RPG Ranking Thread

[Jordy]

Welcome to our RPG ranking thread! Share your favorite video games from the RPG genre and help us create a dynamic leaderboard. Here’s how it works:

Vote for your top 5 RPGs by listing them in order of preference.

Each vote counts:

1st choice: 5 points
2nd choice: 4 points
3rd choice: 3 points
4th choice: 2 points
5th choice: 1 point

Rank	Game	Points
1	The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind	80
2	Dragon Age: Origins	74
3	Deus Ex	53
4	Baldur's Gate 2	50
5	Fallout	47
6	Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines	37
7	Fallout: New Vegas	36
8	PlaneScape: Torment	32
9	Baldur's Gate 3	30
9	Kingdom Come: Deliverance	30
9	Mount & Blade: Warband	30
12	Dark Souls	27
12	Fallout 2	27
14	Baldur's Gate	26
15	Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura	25
15	The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion	25
17	The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	22
18	World of Warcraft	21
19	Jagged Alliance 2	20
19	Mass Effect	20
21	The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim	19
22	Gothic 2	15
23	Diablo II	13
23	Dragon's Dogma	13
23	Xenogears	13
26	Chrono Trigger	12
26	Diablo	12
26	Final Fantasy Tactics	12
26	Kenshi	12
30	Mass Effect 2	11
30	Monster Hunter Tri	11
32	Elminage: Gothic	10
32	Exile III: Ruined World	10
32	Gothic	10
32	The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess	10
36	Knights of the Chalice	9
36	Phantasy Star IV	9
36	Pool of Radiance	9
36	The Chronicles Of Myrtana: Archolos	9
40	Dragon Quest 11	8
40	Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords	8
42	Final Fantasy VI	7
42	Final Fantasy VII	7
42	Icewind Dale II	7
42	The Age of Decadence	7
42	Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss	7
47	Chrono Cross	6
47	Cyberpunk 2077	6
47	Dungeon Master	6
47	Elden Ring	6
47	Fable	6
47	Lufia II	6
47	Pathfinder: Kingmaker	6
47	Phantasy Star	6
47	Starsector	6
47	The Witcher	6
47	The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings	6
58	Arx Fatalis	5
58	EverQuest	5
58	Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar	5
58	Guild Wars	5
58	Infra Arcana	5
58	Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord	5
58	Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer	5
58	Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous	5
58	The Bard's Tale	5
58	Trails of Cold Steel II	5
58	Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar	5
58	Voidspire Tactics	5
58	Wasteland (1988)	5
71	Caverns of Xaskazien II	4
71	Divinity: Original Sin	4
71	Divinity: Original Sin II	4
71	Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King	4
71	Fallout: Resurrection	4
71	Final Fantasy XII	4
71	Greedfall	4
71	Icewind Dale	4
71	Knights of the Chalice 2	4
71	Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos	4
71	Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor	4
71	Monster Hunter Freedom Unite	4
71	Shining Force III	4
71	Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic	4
71	Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together	4
71	The Temple of Elemental Evil	4
71	Torment: Tides of Numenera	4
71	TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children	4
71	Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny	4
71	Wasteland 2	4
71	Wizardry Empire 2: The Ancient Princess	4
71	Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant	4
93	ATOM RPG Trudograd	3
93	Betrayal at Krondor	3
93	ELEX	3
93	Fae Tactics	3
93	Final Fantasy XV	3
93	Geneforge	3
93	Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep	3
93	Might and Magic II: Gates to Another World	3
93	Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra	3
93	Neverwinter Nights	3
93	Neverwinter Nights 2	3
93	Nox	3
93	Pillars of Eternity	3
93	Pokemon Sapphire	3
93	Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery	3
93	Shining the Holy Ark	3
93	Underrail	3
93	Vanguard Bandits	3
93	Vanguard: Saga of Heroes	3
93	Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge	3
113	Aselia the Spirit of Eternity Sword	2
113	ATOM RPG	2
113	Bloodborne	2
113	Deus Ex: Human Revolution	2
113	Etrian Odyssey III	2
113	Expeditions: Conquistador	2
113	Fallout: Sonora	2
113	Final Fantasy IX	2
113	Final Fantasy X	2
113	Golf Story	2
113	King of Dragon Pass	2
113	Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven	2
113	Monster Hunter: World	2
113	Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide	2
113	Pokemon Gold	2
113	Pokemon SoulSilver	2
113	Shining Force II	2
113	Tales of Maj'Eyal	2
113	Tyranny	2
113	Ultima VII: The Black Gate	2
133	ACE Online	1
133	Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin	1
133	Contact	1
133	Darklands	1
133	Expeditions: Viking	1
133	Fable II	1
133	Fallout 3	1
133	Jupiter Hell	1
133	Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning	1
133	Mass Effect 3	1
133	Might & Magic: World of Xeen	1
133	Panzer Dragoon Saga	1
133	Shadowrun: Dragonfall	1
133	The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past	1
133	Valkyria Chronicles	1
133	Wurm Online	1
133	Xenoblade Chronicles 2	1
133	Alpha Protocol	1

[Nooneatall]

1. Final Fantasy Tactics
2. Final Fantasy XII
3. Diablo II
4. Fallout: New Vegas
5. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

[Finarfin]

1) Baldur's Gate 2
2) Greedfall
3) Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King
4) Kingdom Come: Deliverance
5) Secrets of Evermore

Like this?

