Game of the Generation Phase 1, Round 2: RPG

Disclaimer: I tried to search if this was done before, but search function seems broken. I've looked manually, but couldn't find anything. If it has been done before I had no idea about it.

We are currently in Round 2 of the RPG genre! Look below for details.

I am working on some stuff that I really don't want to work on and when that happens I'll always find time to do something else. Since the generation is officially done (as far as I know there are no major titles exclusive for 360, PS3 etc. coming out anymore) I thought it would be awesome to see what our games of the generation are.

The way I envision this, is to do every major genre of games and select a winner and runner up from each of them. In the end, they'll battle it out into a single winner which will be the Game of the Generation. We'll also be left with the best game of the generation in each genre.

Rules

The most efficient way to do this selection process is for me to name the titles you can choose to vote on. The most inclusive, however, is for you to just reply to this topic. I want this to have meaning for everyone, so I'm going to do both. I'm going to give a list of suggestions you can pick from, but if the game you have in mind is not among them, you can just reply to the thread with the game name and I'll be sure to count it. I'll be transparent about the numbers I've counted and communicate this back to you.

Each phase will consist of a voting round.

Round One
You can select or name up to three games for each genre. If you name more than three, the fourth and any subsequent one will not be taken into count. If a game is selected, it will be a nominee.

Round Two
The three nominees will be open to vote. We're going to pick a winner and a runner up. You can only vote on one game in this round. After voting a winner and runner up will be selected for the genre and we'll move on to Round One of the next phase.

I plan on having each round open for voting for 48 hours. I don't know if this is too much, but I want everyone to be able to vote, so it seems generous.

Technicality

Obviously, choosing games in genre's might prove difficult. So many games are overlapping in genre's nowadays. Try to stay true to a game's roots. By that I mean, even though it consists of multiple genre's, there is often a very specific groundwork on which the game operates. For example, I'd argue that Borderlands 2 is a RPG, not a shooter. Reason being, you can get headshots all day long, but if you're not leveled up properly and acquired good loot, you're going to fail anyway. We'll have to figure this stuff out together as we go.

PC Games

We'll count them if they are released, more or less, in the same time span as the Xbox 360 and PS3. So, end of 2005 up till now.

HD Versions

Don't count if they were originally released the generation prior. There will be a separate category for them.

Phases

I currently have these phases in mind. If you have another suggestion let me know and I'll probably add it.

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Phase 1: RPG

Round 1

Nomination Votes:

• 04 - The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
• 16 - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• 02 - Bravely Default
• 08 - Fallout 3
• 10 - Fallout: New Vegas
• 10 - Mass Effect
• 19 - Mass Effect 2
• 04 - Mass Effect 3
• 01 - Borderlands
• 01 - Pokemon X / Y
• 07 - Demon's Souls
• 21 - Dark Souls
• 04 - Dark Souls II
• 03 - The Witcher
• 09 - The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings
• 09 - Dragon Age: Origins
• 01 - Final Fantasy XIII
• 02 - Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Returns
• 01 - Eternal Sonata
• 02 - Tales of Vesperia
• 01 - Xenoblade Chronicles
• 01 - Lost Odyssey
• 01 - Neverwinter Nights 2
• 05 - Alpha Protocol
• 01 - Dust: An Elysian Tale
• 04 - Deus Ex: Human Revolution
• 05 - Valkyria Chronicles
• 02 - Nier
• 01 - E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy
• 01 - Resonance of Fate
• 01 - The World Ends With You
• 01 - Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
• 02 - Dragon's Dogma

Round 2

Choose a winner from these nominees:

Dark Souls

Mass Effect 2

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Select a single game from this list you think is the best.

1. Mass Effect
2. Borderlands
3. Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Edit: removed Binding of Isaac and added DXHR. I suppose BoI isn't really a clear cut RPG...

