Yes. Best PS2 rpg. No contest.
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IGN's Top 100 RPGs of All Time
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Yes. Best PS2 rpg. No contest.
Jimnymebob
Member
How is Pokemon Yellow the 4th best RPG?
I mean, I adore the GB Pokemon games, but aside from being unique due to sharing themes from the anime, it's a case of a load of other games have done the formula better.
It's like the ultimate nostalgia game, the battle system is archaic, and the game relies on the player watching the first series of the anime. For the rest of the top 10, you can ask someone to play it today, and it'll hold up. With Yellow, it just doesn't: you either have to look back with nostalgia from playing it when it launched, or with the acknowledgement that it's a product of it's time.
I mean, I adore the GB Pokemon games, but aside from being unique due to sharing themes from the anime, it's a case of a load of other games have done the formula better.
It's like the ultimate nostalgia game, the battle system is archaic, and the game relies on the player watching the first series of the anime. For the rest of the top 10, you can ask someone to play it today, and it'll hold up. With Yellow, it just doesn't: you either have to look back with nostalgia from playing it when it launched, or with the acknowledgement that it's a product of it's time.
I'd argue that the things that the latter Pokémon games improved aren't relevant for a list like that, what matters is the genius core concept behind the GB Pokémon games that is still felt today. In my opinion you can absolutely go back and play them today, because they are still this perfect storm of collectathon, shonen spirit, and fantasy. It's universally fun and in a way the GB games are still the purest form of the formula, which helps topping these lists. I totally get it.
I don't quite understand why Yellow instead of Blue/Red though.
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
Because pikachu followed you and that's rad.
Fantastapotamus
Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
There is no Fallout 4 and Morrowind is higher than Skyrim.
They almost redeemed the list in the end.
No Gothic 2 though.
You could talk to it and it said "Pika"
They almost redeemed the list in the end.
No Gothic 2 though.
You could talk to it and it said "Pika"
Jimnymebob
Member
Yeah, I would have chosen Red/Blue too, if only for the fact they don't rely on the player having watched the anime to get the most out of it. As I said though, I loved the original games.
It's not my favourite, but I'd say Heart Gold is probably the best version of the Pokémon formula. It has the nostalgia aspect going for it, the gameplay is up to modern standards, it was the last fully 2D game, and is probably one of the prettiest games in the series.
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
People make fun of that now but me as a 5-6 year old who loved the anime had my mind blown.
Fantastapotamus
Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
That Top 10 is surprisingly sound. Wouldn't be my choice, but that's a list of games everybody can respect. (I have never heard of Vagrant Story though but I've never been a huge jRPG guy)
Yeah no shit.
I remember being on holiday with my dad and I got super sick. So my dad went out to a store and got me Pokemon Yellow. Having Pikachu follow me around blew my fricking mind.
Although fighting the first gym boss was a nightmare.
Yeah no shit.
I remember being on holiday with my dad and I got super sick. So my dad went out to a store and got me Pokemon Yellow. Having Pikachu follow me around blew my fricking mind.
Although fighting the first gym boss was a nightmare.
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
Misty was a total pushover though.
Pieman0920
Member
I guess they went with Yellow because its the "complete" version much like Crystal, Emerald, or Platinum, but its still weird. If you're going to rank in nostalgia and cultural impact, it should technically be Red/Blue, or maybe specifically Red due to the whole Green/Blue version stuff with Japan. Yellow was there early, but its not what kicked things off, and while it does solve some of the problems that R/B/G had, its still way behind future incarnations for that. So in the end you've got a weird middle ground that doesn't make sense, since its not the actual first game, but its also not nearly as polished as later games.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
LORD MATSUNO's OWN Vagrant Story at #9.
I stand pleasently partially corrected!
Phantasy Star Online and Phantasy Star IV are both on the list, which is more than I ever thought the series would get. Definitely my two favourite games in the series.
Effigenius
Member
Terranigma has never been released here in any way. Possibly they are only counting games that got us releases. I don't think mother 3 is on the list either?
And you're wrong about Secret of Mana. That game rocks and 7 is a good spot for it.
Dr. Feel Good
Banned
Pokémon is extremely difficult to judge upon as every iteration perfects the formula. The original games are severely broken but there's no denying they had a meteoric impact on gaming and that in itself should push it towards the top. While the gameplay has aged horribly the overworld, story, characters, and monsters are some of the most memorable in the history of gaming. The original three games absolutely deserve to be at the tops of these lists.
With that said I believe most would agree the second generation was the perfection point. The game hit so many deeper layers and managed to grab everything from the original and create what felt like a true perfect sequel.
