Nor were its strengths limited to characterization — with dozens of classes to choose from, a rich leveling system, and permanent death for characters, it was just as fantastic in action. But it's the dungeon tools for level creation that make Neverwinter Nights so influential and memorable, as they almost flawlessly allowed players to create their own dungeons and campaigns according to the pen-and-paper rules of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.
That was impressive in itself, but the inclusion of an excellent multiplayer system helped make Neverwinter Nights a smash hit. Baldur's Gate stunned players with an isometric version of the Forgotten Realms universe awash in vibrant colors and a landscape populated with memorable characters like hamster-loving Minsc, who'd beat you up if you put off helping him track down his partner for too long.
A triumph of storytelling that presaged its superior successor, Baldur's Gate kicked off a renaissance of story-rich RPGs that we're arguably still living today. Mario might not sound so tough in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door when you consider that he's literally a piece of paper jaunting around the screen, but that turns out to have some advantages.
He can slip in through cracks by slipping through them sideways, roll himself up, or should the need arise, fly off into the blue yonder as a paper airline. It's the kind of design that complements the whimsical and novel-like plot, which still features poor Princess Peach getting kidnapped, but also a few fun rarities, like a scholarly goomba companion. It's also fun in action, particularly in the twitchy battle system that requires good timing or by hearing cheers or jeers from the audiences that watch Mario in battle.
Other games emphasize choice, but few showed the effects of those choices over the long game quite like Dragon Quest V did when it launched for the Super Famiconm. The tale here spans an entire three decades, with the hero changing in alignment with the paths taken.
It's also remarkable for having a playable pregnancy, a concept that would later influence games like Fable II and The Sims. Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar is the video game as morality play. For perhaps the first time in computer RPG history, here was a game that wasn't about defeating a bad guy or unshackling the world from the yoke of evil, but rather about learning to embody eight virtues that made you a better person and thus an inspiration to the surrounding world.
Kindheartedness, not battle prowess, is the true star here. This was revolutionary stuff at the time, and over three decades later, it remains so. Alas, it's a little rough to get into these days owing to its complexity and sluggish gameplay, but it remains a profound counterpoint to arguments that RPGs corrupt rather than correct.
The Active Dimension Battle system ditched random battles and replaced them with an unprecedented level of strategy and tactical planning. The License Board allowed players to master any skill set with whichever character they desired. Most importantly, Final Fantasy XII gave us an even better understanding of Matsuno's Ivalice, a world with a rich and believable history, and one that's beloved by RPG fans to this day. That all changed in Pokemon Sun and Moon, and for the better.
It's a game that's focused on the outdoors, specifically a lovely region named "Alola" modeled on Hawaii, and the hours that follow deliver a satisfying balance of roleplaying and Pokemon battles. There's little subtlety in the Monster Hunter universe — you largely end up doing exactly what the title says.
But Monster Hunter 4 ensured all that monster hunting was monstrously fun. Verticality stole the show here, with players being able to scramble up walls or vault up surfaces and then leap down to briefly ride the monsters themselves.
More impressively, it managed to accomplish these advanced feats while emerging as the most approachable game in the series. These elements alone were enough to make it good, but an extended variety of weapon and a satisfying local and online multiplayer mode push it to greatness.
Fallout 3 was entertaining enough, but Fallout: New Vegas is unforgettable. This is the story of the Courier, who almost dies after the all-important package he was transporting gets stolen outside of post-apocalyptic Sin City. Yet the main tale isn't as fascinating as everything that surrounds it, whether it's the many factions the Courier builds reputations with, the many choices regarding how to handle volatile situations, or even the sense of humor sprinkled into its several staggering hours of content.
It was even fun in action, as it allowed for special attacks through the series' V. To the untrained eye, Bloodborne may seem like Dark Souls in different clothes. But oh, what clothes they are. Bloodborne's gothic, vaguely Lovecraftian setting of Yharnam is just as sad as it is unsettling, and the haunting violins of the score rub that sadness ever deeper into your soul. But it also plays well, opting for a far more aggressive style than what you get in director Hidetaka Miyazaki's other creations, forcing players to take increasingly larger risks for the sweet, sweet rewards.
There are minimal options for long-ranged and magic and the only shield you do find is little more than a sick joke — all you have to stay alive is the intensity of a blade against the hostile Victorian darkness.
What would Star Trek look like if humans still carried big guns and all of Gene Roddenberry's '60s goofiness was thrown out the airlock? Bioware showed us a decade ago, and that vision captivates us even today. The first entry isn't as strong as the two games that followed, thanks in part to the weak AI in combat and those tedious rides in the Mako across dull alien terrain.