[DemoGraph]

I'd rather vote for RPG spanking thread.

[BosanskiSeljak]

1. Gothic
2. Gothic 2
3. The Witcher
4. Geneforge
5. Fallout

[rusty_shackleford]

1. Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura
2. Divinity: Original Sin
3. ELEX
4. Mass Effect
5. ATOM RPG

► OLD

1. ATOM RPG
2. Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos
3. Fallout 2
4. Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga
5. Wizardry 8

[Val the Moofia Boss]

1. Trails of Cold Steel II

Cool setting of a modernizing fantasy Prussia with inner turmoil as an overreaching state government tries to plunder the aristocratic class and the greater cold war with the looming aggressive Republic. Cool nobles in trenchcoats practicing anime swordsmanship and piloting mechas. Cool airships. Likeable characters. Unexpected but cathartic final act. Really fun combat and character building. Fantastic soundtrack. Unusually good English localization and dub. Unusually good PC port.



2. World of Warcraft

Artbook fantasy game with incredibly cool visuals. Lots of cool factions. Incredible amount of visual character customization for an RPG with the number of races and armors and weapon enchants and mounts and pets and stuff you can use to augment your character like potions, toys, engineering items, food, etc. Has some really fun and well design boss fights like the gunship battle in ICC where you have to jetpack across to other side to assassinate the enemy commander, Spine of Deathwing where you're fighting on his back and hanging on for dear life as he barrel rolls trying to throw you off, Siegecrafter Blackfuse where some people have to hop onto the conveyor belt to destroy the inventions, council fights like Paragons of the K'laaxi where you fight several bosses simultaneously, Operator Thogar where you're dodging the trains, Sylvanas where you're chasing her across the bridges and chains, Tindral where you mount up and chase him in flight, etc. Has some really great questlines like the Death Knight starting zone where you get redeemed at Light's Hope Chapel, or the War of the Thorns questline and the amazing ending as Alliance where you try and fail to save the people of Teldrassil from being burned to death. Also had the biggest RP scene and most robust RP tools of any MMO I know. Unfortunately it's a live service game that is constantly changing, so there is a little bit of a "you had to be there" factor. Also has some good music.



3. Pokemon Sapphire

Good aesthetics, good music, lots of good designs, adventure feel of bushwhacking through a dense forest in the middle of a rainstorm or sailing the ocean on the back of your Pokemon. The remake offers more Pokemon to chose from but kills the pacing and the challenge.



4. Aselia the Spirit of Eternity Sword

Fantastic soundtrack by Aki Hata, fully voice acted (in Japanese), very good melancholic story for a visual novel, probably the best story I have read in terms of tension and pacing. Fine designs by Hitomaru. The SRPG gameplay is very hard, a little too hard at times particularly in chapter 3 and you have to do a lot of savescumming. Also has some grand strategy elements with the base building.



5. Space Cowboy Online/ACE Online/Air Rivals

Faction war MMO where you played as a fighter pilot for one of two colonies on an alien planet. Every month the players of both factions would elect a nation leader who sets taxes, distributed war chest money, and organized campaigns against the enemy. Best part was when our chairman (I joined the ANI side) scheduled offensives to destroy the enemy mothership on the weekends. You would have several hundred players show up to push deep into enemy territory, and the tension of the final gate push as hundreds charged into a wall of anti-aircraft fire and dying instantly while the survivors charged the mothership. You also had guils fighting over the three guild bases (a flying aircraft carrier, a space station, and an underground city) during week days.



It's hard for me to narrow down an absolute top 5 because there are so many games I had a good time playing and think are great, but those are the 5 I still think about years later and have replayed.

Edit: I might replace Aselia with Valkyria Chronicles, as I have also replayed VC1 multiple times, and the gameplay was enjoyable, whereas with Asela I remember not liking the gameplay that much.

[Jordy]

Any thoughts on whether this list should include MMORPGs? I wasn't initially considering them as part of the list.

