1. Shadowrun Dragonfall
Totally unfair for competition because of a relative small size, not much replay potential past one replay, many aspects of RPG aren't very developed even if some are still quite well done, for exploration aspects it's not bad but rather minimal. But a bash on head is a bash, I'll skip list qualities, just great and had great fun.
2. Divinity Original Sin
Most original RPG since a long time, I experimented stuff a lot, the game still suffered a bit of quality of each combats dropping down overall. Thankfully in last area I found many ways to sneak past many combats and didn't get bored. I chained with a second play but failed end it. For sure writing is tedious, many combats didn't get enough tuned design, character building didn't offered that many interesting choices, and it's a surprising failure on consequences (more the champion of non consequences, kill them all and it changes nothing, sigh), but a great original RPG anyway.
3. Dragon Age: Inquisition
I didn't played the year of release, but two years later. First 10 hours was a pain, but it clicked when I realized how manage myself much better the gameplay flow, to have a lot more fun. And I ended with 2 plays in a row, both very fun. I won't care explain why and how, no explanation will avoid pointless arguing with the hateboys, it's just my choice, end of debate.
4. Might & Magic X Legacy
Objectively it has flaws, but also there are aspects very well done. The point is I loved my chained two plays. I regret its relative lack of success and the too high negativity around it at release and first months. In my opinion it deserved a much better reception. One more major publisher that will try avoid RPG genre, well done the hateboys, sigh.
5. Wasteland 2
Vanilla version is both a great game and a weak game. Director's Cut version made it a pure great game, but it was one year later. Party building failed past party creation, tedious unlock skills looking often the same and overused in many areas, a large area (Hollywood) awfully unpolished and half broken up to waste a part of the fun, too many weapons too much unbalanced, bad armor system. So despite many qualities, ton of small consequences, good pathos, quite good writing, many great combats, many good exploration, more, it's been a lot of fun but Vanilla isn't that top and from far, failed chain two plays. Director's Cut version is another matter, much better, it would be 1 or 2 in this list if released in 2014.
6. Blackguards
Quite good RPG using a rather bizarre blueprint. I found the 2 much much better (despite it has a weak fame) and then it makes a bit more pale the first. The first is suffering of a writing a bit uneven, some combats based too much on some special tricks, some skills/spells too OP. Still many good to great combats, some good writing parts, interesting character and party building, cool companions.
7. Eschalon Book III
For me the best of the series because of a much better filling density and quality, for tricks, puzzling, combats, story elements. Alas last part is a bit under quality, deve explained it was open for mods but at end just a bad idea to have weaker final parts. And the final too is a bit weird, interesting but a bit weird. Still a lot of fun, get a reception with too much negativity mainly because of quantity somehow low in comparison of II with extensions, but quantity isn't quality.
8. The Banner Saga
In middle of choose your own story book, RPG, tactical game, and suprisingly fun despute the uneven quality of the writing. It suffers a lot of many of some core gameplay aspect that are just fake, some related to caravan management. Also combat system suffer of a huge flaw, not allow design diversified combats areas, combats diversity based too much on enemies set. Still pretty good combat, simple character building but the roster approach makes it less basic.
Some other quotes:
- Legend of Grimrock II, loved the first, despite the II was clearly a lot more ambitious, it's been too late for me, perhaps too long or even too tricky, anyway, for now I failed finish one play.
- Lords of Xulima, I pledged it, I enjoyed about 60H of play, but at end it didn't clicked with me, in my opinion, too much dilution, too many combats proportionally. It hadn't to be so huge, and would have been much better quite less huge and with a much better density of tricks and other stuffs and less but more designed and distinctive combats. It's a worthy released, more a game not fitting well my preferences. I didn't regret have pledged and even was satisfied with the result and consider they did a great job, just less for me.
- The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, too much a delayed release, it's a remake from a 2004 game. It's not fitting a list of RPG released in 2014. I'm not fan of JRPG, and the game suffers a tiny bit of grinding or a few combats repetitiveness, but I had a lot of fun to play it, including combats, for me much better than usual combats systems in many JRPG non tactic.