RPG Codex - Top 70 PC RPG List

@Pessimeister:
I can recommend Dark Heart of Uurkrul, Jagged Alliance 1 and Magic Candle. There a fun to play even today. Each of these games feels very unique. I really like the later released Magic Candle prequel Bloodstone: An Epic Dwarven Tale.
Sword of Fargoal is extremly difficult to beat - not a game for everyone.

And maybe I should add something about my gaming habits, which also explains the emphasis on controls and combat system:

I also play games for a challenge and I normally play games with all sidequests and on the highest difficulty. And I don't start something if I know that I won't finish it.
I have not yet stopped a game due to it's difficulty, but I indeed stopped playing games because the controls annoyed me (NWN2, Witcher 2).

So when I know that I wont finish a game because it will annoy me, I won't even start it. Playing a game with the intention to just play it for a couple of hours is no option for me.

This explains why I don't want to play Baldurs Gate 2 for example. Combat annoys me. But setting the difficulty so low that it would not annoy me anymore would kill the challenge. Therefore there is not enough reason for me to start it at all.

I also doubt that most of you who played most of the games on that list actually finished them all. I guess having finished about 23 games from that list puts me infront of most in that regards.

Kordanor said:

I also doubt that most of you who played most of the games on that list actually finished them all. I guess having finished about 23 games from that list puts me infront of most in that regards.

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Except for the 3 I mentioned before, I played and finished all of this list. Many of of them more than once.
With most Playthroughs: Jagged Alliance2 (several 1000 hours total, with all the big mods like Vietnam SOG 69, Deidranna lives, etc.), Gothic 1&2 NotR, (inkl. Piratenleben, Valeya and other good mods), World of Xeen, Fallout 1&2, Wizardry 6,7 & 8, Dungeon Master, Planescape, Exile 1,2 & 3 and Bloodlines. Call me crazy, but I love gaming.

Was also especially talking about the pre-90s games, which were designed during times when games were not meant/designed to be played through.

But if you really finished all of these 68 games, that is quite impressive.

The only pre-90 games I finshed more than once and I can think of at the moment:
Pool of Radiance; Dungeon Master 1 and a replay of Wizardry 1,2,3 later in 2002 on an SNES- emulator.
The pre-90-games are really too hard to play them many times and if you mapped them once on paper a part of the fun is gone.

My List of finished-CRPGs lies between ca. 330 and 400 (depending on whether you count mods or not - thanks to NWN )

That sounds much, but I'm 45 years old and I'm gaming since the age of 13.
12 to 15 games per year is not sooo much.

@Kordanor:

So I went to my game library and looked for the games I played and did NOT finish:

Aklabeth: has only historical value
Arcatera: buggy as hell
Dungeon Siege 1 & 2: got bored
Betrayal at Antara: shit Betrayal at Krondor clone
Darkstone: got bored
Diablo 2: got bored
Titan Quest: got bored - after 50 hours
Torchlight: doesn't grab me
Gorasul: boring
Fable: for kids
Two Worlds 2: have to finish this one on day
Dungeon Lords: unfinshed product
Might Magic 9: unfinshed product
Ultima 8, 9: was dissapointed after 7
Sacred 2: got bored, way too much respawning
Ishar 1,2,3: started a few playthroughs but never made it to the end

@Hidden
I was only talking about the games from the 71 on the Codex list.
Library is kinda relative as we probably all got games from some cheap collections like this one: http://pics.mobygames.com/images/covers/large/1246206791-00.jpg

Diablo2 just takes you a couple of hours to beat anyways.

Same goes for Darkstone. Quite enjoyed it though. Played it in multiplayer however.
The Song by Audren was also pretty cool
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evjfqkdSNGM

Fable: One of the RPGs I didn't finish as well…just because it was neither challenging, not did it tell a good story.

Two Worlds 2: Once you make it out of the starting area it became quite good imho, mostly due to the main characters voice and the humor. The sandboxy start sucked imho. Oh and the combat sucked as well. Just go for mage and kill everything within a blink of an eye instead of hassling with melee.

