't get much of the story.
Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King... it wasn't a bad game, nor were there great things to say about this game- over all, it was a boring game. in my opinion: boring games are just as bad as bad games...
Wild ARMs 4- blargh... this game was garbage compared the series.
Infinite Undiscovery- just thinking about this game gives me a migraine. so much wasted potential twisted and thrown into a blender- made it worse.
Blue Dragon- like Dragon Quest VIII, boring. nothing to make it stand out, but nothing to praise about this game. boring = bad.

and i enjoyed Alpha Protocol.

the only bad thing I had to say at first about FF X was the fact that you couldn't explore the world from the start of the game. After I started to get over my rage I realisedd just how beautyfull the game was I found myself stopping & just watching the trees & the grass swaying in the wind. Grandia 1 was the best Grandia game it's availible to download on the PS3 marktplace if your interested.

Since I'm a hardcore RPG player, I have high tolerance to the RPGs. But I'm definitely agree with you. Mistmare was a terrible game by all standarts. After had been reading all the interviews, previews and seeing the screenshots, I was expecting a game that can saturate my hungry to the Gothic style games. I may be wrong, but the release date of Mistmare was 2002 and Gothic 2 didn't reach to the English territory yet. I even continue to play it out of my optimism that it will be better in the later of the game. Nope, after 20 hours that wasted into the game, I said it's enough. All that I remind of the game is the terrible walking sound that still echoing in my head.

By the way, out of topic but 2002 was a great year for RPGs. According to the release dates, Freedom Force, Dungeon Siege, Morrowind, NWN, Warcraft 3, Icewind Dale 2, Divine Divinity, Arx Fatalis, Prince Of Qin all released in 2002.

My another disappointment was a topdown isometric Viking RPG that I can't recall its name. I think it was released in 2000 or 2001. I learned that not all isometric RPG was BG, IWD or PsT by that game.

I'm not even sure if it qualifies as an (a)rpg because I played it exactly 20 minutes and I removed it, never to be played again..Fable 3 ...ok i wasn't expecting flawless game mechanics..but man..that game was BAD..the whole time I was "playing" it i was thinking..why am I doing this to myself..nothing felt smooth, natural, or even interesting or visually appealing..

And Sacred 2..what was that o.O first of all the installation was a mess,with the retarded drm on win7 but then the gameplay was so..not-connecting to the world..I don't know how i can describe it..the whole time i was playing it felt as if the guy on my screen was just doing random things..and I paid for that game,uegh..I'm from the try before you buy principle (and actually do it to, just as i donate to application devs. who make things i really like) and here I didn't do it and voila..I got screwed

Sacred 2 was developed as an multiplayer game. On the RPC one developer once told me that then the solo game is in fact multiplayer - only that there is just 1 player logged on on the game's server.

The first Sacred game was quite Divinity like, IIRC.

Fable 3 (or 2) is not worth my time !! I sell it back with ALL pleasure !!
Fable is a "fable" !!
(I wish it never excist at all, but sadly ... I once pay for it ... ! )

Oblivion.

Siege of Avelon
goddamit that game really sucked...

I liked both Sacred games, and Oblivion (properly modded), and Siege of Avalon. Heck I guess my standards are lower than others.

I liked Siege Of Avalon, too. It was so much ... different. Both in setting and in its performance ... although it used certain Action-RPG elemnts ...

and I like Fable I as well to some extend. However, what i o NOT like at all there is the auto-levelling of the enemies and the "Arch-Enemy" sub-plot ...

Well, I have two candidates ^_^

Some years ago, I tried to reconcile with JRPGs, so I bought a PSP game called "Dragoneer's Aria". It was... awful. Terrible. Incredible boring, full of clichés, with a completely broken magic-system, and so on. Now I can say that "Dragoneer's Aria" managed not only to make reconciliation impossible, but also killed my expectations for the JRPGs in the future. Anyway, I must admit that the music was beatiful ^_^

And, knowing that probably some people would kill me... Ultima 2 Revenge of the Enchantress was a terrible disappointment. I tried to like the game; I loved the first and the third part... but this sequel was extremely confusing, brutally difficult, and very, very annoying. Fortunatelly the franchise got better and better from here ^_^

Also, in a side note...not the worst RPGs I played, but Dragon Age 2 and Oblivion are, without doubt, the two great disappointments I had with the genre.

