Re: Voting for best RPGs of 2015

Witcher 3 will definitely be the best received AAA rpg this year due to actually caring about making a quality game. The other AAA releases strike me as a bit cynical in some of there features and ambition.

Pillars of Eternity was disappointing for a whole host of reasons personally.

I think a poll would be interesting regardless ~ as long as people also post why they nominated different rpgs first, second etc

There were a few pleasant indie surprises and a lot of big name games that didn't live up to the hype. I am at peace.

Mine would be:

TW3
Pillars of Eternity


Though maybe not the games I enjoyed the most this year as there is a lot of games from past years I played for the first time or replayed.

I really haven't been playing any games of late… hence I will be voting for D:OS EE only. I did play Pillars of Eternity as well but don't think that deserves a vote.

About TW3, would it be still enjoyable for those who haven't played previous 2?

Played neither Witcher 3 nor Fallout 4.
Not because I didn't want to (well, not oo keen about W3) but because I can't even start them on my PC.
So…from the games I played and which were released this year, I guess my vote goes to Avernum: Crystal Souls.

Originally Posted by azarhal
and I'm pretty sure D:OS2 is going to be a 2017 title.

Formally, I think December 2016 is still the release date, but as Larian has always been somewhat positive in estimating release dates and Swen mentioning to me during the D:OS2 press event that he doubts they will make a December release, I think assuming it is going to be 2017 would be a fair bet.

Originally Posted by purpleblob
I really haven't been playing any games of late… hence I will be voting for D:OS EE only. I did play Pillars of Eternity as well but don't think that deserves a vote.

About TW3, would it be still enjoyable for those who haven't played previous 2?

Well, TW3 would certainly be enjoyable… but I think it is better to play the first two first… you'll get more out of your experience if you do.

It'll be even better if you read the novels before.

2015 has been a "smart" year for me. Not buying new releases, going through my backlog and only picking stuff up on sales…aaaand throwing tons of money at the screen for kickstarters…
Needless to say I have not been playing many of the 2015 titles at all so I'll probably have to skip voting this year x)

Originally Posted by Morrandir
It'll be even better if you read the novels before.

Since I haven't played any of The Witcher games (in fact, I started TW1 but stopped playng it after few minutes) and since I haven't read any of the books, I ask: does the novels spoil any game's plots/situations/whatever ? In other words: are the games mere adaptation from the books or they have their own story/plot ?

PS.: Sorry for any english language error.

Games have their own plot. Some stuff is mildly changed for sakes of game, for example Striga curse in books ends differently than in games. Of course, Geralt doesn't gather TW1 cards in books or comics - which is a shame. Even bigger shame is that TW1 cards don't appear in game sequels. Hopefully will appear in the upcoming movie.

Feel free to read any books or comics, you won't get spoiled.

Originally Posted by henriquejr
Since I haven't played any of The Witcher games (in fact, I started TW1 but stopped playng it after few minutes) and since I haven't read any of the books, I ask: does the novels spoil any game's plots/situations/whatever ? In other words: are the games mere adaptation from the books or they have their own story/plot ?

Not at all. The novels' plot takes place before the video games. TW1 and TW2 plot doesn't have a lot to do with the novels' plot, but you'll meet some characters and places. In TW3 the novels' plot is more or lessconcluded.
The only spoilerish thing I can think of is that in TW1 starts with Geralt having an amnesia and byy reading the novels the gamer in some subjects has more knowledge about the protagonist than the protagonist himself. But that's not a big deal I think.

I haven't played the Witcher 3 or Fallout 4, but the list of the games I've played that were released this year would be:

1. Pillars of Eternity
2. Shadowrun: Hongkong
(Also 2. if it counts Divinity:OS EE)
3. Legends of Eisenwald
4. Avernum 2
5. Age of Decadence (Which I couldn't finish because of technical difficulties)
6. Antharion
7. Bloodlust : Shadowhunter
8. Serpents in the Staglands
9. Fallen A2P Alpha Protocol

@lackblogger: Dragon Age 3 finished behind Wasteland and D:OS last year, so there may be hope that AAA games don't take the top 2 spots. I'd say the reception from Fallout and POE were mixed, so I assume TW3 will be 1. Of course its a huge problem that the three games have a million players and games like AOD, SitS, and Legends of Eisenwald have something between 40k and 10k owners.