Ultima 8 is also one of the games I didn't finish…didn't like the jumping stuff and I remember a mausoleum "maze" where I got kinda lost and lost interest. Never owned that one though.

Ultima 9 wasn't really bad imho. But I think I just lost interest after a while. Didn't finish it as well.

Ishar trilogy: While I didn't own them I played all of them, I might have finished the first. However the first game was also the most broken one. Really hated about that game that you needed to invite temporary NPCs which made you drop one of your party members. And as with all Silmarils games: The Sound really sucked.
Especially loved to stroll around in the City of the third game.

Some Games out of Codex top 70 at GOG.

Wanna help reviewing more than 250 titles?
-> Thread to Felipe's book

I'm down with the top 4. Even the descriptions seem pretty much spot on. I lose the plot with Arcanum at number 5, though. And what the hell is Wizardry 8 even doing on the list, let alone in the top 10? I guess maybe I only agree with the top 4 because those were so universally well loved that they trump the oddball fetishes of codexers, eh? And now that I think about it I'd round out the top 5 by putting Jagged Alliance 2 in it. Instead of Arcanum, which was a great idea but was very poorly executed in my opinion.

Anyway, haven't been past the top 10 so far but thanks for posting that list for us. Makes for interesting reading

Wizardry 8 is on the list because the



series rules!

If I had millions of dollars I would revive Sir-Tech

I liked Bane of the Cosmic Forge a lot, back in the day.

Not sure how much of it was me changing - or the game changing, but Wizardry 8 was WAY too combat heavy for me.

But it was a quality product that worked as intended, unlike Arcanum. So, I think it's easy to justify it being on such a list.

HiddenX said:

Wizardry 8 is on the list because the series rules!

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Well, I'd agree with you about the series - minus the 8th and last installment, which came out nearly ten years too late. Might be all the drama and all the ill will I was feeling about Sir-tech by that point in time, but I never even finished Wiz 8. I think I got about halfway and just decided it wasn't very interesting and the combat was too tedious and repetitive. Which probably wouldn't have bothered me, in 1994 or 1995.

HiddenX said:

If I had millions of dollars I would revive Sir-Tech

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You'd have to define it, first. I'd love to see an empty shell of a company started up, and all the old time devs who actually made the games hired into it. Especially the Jagged Alliance crew (and yes, I know they are the ones who made Wiz 8, which I just slammed). I didn't see Jagged Alliance 1 on that list (I'm not even halfway through it yet), but based on the impression it made on me it ought to be. Sure, 2 was better, but when the first shipped in 1993(?) it was mind blowing how many cool things they'd thought to put in that game, that nobody else had ever thought to.

The second game was a iteration with a couple of changes. Some I liked, some I didn't. The first Jagged Alliance is still an awesome game. Wouldn't necessarily say that the second one was better if you cut out the things which got better due to the later release data naturally (graphics, sound).

Jagged Alliance 1 is an awesome game. Most of the game elements that make JA 2 great are already there. I like Deadly Games, too.
I think it's not on the list, because

1) it is overshadowed by JA 2 (V1.13) nowadays
2) younger gamers just don't know it at all

Yeah, I suppose it's hard for anyone who wasn't gaming in the early 1990s to understand how revolutionary this was, at the time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNidkh8knzI

JA2 did expand into a much more complex game, too. Though there were some featues in the first that I did miss in the second.

Anyway, interesting "top 71" list. I guess the one that surprises me the most is one of the "Hero's Quest" games (though they call it Quest for Glory). I don't remember that franchise as being anything remarkable, back when it was new. Not real clear to me why it rates a place on a best RPG list, at this late date. Last one on the list should be much higher, I think

CraigCWB said:

Anyway, interesting "top 71" list. I guess the one that surprises me the most is one of the "Hero's Quest" games (though they call it Quest for Glory). I don't remember that franchise as being anything remarkable, back when it was new. Not real clear to me why it rates a place on a best RPG list, at this late date. Last one on the list should be much higher, I think

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QfG got some press lately because of the new free
Heroine's Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok