Best RPG game ever? - Forgotten Realms: Baldur's Gate II - Shadows of Amn (2000) Discussion

[–] Darnoc 18 years ago

If I could vote the best game ever, it would either be Baldur's Gate II, Planescape or Arcanum. Perhaps also Thief might get an award... In my opinion, the story and the characters are what counts, not graphics or gameplays or any other such unimportant details. And the mentioned three really have the best in my opinion.

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[–] tragic_slider 15 years ago

A lot of good ones mentioned in this thread...

I want to give a shout-out to Hordes of the Underdark, the best expansion to the original Neverwinter Nights. The initial dungeon crawl is a bit lame but once you are transported to the Underdark with your kobold sidekick things get cracking. It includes some of my favorite moments, such as
- a faceoff with a FREAKIN SCARY bebelith in a magic-nullified zone
- taking on a whole hive of illithids and their Elder Brain
- defeating a vicious dracolich

And it culminates in a fabulous confrontation between an Underdark mercanary army and you and your underdark allies that is more RTS than RPG.

Plus you later get to wander the wastes of Cania, the eighth level of Baator, and interact with some mega-weird denizens of the outer planes.

Good times!

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[–] PatheticWeakling 18 years ago

Knights of the old republic is great to...

"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes."

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[–] gungagalunga 18 years ago

You wanna talk truly epic, fantastic PC RPGs? Then you gotta mention Ultima 7 The Black Gate. It is so open ended and filled with so many unrelated things to do, you could spend weeks and weeks without ever doing one thing towards finishing the game. You can kill the owner of a house in a city, stash the body in a back room, and live there the entire game. You can store all of your money and spare stuff in the furniture just like you live there! There is so much freedom AND the story itself is really good too.

The game is assive and freakin' awsome!

"Just because no one understands you doesn't make you an artist."

"Never cook bacon naked."

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[–] thiselemental 15 years ago

Couldn't agree more. Check out my homage to Black Gate and Ultima at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0222467/board/thread/125213582?d=125213582#125213582

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[–] onirium 18 years ago

I've never played such an enjoyable game as BGII. Since it was released I've played it time after time. I've discovered myself saying never again and after some months starting a new game with a different character. It has everything I demand, a complex story, adventure, fun and close-to-reality characters. I'm sure that in one or two years I will have to try it again. What a pity the BG books aren't so good!

All Those Moments Will Be Lost In Time Like Tears In Rain... Time To Die

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[–] Darnoc 18 years ago

Quote:

What a pity the BG books aren't so good!

-------------------------------------

Then read this, my friend: my BG2-novel, including the Imoen-Romance by Lord Mirrabbo.

http://www.jashan.net/sites/facets/sob/index.html

Rated R, by the way (violence, sexual content)

And I agree with some posters here: Eastern RPGs can never stand up to the Western storywise and worldwise. The stories and worlds in the Western are mostly more complex and more mature. And the top ones are BGII, Arcanum and P:T when it comes to story. No Eastern can beat those. Not even any other RPG, they are simply the best of the best. They have deep, mature stories with fascinating thoughts in them (yes, you actually have to think about what you do in the story; this is driven to the extreme in Arcanum and P:T but that's exactly what I love about them, there should be more games like that, with philosophical, ethical, political and social problems in them; we need more mature games!.

"Homo homini lupus - man is man's wolf"

-- Roman proverb

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[–] Conan_The_Barbarian 18 years ago

I wouldn't say the best RPG ever but I would say it's the best RPG on PC. Arcanum and Fallout come close and are excellent PC RPG's in their own right but Baldur's Gate II is the best in the business on PC in my view.

As far as the best RPG ever, it's extremely difficult but my vote goes to Suikoden II, by a hair over Shadow Hearts: Covenant and Final Fantasy X.

Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women!

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[–] Xstar-1 18 years ago

I agree with you when you say that BG2, Arcanum and Fallout are, by far, the very best RPGs produced by mankind - ever!! - but not just on PC, they are the best! You can't really make good RPG:s on any console, it becomes too limited and arcade-like. PC is the place where role play can blossom!

Truly, this game is a masterpiece.

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[–] dances_with_ninjas 18 years ago

I'm afraid I don't agree that consoles can't do RPGs. Bare in mind Kotor (my second favourite and only loses due to it's tiny maps) was a multi format release.

Consoles just lean towards the Japanese/Eastern styles where freedom and levelling up our replaced by high, almost soap opera, drama. Though again, I just prefer the freedom given by gooder rpgs which tend to be Western made. I believe Bioware and Blackilse are both based in Canada.

Bearded drawves are of course essential.

