Best RPG game studio of all time?

Alright, a little poll here. I don't really have a ''poll'' since there are many to pick from. Bethesda, TSR, EA, Bioware?

There are certaintly many to pick from. I have to go with Bethesda and Bioware a close second. TES and Fallout are amazing franchises, TES having 3 GOTY's in a row, Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. Fallout is just amazing aswell. I only played the second and the third. The gameplay is so fun, quests are endless, and the graphics were great for the time. Fallout 3 was so amazingly fun. I spend at least 100 hours on New Vegas and Fallout 3 seperately, completing side quests with the Brotherhood of Steel, and rolling with Dogmeat. Stepping out of the Vault leaves you a world to do whatever you want. And Bioware's Mass Effect series is almost the same, but i don't have the energy to write so much right now.

What about you?

Squaresoft. Sorry, I know it's not going to be a popular answer, but it was once upon a time.

Fact: There has never been a bad Mario RPG.

Also Fire Emblem.

What now mother fuckers.

People will say Black Isle.

And these people are correct.

Why do I have the feeling this thread is going to become a Bioware hate thread.

Anyway, Bioware for me. I'm a western RPG fan, but due to my OCD I can't deal with Bethesda games. I have this annoying urge to do anything and everything in the game and it gets a bit annoying when the main story gets bogged down by all the optional stuff.

new vegas was obsidian by the way (superior to 3)

Atlus is the best though

Blizzard

ATLUS for JRPG, Bethesda for WRPG.

I'm with the OP. Bethesda followed by Bioware. The Elder Scrolls and Fallout games allow one to truly forge their own path and story, regardless of whatever the main quest is. To me, that is what defines a role playing game.

Black Isle

While I haven't liked anything they made recently, I guess I would have to give it to Bioware for volume of RPG's that I love: Kotor, Dragon Age: Origins, Baldur's Gate. Runners up though would be Square as I really enjoyed FFX, Tactics Advance and the Front Mission series. Square is kind of in the same boat as Bioware though, as it's been a long time since they made a game I cared for.

@AlexW00d said:

People will say Black Isle.

And these people are correct.

This person. This person is right.

Black Isle.

Bioware no longer makes RPGs, and Bethesda's got its own problems.

@LordXavierBritish said:

Fact: There has never been a bad Mario RPG.

Also Fire Emblem.

What now mother fuckers.

I like this man's style. Intelligent Systems: Makers of pretty much everything Nintendo-related I like at this point.

@AlexW00d said:

People will say Black Isle.

And these people are correct.

Black Isle is probably the "correct" answer, all things being equal. For as much as I really don't care for Fallout 2, the rest of their roster is impeccable... mostly because they didn't last long enough to screw up like Bioware has. Or maybe they have, if you count Obsidian as the natural extension of Black Isle. Then they screwed up right out of the gate with KotOR 2.

SquareSOFT.

I can't do it....I can't pick one. It's probably between Atlus, Bioware and Bethesda.

Tri-Ace and Atlus and Square.

Oh and Level 5. Makes of my #1 favourite game of all time.

Bioware, the only Bethesda game I ever liked was Skyrim because the rest were rather boring

@AlexW00d said:

People will say Black Isle.

And these people are correct.

Nope. The Icewind Dale series is clearly~ inferior to the Baldur's Gate series, although they do have the Fallout series to fall back on in that argument...

Bioware has the Baldur's Gate saga, and~ they have a stellar record of games all the way through to Mass Effect 2 (I'll accept debate about whether Mass Effect 2 is an RPG). I can't think of any company that comes close to that for the RPG genre~!

@AlexW00d said:

People will say Black Isle.

And these people are correct.

This pretty much. Bioware is my personal favourite though.

Troika made some good games ^^

Atlus.

I like all the RPG developers for different reasons. Bioware because of the grandiose feeling you get. Bethesda for the massive open world. Obsidian for still that feeling of nostalgia I get playing their games.

Being an RPG fan, I dont feel like every RPG that comes out is the same, but more like a completely different game. So in some ways it's like asking what is better Modern Warfare 3 or Madden 12? Not exactly like that but it definitely produces the same types of emotions.

At this particular moment in time? I have to say either FROM SOFTWARE or CD Projeckt RED. With Dark Souls being my all around favorite of the two company's game, but Witcher 2 being the actual better role-playing game of the two. Meaning, DS has the tight and nearly perfect combat, character customizations, and masterful dungeon crawling experience through immaculate level design, BUT W2 gets a lot of those elements pretty close to par with Dark Souls' near perfected systems AND then W2 still delivers a mature and sophisticated narrative as well as other RPG elements i've come to love and expect from great role-playing games.

For all time though?

The four "B's" of course come into consideration: Blizzard, Bethesda, BioWare, and Black Isle.

Blizzard at one-point-in-time would have made it pretty high on this list, but they have become too complacent with WoW and barely even do much of anything any more; making their past-to-present ratio not that fantastic for an "of all time" rpg company.

Bethesda is, of course, one of the true greats who seem to stay true to making the games they enjoy and they're fans enjoy while simultaneously moving forward with innovative and yet derivative game mechanics to create something that is unique and gives an identity that is unmistakably theirs.

BioWare has made some great games throughout their career, minus a few harsh missteps, but have ultimately made way more fantastic games than bad.

I would say that these companies trump Black Isle alone but if you would allow me to combine Black Isle with Obsidian which would allow Black Isle to also be carried into the modern times and the past decade I would then have to go with that. Seeing as how a lot of the major people who made-up Black Isle now have either founded or work for Obsidian I don't think that is much of a stretch to combine the two.

My "of all time RPG company" would have to be Black Isle/Obsidian.

