Top 2 - Might and Magic VI and Final Fantasy XII (not in strict order).

I have hard time to come up with other 8, too many competing titles. So I'll pick random few (and possibly not from top 10):
Lufia.
Shining in the Darkness/Force.
Phantasy Star.
Dragon Quests.
Terraria (to spice up genres).
Lost Vikings (to spice up genres).
Sonic on Sega MegaDrive (to spice up genres).
Disgaea.

You will be happy so see this product from the internet rage machine.


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In my opinion, this is the best RPG in the modern gaming world. Excellent work, Bioware. Under the glorious enlightenment and guidance from EA, a game publisher with precise long-term vision in future game development, Bioware finally manages to make a RPG suitable for everyone, but not just a game accessible only to a minority of hardcore RPG players.

DA: Origins is an old-school and medicore game only appealing to a tiny market niche. DA II breaks the medicority, and introduces the popular mass effect decision tree and button-mashing mechanics, which attracts tons of Call Of Duty (COD) and action gamers around the world, contributing to its great success. However, it still suffers from a linear and small game world, and repetitive dungeons.

DA: Inquisition evolves from its predecessors by combining the best elements of 2 popular RPGs in modern era. It adopts the sandbox open world, lightweight RPG perspective and enormous fetch quest system from the highly praised Elder Scroll Skyrim, as well as the popular decision tree mechanism and the combat elements from another Bioware's master piece, Mass Effects 3.

By having a cohesive reasonance of 2 best elements from 2 outstanding RPGs, and adding tons of creative elements, this game simply becomes one larger than the sum of all parts. You have a large world to explore, tons of item collection and FedEx quests to play with, and the best button mashing mechanics to finish off your opponents. Skyrim and this game is great because they both remove the annoying character stat building mechanism. Stat is now only granted from equipment, how amazing and creative, isn't it? In addition, this game adopts the perfect RPG gaming style of Skyrim, i.e. explore first, just forget the plot, which removes player's frustration to recall memory about the main quest and story line. This is just like a great and sincere invitation to all COD fans and action gamers, as well as any potential causal gamers. It caters for the taste of all gamers around the world via greatly enhancing its accessibility. It is a master of everything rather than a jerk of all trade. This is a game for everyone!

You may worry about that the return of the old-school tactical view from the mediocre DA:Origins may ruin your fantastic game play experience. Don't worry about that, it is just implemented for those hardcore players for their happiness in pausing the game all the time, breaking the pace of combat. This game can be handled easily by controlling your own character only under an action game style. The tactics setting of companion is simplified to an user friendly level for further accessibility. In contrast to DA: Origins, you can’t set up some complicated tactics for your companions, but this is unnecessary anyway. Friendly fire is disabled by default, so just forget your companions, and let them either fight or fall. You can handle fights easily by charging upfront and having high reflex in right timing of attack, dodge and button mashing. You can enjoy a fluid flow of combat all the time!

Overall, by removing the complexity and annoyance from old-school RPG, adding the best elements from 2 most famous modern RPGs, and introducing an exciting button mashing combat mechanics to the game, this game has reached the highest height of RPGs that none in the world could ever reach. This is a milestone of RPG development, and should be referred to in future development of RPGs. Today is an important day that marks the beginning of revolution in RPG history! A new era of RPG has come! From now on, we can step forwards and forget about all classic RPGs in the old-school days. Everyone, express your praise and gratitude towards our beloved developers, and join us to have fun in this master piece of art now!

In case if there are expansions or sequels for this gift from god, which are highly probable considering how successful this game is, we really hope that first-person shooting mode, QTEs and the mechanism of climbing tower to reveal map can be implemented. This will further induces passion from every gamers, because these elements are universally regarded by every gamer as the best features that have ever existed in shooter and action games!

By the way, I am looking forwards to see at least 1000 DLCs for this game, because its scope is so huge, and with so much potential to further expand on. Don't keep us waiting, our wallets are ready! We hope that our beloved developers will listen to our suggestion and request, and release the DLCs and expansions ASAP for us. ;)
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I think my brain's ability to process sarcasm just broke from overuse.

EDIT: And the more I remember, the more tempted I am to edit out that bit about the gameplay in DA2 not being that bad. I don't think my initial memories were quite as accurate as I had thought.

Surely you mean Lufia 2. Surely.

I haven't played that one yet, as I already got bored with the beginning of Dragon Age: Origins, heh. (But I didn't give it a fair chance yet.)

I don't remember ever playing a game with good gameplay that was ruined by the story, but I acknowledge the possibility of such a case. And a point-and-click adventure with a totally bad and uninteresting story probably won't be able to make up for that with good gameplay.

I meant Lufia series, though I didn't like Lufia continuation on Game Boy or wherever the series headed. I enjoyed both - Lufia I and II, probably I enjoyed Lufia II more, because it was bigger, better and with more fleshed out mechanics.

Yeah, I was looking for something with solid gameplay and a terrible story to illustrate the point, but I actively avoid games known for having bad stories and thus don't have any examples to draw from.

Oh oh oh, The War of Eustrath! I knew I had one in there! Obscure game, but its writing is so amateurish and stooped in lame references that never manage to be funny and typos that it's painful to play.

Yeah, I was going to say... Lufia has an insane encounter rate and some pretty ugly elements (that soundtrack is like being punched in the face by the worst-sounding midi keyboard in existence). Not that I can't understand someone liking it, but Lufia 2 is definitely bigger and better in pretty much every way. And yeah, the Game Boy one is trash. So much rage. Lufia: The Ruins of Lore was pretty good, though. Not mind-blowing, but an interesting little side story.

