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Unlike twitchier genres, such as shooters or fighting games, part of the central appeal of an RPG is its ability to tell a story. After all, RPGs evolved from tabletop games, where a group of players comes together to create a story through gameplay mechanics. However, where tabletop games are collaborative in their storytelling, video game RPGs tend to rely more on their baked-in writing — and that's where many games can get into trouble. Nothing ruins a good set of mechanics like unrealistic or stilted dialogue.
These RPGs are exactly the opposite. They might have interesting gameplay ideas marred by imperfect execution, or perhaps they don't bring anything new to the table — that doesn't matter. With writing this good, you'll keep playing just to read what happens next.
7 𒈔 Alpha Protocol
Obsidian Entertainment has come to be known for games that are as interesting and well-writ🔜ten as they can be buggy and difficult to play, and Alpha Protocol, their first original property, fits this des🐼cription to a T. The game casts you as super-spy Michael Thorton, working for the mysterious intelligence agency that gives the game its title.
You'll take on stealthy covert missions where your choices influence how the following missions play out, and the game's writing responds dynamically to your choices. It's an interesting, ambitious experiment with plenty of faults — but it's got a heck of a story and a ton of great ideas.
6 Shadowrun Returns ﷺ
The 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Shadowrun series has a storied gaming history — it first appeared in the late 80s as a tabletop RPG, then expanded to video game consoles with a classic isometric game for the SNES. Though later games in the series ܫwould shift genres to visual novels and shooters, Shadowrun Returns reimagines that isometric RPG magic for modern gamers.
The game overflows with affection for the property, with writing that perfectly navigates the franchise's melange of cyberpunk, fantasy, and film noir influences. The game itself suffers a bit from a limited scope and a frustrating save system, but later expansions would fix that problem. Now you can experience the whole revived series on modern consoles with Shadowrun Trilogy, which compiles all three installments.
5 🐓 Baten Kaitos: Origins
GameCube owners suffered from a lack of quality RPGs, but Baten Kaitos was there to fill the gap. Namco's oddball series imagined a world where people lived on islands in the sky and battled with cards, and the first game's gorgeous aesthetics and intriguing ideas were only matched by its utterly awful voice acting and stilted dialogue. Its sequel, Baten Kaitos: Origins, fixed both of those problems.
The dialogue and writing are snappy and full of character, and the voice cast actually seems invested in bringing their roles to life. The game itself, like its predecessor, introduces a level of randomness in its deck-based battle system that could turn plenty of players off — but this is still a hidden gem in the Cube's library.
4 Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlinﷺes ꦡ
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is one of those legendary gaming failures that's lived on despite its faults. An incredibly ambitious title, Bloodlines was based on the Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop RPG, which places vampires in a dark, realistic fantasy setting.
The game featured overlapping systems based on differing vampire clans. Joining a particular clan would give you certain powers and affect how other characters saw you, meaning that each playthrough gave you different experiences. Despite its overwhelming technical flaws, Bloodlines' characters and writing were so memorable that they became incorporated back into the tabletop games' canon.
3 Contact
Grasshopper Manufacture is known for their rebellious, postmodern sense of style, and their underplayed DS RPG Contact fits right in with their other games. In Contact you control Terry, a young man who lands on a strange planet after falling out of a spaceship. You're directed by The Professor, who helps you to guide Terry through the world.
The gameplay is a somewhat monotonous take on the usual action-RPG tropes, but Contact's eclectic graphical style and goofy writing give it a unique vibe all its own. Imagine if 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Earthbound was even weirder, and you'll get the picture. The game wasn't a huge success, but it deserves to be remembered.
2 𒆙 Arcanum: Of Steamworks And Magick Obscura
Created by Troika, the same studio that made Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, Arcanum: Of Steamworks And Magick Obscura presents many of the same flaws and high points. Like Bloodlines, Arcanum feels a little unfinished — here, it's because the game is grotesquely unbalanced, meaning that certain character builds can absolutely steamroll through the game while others get hammered.
But that fault is linked intrinsically to Arcanum's greatest qualities as well. Like Bloodlines, it's a game that responds dynamically to your choices in character creation and dialogue; if you're a human with high charisma, you'll experience different events than a dwarf with high dexterity. The game's writing is full of worldbuilding and detail, and it goes a long way towards making up for its flaws.
1 ♏ Lost Odyssey
Lost Odyssey, a rare Xbox 360-exclusive JRPG, comes with a high pedigree: it was created by 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy mastermind Hironobu Sakaguchi and sc𝓡ored by 🉐legendary composer Nobuo Uematsu. Moreover, it was co-written by the award-winning novelist Kiyoshi Shigematsu, and his command of the pen is what elevates the game.
Lost Odyssey marries straightforward RPG gameplay mechanics like turn-based battles and random encounters with a melancholic story, told heavily through visual-novel style flashback sequences. Shigematsu was responsible fo🔥r these sequences, and 🐻their depth and quality helps the game stand out despite its fairly familiar gameplay loop.