• Fallout: New Vegas: This is Obsidian doing what they do best all over again. Being given someone else's IP in someone else's franchise and told to make the sequel to it on a smaller budget. They get handed the tools and are told to have at it. And every time this happens they make the sequel better than the game it spawned from. Fallout NV is better than Fallout 3 in every way. It's much closer to the idea, theme and atmosphere of the original games. It captures the spirit of those games better. It has a better story, a better enviroment to explore and better characters to engage with. It made Deathclaws scary again.
• Mass Effect: The best new RPG IP in forever. And while it's hard to pick a single one out of this trilogy of games I think the first has to be it. It was close, but it's the originator and while some people loath its weaker gun play and heavy inventory management I loved those aspects of it. If I want a sniper rifle that will one shot a Thresher Maw but then take 20 seconds to cool down I'll damn well do it. The story, the music, the characters, everything about the original game was just perfect. An instant classic in every sense. A game that set up its sequels and set up in universe and got everyone going "man, I want more of that!"
• Neverwinter Nights 2 (released on PC in 2006): Oh look, another Obsidian RPG based off of someone else's work. This time Obsidian school Bioware on making a great RPG. NWN 1 was a great game. 2 was better. The expansions just add so much more but even without those the vanilla game is great. The characters, the combat, the spell system, the world, the mechanics. The trial. The trial in NWN2 is one of the greatest moments in any RPG. It can go on for so long, depending on how much time you spent exploring and building up your case before hand. And you didn't even know it was coming up. There was no "you'll be on trial soon, better go off and complete these quests to get knowledge before hand". No. You went off on your quests, explored the story and then got blamed and went to trial.

Those are my picks. Also, if Obsidian ever got to make an Elder Scrolls game it's probably be the greatest game ever.

Fallout New Vegas, took the gameplay of Bethesda's Fallout 3 and gave us the story that was going to be in the Van Buren version of the game.

Alpha Protocol, another Obsidian game. Janky as hell but the story is so good that it doesn't matter. Special points for having choices that actually matter and can have wildly different outcomes and not just binary.

Mass Effect 2, god what a game. I don't think I can accurately describe my feelings during the game so I'll just leave this here.

There is one big PS3 exclusive coming out this/next year. Persona 5, which would probably be on this list if it was out.

How about Persona 4? It came out in 2008 and may as well be part of this generation, even being on the PS2. If that doesn't count, it's on the Vita as well.

@jesus_phish: Fun fact: Obsidian is made up of a bunch of ex-Black Isle employees, including Feargus Urquhart and J.E. Sawyer.

That's a good point. I said end 2005 and later specificly for PC because there is no other good way to define that stuff. Bluntly, Persona 4 is a PS2 game and shouldn't belong here I think. The Vita version more or less is an HD equivalent.

But, I'd be happy to hear what other people think about this. If people agree with you then we'll have to count it.

@itwongo: What makes a fact fun? Isn't it just a fact. Saying "fun fact" just makes you look like less of an asshole.

@itwongo: and Chris Avellone, head writer on every game Black Isle/Obsidian has made since Fallout 2 (except South Park obviously).

I'm pretty sure someone did a game of the generation type thing before, I remember Mass Effect 2 winning over Dark Souls. It's still cool to think about genres though.

Suggestions:

• Adventure
• Puzzle
• Simulation
• Sport
• Fighting
• Platformer

• Final Fantasy XIII
• Dust: An Elysian Tale
• Alpha Protocol

Whatever happened to the staff doing Game of the Generation stuff? They heavily hinted at it during the GoTY deliberations being in the first quarter of this year.

My choices:

1. Mass Effect 2

2. Dark Souls 2

3. The Witcher 2

We've had this already. If you want to do specific genre brackets that could be ok as long as you don't flood the forums.

I planned to keep everything within this one thread if possible. I totally missed that thread, but still interesting to see the different genre's rack up.

