RPGWatch - Game of the Year 2012 Awards: Best RPG

Seems it was a good year to have a backlog of RPGs to play . I am currently hooked on Dark souls, so I'm happy it got a mention here, although it's an RPG only in a rather loose sense, I would say. ME3 (and 2) still wait unplayed in my steam library…

I am surprised Risen 2 didn't make it into the top 3 though, considering the strong Piranha Bytes fan faction we have on the watch. But admittedly I myself didn't even get the game so far, what I read and saw rather turned me off, although I will give it a try eventually.

Next year should be interesting, provided a number of the Kickstarter games actually get finished.

@Myrthos - thanks for putting these together, I always enjoy the awards, provides a nice look back and ample opportunity for discussion.

I'm also surprised Risen 2 didn't score higher. It was a good game once you got past the awkward start.

As for ME3, it's a worthy winner in my opinion, mainly because there were no truly amazing games in 2012 (FNV, Skyrim, etc). The last 10 min pretty much pulled it down quite a bit by its own, as did the lack of proper side quests, but the Geth vs Quarian + Krogan vs Salarian questlines were excellent. Top notch stuff.

What the hell, you guys. I mean, sure, I know it was a relatively poor year for RPGs, but…Mass Effect 3? It's not even that much of an RPG, good game or not.

But oh well, disadvantage of public polls. No accountability, easy to skew, especially for smaller sites. I prefer Editor's Picks. Where are they, by the way?

Originally Posted by Brother None
What the hell, you guys. I mean, sure, I know it was a relatively poor year for RPGs, but…Mass Effect 3? It's not even that much of an RPG, good game or not.

But oh well, disadvantage of public polls. No accountability, easy to skew, especially for smaller sites. I prefer Editor's Picks. Where are they, by the way?

True, but it's still more of an RPG than most games on the list - Dark Souls, Borderlands 2, Dishonored and XCOM.

I guess that says a lot about 2012 eh?

Originally Posted by Maylander
True, but it's still more of an RPG than most games on the list - Dark Souls, Borderlands 2, Dishonored and XCOM.

I guess that says a lot about 2012 eh?

Can't see how ME3 is more an RPG than Dark Souls. To be honest don't see how it's more an RPG than Borderlands or Dishonored, it is on about the same level: an action game with sparse RPGy elements. ME3 just sucks more in the story department and is less polished (worst quest journal in ages, for example).

Originally Posted by fungus
Can't see how ME3 is more an RPG than Dark Souls. To be honest don't see how it's more an RPG than Borderlands or Dishonored, it is on about the same level: an action game with sparse RPGy elements. ME3 just sucks more in the story department and is less polished (worst quest journal in ages, for example).

Because it has classes, character development and quite a few choices that impact the story, especially once you take into consideration the consequences of importing ME2 savegames.

I would've preferred a more open world, similar to ME1, but other than that I'd hardly say the RPG elements are sparse.

Originally Posted by Brother None
What the hell, you guys. I mean, sure, I know it was a relatively poor year for RPGs, but…Mass Effect 3? It's not even that much of an RPG, good game or not.

But oh well, disadvantage of public polls. No accountability, easy to skew, especially for smaller sites. I prefer Editor's Picks. Where are they, by the way?

I'd point out that it "won" with 14 percent of the vote - which you can blame more on the sparsity of stand-out RPGs in 2012. None of the games on the poll showed significant popularity over the others - except that a few at the top were at least played and enjoyed by more than 10% of those polled.

The top 2 is correct, though in the wrong order .

Originally Posted by Maylander
True, but it's still more of an RPG than most games on the list - Dark Souls,

Don´t underestimate the rpg-ness of Dark Souls!

Originally Posted by Maylander
Because it has classes, character development and quite a few choices that impact the story, especially once you take into consideration the consequences of importing ME2 savegames.

Dark Souls has character development and itemization which significantly affect how you play the game, exploration which ties to character progression in major way and there´s even a place for a few C&C too.
Both games are hybrids and both emphasize different sets of RPG elements, most obvious difference being dialogue choices in ME3 vs. exploration in Dark Souls.

Originally Posted by Brother None
What the hell, you guys. I mean, sure, I know it was a relatively poor year for RPGs, but…Mass Effect 3? It's not even that much of an RPG, good game or not.

RPGs at least somewhat approaching the non-hybrid status were simply not as strong as some other years, or at least I haven´t noticed anything in the same qualitative ballpark as
The Witcher 2, Drakensang 2 or Fallout: New Vegas.
It also bears pointing out that there was no clear winner this year.