As I've said before, story in a game is a similar thing to me as the music in the game. You could say it is not usually necessarily needed (unless the story, or music, is somehow integral to the gameplay of course), but it can really add to the game and make me like the game more.

So flat out saying that a story in all games is unnecessary or even unwanted is silly. You could claim the same for music too, but I personally feel e.g. Baldur's Gate 2 wouldn't have been the same game without the music (or the story), while in Team Fortress 2 (a multiplayer game) lack of in-game music is actually preferable. Heck, a story is not needed for TF2 either.

Having said that, that Maddox guy did correctly point out that in some arcade-like reaction/puzzle games the story does feel just wrapped on. This is not a new thing, for instance didn't Arkanoid (or Arkanoid 2) have also some silly story in the beginning which didn't seem to have much to do with the gameplay? After all, it was a glorified Pong game (or Breakout or whatever).

I kinda get a silly feeling also with those story modes in e.g. Japanese fighting games. blaa-blaa-blaa-BLAA-blaa blaa... ***FIGHT***. Yeah, they feel completely tacked-on.

I should probably elaborate a bit more. To me, characters make the stories. Characters are the stories. To get me fully invested, interested and intrigued about the story, it needs at least one well-written character. The overarching plot is not that important, personalities and motivations are :D


Dragon Age: Inquisition is one of my favorite games of all time. Because of its characters.

Personally, if there is going to be a story at all, I actually prefer it to be about the world rather than the characters.

One game that got it wrong is Final Fantasy 6; The story focuses heavily on the characters, but the one most significant event in the game affects the world.

Also, world stories tend to be less intrusive, as they are typically told by townspeople and books that can be ignored, while character stories tend to be told via mandatory non-interactive cutscenes.

Let me ask you this: if it wasn't for the story, would you have played Warcraft III? If the answer is no, then why did you waste your time playing it at all, you could have just watched the cutscenes on YouTube instead and be done with it. And if the answer is yes, then you agree with me that the story was a nice bonus to an already good game.

It's the same thing with unlocks, I am always told "if it wasn't for the unlocks I wouldn't have the motivation to play the game". So the only reason they are playing the game is because someone is holding a carrot on a stick in front of them. If a game is not worth playing on its own merits, then it's not worth playing at all.

It is. When you think about it, do you have any meaningful choices in those game? Your only choice is where to go and what to click, but none of it really mattes because there is only one way to progress: the way it was intended. You cannot even lose unless you just shut the game off. People play adventures for the story and the puzzles, none of which make an actual game. A game requires you to be able to have choices and consequences, a constant back and forth between players, or in the case of single-player games between the player and the computer.

I think this clip explains well why games are interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ33e9BK9aU

How is a puzzle not a game?

Great clip.

Gotta say that when I made this thread, I did not at all anticipate some of the responses. It's both heart breaking (for me) and interesting. Definitely eye opening. Thank you all for answering and stating your opinions!

Keep 'em coming, I'm very interested to hear more.

It's the combination of the two. Why is it so hard to grasp for some? You can substitute anything for "story" in that question of yours (graphics, music, setting etc.). In the end you never play for just one of those elements. It's the entire game that matters. I would not be interested in playing Warcraft III to the end without the story, and I would not be interested in watching the cutscenes without playing the game.

Yeah, all those meaningfull choices in all the platformers, FPSes, hack'n'slash games like Diablo... come on. Most games don't give you any choices. By your definition only RPGs would be games, and even then only some of them. Or is the big difference that you can't "die"? In some adventure games you can, but even when you can't... how does that really matter? Whether you're stuck on a puzzle you can't solve or on a boss you can't beat the result is the same- you're stuck on something you need to beat untill you can progress further. Is seeing the words "game over" really that different from "I can't use these things together"? In essence they mean the same thing, only you don't have to reload a save after trying to open a jar with a manatee. Was Prince of Persia (2008) not a game? You basically could not die in that one.

Cargo: The quest for gravity.

every time I remember that game I remember how my time with it was absolutely sublime from start to finish, with an amazing clever surreal story that was also perfectly melded with the gameplay and the world around it. every time someone asks for a good story in a game I mention cargo and will not stop pestering them until they play through it.

That shouldn't be surprising. Games are about gaming and game play, a good story can enhance a game, but games are about actual gameplay.

Choosing adventure and RPG games is a bit of a straw man there. Those are genres that are heavily dependent upon a narrative to give meaning to the game. Without that, I'm not even sure what you'd have. But, most genres of game aren't so hobbled when you remove the story.

And no, the idea isn't insane. FPW, RTS, platformers, hidden objects, TBS, puzzles and just about every variety of game that isn't an RPG derivative or adventure derivative doesn't need a story. In fact, the reason why I skip stories in most games is because they add very, very little to the experience and just get in the way of actually playing the game.

When I want a story, I pick up a game that's meant to have a story. Something like FO:NV where the writing is meant to actually be read rather than put there as a way of appeasing people that demand a story in every fucking game.
Um, no. Did you even read this? Games are about gameplay and very little else.

Now, if you only play RPG or adventure games, I can sort of see where you're coming from. But, seriously, games are about gameplay. If we want something that's all about story, well, there's better options. A typical game is just not long enough to have a complicated story.
That right there is your problem. Your preferences are so strong that you don't even know what the alternatives are.

Just because I personally demand quality gameplay, doesn't mean that I don't or can't appreciate games that are primarily story drive. I do enjoy those, I'm just not silly enough to suggest that having a quality story in a game, no less, is mandatory.