But few if any games before had nailed voice acting, facial animations, and character models with such perfection, to the point that it feels like an interactive movie in the best sense of the term. RPGs would never be the same again. There's so much to love about Bethesda's open-world masterpiece The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim that it's difficult to pinpoint exactly what makes it so special.
Could it be its breathtaking world full of snowcapped mountains and shady woodlands? The thrill of battling fire-breathing dragons so you can suck out their souls and use their power?
Could it be the endless exploration available on its titanic map? Perhaps it's the thousands of Skyrim mods that allow players to do everything from improve textures to change a dragon into a flying Macho Man Randy Savage oooooh, yeah!
Or maybe it comes down to the game's impressive malleability: you can craft any type of hero you want, go where you want, do what you want, and do it when you want. Yes, there are myriad reasons to love one of the best-selling video game of all time, but one thing is for sure: you really don't play Skyrim. You live it.
It shed the famously clunky UI of previous games to allow more of its refreshingly detailed world to shine through. Instead, checking your inventory or looting happened in pop-up menus, which not only carried into future Ultima titles, but games outside the RPG genre too. Ultima VII also dropped the strict, grid-based approach to movement, introduced dialogue trees, and went real-time.
Its innovations to the format are matched only by its impressive interactivity and the non-linearity of its main plot. Ultima VII managed to root itself comfortably in the conventions it created, but still have the sophistication to move forward in awesome new ways.
Smartly combining themes of action, role playing, survival horror, and first-person shooters, System Shock 2 expertly defies simply being a great RPG, showing how innovative mechanics that play off each other can make a game more than the sum of its parts. It also pioneered several methods of storytelling through gameplay that we take for granted — like finding doomed audio logs or reliving echoes of the past that urge you to piece together the larger puzzle of what's really going on.
The unsettling and moody atmosphere of the derelict starship go hand in hand with bioengineered horrors that roam free to create the perfect horror environment, and leave you feeling terrified no matter which of the many skills you choose to give your character.
There's always multiple ways to solve a problem, letting you get truly creative in ways that never feel out of place with the character you've built. Long ago, before Noctis went on his epic road trip and Lightning bounced between timelines, the Dark Knight Cecil fought his inner demons and a few space monsters in Final Fantasy IV. A pivotal entry in the Final Fantasy series, IV eschewed simple storytelling mechanics and set out to create a deliciously frothy soap opera, complete with love triangles, increasingly exotic locals the moon, y'all , and a classic "brothers-separated-at-birth" reveal.
The only thing that matched its ambitious storytelling was its equally ambitious combat mechanics. Final Fantasy IV ushered the Active Time Battle system into the series, fundamentally changing the way Final Fantasy games were played for nearly a decade.
These features, combined with charming 2D sprites, sweeping music, and timeless themes of love, betrayal, and redemption, are why Final Fantasy IV is still fondly remembered long after its heroes saved the Blue Planet from impending doom. A smart, action-dependent approach to leveling lets players build out their character naturally, rather than adjusting numbers in a stat menu.
An abundance of quests and the freedom to carve out your own path in its world is almost overwhelming. Its visuals were technically impressive for the time and imaginatively stylish enough to hold up even today, making the island of Vvardenfell one of the most memorable settings in the series. It stands out with its dark, riveting storyline inspired by real-life events like the Yugoslav Wars and Bosnian Genocide.
The focus on more serious themes means players are often forced to make difficult decisions with sometimes devastating moral implications. With a non-linear plot modeled after visual novels and full of branching paths, turning points, and multiple endings, Tactics Ogre became more than a mere strategy RPG.
EarthBound is a weird, wonderful game about four kids who save the world. Early proof that not all RPGs need fantasy settings, EarthBound is one of the best turn-based RPGs of the bit era and takes place in a town that feels like it could be anywhere in middle America.
That modern setting mixed with bizarre, offbeat humor makes it a unique experience and has helped it maintain its cult status as something special and very different from its contemporaries. Most of all, EarthBound has a tremendous amount of heart.
Underneath its goofy jokes and pop culture references is a genuinely great, sweet story about a group of kids who are risking a lot to make the world a better place, and the final battle is an extremely clever, moving way to incorporate the people our heroes meet along their journey.