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[–] stuph_3 18 years ago

Baldur's Gate (II) is the best game ever, not only because it is so immense, but the way in which the company lets users write mods and patches for it. After I played through the unaltered game several times, which is what's required to get every quest complete, I put on some patches, notably The Darkest Day, which includes many more character kits and PCs to talk to that have their own quests.

The game has almost no faults. The graphics were cutting-edge at the time of release, and they are still quite impressive. The majority of negative reviews were made by people that were too immature to sit down and either learn how to play the game ("It's too hard!") or to read everything that was said ("That game totally lacked an interesting storyline.") Once the controls and gameplay is mastered, Baldur's Gate provides hours of fun and entertainment.

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[–] Xstar-1 18 years ago

Well, I'm sorry for being honest, but Japanese/Asian role playing games SUCK. I'm sorry, but they really do. The storyline is often badly written and the dialogues misspelled :S Also, all characters in Japanese RPG:s have swords 3x the size of their heads and extremely small feet and very large eyes. It all seems like those badly animated Anime shows, but with even stranger plots.

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[–] capataz_de_cargadores 18 years ago

1. Baldur's Gate 2:SOA
2. Fallout 2
3. Planescape: Torment
4. Baldur's Gate
5. Deus Ex

I'm not really a fan of the Japanese RPGs for reasons already mentioned in the above posts.

"Mediocrities all, I absolve you. I am your champion. I am your patron saint"

-Antonio Salieri

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[–] skoobaba 18 years ago

1. Baldur`s Gate 2
2. Betrayal at Krondor (download for free at abandonia.com)
3. Ultima 7
4. Baldur`s Gate 1
5. Kotor

Worst 5

1. Neverwinter Nights
2. Icewind Dale 2
3. Diablo 2
4. Pool of Radiance
5. Might and Magic 9

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[–] canderous875 18 years ago

It is absolutely the best RPG in any field of comparison

Graphics: Inspired renderings of the Forgotten Realms

Sound: Amazing voice acting

Gameplay: Dungeons and Dragons flawlessly on your computer

and most important Story: Extremely well crafted epic yet to be surpassed filled with memorable characters and truly dramatic moments.

I give it a 10. The only 10 I have ever given out.

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[–] lightstar 18 years ago

There are far worse PC RPGs than those you mentioned, but maybe it was amongst those you've played. I don't know why I care...

I agree with the comments on Planescape. Great story, but poor game design. Same thing with BG1 and BG2. I played those games about halfway through and got sidetracked, but then when the expansion packs came out and the interface/game mechanics got improved (in both cases). They became much more playable. Too bad Planescape didn't get an expansion, then maybe I would have finished it.

I'd say BG series as whole are probably the best RPG game(s) out there with Fallout series as close seconds. Yes, I'm naming the maybe most famous PC RPGs franchises, but I've played a lot of RPGs (that released after Fallout anyway). There's a reason why they are well known. I really liked the endings in BG1 and BG2, specially BG1.

This may sound lame or whatever, but I don't really see JRPGs as 'real' RPG. I tried to play some paper/pen rpgs with some friends at summer camps for 2 summers, so maybe that's why. You don't really get any freedom in JRPGs, it's too linear. Not saying that they aren't good, I love some of them, but they just aren't RPGs in that sense in my book.

Anyway again, if you asked me for the best RPG ever, I'd say Baldur's Gate in a heartbeat.

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[–] willmccann4eva 18 years ago

fallout anyone?

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[–] pronanojja 18 years ago

i totally agree with the fact that how wonderful the japaneese "rpg" may be, they are not real rpgs, they are more of an adventure game with rpg-moments. dont get me wrong, i love a lot of them!

in my book of 'real' RPGs the list is as this
- Baldurs gate 2/Fallout 2 on a shared first place, since they are so different its hard to pick one or the other both are extrordinary
- Baldurs gate/Fallout, both really good, both a lot shorter, both clumsier
- Deus Ex, that intro music still almost brings tears to my eyes ;)
- Planescape, as mentioned before a great story but lacking a good gameplay

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[–] capataz_de_cargadores 18 years ago

1. Baldur's Gate II
2. Fallout 2
3. SW: Knights of the Old Republic
4. Deus Ex
5. Planescape: Torment
6. Baldur's Gate
7. System Shock 2
8. Arcanum
9. Icewind Dale
10.Neverwinter Nights

"Mediocrities all, I absolve you. I am your champion. I am your patron saint"

-Antonio Salieri

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[–] dances_with_ninjas 18 years ago

By Planescape being an awful game I meant how it's filled with infinite niggles. Not having anywhere to rest or recover health for a third of the game, starting off too weak, having a small inventory and loads of useless things like your own intestines, the spells were too powerful and rare so spell casters were either too powerful or getting in the way, if you annoy the bloke on fire in your party he'll attack whenever you revive him so you can't get him to leave etc. But as I said before it's probably the best narrative/story along with Beyond Good and Evil. Which is also a fantastic Zelda beater but like Zelda is more adventure than an rpg.