As mentioned before I didn't play Fallout 4 or Witcher 3. I guess I shouldn't even vote as it's not quite fair towards these two games.
Games from 2015 I played this year in chronigraphic order:

Avernum 2: Crystal Souls (finished):
Great game but had it's lengths. Also it didn't have lots of boss fights and it felt much easier than Avernum 1. Good game but fell behind my expectations. Avernum 1 - Escape from the Pit is still my favorite of the series.

Sunless Sea (aborted):
A horrible mix of tons of text + roguelike elements. Didn't mix together at all.

Pillars of Eternity (finished):
Story was buried below too much text without coming to the point also I didn't like the story at all in the last third of the game. Combat was too easy after 1/2 of the game. And I don't like the combat system alltogether. Good game, but I wouldn't count it one of my favorites.

Legends of Eisenwald (finished):
Decent story, great combat system, but combat became trivial in the last part of the game. Also the interconnection between the levels wasn't well made. Good game as well, but also not one of my favorites.

Massive Chalice (finished except last mission):
Great tactics game. But it had a bad strategy layer with a horrible interfca, the end was unfair (on ironman), the balancing not always optimal.

Invisible Inc. (finished):
Overall great balanced roguelike. But it offered little replay value and was rather easy to beat.

Pixel Heroes (aborted in first or second run):
Horribly repetitive roguelike. Gets boring in your very first run.

Antharion (finished):
Decent game. But the story was bad and the combat system the opposite of deep.

Bedlam (4h played aborted in final battle, which crashed the game):
Disappointment of the year. Not played with the current patch yet though.

Hard West (finished):
Nice tactics game with a fresh setting and different type of story than you use to see. I dispise the 2 action combat system though and the scenarios could have had more which carries over.

ICY (finished):
I would hardly call it RPG. Nice story, but horrible, horrible mechanics. Plays more as visual novel. And has several bugs, at least one of them game breaking.

I think I revise my previous statement and out of the games I played I would vote for Invisible Inc instead of Avernum 2 as it was the most "rounded" experience with the least flaws (at least for one playthrough). But I think i would have voted for Fallout 4 if I actually played it, so…probably not going to vote.

Originally Posted by Kordanor


Antharion (finished):
Decent game. But the story was bad and the combat system the opposite of deep.

I actually liked the writing. I found the humour to be dry and witty and the story sort of a parody of a normal rpg. That said I agree about the combat system, and the game needed proper endings, even if they were only pictures and a page of text like in Avernum 2. I thought the biggest problem was that it didn't have enough gameplay depth to make it a quality dungeon crawler, and the quests and locations weren't fleshed out enough to let it compare to a proper indie rpg like Avernum 2.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
As mentioned before I didn't play Fallout 4 or Witcher 3. I guess I shouldn't even vote as it's not quite fair towards these two games.
Games from 2015 I played this year in chronigraphic order:

No way, you've probably completed more 2015 RPGs than almost anyone here. You absolutely should vote. I'm sure a lot more people have played TW3 and FO4 than the indie RPGs so there shouldn't be any concern of "fairness" to the AAA games.

Although it sounds like you didn't love any of the games you played this year, if you can pick a favorite you should vote. The only must play CRPGs I notice missing from your list is Shadowrun: Hong Kong and Age of Decadence.

Clearly not enough of you have played Age of Decadence. For shame!

That's exactly what I want to say about Raven's Cry. Not enough and for shame.
Shadowrun is a mustplay? You must be kidding me. I mean… Then Candy Crush and Angry Birds are mustplay too.

