That describes most games popularly known as RPG's, I'd say.

Not necessarily. If you make impact-filled choices, it's an RPG. No matter what the roll-play crowd says. Heck, even one of the great ones who made this all possible, the late Gary Gygax, much preferred if you cared less about stats and more about role-playing.

I've heard that before, and have it on an actual cardboard box with a real in-depth manual, but i don't think i ever played it more than few hours. Maybe i should give it another shot.

That's the thing, "impact-filled choices" aren't exactly common. In most cases it seems a game is called an RPG if it has stats of some kind.

Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age 2.

True, but they are great Action/Adventure games.

Nah, one of them is a good Gears of War clone and the other is sub par Action/Adventure game.

Seriously though, Dragon Age 2 isn't that horrible, it's just that is should be called Dragon Age. It's like calling milk beer.

That's the thing, no matter what you classify as an RPG, you'd be excluding half the genre that doesn't fit your definition.

They should just split the genre in two (or three if you include JRPGs), rather than have people always arguing about what IS an RPG.

I have my fair share of things to complain about when it comes to Mass Effect 2, but a Gears clone? Because it uses a cover system? Might as well call it a Winback/Kill Switch clone at this point.

It should be called dragon age : "Insert spin off subtitle here". It shouldn't be a sequel, but its still a good game.

Yeah, I'll admit that was a little too far. Though Kill Switch can't really be a clone, since Gears was inspired by it...

Well... I think there needs to be some distinction or criteria as to why one would consider a a game the "worst ever": overall, story, expectations, graphics, bugs, etc

The worst RPG I have ever played, I have to say, it was Dragon Age Origins.
Maybe it was because I was completely mislead as to gameplay by Bioware's ad campain ( gameplay looks/plays absolutely nothing even remotely to what the official game trailer looks like) but:
The story wasn't that good and didn't make much sense at certain points, the dialog was sappy, most of the characters were uninteresting, some of them very annoying; the fight animations were pretty bad, bordering on terrible for a combat game; speaking of combat, the "combat-by-dice-roll" made for some nonsense like arrows taking a 45 angle redirect mid-flight or projectiles going through walls; every character looked the same, since the game had a total of 6-8 armor meshes, just in different colors; the environments were very static, nothing moved other than the NPCs; the locations/dungeons were very small; in comparison to other RPGs like Fallout or Oblivion, it felt very linear..

I can keep going on and on.. about the only redeeming quality of DAO was that you could get some really cool screenshots, but you don't but a game to get cool screenshots.

Dragon Age: Kirkwall.

BioWare has never been known for good combat, good animations, or non-linear gameplay; and a flashy CG trailer is hardly going to accurately show the gameplay of a tactical RPG like this.

BioWare does interactive movies, with as many choices and story branches as they can. That's their thing, you don't buy a BioWare game for any other reason....

Where the hell where you 2 years ago? You could've saved me $50.00

Actually, it was called Dragon Age: Exodus until at least May of last year.

DAO was not so bad, Its actually 1 of my faveourite rpg's. Not ever have I cared about the other companions than in this game, and the combat with its gore and animations was good if you ask me.

The worst Rpg I plays was Legend: Hand of God. That games was shallow and truely svcks!

I want to say Mass Effect 2...thats the first one that comes to mind.

That doesn't mean its a bad game it just means its a bad RPG.

Gah! Get out of my brain!

Again, I think there was a pretty large difference between the way DA:O was received by the PC crowd vs. the console crowd. It was just made to be a PC game, and as a result there were gaping holes in the gameplay on the console versions.


I agree that DA2 is disappointing, but I'm still skeptical of the "DA2 is the worst RPG I've ever played" people.


Agreed. Not much different than the people raging about Crysis 2 not releasing with DX11 support on the PC.


I found TOEE to be pretty fun aside from the bugs, many of which were patched out via official and fan-made patches. You know what was much worse along those same lines? Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor. I bought it, played for about 3 hours, and shelved it permanently. That's something I rarely do.

Neverwinter Nights. I quit in disgust.

I guess I've gotten off lucky, though.

Aw, I liked Demon Stone! I viewed it more as a hack-n-slash than an RPG - it doesn't have dialog trees/choices or side quests. But it was fun, and I liked the story well enough and the character banter. The gameplay was nice - I wish NWN had it, because combat-by-mouse-click is as boring as hell.

NWN... it was my first DnD RPG that I played, so the MQ wasn't so predictable to me. I think it would be more fun with mods. I liked the two expansion packs' main quests much better. I do wish it had more-interactive combat controls, but that's just the style of the thing. What I enjoyed in particular were the dialog trees, the integration of skills into dialog choices, and other non-combat elements. TES III and IV don't quite have that level of dialog tree sophistication. What I dislike the most about NWN - and possibly other games in that vein - is the necessity to "map out" your character build, lest you be crippled and have to start over again so that you can beat a boss battle. It dampens the flow of the game and spontaneity - for me, at least. I'd rather focus on the immediate gameplay and story than tally stat maths and skill point distribution. Fortunately, there are character build templates out there on the web, and if I play NWN again with mods, I'd probably use a template and just follow that so I don't have to fuss and fret over my character stats.

I can totally understand if people don't like NWN. I think I started a dozen characters but only really played with two or three. The first parts are tedious because your character is so weak and you have to baby him/her and you have crap equipment and the beginning quests are a bit dull, especially the fed-ex quests, and you can't do much because you have very few feat abilities.

I tend to research games quite a bit before giving any time to them, so I can't recall playing any memorably awful ones. And I roleplay in my head, so even racing games, shooters, etc can become hardcoe RPGs when I play them(!).

The worst RPG I've seen has to be Dragon Age 2; most RPGs I'd consider to be worse are excused by some combination of age, low-budget charm, a sense of humour, and relatively humble advertising. None of which DA2 can claim as excuses.

Yeah, 3rd-edition D&D rules were a little complicated. I totally get why some people hate being able to mess up their character builds. Sometimes I do too. However, I do love a stat-heavy RPG now and then. The character building metagame is something I enjoy about RPGs and RPG systems. If you can't build a more powerful character by making good character development decisions it takes some of the fun out of character development for me. IMO what they should do is allow you to re-spec your characters if you realize that you made a big mistake leveling up.

It's a great game, just not a great RPG. You can roleplay yourself in any game, but an RPG has to actively encourage it at every turn and adapt to the choices you make, Oblivion did not do that, most so called RPG's do not. You'd think the term Roleplaying game would contain some actual roleplaying beyond arbitrary stat allocations and spreadsheets.

That's why I suggested two classifications of RPG. I'd consider "choices & consequences" type games to be RPGs, as well as "stat allocation & loot collection" type games; but sometimes they're different enough they may as well be two separate genres.