With that said I believe most would agree the second generation was the perfection point. The game hit so many deeper layers and managed to grab everything from the original and create what felt like a true perfect sequel.
Effigenius
Member
I think the biggest omission is probably Panzer Dragoon Saga, but ate most likely due to not enough people playing it.
decoyplatypus
Member
The final list doesn't look so different from GAF's Essential RPGs.
Secret of Mana is garbage.
Secret of Mana is garbage.
YankeeDonB
Member
Counterpoint, SoM is a precious treasure. I still find it fun to this day.
Bobo Dakes
Member
They did rerelease it on virtual console last year so a lot of people replayed and it totally held up. A lot of things I was dreading like (HMs, Rock Tunnel, Safari Zone, Victory Road) were not an issue at all. The only thing I didn't remember was the limit on the amount of items you could hold. Yellow is the best version of what the initial games laid out and best represent gen 1 which laid such a strong foundation we've been going back over it for 20 years. While Gen is the *ahem* Gold standard (and what I probably would've put on the list) you gotta remember where you came from.
As weird as it sounds, I'd rather play Yellow over Fire Red and Gold of HeartGold. The updates are prettier, but it just didn't have the same heart.
Flakster99
Member
Disagree. Secret of Mana is still fun decades later. And its soundtrack continues to impress. The game totally holds up.
Teletraan1
Banned
Don't agree with the placing of pretty much everything on the list, but that is lists for you. Some strange additions. Stardew Valley. Game was good but Harvest Moon (you know the game this is aping) didn't make the list. That game seems like a reach especially when you have to leave off a bunch of heavy hitters. Even the worst mainline FF is better than LoD. Why is OG FF on there but not FFV? It seems certain games were put on there for their significance to the genre but others weren't. Top 100 of anything is always a mess. I doubt there was enough thought put into this. Seems pretty half assed and all over the place. Stick to top 10-20 or something. It lets you actually think of why for each title and their placing.
QuantumZebra
Member
System Shock 2
Bloodborne
Tactics Ogre
Vagrant Story
Neverwinter Nights
Neverwinter Nights 2
The Witcher 3
Suikoden II
Fire Emblem
Phantasy Star IV
Lufia 2
Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga
The Legend of Dragoon
Here ya go
Well I would put FFVII, Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Baldur's Gate 2, EverQuest, and FFX all in the top 5 (and 10)... but its sure as shit better than IGNs
SoM OST rocks and the graphics are still colorful but the game have severe issues in its playability which were overlooked at the time for the groundbreaking coop multiplayer.
It's not garbage as the gaffer above said but not anywhere near the top of the best RPG ever released.
Dynasty8
Member
In my honest opinion, this is the worst overall list IGN has EVER put out. So many undeserving games made it too low on the list.
As a sidenote, I consider CT to be in my top three favorite games ever created, but some of the selections make me think inexperienced​ gamers created that list.
As a sidenote, I consider CT to be in my top three favorite games ever created, but some of the selections make me think inexperienced​ gamers created that list.
Ogre Battle 64, Radiant Historia and Tactics Ogre Knights of Lodis too.
Spieler Eins
Member
We need GAFs new Essential RPGs.
As a big fan of the game, I'm curious what the severe issues are?
BouncyFrag
Member
I've never played a FF game so will give FF6 a go on pstv.
tommyleelynn
Member
Kingdom Hearts and KH2 were never on GameCube.
Lost kingdoms not kingdom hearts
I'm assuming you mean the PS1 version then? If so, I don't think I'd readily recommend it because of the significantly longer loading times. Especially not as your first time playing it.
The current crew at IGN really unapologetically adores FF XII's battle system and world. We know it isn't a widely held opinion. We also all nearly universally think FF VII is overrated.
Just one of those things.
I bristle a little when people accuse it of being a ranking stunt for "clicks" or just a "hipster choice" when plenty of people in this very topic agree that XII is great and plenty of other people agree that VII isn't all that. Both groups are a minority, but it's a widely-enough held opinion to not seem especially ridiculous. There's no need for the tinfoil hats.
And yes, we spent a very, very long time arguing over what did and didn't constitute an RPG. I argued (unsuccessfully as you can see) that, incredible game that it is, Stardew Valley is in no way an RPG. And yet here we are. Ultimately we decided that the game had to:
1) Have persistent character progression with player-exposed stats.
2) Combat had to feature prominently
3) Combat resolution for a standard playthrough had to be determined in large part due to the skill or your character and not player skill.
4) Player choice and consequence, either in story or character development/building.