With Final Fantasy Tactics, Yasumi Matsuno took everything we thought was sacred about the Final Fantasy series and turned it on its head. While Tactics maintained the familiar creatures and archetypes we all knew and loved, it introduced us to the world of Ivalice, and leaned heavily into the Job system introduced in Final Fantasy V.
While the core stable of characters provided a ton of memorable drama, being able to recruit generic characters and fashion them into roles ranging from simple Knight and Wizard to downright bizarre Mime and Calculator led to an infinite well of depth.
While you had to put in some effort to wrap your head around the tactical battle system, the rewarding feeling of mastering the complex systems made it absolutely worth it. It perfectly balances intimate character drama and friendship with end-of-the-world heroics. Luca Blight is an especially twisted and evil villain in a genre filled with great villains. A shockingly high number of them can be taken into battle with you, and all of them enrich your castle with interesting dialogue and improvements.
Your castle is your home, and filling it with artists, shopkeepers, alliance leaders, and so many more friends and comrades results in an incredibly satisfying mixture of gameplay, story, and friendship. Multiple paths to every objective reveal themselves through experimentation and clever, oftentimes hilarious manipulation of the AI. The setting is diverse and dense, thanks to an even-larger slice of the post-apocalyptic West Coast inhabited by everything from primitive tribespeople battling giant insects to the Brotherhood of Steel standing against terrors brought by the power-armored Enclave and brutish supermutants.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was not only one of the first to let you truly explore the vast untapped universe of Star Wars before the events of the films, but let everyone play out the ultimate fantasy of becoming a Jedi Knight or a Sith Lord!
Knights of the Old Republic also offered up a great cast of side characters with intriguing and complex relationships not to mention the best snarky assassin droid this meatbag could ever ask for , and set up one of the greatest player character twists in an RPG. Its quaint Japanese setting is in stark contrast to the dark secrets its characters harbor, and that's what makes P4G so great. By the end of its ish hour campaign, you geniunely care about this quirky cast of misfits, so much so that you'll meticulously curate your schedule to ensure that you have the time to spend with each of your in-game pals equally.
Persona 4 Golden on Vita takes the foundation built by the PlayStation 2 classic and adds new social links, new personas, and of course, the ability to play this amazing adventure anywhere you want, making it the definitive edition of a seminal RPG. With a focus on exploration, Dark Souls pushes players to experiment and take risks in ways few action RPGs have before, and in which few have truly captured since. It defies the hand-holding nature of its peers and forces us to make mistakes in order to grow — whether that means learning how to cautiously navigate its deadly world, take down one of its many imposing bosses, or just level our stats properly.
It creates massive challenges out of combat situations that would be minor in any other game, making every moment memorable and every small victory an exhilarating reward. By the time we've returned to Commander Shepard in this sequel, we have an idea of the threats and mysteries looming over the Milky Way.
Mass Effect 2 gives us the chance to get to know them on a personal level with revamped combat that greatly improves upon its predecessor. Mass Effect 2's creative take on RPG systems are more welcoming with its blend of third-person shooter mechanics, and its variety and focus on the new squad members make for a memorable and sometimes heartbreaking campaign. You can spend hundreds of hours exploring The Witcher 3's expansive continent and surrounding isles and still not have seen even a fraction of what this world has to offer.
What begins as a quest to find your lost love becomes an engrossing tale full of unforgettable characters, terrifying enemies, and genuine heart. Even the smallest side quests are thoughtful affairs and many of the main story arcs feature some of the most poignant narrative beats we've encountered in any game.
Couple its stellar storytelling with deep character customization and a challenging and rewarding combat system and it's easy to see why IGN gave The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt our Game of the Year award for For all intents and purposes, Vagrant Story should not have been a PlayStation game.
The sheer volume of systems interacting with each other and the top notch graphics should have crippled the Sony's little system. But somehow, we got to experience Yasumi Matsuno's dungeon crawling masterpiece mere months before the PS2's US launch. Heavy stuff for a PSX game, but it's handled masterfully through beautiful art direction and some extremely impressive localization.
You can also craft gear, chain abilities in combat, explore a massive dungeon called "The Iron Maiden," target specific body parts on enemies, employ super moves, solve puzzles in degree environments, and take on some of the toughest enemies Square Enix ever created.
Vagrant Story is the definition of a cult classic, and is undisputedly worthy of the number nine spot on this list. Made both accessible and engaging by its unique classes and skills, the endless satisfaction of its kill and loot gameplay, and its near limitless equipment variety and character customization, Diablo II's cooperative play and item trading helped to successfully foster not only a communal spirit in each procedurally generated level of each dank dungeon, but one of the greatest roleplaying experiences of all time.
