Western-developed RPGs.

[Cless Aileron]

I would think it's safe to assume that our RPG experience are focused on the Japanese developed ones (then again, I wouldn't know if that would be the case).  With that in mind and my thing with playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion currently, I thought it would be interesting to see what we have to say about the Western-developed RPGs.  Like what you think of them and even discuss the ones we've experience.

So, what do you think of Western-developed RPGs?  Which ones have you experienced?

These are the noteworthy ones that I have experienced (well, outside of Oblivion).

*Diablo.  I found it to be a fun hack and slash game and I do remember playing this a lot offline and on Battle.net.  There's nothing much I can say about this one.

*Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.  Nope.  Oblivion wasn't the first time I touched an Elder Scrolls game since I did play this one before.  Since I didn't have a PC that was up to standards at that time, I gave this game a whirl on the Xbox, one of the games I looked into to expand my RPG experience outside the Square name more.  It was an interesting one to say.  There was a huge world to explore.  Though I hit some bumps on the way, it was still something to remember.

*Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.  It's combining two big things of geekdom (to put it in the best way I can).  Star Wars and RPGs.  Not only that, we have a sci-fi universe that people are really into with along with the Jedi thing.  It was screaming to be made into an RPG.  What came out was a well-crafted game, so much that you didn't need to be a Star Wars fan to get into the game but if you are, more power to you.  I liked its Light and Dark side branching where you choose responses to make and it determines which side your character is drifting towards.  I even ended up trying to do two different games for the two different alignments.

After trying a few of them, I do like the ones I've played (including Oblivion) and liked them.  They certainly have something great about them.  The only problem would be that I never really finished them.  Even though I'll probably prefer a Japanese-developed RPG, I feel there's nothing wrong with giving both sides a try and hey, if it the game is good, then what the hey, I should try it out.

Now, I'll like to hear from you.

[supersonic1453]

I never liked Diablo.  I tried to get into it, but I just couldn't.  I just found the game boring.

I liked Morrowind.  I probably would've liked it more on the xbox since I like controllers better than keyboards, but I don't have an xbox so I can't be sure.

Never played KOTOR.

[Leroy]

Ah, fun topic.

Most of my Western RPG experience comes form the olden days.. on the Commodore 64. I remember the brutal Phantasie series, particularly Phantasie III.. it was definitely everything that the genre is known for: an open world, creating a custom party (six character parties, if I recall!) and gameplay meant to kill the player as often as possible. Of course, I was also into Ultima back then as well.. which is kind of responsible it itself for Japanese RPGs (all JRPGs follow Dragon Quest.. which Hori has said was made to be a more kid-friendly Ultima). I had complete III and IV, both were very good games and the NES versions in particular are a nice mish-mash of the Western style gameplay with Japanese style graphics. I know I played a lot more on the old C64 but I can't remember specific titles.

I too got into Diablo.. I used to play that (and Warcraft II) over phone modem with a friend of mine. I love rogue-like games and this was a nice take on that. Recently I had played a little bit of Fable.. which is a hell of a lot of fun if you ignore the expectations the game had based on Peter Molyneux's hype (or maybe it was the internet's hype based on what Peter wanted to make the game like, but couldn't in the time given).

Elder Scrolls seemed "too big" for me.. if that makes sense. I'm known to really be tired of very time-inducing games and I've heard stores of Morrowind and Oblivion. I may pick up Oblivion if I get an Xbox 360 this year just to see what all the hype is about.. though I don't have any expectations based on that, so we'll see. Actually, I could get it for PC.. I've been meaning to try some new PC games since I've got a nice rig now and the Japanese PC games I play have such low system requirements I feel like I'm not getting my money's worth out of what I have.. I installed the Command & Conquer 3 demo and literally pooped my pants when it loaded it saying "So THIS is what I bought that video card for!"

[supersonic1453]

I know exactly what you're talking about for Elder Scrolls.  I don't think I ever actually played the main story in that game.

[bungiefan]

I can't stand most western RPGs. They remind me too much of pencil and paper games where I have to allocate all my stat points myself and choose my own abilities, with no knowledge of if they're going to be useful before the end of the game or not, leading me to constantly starting over. I don't like creating my own characters and having to manage every aspect of their stats and development, and then having so open-ended of a game that I can't decide what to do next. I like my RPGs to be like books where the story is already determined and I don't have to micromanage my characters just to progress. I play for the story, not for the creative process it tries to force me through, especially when I don't know I've made bad choices on character creation until many hours into the game that I don't want to do over, but can't progress anymore because of those choices.

[Cless]

I'd really like to get more into western RPGs, as most of the ones I've played have been really cool. But my console backlog is massive, and I'd need a monster to of a PC to run some of them nicely...

Anyway:

Baldur's Gate: Absolutely fantastic. Nice big world, tons to explore, lots of things to do. Loved the crap out of this, but then for some reason when I was trying to advance the story, somehow an important NPC was aggressive towards me so I couldn't finish it. I WILL finish this game someday, and then get the sequel...

TESIII Morrowind: Another great game. After all the hype that was surrounding Oblivion I decided I really needed to give this game a shot. As I became familiar with it, it became completely awesome. Picked up the GOTY version for $20 and still consider it the best spent $20 ever.