@Val the Moofia Boss Do you have a link to your 5th choice? I can't find an RPG with any of those names, just an aircraft battle game.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Any thoughts on whether this list should include MMORPGs? I wasn't initially considering them as part of the list.

@Val the Moofia Boss Do you have a link to your 5th choice? I can't find an RPG with any of those names, just an aircraft battle game.

The game originally launched in the West as Space Cowboy Online, but closed a year later. My dad played that version. It then reopened in NA as ACE Online and in Europe as Air Rivals, both of which I played with my dad, IIRC one version was further ahead in the content patches than the other. They thrived for a few years. The populations of both versions cratered with the implementation of a literal P2W slot machine, where in your faction's capital city you walked up to an actual slot machine and put in cash shop currency and spun and could get better aircraft armors than endgame players who spent countless hours farming for to drop or craft (not to mention the nightmare that was enchanting where each time you enchanted an item, it had an ever increasing chance to be destroyed). There are private servers like Chrome Rivals, but they do not have the population of the original game in the late 2000s.

There are RPG aspects. You pick one of four types of aircraft: the I-Gear which is an interceptor that is good at dogfights. The B-Gear is almost as fast as the I-Gear and is also good at dogfights, but is really good as bombing stuff on the ground. The A-gear is a slow moving flying tank that can land and enter tank mode and fire heavy hitting attacks or anti-air shotgun blasts, good for holding chokepoints or bombarding a mothership. The M-gear was a buffer/healer that could fly backwards, not very good for combat and was really meant to support the group from the backline, but if it survived a gate rush zerg it could find a spot to hide in enemy territory and then begin summoning in reinforcements. You levelled up to learn new abilities, and there was crafting and farming and enchanting for better upgrades to your aircraft.






Edit: website links

ACE Online (NA version) https://ace.subagames.com/index.aspx

Air Rivals (now rebranded as ACE Online but for EU) https://aoeu.masanggames.com

[asf]

weeb central

[Ratcatcher]

Arcanum
Daggerfall
Infinity Engine games
Might and Magic serie (World of Xeen and later titles)
Real Life (real life is a RPG)

[Jordy]

Any thoughts on whether this list should include MMORPGs? I wasn't initially considering them as part of the list.

@Val the Moofia Boss Do you have a link to your 5th choice? I can't find an RPG with any of those names, just an aircraft battle game.

The game originally launched in the West as Space Cowboy Online, but closed a year later. My dad played that version. It then reopened in NA as ACE Online and in Europe as Air Rivals, both of which I played with my dad, IIRC one version was further ahead in the content patches than the other. They thrived for a few years. The populations of both versions cratered with the implementation of a literal P2W slot machine, where in your faction's capital city you walked up to an actual slot machine and put in cash shop currency and spun and could get better aircraft armors than endgame players who spent countless hours farming for to drop or craft (not to mention the nightmare that was enchanting where each time you enchanted an item, it had an ever increasing chance to be destroyed). There are private servers like Chrome Rivals, but they do not have the population of the original game in the late 2000s.

There are RPG aspects. You pick one of four types of aircraft: the I-Gear which is an interceptor that is good at dogfights. The B-Gear is almost as fast as the I-Gear and is also good at dogfights, but is really good as bombing stuff on the ground. The A-gear is a slow moving flying tank that can land and enter tank mode and fire heavy hitting attacks or anti-air shotgun blasts, good for holding chokepoints or bombarding a mothership. The M-gear was a buffer/healer that could fly backwards, not very good for combat and was really meant to support the group from the backline, but if it survived a gate rush zerg it could find a spot to hide in enemy territory and then begin summoning in reinforcements. You levelled up to learn new abilities, and there was crafting and farming and enchanting for better upgrades to your aircraft.






Edit: website links

ACE Online (NA version) https://ace.subagames.com/index.aspx

Air Rivals (now rebranded as ACE Online but for EU) https://aoeu.masanggames.com

"AirRivals is a browser-based MMOG production that combines elements of an action game and an RPG"

I guess the question is, is it fair to have this in the list and if so, how far do we push the line for this?

[Gregz]

1) Wasteland (1988)
2) Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines
3) Mount & Blade: Warband mod - Prophesy of Pendor
4) Knights of the Chalice 1
5) Diablo II

[Red7]

1)morrowind (modded)
2)fallout 2 (modded)
3)new vegas (modded)
4)vampire bloodlines (modded)
5)starsector (modded)


fav sandbox games, where i can play jewself and hoard weaponry and hunt fucknuggets, that may not fall into rpg def;
-modded skyrim
-modded fallout 4
-sons of forest (old ver before they added gay ****)

[aweigh]

1. Elminage: Gothic
2. Wizardry Empire 2: Legacy Of The Ancient Princess
3. Dragon Quest 11
4. Xenogears
5. Knights Of The Chalice 1