On Deus Ex it's mainly the way light drains your bio energy and it's too dark to leave it off and a standard firefight costs more ammo than you recover. Also I just don't think stealth, my preffered method, is suited to first person as you can't see yourself so can't tell wether your hidden or not.

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[–] poem 18 years ago

Its always subjective what your best game is ...

Up to the moment, BG2 is the best game I've ever played.

But there are other really good games out there:

- Fallout 1+2: Never played those, but they are very famous.

- Planescape: Torment: same engine as BG/BG2, but totally different. Tons of text and a really worsened interface compared to BG (you cant place party with right mouse button, you can't put the main guy in second place, buttons are small and hard to hit ...). I've been told that you can play the whole game with only 2 unavoidable battles (you would have to miss out some sidequests however).

- Icewind Dale 1+2: the other game with the BG engine. Many nice riddles and quests, very tough battles, not that good story, very linear, no interparty banter - you create your party on your own.

- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Biowares only PC game which can stand up to BG. While SWKotoR1 lacks in many respects (too simple interface with not enough control, too simple rulesystem with not enough possibilities for variation, problems with waysearch, too easy fights in the later game), it could totally provide the good old BG feeling to me. SWKotOR2 is not from Bioware, but from Obsidian, and hasn't been cleanly finished (lots of bugs, incomplete ending).

- Morrowind/Oblivion: Bethesda's Elder Scrolls are uber from their technical quality, but storytelling is done better by others. So: No party, total crap rulesystem, beautiful graphics, average to nice quests, average story, overall very mainstream (and successful).

- Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines - very very good story over most part of the game. Unfortunately the ending is bad because only fighting. And this is an Action RPG, with bad reflexes (such as me) you will run into trouble... you can however activate god mode when the battles become really tough at the end of the game.
Btw, play a Toreador if you dont know what to play, because they get ALL the good fight abilities and also start off with a lot of diplomacy which is very good for the beginning of the game.

- Neverwinter Nights 2: Part 1 from Bioware was more for online playing of classic PnP, and playing through a ton of fanmade mods. Part 2 from Obsidian will focus more on singleplayer and I'm really curious what Obsidian has created there.
- Dragon Age: NOT released yet, next Bioware game, might be great again.
- Fallout 3: Bethesda has taken over the Fallout stuff... hard to say what they will do with it. Probably it will become 3D, but I hope it will still be party based. I do not know about quality of storytelling either; Bethesdas
- The Witcher: This will be an Action RPG based on the Neverwinter Nights engine. Developed by some new polish company which name I cant recall atm, it is based on the works of a polish author and all I've read about it sounds great so far. I hope for an experience like Bloodlines.

If I would have to make a personal toplist, it would be like this:

1. Baldurs Gate 2
2. Knights of the Old Republic
3. Vampire: Bloodlines
4. Baldurs Gate
5. Icewind Dale 2

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If you really would be an omnivore, you would consider raw innards a delicacy.

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[–] lieutenant_speirs 18 years ago

Baldur's gate is not just the best RPG, but the best game I have ever played. Now, I am a fan of FPS, action adventure, and sports games, and of the RPG's I've played there are few that I love. But Baldur's Gate II is the deepest, most involving game I've ever played. The story is enough to fill a novel(which makes it a shame that the Baldur's Gate novels suck), and is in fact more interesting than many novels I have read. The gameplay is fun, the quests are imaginative, the plot is good. But the best part is probably the interaction between NPC's. Interesting relationships are created between characters in your party (the best being when Viconia starts hitting on you)and you get a feel for their personality, the likes of which I've seen in no other game. In other words, if you want to buy old games, buy this one first (also, get Neverwinter Nights on amazon for three bucks brand new).

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[–] marko2te 18 years ago

1. Planescape Torment
2. Baldurs Gate 2
3. Fallout 2
4. Gothic 2
5. System Shock 2
6. Anachronox
7. Arx Fatalis
8. Arcanum
9. Wizardry 8
10.Icewind Dale

5 Worst RPG

1. Dungeon Siege (more a Hack and slash than RPG but still awful game)
2. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (greatest disapointment of gaming history)
3. Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor (huge amount of bugs)
4. Lionheart (very bad combat system and graphics)
5. Neverwinter Night (too much fighting and poor story)

"At least you weren't eaten by a grue!"

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[–] ferranax 18 years ago

Jade Empire, anyone?

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[–] Vigilant_One 18 years ago

Yep, BG2 is the best PC Rpg of all time only closely rival by planescape & fallout 2. WoW anyone ?