I REALLY want to play Oblivion. But the game is such an incredible resource hog that it even chokes state-of-the-art hardware on nice settings. I don't want to play a console version, I want to play the PC version and run it with nice settings and get a consistent 60+ FPS. Seems I'll be waiting a few years for that kind of hardware to become affordable...

Anyway, these games in general offer an atmosphere and world sizes that have yet to be scratched by Japanese RPGs. They're completely fantastic if you want to play something that really sucks you into the world. I love being able to do whatever I please in these games... going on NPC slaughtering sprees is always fun (though you'll usually end up paying for it).

I liked Morrowind.  I probably would've liked it more on the xbox since I like controllers better than keyboards, but I don't have an xbox so I can't be sure.

Well, I've heard the Xbox version has crazy insane loading times. There's also the lack of moddability. It's a serious pain selling expensive rare items to the creeper when he only carries 5k of gold...

[Cless Aileron]

I have to say it, Leroy.  You really have one interesting history with Western RPGs.  Believe me, you aren't the only one having fun with the topic.

I know exactly what you're talking about for Elder Scrolls.  I don't think I ever actually played the main story in that game.

I do too.  That's one of the bumps I had getting into Morrowind.  The big world.  It was something that took some time to adjust to.  So I get what you and Leroy are talking about.

Anyway, these games in general offer an atmosphere and world sizes that have yet to be scratched by Japanese RPGs. They're completely fantastic if you want to play something that really sucks you into the world. I love being able to do whatever I please in these games... going on NPC slaughtering sprees is always fun (though you'll usually end up paying for it).

Oh yeah.  Being bad in the game...such a guilty pleasure.  Though I'm trying not to be bad in my current game, I'm also thinking of doing another game in Oblivion with a different class fitting to be bad (like being a thief).

Well, I've heard the Xbox version has crazy insane loading times. There's also the lack of moddability. It's a serious pain selling expensive rare items to the creeper when he only carries 5k of gold...

I can say I can vouch for that since I played the Xbox version of Morrowind.  The loading were pretty long, but didn't really drive me nuts.

[Phren]

I like J-RPG's for their atmosphere and epic 'feel' to them. And it was what I was brought up on starting with the first Dragon 'Warrior', so I never got caught up in too may domestic geek-isms. Of course, my main detachment from western RPG's is that they're 90% on the PC, and with my luck with video cards (I fry them more often then I do eggs) it's a good hindrance.
In my two crowning moments of adequacy along the way, I liked:

Diablo: Sure, there wasn't much to it, and I freely admit it was a "get more money to get better stuff to go deeper to get more money to get better stuff" endless cycle obsession/addiction kind of pleasure, but I had fun with it.

Morrowind: The Ti2600 fried so I can;t even play this anymore. Really got into playing this, just SO much to explore and horde. And you could do anything in it. I really miss it. I heard Oblivion isn't as good, and I would buy another video card on the cheap just to play this again.

Also like an 'advanced dungeons and dragons' game on the old PC (think: runs on '95 only) called 'Darksun', but no one remembers that I bet (was a free pack-on on my family's state of the art 100MHZ PC, lol)

[Hen78]

I've experienced a fair amount of western (and Australian ) RPGs in my time, I'm not really sure where to start so I'll just comment on other people's choices for now.

Diablo: With the term "Diablo clone" being bandied around for various action RPGs (including another fave, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance), I knew I had to check this one out sooner or later. I didn't play it until sometime in 2003 and after several Diablo clones I still managed to get hooked on it. Part of the appeal of the genre is in its simplicity, these games serve as a welcome break from the pretentious plotlines, intimidatingly large game worlds and needlessly complex gameplay mechanics that other games are increasingly bogged down in. Less is sometimes more, you could say. I haven't played Diablo 2, although I have a feeling there's a copy hidden around here somewhere...

Oblivion: I really like what I've played but it became apparent that my PC isn't up for the task, even after tweaking it for optimal performance. Right now, I'm unsure whether to wait a couple of years to get a new PC or just a couple of months and get a 7600GT card. Gameplay-wise, the large world doesn't bother me as much as in other games, I consider it as a sandbox RPG where finishing the game really isn't the point (indeed, the game doesn't technically end), you simply do what you want as little or as much as you want (it helps make it all seem less daunting at least).

Baldur's Gate: Absolutely fantastic. Nice big world, tons to explore, lots of things to do. Loved the crap out of this

I agree, Baldur's Gate series is fantastic, I don't think any of Bioware's subsequent RPGs have been able to compare with them. One other thing I feel they really nailed in the game is the sound. Its soundtrack was very well done and fitted the mood perfectly but more importantly it would only play occasionally (outside of battle) allowing the wonderfully ambient sounds of the forests, towns, caves, etc to really shine through. I wish more RPGs would put that much consideration into game ambience without feeling the need to drown it out with music all the time.

They remind me too much of pencil and paper games where I have to allocate all my stat points myself and choose my own abilities, with no knowledge of if they're going to be useful before the end of the game or not, leading me to constantly starting over.