5) It had to have an actual narrative (stripping purely systems-driven roguelikes from contention).
6) Some element of exploring a world or virtual space.
With that framework in mind, there's still a million edge-case games like Horizon: Zero Dawn. Ultimately we kept coming back to point 1 - whether the game includes or emphasizes player-exposed stats - as a guidepost for whether any of the 100s of games with RPG-like systems (basically every modern game) fully crossed over into full-on "it's an RPG" territory or not. It might sound pedantic, but without spelling out elements like story being essential, you'd end up with Call of Duty Multiplayer being an RPG, wouldn't you?
Yes, in Horizon you're progressing through a skill tree and Aloy is much stronger at the end of the game than the start, but she didn't do so via a visible attack stat climbing from 20 to 200. Consider this skill in Horizon: "Critical Hit +: Critical hits do more damage" - it's not a coincidence it's framed that way - as an obfuscated reference to a skill improving. It's a deliberate softening of the game's "RPG edge" on the part of the dev team. Thus - great game, but not eligible here.
All 6 of these points helped us wade through thorny waters, like strategy games. Persistent character progression is the specific rule that allowed Fire Emblem to be eligible and not Advance Wars, for example. We all know, intuitively, that Advance Wars isn't an RPG and Fire Emblem is, or at least is closer. But it's harder to explain specifically why than you might think.
So all that being said we still struggled with games like Symphony of the Night. We eventually adopted an informal/unwritten "SOTN rule," which is that a game could fit all 6 criteria above but still not be eligible for inclusion if it so clearly and so strongly identified with another established game genre, to the point that that genre identification overshadowed the game's RPG's qualifications.
Edit: I will also say that Zelda: Breath of the Wild's emphasis on statistical gear upgrades almost certainly qualifies it as an RPG for the purposes of our list, in a way the other Zelda games aren't. Possibly willing to concede that as a miss on our part. But on the other hand we only have so much time to debate lists like this... so I'm not sure it was especially irresponsible to just stick with what most gamers more commonly understand to be a classic, canonical "RPG."
LoD is higher because more people on the selection committee liked LoD more. It's taste - not science
And no - I don't think it's important that everyone on the selection committee have extensive experience with a large majority of the pool of games. They just have to be big RPG fans. I have a strong suspicion that Dan Stapleton actively hates JRPGS, but we still wanted him in the room in these meetings because he's a voice for all the CRPGs many of us don't know as well. It's a group effort.
You're not wrong.
Thanks so much!
Can you address what all of you have against Final Fantasy X? Don't you think that makes it a bit of a joke list when you have mediocre in every way games like Star Ocean 2 on it and FFX isn't there? That's the same as having a list of action movies and a random Steven Seagal movie is on it but Terminator 2 is missing.
Imagine the reaction IGN would have got if SO2 and FFX came out the same month and FFX got a lower rating. That would have been a ludicrous thing to see.
Yellow is flat out better than Red & Blue. The sprites are in full colour and are much better quality than, made to match Sugimori's artwork. I mean, compare the pair:
Red
Yellow
There are far more Pokemon available than either Red or Blue individually, and you have access to all three Kanto starters. The references to the anime are very minor tbh, and wouldn't stand out to you as being out of place had you never watched it. It's just a few sprite/name/team changes, really.
zenspider
Member
WAY too soon for P5 to be on that list at all.
They got No. 1 right, so maybe I'll dig in later and see if anything I never heard of or paid attention to catches my eye.
Bloodborne is an interesting entry. I don't see it as an RPG at all, but if you would, where's Symphony of the Night? Yakuza? Breath of the Wild (which is also too fresh)?
Did IGN list thier criteria and if so, can it be added to the OP?
Persona 5 is on the list. It's number 50.
Play it with a friend. That was what made it most awesome when it came out. It was like finally a Zelda game where you no longer had to have your friend just sit there and watch your play. Even grinding could be fun. Soul Blazer was fine but couldn't compare to that.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
They got 2 of the top 3 right.
But...
But...
I wouldn't even put Secret of Mana in the top 50 (though I will be honest and note I have never played it with a friend), but Terranigma is top 10 material no doubt.
I really like #3, though I don't see why Monster Hunter and the Souls game would satisfy this condition. IGN even has them listed as Action games. Seriously, their claim to fame is that fact that they make players "git gud".
FallenGrace
Member
Vagrant Story in the top 10. That I can at least be on board with. Fantastic game. I completed it 12 times and could beat the hardest boss in the game with two punches with no weapons, armour or equipment I was so overpowered by that point.