Two “Top RPGs of All Time” Lists; No Mention of Ultima
GameBanshee links to a pair of lists — Gamezone’s Top 5 RPGs of All Time and Hardcore Games’ Top 12 RPGs of All Time — which somehow, between them, fail to include even a single mention of an Ultima game.
Any. Ultima. Game.
Now, to be fair, both lists do include some pretty top-shelf titles. Gamezone, for example, includes Planescape: Torment, Mass Effect 2, Fallout 2, and The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind on their list. Not a bad set at all; the inclusion of Ultima 6, Ultima 7, or even Ultima Underworld would round it out nicely.
However, for the fifth entry, Gamezone chose Divine Divinity. That actually happened.
Hardcore Games’ list, meanwhile, also includes some great examples of RPGs. They make mention of Gothic 2, The Witcher 2, Planescape: Torment, Mass Effect 2 (I’m sensing a theme here…), The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fallout 2 (still sensing a theme…), Diablo 2 (which at least makes more sense to include than Divine Divinity, which is really just a slightly classier Diablo clone), The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Baldur’s Gate 2. Now, taking just those nine titles into consideration, this too could be a great list; the inclusion of Ultima 6, Ultima 7, or even Ultima Underworld would round it out nicely as well. Oh, we could quibble about the inclusion of two The Elder Scrolls titles, but…whatever. They’re great games, great RPGs. I’d maybe argue for dropping Oblivion in favour of something like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, but of course I’d say that.
But as noted, there are only nine games listed above. The other three games in Hardcore Games’ “Top 12” list? Divinity: Original Sin, Deus Ex, and Dark Souls. And to be fair, I can understand the inclusion of Divinity: Original Sin, although its presence in the face of Ultima 7’s absence is…troubling. It was, after all, intended as Larian Studios’ grand Ultma 7 homage, so there’d be a certain harmony to listing both games.
And equally, Deus Ex is…kind of an RPG. It’s certainly a classic game, with a good story and genuinely inspired design.
But Dark Souls? That’s…tenuous. At best.
It’s probably nothing, in the long run; these aren’t (I don’t think) major gaming sites, to be sure. But equally, their lists aren’t just a rundown of games released over the last decade. Okay, neither list includes anything released before 1998, and maybe it’s nothing but mere ignorance that resulted in the RPG series that basically defined the conventions of the RPG genre being left off these supposed “Top RPG “lists. One is loathe to think that Ultima’s star may finally be beginning to set somewhat.
Restricting the list to the RPGs of the post-Fallout, post-Baldur’s Gate era seems like a reasonable limitation of scope, although it’d be better if they declared it outright.
It’s always difficult to do “all-time” lists since, to be fair, for the most part, classic games are often difficult to appreciate outside of the context of their specific eras. To use the Ultima games as an example, they’re quite difficult to get into and appreciate today (which is part of the reason why there are endless attempts at updates and streamlining). With that said, if someone is indeed doing “all-time,” then they really should take into account all of the variables, including influence, initial impact, lasting impact, etc., so classic games can be more fairly compared against their modern day counterparts that are not bogged down with the handicap of simply be “outdated.”
In any case, there’s no denying that list-making is the lazy journalists way of making click worthy articles that always inspire debate. None of these lists can ever be truly perfect.
Uh… UH…. deus ex is in that list, great fps.. incredible fps but I think calling it a rpg is borderline.
I think these lists are from European fans.. I never got the appeal to gothic but it seems people appreciated it, mostly in Europe.. same goes for divine divinity, which was greatly inspired by ultima 7, I think.
and Hardcoregames is leading some kind of boycott on pay2win… I don’t play those games but I think the people behind these boycotts have never set foot in an arcade.
Is any game with guns in it automatically not an RPG?
Actually, Deus Ex is a terrible FPS. Duke Nukem 3d blew the Deus Ex fps elements out of the water. And if you consider the likes of half-life, counter strike, and max payne all coming out within a year of Deus Ex. At the time, no one was playing it for it’s FPS elements. The guns were super inaccurate and it would take 3-4 seconds of crouching before the reticle was small enough to shoot. Don’t get me started on the enemy ai and the animations. UGH!
I actually played through it this year after I had gone through Human Revolution(HR is storytelling masterpiece). It’s definitely an RPG in terms of in game actions and how you allocate your stat points when you level up. Do you want to go unarmed? Do you want to be a lock picking hacking genius? Do you want to be a heavy weapons badass? Do you want to kill no one and go full on stealth? Do you want to be a sniper? In this way you chose what type of character you wanted to play.
I feel, what made Deus Ex special as an RPG, was the decisions you made in how you wanted to proceed through levels. Much like you might do on a table top RPG when dungeon crawling. An element that most videogame RPGs lack.