Still, Kordanor's list is great input for all of people who plan to buy something on Xmas sale.

I'm not sure why you have to have played a game to vote. Here's an opinion:

As a connoisseur of RPGs with plenty of years of experience in RPG purchasing, does one really need to have played a game to know both the extent of it's popularity and the extent of its more objective strengths and weaknesses? Also, should someone be a more penny-pinching buyer or a more critical buyer then one might regularly wait for more reasonable prices which may not be in the year of voting, even though their opinion might be almost already set in stone on the topic of the game's quality.

In any of the above cases it might be less honest to disallow such people a vote. Since end-of year voting is a method of gauging what's considered a good RPG for posterity, then, even if someone hasn't played any RPGs that year, they might be justified in voting for which RPGs at least point in the direction of what their preferred type of RPG is and point to what that player is open to playing in the future, which is a more important statistic for posterity than simply taking votes from people who's only qualification might be just a combination of both time and money.

End of opinion.

@daveyd - clearly you have not played Serpents in the Staglands. For shame!

@daveyd:
My reasoning is more like: I am pretty sure that I would have voted for Fallout 4 if I actually played it. And as you mentioned it’s not like any of the games I played this year were “overwhelmingly good”. There were a couple of good ones. But no “game of the year”-ones.

Shadowrun Hong Kong and Age of Decadence are already in my Library but didn’t find the time to play them yet. Instead I played a couple more games from my backlog which were from the previous years and which I didn’t list here. As both previous Shadowrun games were good but not exceptionally good I also don’t expect to be hugely surprised by that one.
Age of Decadence however has some potential. But I was speculating of getting a German translation at some point. As I am doing let’s plays for most of the games where I read all the texts out loud, it becomes rather tiresome for me to read English walls of texts.
But it sounds like sales weren’t good enough to justify an official translation…

@lackblogger: While I kinda a gree I also kinda disagree. As presentation and mechanics can be incredibly different. There are games which look awesome until you play then, and then they become kinda meh…
GalCiv3, Civ: BE and Bedlam are some of these games coming to mind. So before I thoroughly judge a game (and make my review) I either try to finish them or play them long enough to know for sure it's crap and not becomming any better.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
@daveyd:
My reasoning is more like: I am pretty sure that I would have voted for Fallout 4 if I actually played it. And as you mentioned it’s not like any of the games I played this year were “overwhelmingly good”. There were a couple of good ones. But no “game of the year”-ones.

Shadowrun Hong Kong and Age of Decadence are already in my Library but didn’t find the time to play them yet. Instead I played a couple more games from my backlog which were from the previous years and which I didn’t list here. As both previous Shadowrun games were good but not exceptionally good I also don’t expect to be hugely surprised by that one.
Age of Decadence however has some potential. But I was speculating of getting a German translation at some point. As I am doing let’s plays for most of the games where I read all the texts out loud, it becomes rather tiresome for me to read English walls of texts.
But it sounds like sales weren’t good enough to justify an official translation…

@lackblogger: While I kinda a gree I also kinda disagree. As presentation and mechanics can be incredibly different. There are games which look awesome until you play then, and then they become kinda meh…

You should vote and my reasoning is that we buy and play the games we really want to. I also suspect that Fallout 4 might be my 3rd place, or if it really surprises me could be my 2nd, but I chose not to buy it for full price. What about all those people who only played Fallout, The Witcher, and POE, but no indie games. Why do they deserve to vote? They may be blown away by something they never have tried. And maybe they've only played 3 games this year. Why should that make them more qualified to vote than someone who has played as many as you have. Besides if you vote for any of the indie games you've played, its still not even close to evening out the votes of the voters who have played no indie rpgs. The only reason I'd not vote is if I hadn't played any really good games this year, but for me POE, SR:H, and LoE (or D:OSEE) were all good enough games imo to deserve votes.

Also if Avernum or Invisible Inc. might have made you're 3rd choice, they still deserve a vote as 3 games of the year are chosen.