Sacred 2? Yeah, that was horrible. They give you a massive world to explore but the quests are fetch quests and there's hundreds of enemies every inch you step.

I like Sacred 1, it is quite Divinity like and has some really wacky characters to play with (vampiress, demoness among them) but yeah, Sacred 2 was a massive letdown - basically an offline MMO.

If I'm not mistaken, the game originally was even meant to be an MMO.

Haggh! Urhgh! Argh!

Huaaaaaaaaaaaarghhh...

For me it would be Diablo 3, Fable 3, Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3.

I sense a pattern...

My brother recently got Diablo 3, and thinks it is great fun (even though he isn't fond of the streamlined and dumbed down aspects). Between installing the game, creating a battlenet account and downloading a very large required update, it took him 3 days to get to play, and then the router he was using died (just the internet access for the single player mode was enough for me to give it a pass). A week ago his monk was level 9, and he had yet to use a potion.


Welcome to the forum.

for the welcome

and yep the pattern would be Big Publishers devastating good franchises.

Just played the demo of Realms of Ancient War on the PS3. What a pile of wank that was. See reviews to see what I mean - it's an average isometric view RPG which could have been much better if it were not lacking some basic features.

I did wonder why it set up its own server just for me: that would explain it. I actually rather liked Sacred 2, I thought it had a great atmosphere and didn't take itself too seriously, but I can understand why people might not like it. The mobs could be wearying and the story wasn't the most coherent for a start.

Sacred 1 was planned as an TDE game - you still can see TDE-related assets in it.

I never played Sacred 2 so far because the "Gold" version (containing the Add-On) is still expensive ...

But I had once played the demo on the RPC and found the concept of the "Guardian" very interesting ... He kind of reminds me of the Warforged of DDO nowadays ...

Easy question...Game of Thrones ! (both of them)
Given what a goldmine of lore the books (and HBO series) are and the HUGE fanbase this story already brings to the table, the RPG games could have been epic.
The first game is complete trash pile, the second one is only marginally better and still a waste of time and money and this is not only according to me but the critics, fans and every game review I've seen.
The battle mechanics are awkward and clumsy, the storyline is all over the place and it really is a shame when you look at similar games like The Witcher 2 and so many others that are just so much better, where the devs had so much less to work with than GoT did at the start.
Who knows ? Maybe they'll try it a third time and produce something good but I have my doubts at this point.

Neverwinter Night..seriously this game it's overrated a lot, the story it's plate, the AI it's a shame and the variety of the world game it's..it's ridiculous;
Ok, maybe the particularity of the title is on the web community, mod, multiplayer sessions etc.. but damn, who the hell had a great connectivity in the 2002, plus this dosen't justify the release of an incomplete game or poor of contents.
On the other hand this game helped me a lot, from then I never trusted a review or judgment any more.

Have to agree that NWN1 was rubbish.

Whoever thought of taking a game system (AD&D) designed for 6-8 characters and trying to make the next Diablo out of it was not thinking very clearly (That's the nice version! ).

The original release was also really buggy.

It may have been a great tool set, but it was a lousy game.

Thanks gods I'm not the only one good to know, BioWare fanbase it's just like all fanbase, every games are good for they..
In any case, I must think about the second not worst at all, but even not a so good title, Fable, I see that title more an action than an rpg, played and ended, but wasn't so much good as the review said, a pretty game and nothing more.