Oh, you could also move, break, or stack any item in the game. You could even play basketball!
Deus Ex clearly had RPG elements in it, but I’m not sure I’d say it was an RPG primarily.
I know it was a poor fps by any standard.. if morrowind is a rpg then deus ex has to be, I guess sometimes the definition of genres gets muddied up and some games ride a fine line..
Deus Ex was great and HR was pretty good too.
I’ve had this discussion with someone about the definition of RPG.. if you took the literal translation then almost every game is an RPG.. I think it’s understood that if there’s a character sheet.. stats, skills, it’s an rpg.. at least that’s what I think. I’m curious to see what people think.
Some people try to argue (incorrectly) that an RPG is any game where you take on the role of a character, but that can even apply to Super Mario Brothers. Some insist it is intrinsically tied to the fantasy setting, and thusly Zelda is an RPG, but that would mean Fallout is not. A CRPG is defined by stat-based gameplay.
Deus Ex still required you to aim and shoot, so the core mechanic was a FPS, with RPG elements added. Fallout 1 and 2 had combat primarily resolved through RPG elements. You can argue that Fallout 3 and Fallout: NV toe the line of FPS/RPG hybrid because you need to aim, but skills affect accuracy just as much.
Morrowind had your hit/miss in melee combat depend on stats, so it was more of an RPG even with a first person perspective.
yeah but deus ex had the same hit-but-miss mechanic, did it not?
I think that was a huge sticking point for people.. as it was with morrowind, there’s a particular dissonance in gameplay when you land the shot but miss.
maybe it was due to the technical limitations of the past or just poor game design but I wish they had implemented fumbling or at least seeing the enemy dodge your attack..
I understand it’s more complex, considering that you have to take a swing before your hit chances are calculated..
Yeah Deus Ex’s shooting was essentially stat based, much like the later Fallouts and the first Mass Effect so you can’t go gunho and play like a FPS.
I’m not sure I would consider Deus Ex a RPG… but there is an argument to be made about it – it certain has RPG mechanics at its core. I’d argue calling it a FPS like you often see it in the press is… well… completly missing the point of the game.
I believe I said this in another topic, a genre is whatever you’re getting out of it. For the vast majority of people Deus Ex was an rpg due to it’s rpg mechanics that I stated rather than the ability to shoot. The core mechanic of the game was deciding how you were going to progress through the game. There were several solutions to going through the game and the heavily rpg rule governed combat system was a choice. It’s more of an rpg with fps elements. Platformer and puzzle elements too to be fair.
These lists are False. Ultima VII trumps all.
🙂
You’ve an I too many.
In fairness, I have yet to play Ultima VI. It’s on my bucket list but I just didn’t have access to it as a kid and haven’t gotten around to it as an adult. But of all the RPGs I’ve played, U VII trumps all 🙂
I never got far into Ultima VI as much as the story intrigues me and how excited I was for that game as a kid after Ultima V.
The interface still drives me up a wall. I should play the U6 Dungeon Siege remake some day.
Or try the interface-free mode in Nuvie. It’s tops.
oh darn, that sounds good.. I grew up trying to get ultima 7 to run on my computer.. but I played ultima 6 a bit and savage empires.. my favorite is still ultima 7, few games have this level of world crafting… it’s insane to think this game is over 20 years old and it felt more alive with it’s scheduling system than most rpgs released this year.
I think too much effort is spent on AI when a simple scheduling system add a lot to the realism of a game.
U6 has many of those same features. In fact, I’d go so far as to argue that the world crafting in U7 is really just an iteration and expansion of what exists in U6. U6, like U7, features a world full of manipulable objects, fully scheduled NPCs, and a story/quests that can more or less be approached in a free-form way.
U6 doesn’t have (just off the top of my head here) bread-baking, and you can’t sleep in beds. Conversely, you can ride horses in U6 (try doing that in U7!). And the dungeons in U6 are substantially larger, and more interesting to explore, than those in U7; you really get the sense that you’ve plunged the party into the bowels of the world.
Nuvie has a mode sans interface? I’m going to have to check that out.
Inventory management and interacting with the world in Ultima VI seemed like such a chore.
I never found it to be burdensome, but…eh, some people have had that complaint. Nuvie has a possible solution, then.
If I were to go down the list of my top 10, Ultima games would grab 3 spots.
Ultima V
Ultima VII
Ultima Underworld
Planescape Torment
Mass Effect 2
Fallout 2
Morrowind
Witcher 2
Baldur’s Gate 2
KOTOR 2
Nice to see KotOR 2 on your list. It’s one of my favorites as well; especially with the restored content mod.
It is a shame the game was released in the state it was, but conceptually there are so many things I just love about that game. It was also influential to the genre with how you could influence companions.
Some of the best writing of any game I’ve ever played. Also one of the best soundtracks.