That's one criticism I do have for BG1, it seems as if the campaign is geared too much towards a warrior class, I really struggled with anything else.

I confess I haven't played BG2 proper yet (but I did manage to get out of the first dungeon at least).

(Some links that may be of interest: Pocket Plane Group, G3 Modding Community, Unfinished Business (BG2))

The only problem would be that I never really finished them

That's why I don't feel inclined to mention them in the "Now Playing" thread

I know I played a lot more on the old C64 but I can't remember specific titles.

Times of Lore?   So far at least, I haven't managed to find anyone else who's played that game. I also had a copy of Ultima IV for C64 (with the cloth map and everything), dunno what became of it though


Well, I'm a bit tired and I have a feeling my post is rambling a bit (even after heavy editing) so I'll leave it at that for now

[Leroy]

Times of Lore?   So far at least, I haven't managed to find anyone else who's played that game.

I think I played that on the NES.. would that be the same as the C64 version?

[Carnivol]

I'd say the best non-Japan RPG franchises are;


The Elder Scrolls;
Personally, I like Daggerfall the most. 'cause even though Oblivion and Morrowind have huge hand crafted world and better scripted scenarios, there's just something incredibly awesome about the game from 1996 with what still is the biggest game world ever created (thanks to a terrible abuse of a random generator), the freedom to just fiddle around with random guild/tavern/temple/royal quests is also somewhat attractive, even though they're all usually just "go to ______ (mostly some dungeon) and find location A (where you'll usually find an enemy, item or a char)".

Ultima series;
These have always had huge open and interactive worlds, and I'd say they're still the best when it comes to interactivity too. Personally, I prefer the two latest titles, even though most probably hate them
(Ultima VIII - Pagan, which strayed off from the old gameplay formula and made the game a bit more action-ish, and Ultima IX - Ascension, which years before Morrowind took on the task of being a huge handcrafted 3D world with incredible interactivity.)


Fallout series;
The fact that no one's mentioned these yet, is somewhat surprising, as these are without doubt the best "roleplaying" games you can get.  The variety of ways you can progress in Fallout 1-2 are just amazing, be it going blunt with a limited vocabulary and brute force or some charismatic asshat that can talk himself out of any situation without a violent conflict. They really do offer a unique and still unmatched gameplay experience, and I actually don't really like the thought of Bethesda being involved in Fallout 3 now, simply because of the huge differences there is in the ways the Fallout franchise has been and how Bethesda's recent work has been. (I wish Bethesda would do another set of Terminator licenses ;p)






And... as a closing mention, since basicly any game that has characters of some sort, numbers and turn based strategy elements, I'd like to add that everyone that likes that kind of stuff really needs to play the old two first entries in the X-Com (Ufo Defense/Enemy Unknown and Terror From the Deep) series.
Excellent stuff, and even very "pick up and play" if you have some hours to kill.

[Chuc]

Might and Magic series, specifically M&M 6-8. Classic stuff there, man.
Huge worlds (as always), populated by 2-3 dungeons each, Day-night cycling, having to sleep and eat, optional realtime AND turned based combat, and sometimes querky quests. (eg. build your own golem)

To put it simply, both Western and Eastern RPGs satisfy my different tastes. No RPG experience would be complete without either.

[Leroy]

I should really grab a couple of these current games to see if they spark with me. I'll miss the aesthetics of the Japanese games (in a big, bad way).. but I'm really sick of how the genre has devolved into sappy anime dramas, often leaving solid and fun gameplay as something of an afterthought.

[Hen78]

I think I played that on the NES.. would that be the same as the C64 version?

Heh, I didn't know there was a NES version (it seems there were a fair few versions in fact), I guess it wasn't quite as rare as I thought. It appears to be more or less the same judging from these screens. I just remembered it as one of the first RPGs where I'd do anything but follow the main quest, instead choosing to kill hapless serfs and "steal" their houses

[Yetika]

I don't have a whole lot of experience with Western RPGs, but they are where it kinda' started for me. The first one I can remember is Wizardry 7 (Crusaders of the Dark Savant), which I definitely enjoyed watching my siblings play. Diablo and Diablo II were okay, too, but they were way too dark-toned (literally!) for me. Warcraft and Warcraft II on the other hand, are still quite awesome.

Thing is, I just don't like barely being able to see the screen when I'm in a properly-lit room, if you know what I mean... And since most Western RPGs have that eyesight-decaying feature, I can't bring myself to enjoy them even when they have a good story to tell.

Then again, most Western RPGs are more geared towards the male spectrum, and I'm a female. So uh, my opinions technically don't count. :/

[Leroy]

Warcraft and Warcraft II on the other hand, are still quite awesome.

Those aren't RPGs.

Then again, most Western RPGs are more geared towards the male spectrum, and I'm a female. So uh, my opinions technically don't count. :/

Well.. that's pretty much true for Japanese RPGs as well, though there does seem to be a little bit more wiggle room there (very little). Aesthetically, I'd think the Japanese games are easily more appealing to females but there's far more US RPGs that allow character creation allowing you to actually play as a woman. Most Japanese games that have female leads are made for pervert anime kooks more than anything.