RPGs (Rankings of Played Games)
I'm trying to fall in love with the role-playing game genre. They've consistently got some of the best art and music found in video games that I want to learn more about them and how they communicate. I'm still figuring it out, but here's my takes on what I've played so far.
36 Games
Toby Fox is the poet laureate of our generation.
1
It's the only game I've refused to ever go back to again because it had the audacity to ask me to let it go. As far as gameplay goes, it relies more on subversion upon subversion than it does complexity and iteration upon RPG traditions, but its world, its balance between tones and themes, its characters, its music just hit right for me. It's a sentimental pick, but Undertale could never be what it is without sentiment.
2
So far, it hasn't quite gripped me like Undertale has yet, although Toby's voice as a writer and a composer seems to have matured a lot in the three years in between. Will it take Undertale's place? We'll see!
3
Definitely a nostalgic pick more than anything. I put 400 hours into this, so I must have loved the world, its music, its creatures, its side content.
6
long story short: everything since dragon quest on NES was building up to this very moment.
7
This is so aesthetic, you have no idea! I think Mystery Dungeon is actually just the best fit for Pokémon's format. Entry level without being too hand-holding and lots of depth for hardcore players, all in a single-player package.
8
It's an RPG with basically all the jank about them taken out - with it comes a small share of its own design concerns, I think, but overall, it's quite effective at what it sets out to do.
9
(i need to finish this)
10
(I never finished this, but what I played of it was some of the best in the entire series)
11
12
All the irreverent humor and charm of Undertale, but without that specific sense of sincerity and heart that keeps Undertale so dear to my heart. It's a great time, though. I love it.
14
It's good, although it lacks the visual polish of BiS. Mush Badges are too easy to take advantage of, but maybe that's a good thing - otherwise, pacing is slightly better than BiS, but Joke's End is decidedly not.
15
I remember liking this a lot, but that the pacing was a bit off. Maybe I was just bad at RPGs as a kid, though?
16
I had difficulties and problems with it largely stemming from it being a transitional game between 1-3 and 5~7, but I had some of my favorite RPG battles so far in this game.
17
It's a bad JRPG and a fantastic sandbox game. I wouldn't place this nearly as high if it weren't for the insane potential you get with glitching and arbitrary code execution, but I still admire Gen I for going harder into some of its themes than the future games would.
18
I don't really like Johto, but this unquestionably salvages it.
19
It's technically a better game than Paper Mario, but I find its deviations and new ambitions to detract from the pacing. I prefer the original's more grounded story, too.
21
The most "polished, but not much more to it" generation. I was never particularly impressed with it like I had been with the other generations.
22
It's pretty sophomore. It sets out to do some really interesting things, both in terms of gameplay and in storytelling, but they don't land; the former because the pacing is just out of wack, and the latter because there's not enough established continuity for it to be effective.
24
It's like Pokémon Blue, but without the jank that actually makes that game fun.
25
26
29
It's literally Pokémon Blue, but without any of the jank that actually makes that game fun. It turns out it's just a really uninteresting game underneath that the original game's themes and elements just couldn't salvage...
30
the battle system was interesting. i guess
31
It's almost shameful that Square had the audacity to release this after Chrono Trigger.
32
33
Provides very little I seek from video games.
35
It's a bit more fleshed out than the other 2 bottom 2 RPGs, I guess, but nothing here actually landed. The exploration feels off, the combat system is a bit broken, the dialogue trees feel meaningless, and god, the sound. Considering that art style and sound are some of my biggest draws for this genre, this game fell flat on those two aspects hard.
36