Sacred..umm that game was good, I'm still playing, even if the concept is simple I found more funny than Diablo, too bad that the original concept of Sacred was deleted (class hybridization with a multy class system just like Titan Quest, more reactivity of the world space etc..);
Sacred 2 it's a good game now, at the launch there was a lot of bugs that make the game impossible to be played, some correction patch removed the horse armor, a good point of Sacred, but not necessary, what really scares me is the future third chapter after the change of the brand in relationship at the H&S that they made, Sacred Citadel, I hope that they don't waste a good brand.

fable 3 and sacred..urgh..
Kings bounty was ok but the tb in combo with WAY too much encounters made me give up

-> most dissapointed i mush admit= ego draconis (before dks) was waiting so long on the new game, then it came, and the combat system was ..uergh..luckilly when dks came out i tried again and now it's easily one of my fav games (muchos gracias larian )

The worst RPG I've played in recent years would have to be Skyrim. My main problem is that there is minimal roleplaying. Most of the time it doesn't matter what you say or what you do. The end result is almost always the same. There is only one way to resolve most quests. There is only one way to resolve the main storyline. You could become the grandmaster of everything in the game and save the world and the guards and most NPCs will still be just as snooty to you as they were when you were a nobody (most of the time). For example, if you become the Master of the Thieves' guild, the bartender in the ratway will not stop saying "So you're Brynjolf's new protege eh? Don't look like much to me." Sure, there are plenty of mods that can make it look better and tweak the combat, but the roleplaying and story are flawed to the core which ruins the game for me.

Basically all fake RPGs, that are actually action games with some shallow RPG mechanics painted over.

Worst of all though?

That would be a hard choice since there are several contestants there...

Ass defect 2 and especially 3, although ive only played a demo of the second game and then lol quit after half an hour. The third was sufficiently processed around the internet to not even require playing. Which would have cause internal hemorrhage and probably permanent brain lesions.

I would still go for Facepalm3 by bethesda.

Although wasteland 2 is getting really close to topple that. Looks like it was written by the same team of writers that seemingly work for bethesda and bioware. Or well, actually EA.
But atleast the mechanics are bit better.

I don't think NWN was trying to be the next Diablo. Virtually nothing about it is like Diablo as it's not loot based or combat based so I disagree with your views. The original campaign was lousy but the mechanics of the game were executed well and it is probably one of the best AD&D games that actually works. For the better role-playing experience, you have the final expansion of the game which gives you a great campaign.

I brought NWN well after release when it released completely finished and with all of its expansions so I'm only rating the entire package here.



Quite untrue. If you've ever read their forums, you'll find that you have people there who hate Baldur's Gate especially in the sub-forums for some of their newer games. You also have a fairly large bunch who hate DA2 and ME3.



Ditto, it's also the most overrated RPG in recent years. Skyrim fanboys are the worst too. If you thought Bioware fanboys were bad, you haven't argued with a fanboy of Skryim yet! They literally think that their depthless and shallow game is somehow superior to other RPG's because of its empty open world.

I doubt many of the Skyrim fanboys even have the capacity to focus for more than five minutes which is probably why they enjoy Skyrim so much, the game doesn't require much thought, it's just senseless action combined with very minimal roleplaying and unlike other action-RPG's, it doesn't do the action well.

The writing is horrible too. You expect better from an AAA team with a big budget. Even Dragon Age 2 had better writing and that game was rushed.

It's no surprise that many people who think Skyrim is the "best RPG evar!!11" absolutely despise Morrowind and can't complete it. That's a game with non-linear quests, many of which required thought as there's no hand guiding. Unfortunately, it too suffered from terribad combat but at least it was a good RPG.

I don't think I'd go as far as describing Skyrim as the worst RPG ever, but I was somewhat disappointed with it: I think I have to agree that the writing wasn't exactly up to scratch either in terms of quality or quantity, the landscape was featureless and empty, and I always felt that the grumpy, charmless NPCs couldn't wait for me to bugger off and stop expecting anything of them. Such as a smile, which I think I only ever saw on a single occasion.