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[–] poem 18 years ago

I was never interested in WoW because of the ugly comic look.

Use that look for superhero games - but not for fantasy !

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If you really would be an omnivore, you would consider raw innards a delicacy.

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[–] dws100 17 years ago

I dont like lists that much, but, well.

1. Planescape Torment: Ok, it does have its flaws, and the gameplay in BG2 is much better, but I consider Torment the best at story, characters, visuals, sounds and background.
2. Fallout 2: Ah, the freedom. I have yet to find a rpg game that gives you so much freedom. Amazing style too.
3. BG Saga: I consider all the games as one. Amazing story and all the games put together offer you dozens of hours of fun.

I´m pretty sure I forgot an important game, but I also have to talk about Ultima 7. Its quite amazing, and even being old, its still enjoyble. I spent quite a lot of hours playing that one.

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[–] lifeispeachy3214 17 years ago

1. Final Fantasy 7 (mostly due to the fact i was younger at the time and it was the first RPG to consume me with its storyline and characters)

2. Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind ( the first time ive ever felt like i was in a living world)

3. Jade Empire (A few hours in once I came across the storyline about the cannibals living in the woods, I knew Bioware had packaged a mature rich storyline, great looking environments, and a very fun experience for me. Ended too soon though)

4. KotoR ( great story. The first time in a game I really felt that my actions molded my character.)

5. Fable ( more of an action/ rpg and really too easy, but the game world created truely has its own style and I personally loved it. The evil/good character creation over time was done well, though needed more depth. Hopefully Fable 2 will really be able to develope it more)

6. Earth Bound ( old super nintendo game, but the first RPG style game i ever played and it took away many hours from me.)

8. Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion ( though the game was a dissapoint on many many levels. I still had a great time in probably the most richely alive game environment ever created. its simply beatiful. Too bad you can fast travel everywhere and the true vastness of the game world shrinks to insignificance.)

I just got GameTap though and it has BG 1 & 2 availabe to d/l. I came on here to check out the word on the street about it, and from all I can tell it seems as though im about to embark on a great adventure. And no I do not only play console RPG's, it just seems as though ive enjoyed them more overall. I did play both elder scrolls games on PC.

"For us, there is no spring. Just the wind that smells fresh before the storm." - Conan

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[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] poem 18 years ago

Currently Baldurs Gate 2 is definitely my "best game ever".

Second comes "Knight of the Old Republic" (again Bioware), third "Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines" (Troika Games, may they rest in peace).

But YAY ! there are three candidates which may either take the "Throne" of BG2 or come at least very close which will come out soon:

Neverwinter Nights 2 (Obsidian): Sep 2006 (!)
The Witcher (CD Project, a new polish company): probably jun 2007
Dragon Age (Bioware): unknown, maybe end 2007 (but thats VERY optimistic !)

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If you really would be an omnivore, you would consider raw innards a delicacy.

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[–] getalife1798 17 years ago

there is one game that isn't getting any credit out there and its SNESs Super Mario RPG. That game was one of the best games I ever play and still play to this day!

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[–] kfpxcs 17 years ago

Super Mario R-P-G. It is the only one just for me. When I play the game, I get lost in a phase.

Yeah, that game is awesome. I remember beating that game over and over again on my Super Nintendo back then because it was so cool. That was the first RPG I've ever played.

Also Baldur's Gate was the first RPG I played on a PC. At first I didn't like it because it was too difficult for me back when I was young and stupid. Later on, I begin to appreciate the story and the characterization in the game and how the game interacts with its given fictional universe. I enjoyed forming parties and seeing how they'd do nblah blah bla lthis game is awesome BGII = best RPG ever

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[–] codexrpg 17 years ago

1. BG 2
2. KOTOR 1
3. Arcanum
4. Jade Empire
5. Fallout 2
6. Fallout 1
7. BG 1
8. Planescape

No other games deserve to be mentioned ever!

It's a shame that Obsidian fails at life and can't utilize the talent of their former Black Isle and Troika members, but even Black Isle and Troika pale in comparison to the greatness of Bioware! Especially Dave Gaider!

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[–] sashoMT-1 17 years ago

Someone here said, that japanese storytelling sux ...c'mon man, have U played Final Fantasy 7? The best story i've ever seen in VG ... i've played it 5times and 5times i've found something new about it...

BG2 and Fallout 2:BEST RPG ever and almost best games ever :)
FF7:BEST game ever imho

I used to be a schizoprenic. But now, we're fine ... :)

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[–] decoy-8 15 years ago

I couldn't agree more with that!!!There are many many good rpg games but Baldur's Gate is something more than game for me.They both with KOTOR are masterpieces!

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