Top 10 CRPGs of all time

Hi,

this is my first post here - so be kind

My top 4:

1. Wizardry 8 (Sir-Tech/Linda Currie)
Best turn based combat system ever. Very detailed world. Perfect character improvement. Orginal quests.

2. Albion (exThalion team/Blue byte)
Very hard not to be No.1. Hmm, maybe it is. - Best world design ever (Much better than Planescape Torment Imho.). This game lives.

3. ADoM (Thomas Biskup)
Roguelike game of extraordinary quality created by one man. TB is genius.

4. Realms of Arkania: Star Trail (Attic Entertainment Software)
Freedom. Adventure. Myths.

CRPGs which mean much to me:

Wizardry 7 (Sir-tech Software, Inc. /David W. Bradley)
Game for maniacs. Yes, I'm one of them.

Dungeon Master 1 (FTL)
Good old DM1.

Ishar 2 (Silmarils)
Nice maps, hard puzzles and intersting interaction between group members.

Ultima Underworld 1 + 2 (Looking Glass Technologies)
Depth.

Rage of Mages (Nival Interactive)
Multiplayer as single - Each piece of new equipment is SO great improvement. In no further game I have so big joy from poor leather armour or iron sword like in RoM.

Amberstar (Thalion)
I didn't have the rune table from manual so I must deciphered it!

Knights of Xentar AKA Dragon knight 3 (Megatech Software)
My dark pleasure in my teen years . But very good game nevertheless.
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And now I play Ambermoon under Amiga emulator. This game WILL be in the list. It's fantastic!
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I prefer turn based CRPGs and I'm very sad that their time ended
Last one was Gods: Lands of Infinity (not too bad - very nice slavonic mood)

1. Ultima Underworld 1
2. Ultima Underworld 2
3. Betrayal at Krondor
4. System Shock 1
5. Gothic 1
6. Divine Divinity
7. Fallout 2
8. Kotor 1
9. Baldurs gate 2
10. Baldurs gate 2 ToB

Albion, Realms of Arkania, Ishar, Ultima Underworlds and Rage of Mages are games I've never played before but am gonna try soon. They might make it to my list too

I once tried to get inti the first Ishar game (got the trilogy from a friend), but always died, the game was just too hard for me, and I never really understood the ovverall controls and everything, since i had the feeling to be instantly trown into this world with no preparation at all.

I really would like to play it through, but with the party constantly dying and no hints at all I think it will be long until I try it again.

I have played all three parts of Ishar series and all of three I have finished. But sometimes it was damn hard. That's true. But it's really worth a try.

Originally Posted by Artran
Hi,

this is my first post here - so be kind

My top 4:

1. Wizardry 8 (Sir-Tech/Linda Currie)
Best turn based combat system ever. Very detailed world. Perfect character improvement. Orginal quests.

Well, clearly you have excellent taste. You can stay.
Welcome to the boards.

Originally Posted by dteowner
Well, clearly you have excellent taste. You can stay.
Welcome to the boards.

Thanks

And what is bad taste? Diablo? Final fantasy? or Quake

Well, I'd say Morrowind and Oblivion, although that might be a rather unpopular opinion.

Originally Posted by Artran
Thanks

And what is bad taste? Diablo? Final fantasy? or Quake

Nah, those are great games for their respective genres*.
They're just lousy CRPGs





*Action, JRPG, FPS

Originally Posted by dteowner
Well, I'd say Morrowind and Oblivion, although that might be a rather unpopular opinion.

Well IMO this is the good example when concessions to vast population kill good series. Especially Oblivion seems like arcade game to me sometimes… But the worst thing is that all RPG games look identical nowadays. No effort to be original and riddles are always too easy. This is the reason why I started to play roguelike games.

And btw have you played Wizardry VIII in ironman mode? That's experience!

Originally Posted by Artran
And btw have you played Wizardry VIII in ironman mode? That's experience!

I agree! I played Wiz8 in ironman mode when it first came out and it was one of the most enjoyable times I've ever had in a CRPG. That was (who knows how many) hours well spent IMO…

Truly great game.

Originally Posted by narpet
I agree! I played Wiz8 in ironman mode when it first came out and it was one of the most enjoyable times I've ever had in a CRPG. That was (who knows how many) hours well spent IMO…

Truly great game.

You should try Roguelike games then. There is also only one save positon which is after your death cruelly deleted. (ADoM, Angband, Dungeon Crawl, DOOM RL etc.)

I have 7 wins and well over 100 parties taken at least as far as Arnika. One of those wins was in ironman and one was on "hard" difficulty. Yeah, I've tried it.

The slave drivers here (looking at you, Corwin) were trying to harass me into doing a solo faerie ninja in ironman, but I didn't get far. Half the fun of Wiz8 is the interaction of the skills among a party, so a solo run is a little too much like work for me.

I haven't been able to get my hands on Wizardry 8. But I have the earlier wizardry games so might try the 6th or 7th one sometime.

Guess I should keep trying to obtain number 8 too, huh?

Originally Posted by dteowner
I have 7 wins and well over 100 parties taken at least as far as Arnika. One of those wins was in ironman and one was on "hard" difficulty. Yeah, I've tried it.

I'm in the right company here then. :-) But I'm not so hardcore as you - I just like to play good games ;-)

I haven't been able to get my hands on Wizardry 8. But I have the earlier wizardry games so might try the 6th or 7th one sometime.

Guess I should keep trying to obtain number 8 too, huh?

Yep - and a very cool feature of Wizardry 6,7 and 8 is:
You can export your final save and use your party in the next game.

thartanian - The gameplay, plot, pretty much everything about it I disliked. I didn't like the older FF's that I played either, but I disliked them less than this one.

JDR13 - I have, but I didn't like it as much as IV. I didn't get to play it until the GBA collection was released, so that may have affected my opinion of it somewhat though. IV was my favorite of the series.

Zakhary - J-RPGs just tend to lack a lot of the gameplay elements I like. ToS did as well, but it made up for it with a fun (IMO) combat system and amusing storyline. Most J-RPGs seem to me to be about as much RPG as Sonic the Hedgehog without any gameplay.

Artran - You can't handle 'kind'. But you'll notice that your tastes run right in line with a lot of people who has posted in this thread. Welcome, stay awhile. STAY FOREVER!

I had one of the Ishar games, but the disk was bad so I never have played it.

Originally Posted by HiddenX
Yep - and a very cool feature of Wizardry 6,7 and 8 is:
You can export your final save and use your party in the next game.

Same with the ROA games.

But this feature seemes to have died out; I don't know *any* other newer game that has it.

Well…. I think these days there are not a lot of long running RPG series at all where there'd be any point in importing your characters.

In fact I can't even think of a series running now that could have this kind of feature

NWN2 will have it, and I think one of the expansions to NWN1 did as well but can't remember which.