But in spite of all that, I still managed many reasonably enjoyable hours of wandering about. Just not as much as I did in Oblivion and Morrowind, both of which I could really lose myself in. Never played Daggerfall, I'm afraid to say, the graphics gave me a nasty headache. Pity, it's the sort of thing I think I would otherwise enjoy.

Oblibliion was much, much worse. And facepalm 3 worse then then that.

Demonic,



A friend of mine had to do quite some persuading to get me to try the expansions after the dreadful first game, but I finally did. They certainly improve, but they still ultimately suffer from the same basic problem: AD&D is a system designed and balanced for a group of roughly six characters. It was an appalling design decision to ignore that and none of the games ever truly get over it. Even Hordes, which is a pretty good game, falls foul of this problem.

While the loot system and combat system are not like Diablo (Obviously, as they are based on AD&D), the basic aesthetic of one character against the world is much closer to an ARPG than a proper party based D&D game. The comparison is not meant to be exact, but rather to be an indication of how badly the designers blundered in making NWN1.

The owners of the franchise must have realised it, too, as the far superior NWN2 is a proper party based game.

Kinda hard to say, there have been plenty of old RPG's in the past I thought were the best thing since sliced bread when I was younger, but if I played them today I'd be horrified. (Lands of Lore series for example, loved them then, can't play 'em today)

But the truly cringe worthy titles right off the bat for me have been:

Dragon Age II

Legends of Dawn

the reworked JRPG Ancient Lands of Y's book I & II (the originals were quite good and not your standard fair JRPG, so they decided they needed to remaster it and make them your standard fair JRPG)

Those 3 I think all tie for worst for me.

All games that are NOT from the Divinity Universe

And YES, I'm serious, but to be honest ... :
it's because of the lack of Time for gaming I've decided (already for a long time!)
to play only games maked by Larian Studios .


They are the Best
For me, to satisfy
My RPG - appetite !

Agreed! I played quite a bit of it I have to admit, but I really didn't like the story. The idea of being a pseudo-Medival Superman-Savoir Jack-of-all-trades was the opposite of immersive for me. I guess I can't relate to that brand of hero. The main storylines were the least interesting - I preferred the weird little tangents.

The wizard college one wasn't bad however, better than the civil war/Dragonborn stories anyhow.

I also didn't realize for a time what bothered me about the visual style - but then I read a review that pointed out that Skyrim's settings were less interesting than previous games in the series because everything was basically some variation of a snowscape. Got a bit bland after a while!

Currently i would say Drakensang, because of the fighting system, maybe i will change my opinion when i give it a new try.

For hack and slash rpgs, would say definitely Loki.

I think Loki is the game devs need to look at to know how to not make a game. The amount of problems this game had, the poverty of dialogs(even hns have dialogs, those in Loki are awful), the quality of the support...

I don't know. Most "worst" or "bad" Game i don't remember. There are only very Few examples where i really hated an Game - like Final Fantasy 3 (and thats one of the more popular ones) or Dead Linger/Stomping Land(no RPGs). Or Ride to Hell, if you played that once, you will see that complain about Games like Skyrim are laughable.

Most Time, if i read such Questions, and see some Answer, i get more the feeling of most People want rant about Popular Games, for the sake of ranting. I mean Skyrim, Mass Effect 3, and so on? I mean i won't talk down that some might dissapointed about this Games and i get even the Reason(even though i mostly don't share that) - but to call out this Games, did you Guys actually really play "bad" Games, which deserved to be called bad? I mean like i said, i hate Final Fantasy 3 - but even thought i dislike it, i wouldn't call it as "worst" - because i still can see the Quality behind it. And even if we argue about Skyrim(as example) how bad it might be compared to previous ones, or Divinity, or Witcher 3 - and even if it would be "true", Skyrim is still far away from an bad Game and even Mediocre would be way to much. It still have an High Quality Standart, only goes an different Route.