I´d add that, personally I feel that dividing the votes between indies and non-indies should be scrapped.
I kinda understand why it was done in the past few years, but especially with all the kickstarters on horizon, I think the polls would be more valuable/telling if the vote was undivided.
This year, for example, I suspect Legend of Grimrock will steamroll the indie vote and it´d be interesting to see how well it would fare against the "big guns".

Originally Posted by sakichop
I played so much skyrim last year that I didn't realize how bad of a year it was for rpg's.

My top 3:

1. Game of thrones- probably not the best game on the list but the best game that felt most like a real RPG. The game was really good and I had never seen the show or read any books. I have now though.

2. Farcry 3— this was probably my favorite game of the year. I gave the nod to GOT though because it was more of an RPG. Having said that though I think this game was better than any on the above list and more of an RPG than most of them. It's omission from the list is baffling.

3.Dishonored— this one was tough I could very easily put XCOM or of orcs and men here.

I only played the demo of ME3 and risen 2.

ME 3 is a 3rd person cover shooter and seemed like no more of an rpg than spec ops: the line would be.

Risen 2's demo combat turned me off and I haven't tried it since the patch to fix it so I don't know where it would land on my list.

But really looking at RPG list I half expect to see black ops on next years list.

Well definitely a poor years for RPGs hence the Mass Effect win.In my opinion the game i enjoyed most was Game of Thrones too which gave me a really old school feeling due to its great story.But to be honest it had disadvantages and it can't be considered
the best RPG of the year.

Dissapointed that Dark Souls ranked so high. Why anyone would spend money on that drivel is beyond me.

Regarding ME3: I bought ME1layed it quite some time, but did not finish, because it felt so contrived. Bought ME2: played 5 hours and shelved it - not an RPG. ME3: no money from me.

Can't see why Kingdoms of Amalur ranked so low (and GoT didn't even made the list), because it actually was an RPG.

X-Com is a wonderful game, but it really should't have been on the list.

Mass Effect 3 is number 1?? Boy, that tells a lot about 2012…. I didn't vote because I hardly played any game last year…. but wow, this is disappointing. I just couldn't get past 1 hour of ME3 no matter how much I tried. Well, I guess the Origin doesn't help either…

Originally Posted by Sir_Brennus
Can't see why Kingdoms of Amalur ranked so low (and GoT didn't even made the list), because it actually was an RPG.

Yeah, I'm kinda surprised as well. Not sure if 3 and 4 even belong on the list.

And Mass Effect 3 getting anywhere? I haven't played it (I will!), but I thought a lot of people were pretty pissed off at how they handled the franchise…

The only RPGs I spent any substantial time on last year were Grimrock, Skyrim, and Amalur*, so Grimrock and Amalur got my vote. Hope Grimrock does well in the indie.

(*Most of my gaming time has been spent on strat games like Kings Bounty:AP, or FPS-with-knobs games like Precursors).

wow, am i still at rpgwatch? I'm surprized. I didn't vote because i didn't play any of those games. Except Grimrock.

Anyway, let's hope for more rpg quality this year.

Originally Posted by KTs1980
Well definitely a poor years for RPGs hence the Mass Effect win.In my opinion the game i enjoyed most was Game of Thrones too which gave me a really old school feeling due to its great story.But to be honest it had disadvantages and it can't be considered
the best RPG of the year.

Yeah, I didn't expect a ground swelling amount of support for my GOT pick. It definitely had some faults but I have to call it like I play it and GOT gave me the best RPG experience of last year.

Hopefully some of my kickstarters will release this year and choas chronicles turns out to be as good as it looks. If that happens then this years vote will be much, much harder.

Well *I* still love ya, Mass Effect 3!

P.S. I wonder if any of the GotYs have ever not had one of the top 5 games declared a non-RPG in the comments?

I have to join in with everyone mentioning Game of Thrones, as that was my favorite of the games that I actually played. I thought the strength of the story and characters far outweighed any of its weaknesses.

I also played ME3, though it didn't get my vote. I didn't mind the story and I actually liked the ending, but the game-play was really boring in my opinion. There is just too much shooting, basically no inventory, little character development, and no exploring. Such a let down from ME1, but not a surprise considering ME2.

yes, it wasn't a good year for (real) RPGs, that's for sure. But hopefully 2013 will be much better with the kickstarter games coming out.