During the s, developer Squaresoft was the undisputed king of JRPGs, and Secret of Mana was one of the most dazzling jewels in its crown. Even now we still remember the action RPG fondly: its bright, candy-colored world was a joy to explore, the action-based combat was easy to learn and fun to do, and its inventory ringlets made navigating menus refreshingly simple. Then there was the breathtaking soundtrack, celebrated for its mix of cheerful tunes and haunting melodies.
But the most memorable feature was the multiplayer. Secret of Mana would let up to three players participate in combat, so long as they had an extra controller or two lying around and the correct peripheral accessory for the SNES.
Even if WoW never evolved past this vanilla state, it would still be remembered fondly as an incredible RPG filled with epic dungeons, surprisingly compelling Player vs. Player encounters, satisfying non-combat crafting and social gameplay, and more well-written, hand-crafted quests and adventures than it felt possible for a single RPG to contain.
The game has never stood still. Completely new worlds, revamped old worlds, balanced and well-integrated new classes, risky storytelling, and an almost impossible-to-count volume of quality-of-life improvements have made an already amazing game experience even more amazing, more than a decade later.
It may relate to various real-life events or people, and it often shows the players some clues about other virtual worlds as well. Most of the games have a wide range of activities available, and it is a challenge alone to complete all of them, and some projects also have genuinely hardcore quests for the most skilled players. Skip to main content. Search form. Ragnarok Online Play now. Most of the mechanics focus on the single-player playstyle, and the players can only rely on themselves in every challenge.
The games adapt the virtual worlds to make the experience of the players dynamic, and all the activities always happen close by to the playable characters. It's impossible to skip a significant event because the games provide it to the players when it is the most convenient time to experience.
Role-playing aspects of Solo RPG Games provide infinite combinations of abilities, perks and equipment. These projects do not limit the players, and it's always possible to increase the power level even further. The games adapt their worlds to match the power of the players, and that way, the quests and activities stay challenging and provide in-depth experience to the players.
Solo RPG Games are suitable both for casual and hardcore players because multiple difficulty levels allow everyone to choose the fitting one and customize the characters to fit their playstyle.
Sure, this game asks you to do a lot of talking in order to get to the best, cystipig-meatiest bits it has to offer, but almost every conversation you have with the denizens of Halcyon will delight you in some way. Brilliant voice acting coupled with cracking writing and surprisingly deft facial animations means you're going to be picking favorites and picking them fast. This only makes every decision more difficult, which is the mark of a great RPG: the ability to make you sweat with anxiety over a superficially innocuous dialogue option.
Kingdom Hearts 3 might have fourteen years of dev time under its belt, but the second installment in the trilogy excluding all the other games in the franchise, looking at you Re:Coded is still superior. Kingdom Hearts 2 , released three years after the original, expands on the brilliant Kingdom Hearts concept a young boy named Sora gains the power of a mysterious keyblade and must travel through Disney worlds to stop the evil Heartless from spreading while polishing rough edges and expanding outwards with gusto.
Whereas the small worlds in the original often felt mind-numbingly difficult to navigate, the sequel boasts beautiful level design that feels more legible while still being expansive. Plus, the combat upgrades make gameplay faster and smoother, and the addition of Drive Forms allows you to change Sora's form to activate new abilities. The boss battles are tough, but not impossible there's no way to get back the years I shaved off of my life during that Clayton battle in the original , making it the best game in the series for gamers who don't like to be frustrated to the point of ripping out their eyelashes individually see the aforementioned Clayton battle.
This is one to try out if you love playing RPGs with friends, as The Division 2 is a perfect example of how to get a sequel right. Its reactive world responds to the decisions you make and there's just so much to do, including building up your base and gradually becoming a top-tier Division agent.
The blend of action and spectacle will keep your eyeballs very happy indeed, as some of the places you'll be fighting your way through are locations that just beg to be ranted about in a good way, don;t worry. Although the plot might be lacking, there's tons to keep you busy and - more importantly - entertained, so if you're looking for an RPG with a ton of gameplay that'll keep you and your friends shooting for hours on end, The Division 2 is for you.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla brilliantly returns elements of the stealthier aspects of the franchise without compromising the elements fans love about the newer Creed games. Valhalla ushers in the return of stealth, even giving you a tailing mission in the main campaign that hearkens back to Brotherhood days. It also gives you a chance to take part in Viking raids, and take a battering ram to a castle's gates to enjoy the spoils that lie within.
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