But im done with my Argument =) I don't want to talk down your opinions, i only want to share my own Viewpoint if i read about such things =)

That's a good point. I've played some RPGs which have made me go "meh" and aren't all they could have been, but I don't think I've played anything that would qualify as being genuinely dreadful (okay, there's the ending of ME3 whose writing really is that terrible, but that's not the whole game). Although I'm fairly easy-going, I don't have endless patience with something that's actually just rubbish, so I think I've probably been quite lucky in that regard.

Part of me thinks I should experience a truly bad RPG just once just to see what it's like. The rest of me isn't too keen on that idea.

I think the only RPG I ever dropped was Arcanum. Game was just too much of a boring combat slog.

Actually, now that you mention that name, I'm reminded of the similar-sounding Arcania, a.k.a "Gothic 4". I remember writing a review of its supposedly early demo version where I said it looked promising... only to discover that basically nothing had changed between the demo and the full release. It was pretty meh, although apart from some really dubious voice acting I still wouldn't say it was terrible, it was just boring. Though given that it was too dull for me to get anywhere near to finishing, I am starting to wonder what I think would actually qualify as terrible... and it has plenty of company when it comes to games I found too tedious to continue, a recent(ish) example being the rather more highly-regarded Tomb Raider.

I mean, there isn't an Problem if you Guys dislike certain Games. That's all about Tastes and Opinion. That's not what i wanted to argue. I simply wanted to Point out, that most time i get the Feeling of such Topics to only rant about Popular Games.

#Arcania:
I can't say much about it. I'm an huge Gothic-Fan, but i didn't have the time yet to play it. I mean from what i've seen, it is an dissapointment as "Gothic" - but it still could be an good Game if i would give it a try.

To be fair to it, it wasn't junk. The graphics were nice enough and so on, it just felt to me that it was somewhat lacking in substance.

Then again, I like Gothic 3 so what do I know? :p I might've taken a different opinion had I played it before its eventual patch to fix its widely reported problems. The only slight oddity with G3 is the almost total absence of female NPCs: I've seen it suggested that they had to get the game ready for distribution before they'd finished, hence the buggy release, and getting the female characters designed and their dialogue recorded was another casualty, supposedly.

Still trying to think of something genuinely and objectively bad that I've played, but either I haven't played anything that bad or my mind has just erased it. I did find one reviewer's vlog of Big Rigs to be particularly hilarious, though.

I've don't think I've played anything really bad either. I will say that the only one I couldn't get into was Avernum but, to be fair, I haven't tried the later versions of it, just the original, and that was extraordinarily dated in all ways by the time I played it. I think they're (or is it he? Seems like a one-man show for the most part) into the third version of it now. I've played Avadon I and II by the same maker and enjoyed it.

Some stick out; as mentioned prior, Gothic I,II, and III are wonderful games and most seemed not to like the series since the original team was bought out but that (and this was said above too) doesn't mean that it isn't a good game - only that it differed significantly in many ways from the earlier ones.

Another that I feel stands out is (after the user patches like the "True patch Gold" or the latest "Unofficial patch basic" have been applied) Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines.

--- and, of course, we all know of "Original Sin".

Definitively DungeonSiege 1 for me ... The demo of DS2 was okay-ish, same with the demo of DS 3.
I shudder even today because of these games.

And even although I played Blizzard's D2+LOD, I've grown a strong, very strong distaste of it these days. I just can't stand playing these games anymore.

On a similar level, I don't play Action-RPGs and RTS in general anymore. It's just too boring to me these days.

Plus, everything is becoming more and more like "heavy-metal-games" in art, styling and graphics. Awful, in my opinion.
And that based on the strong, very strong asumption of people nowadays that everything without combat, lighthearted in both story and graphics = childish, immature and what not ...

I've been digging out Drakensang 2 in the recent weeks and I'm having a blast ! I totally love this game ...

I'd like to try out Pillars Of Eternity, but for that I need a new PC ...

I'd say Sword Coast Legends. So uninspired and bland when I was looking forward to a decent D&D campaign after a long hiatus from the NWN series.