Bonus list:

6. Fallout 4
7. Earthbound
8. Elminage: Original
9. Wizardry Gaiden 6: Prisoners Of The Battle (available on Steam as "DLC" for Wizardry: Five Ordeals)
10. Wizardry Gaiden 4: Beat Of The Demon's Heart
11. Wizardry 5: Heart Of The Maelstrom
12. Final Fantasy 6
13. Suikoden 2
14. Neverwinter Nights 2 (Original Campaign only)
15. Stranger Of Sword City
16. The Dark Spire
17. Fallout 1
18. Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines 1
19. Persona 2: Eternal Punishment
20. Divinity: Original Sin 2

[1998]

1. Baldurs Gate

That's it. Don't really have a 2-5.

[Jordy]

Arcanum
Daggerfall
Infinity Engine games
Might and Magic serie (World of Xeen and later titles)
Real Life (real life is a RPG)

Do you want to pick 1 game from the Might and Magic series as your 4 or 2 games for your 4 and 5?

Oh and a particular IE game? (Now I know what it stands for )

[J1M]

1. Exile III
2. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
3. Lufia II
4. Golf Story
5. Baldur's Gate 3

[Ratcatcher]

Do you want to pick 1 game from the Might and Magic series as your 4 or 2 games for your 4 and 5?

Oh and a particular IE game? (Now I know what it stands for )

Well, as for MM, my fav would be World of Xeen but that's intrinsically multiple games, I'll go with VII (I think it's the one I have in mind, they tend to mix up in my memory). As for IE games, I played and liked all of them for different reasons. Just pick one if needed.

[Gregz]

Do you want to pick 1 game from the Might and Magic series as your 4 or 2 games for your 4 and 5?

Oh and a particular IE game? (Now I know what it stands for )

Well, as for MM, my fav would be World of Xeen but that's intrinsically multiple games, I'll go with VII (I think it's the one I have in mind, they tend to mix up in my memory). As for IE games, I played and liked all of them for different reasons. Just pick one if needed.

VII is also the one I really want to list. It's certainly in my personal Top 10.

Having to choose just 5 is painful. A top 20 with the same point weight rules would be a lot more useful. The hobby is deep enough to have more than 5 games worth mentioning.

[Ratcatcher]

Is it the one in which you select the Light or Dark path and can turn evil mages and priests into Liches, right? Because iirc VI is nu-engine, VII the one we talk about, VIII the one with the weird playable races and IX, which ofc we all know is best MM and the pinnacle of western gayming.

pity edit for those that take sarcasm literally: MM IX is not the pinnacle of western gayming.

[rusty_shackleford]

I consider WoX to be a single game because they were made to be played together.

[Gunnar]

Elminage: Gothic
Fallout: Resurrection
Geneforge 1
Baldurs Gate 2
Knights of the Chalice 2: Hearkenwold

[Ratcatcher]

I consider WoX to be a single game because they were made to be played together.

And if you don't play them together you won't even die of old age. Lmao. What are we, casuls? (u akshually can die of old age in a single game ofc)

[maidenhaver]

Morrowind
Phantasy Star 4
Chrono Cross
Might and Magic 6
ToEE

[rusty_shackleford]

*ahem*
@Adventurer

[Oyster Sauce]

*ahem*
@Adventurer

It's difficult as a chronic game hopper because there are games that I know would be in my top 5 if I bothered to finish them

[CSM-101]

I honestly like too many RPGs to rank them. Some hold extreme nostalgia value, some were just fun to play for endless hours. It's like asking me to list my favorite songs or movies, can't do it. Besides, no one needs another list with Chrono Trigger, FF7, FF Tactics, Ogre Tactics, Pokemon Red & Blue, Deus Ex, a bunch of MMOs, Legend of Dragoon, Vanguard Bandits, etc

Too much **** at too many specific times in my life.

[Vergil]

I gotta come up with 5? Too muh effort.

[Jordy]

Do you want to pick 1 game from the Might and Magic series as your 4 or 2 games for your 4 and 5?

Oh and a particular IE game? (Now I know what it stands for )

Well, as for MM, my fav would be World of Xeen but that's intrinsically multiple games, I'll go with VII (I think it's the one I have in mind, they tend to mix up in my memory). As for IE games, I played and liked all of them for different reasons. Just pick one if needed.

VII is also the one I really want to list. It's certainly in my personal Top 10.

Having to choose just 5 is painful. A top 20 with the same point weight rules would be a lot more useful. The hobby is deep enough to have more than 5 games worth mentioning.

I went with 5 as a middle ground because I figured people would struggle to pick only 3 and 10 might be too much.

Happy to change it if enough people think otherwise but we'd have to start over or have a separate lists.