1. Alpha Protocol

2. Fallout: New Vegas

3. The Witcher

1. Dark Souls

2. Valkyria Chronicles

3. Demon's Souls

1. Nier

2. Nier Demon's Souls

3. Nier E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy

1. Demon's Souls

2. Dragon Age Origins

3. Tales of Vesperia

1. Mass Effect

2. Dark Souls

3. Valkyria Chronicles

1. Mass Effect 2
2. Dark Souls
3. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Not to nitpick, but should 3DS games (Bravely Default, Pokemon X/Y on your suggestions list) really be counted? 3DS has been out for a bit, but it's lifespan is far from over, so I'd put it with the current gen rather than last gen.

1. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
2. Dark Souls
3. Resonance of Fate

@beachthunder: and Strategy.

1. Dragon Age: Origins
2. Mass Effect 2
3. Fallout 3

1. Fallout New Vegas
2. Skyrim
3. The Witcher 2

He already listed strategy (+tactics)

1. Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
2. Xenoblade Chronicles
3. The World Ends With You

1. Mass Effect 2

2. Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

3. Elder Scrolls: Oblivion

Yeah, I thought about this as well. Ultimately, it seems handhelds are in a limbo between generations. It's hard to exclusively count them towards either. I also thought about leaving them out, but that doesn't make sense at all. At that point you might be selecting second places as your first pick because you're not allowed to name your first pick.

Considering that, I thought they belonged on here.

@beachthunder said:

Suggestions:

• Puzzle
• Sport
• Fighting
• Platformer

I will add these for sure. Makes complete sense.

I'm not opposed to add Adventure, but I think it's kind of a weird category. Most adventure games I know nowadays are something else first. For example, Darksiders is certainly an adventure game, but probably moreso an action game? Don't know how you feel about that. Could you name some games that you think are clear cut adventure games?

Also not opposed to adding Simulation, but how would you define it? Aircraft simulation games, sure. Train simulation, sure. But what about a game like Grand Turismo? It would be split between Simulation and Racing. What about Surgeon and Goat Simulator? Are they really simulation games? What about so many sports games? They try to simulate the sport as best they can. Would they count?

Yeah, I realized from the start this would be incredibly hard, almost impossible to define. But we need a clear definition to do this.

I don't think Darksiders is an adventure game by any measure. Recent examples would be Walking Dead, Broken Age, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Gone Home, Gemini Rue. There's also a bunch of handheld stuff like Virtue's Last Reward, Ghost Trick, and the Professor Layton games.

• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• Fallout 3
• Dark Souls

1. Dark Souls
2. Mass Effect 2
3. Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

I don't need three choices.

1. Dark Souls

Yep, those are good examples. I'll add it.

1. Alpha Protocol

2. Mass Effect 1

3. Skyrim

1. Mass Effect 3
2. Bravely Default
3. Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Returns

"Adventure" is one of those weird genre names that has meant different things at different times. My question to you would be: "Which category does Legend of Zelda go in?".

1. Fallout 3

2. Skyrim

3. Fallout New Vegas

@starvinggamer: Action

@starvinggamer: We may not agree on Mass Effect, but those are some damn fine choices.

I classify the Zelda series as a whole as an adventure game but totally see the argument for the later Zelda games as an RPG. I would also classify Darksiders 1 as an adventure game and Darksiders 2 as a 3rd person Action RPG.

Distinction for me an Adventure game is follows a linear path from start to finish with little to no divergence in how the story gets completed. RPG's can be linear but typically there are side quests that you can only do at a certain point in the game and there is some eliminate of persistence to the world that was caused by your actions.

1. Oblivion
2. Skyrim
3. Dark Souls 2

1. Dragon Age: Origins
2. Mass Effect 2
3. Skyrim

1 The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings

2 Dragon Age: Origins

3 Dark Souls

They really should just put a google site:giantbomb.com search bar on the forum search page until they actually get the search function working again.

As for my picks:

1. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
2. Dragon's Dogma
3. Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Dark Souls

Lost Odyssey

Mass Effect 2

1. Valkyria Chronicles

2. Dark Souls

3. Valkyria Chronicles

1. Mass Effect 2

2. Fallout: New Vegas

3. Dragon Age: Origins

1. Pokemon X

2. Bravely Default

3. Dark Souls 2?

Hard choice on that last one..

Deus Ex human revolution