Bioware, for sure. But y'all forgot about ORIGIN SYSTEMS

Kind of a loaded question, it's almost like asking what my favorite band or song is. I won't speak on MMORPGs but I'd have to say for my singleplayer/co-op I sit somewhere between Bethesda and Black Isle. Just depends on the mood.

Bethesda for me, but there are a ton of RPGs I haven't played. I even liked Oblivion which gets a lot of hate.

For all time and not just in the last recent 10 years or so Squaresoft

Squaresoft. The Western studios have never lasted long enough for me to consider them the greatest.

Right now, only Bethesda and FromSoftware are doing anything interesting.

I love Bethesda RPGs, Bioware was up there at one point too.

I like that little indie studio that made Morrowind, Skyrim, and Fallout 3.

I'd say it's a pretty clear tie between Black Isle and Bioware..

I'd probably go with Black Isle, because of Fallout 1 and Planescape, and partly because Bioware have become something pretty disgusting.

Squaresoft (before Enix) made some pretty great games back in the day too, but their glory has long since faded and their name is pretty meaningless now.

@Rookwood said:

Squaresoft. The Western studios have never lasted long enough for me to consider them the greatest.

Right now, only Bethesda and FromSoftware are doing anything interesting.

CD Projekt, for creating what are easily the best RPG's in recent years.

@AlexW00d said:

People will say Black Isle.

And these people are correct.

Yes. They are.

I put Squaresoft (not Squeenix) in a solid 2nd place.

@AlexW00d said:

People will say Black Isle.

And these people are correct.

They are so good they went out of business

Overworks....but only because they made Skies of Arcadia.

@uniform said:

Squaresoft. Sorry, I know it's not going to be a popular answer, but it was once upon a time.

Almost forgot Final Fantasy, great game duder.

@WinterSnowblind said:

CD Projekt, for creating what are easily the best RPG's in recent years.

Totally forgot them, good catch.

@Vinny_Says said:

@AlexW00d said:

People will say Black Isle.

And these people are correct.

They are so good they went out of business

A lot of those dudes are in Obsidian. Which is great since Alpha Protocol is a superb RPG

And they didn't go out of business. Interplay who owned Black Isle pretty much disbanded all their studious because their financial decisions were pure shit in their final years.

Black Isle, no question.

I'd say CD Project is fast catching up to Black Isle/ Obsidian in rpg awesomeness. If they keep this pace up I might have to give my props to them in the future, but not quite yet :)

@Vinny_Says said:

@AlexW00d said:

People will say Black Isle.

And these people are correct.

They are so good they went out of business

They didn't go out of business, Interplay decided to shut them down. And anyway, that really means nothing.

@Tennmuerti said:

I'd say CD Project is fast catching up to Black Isle/ Obsidian in rpg awesomeness. If they keep this pace up I might have to give my props to them in the future, but not quite yet :)

Yeah totally, CDprojekt has a pretty flawless track record, but that track record is two games.

Can't speak to all RPG developers as I have yet to begin playing any WRPGs (Though I'm about to start Fallout 3).

So from my experience, I'd have to go with Atlus. In such a relatively short amount of time, they've shown that their products are the class of the genre (well sub-genre anyway).

@Canteu:

Tri-Ace was awesome before the merger of Squaresoft and Enix. Since then, their work is a shadow of the great stuff they used to put out.

I really don't think of Diablo series as an RPG, it is master in it's own geanre, dungeon crawler.

Bethesda? Once upon a time maybe it was headed there. Morrowind is a great RPG, Skyrim is a phenomenal game and I love it to death however I really don't even consider it to be and RPG anymore. And F3 is well, kind of a funny joke compared to the originals.

Can I just say Chris Avellone and be right?

Obsidian releases the best written RPGs, and Bethesda releases the longest ones with the most content, but BioWare thus far is about the only one to get the action-RPG blend right. Which is to say, make the action action and the RPG RPG and never the twain shall meet. Square doesn't really count because Japanese publishers just throw employees together at random to make studios that last for one game, and Persona Team really has good style but the worst parts of their games are still the parts where you play them.

I've played the first hour of the Witcher three separate times and it's just not catching with me. I really want to play through that game before Witcher 2 (which seems unanimously better), but... I get to the first town after the Witcher tower and my interest just evaporates each time. I don't know what it is.

@Brodehouse said:

Can I just say Chris Avellone and be right?

Obsidian releases the best written RPGs, and Bethesda releases the longest ones with the most content, but BioWare thus far is about the only one to get the action-RPG blend right. Which is to say, make the action action and the RPG RPG and never the twain shall meet. Square doesn't really count because Japanese publishers just throw employees together at random to make studios that last for one game, and Persona Team really has good style but the worst parts of their games are still the parts where you play them.

I've played the first hour of the Witcher three separate times and it's just not catching with me. I really want to play through that game before Witcher 2 (which seems unanimously better), but... I get to the first town after the Witcher tower and my interest just evaporates each time. I don't know what it is.

the first town does kinda suck, but honestly once you get that done it's pretty much awesome the whole way through

also I like the combat in SMT games D:

To be honest I think Mistwalker is really hitting home for me. I can't wait for the Last Story, and I loved Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. I also love some of the things that Tri-Crescendo, Tri-Ace, and mid-life Bioware (KOTOR, JE, ME1) have done.

@Brodehouse: From Software gets Action-RPG right before Bioware does. The Souls series is the epitoey of Action-RPG perfection.

Gotta be Sqauresoft/ Square Enix.

I refuse to choose.

BioWare followed closely by Black Isle.

Even Dragon Age II, as mediocre as it was when compared to the first game (and BioWare games in general), was still leaps and bounds better than most of the RPG dross that comes out of other studios.

As a note, however, I will say that CD Projekt RED could be on their way to being the next great RPG dynasty.