Which CRPG has the best STORY? (Forked from: Do you not play WoW?)

[Shadeydm]

#2: Final Fantasy Tactics. The epitome of Byzantine politics, playing right out in front of your screen. Enough twists and turns to keep you riveted to the screen, with some mildly cliche swerves thrown in for good measure. Trying to keep everything straight is an intensive, and incredibly rewarding, effort.

I love this game and the War of the Roses storyline.
Someday I am going to run a DnD campaign based on the Lion War perhaps with one of the PCs playing the role of Ramza.

 

[Pants]

Really? I found the story of Fallout 3... rather lacking. The world is big and well built, but there's a grand total of ~17 quests in that entire giant world. And, as the OP quoted, wandering around looking for uber-loot doesn't keep me interested for long.

I'd prefer Quality over Quantity and, from most of the quests I've done, they're all pretty damn good, a far cry from all of Morrowind's and most of Oblivions

To compound it, I didn't think what storyline there was, was that great. To make it concrete, at the dramatic choice at the end, I found that I didn't really give a damn, because I didn't care about the other character involved.

Personally I found the main storyline pretty good... up until the ending which was just bad. Very, very bad. But the lead up to it was enjoyable.

Spoiler

C'mon, the Communism-hating robot was just gold.

I saw it well summarized by a poster on Ars Technica: FO3 is broad, but not deep. There's a huge world, but not actually a lot of story. And what story there is, is fairly shallow. One sequence of plotline quests, and a handful of one-off sidequests. As another example, it really bothered me that I went on this huge quest for Lucy West, and after it's done she doesn't act any different than before I did it. Way too static.

I was kinda disappointed with that, but the rest of quests are better, in that they have consequences to them.

Spoiler

The Tenpenny Tower quests for example. I took the supposedly 'good' option and... well... it didn't end up being so good.

All of this criticism aside, I did enjoy the game, but I wouldn't classify it in my list of best CRPGs. Somewhere in the "enjoyable for a while, but wouldn't play again" range.

I agree. It's good, probably my favorite game released this year, but it's not the best. I do think that the ending can color many people's perceptions of the rest of the game though.

 

[resistor]

I'd prefer Quality over Quantity and, from most of the quests I've done, they're all pretty damn good, a far cry from all of Morrowind's and most of Oblivions

I didn't like Morrowind or Oblivion either. ;-)

Personally I found the main storyline pretty good... up until the ending which was just bad. Very, very bad. But the lead up to it was enjoyable.

Spoiler

C'mon, the Communism-hating robot was just gold.

The

Spoiler

robot

was pretty hilarious, but I found the pacing leading up to the final quest really wonky. It went leisurely pace, leisurely pace, leisurely pace, OMGWTF, *END*. It seemed like all the characters went from fairly laid back to "OMG, we must act now!" implausibly quickly. Basically, I didn't feel that the plotline built tension well, but rather tried to cram it all into the lasts quest or two.

I was kinda disappointed with that, but the rest of quests are better, in that they have consequences to them.

Spoiler

The Tenpenny Tower quests for example. I took the supposedly 'good' option and... well... it didn't end up being so good.

I'd say it was pretty mixed, overall. If you choose the negative outcome for Megaton (

Spoiler

detonating the bomb

), you get some negative karma. Period. No real repercussions for doing something massively, incredibly evil. People don't shun you. Nobody tries to exact vengeance on you.

Spoiler

There's one survivor, Moira, but even though she's been ghoulified, she doesn't seem to care very much!

 

[CleverNickName]

Again assuming you mean FFIII (as originally marketed in the US), AKA FF6 in Japan and in the PS2 release?

Yup, I ammended my previous post to remove any confusion.

I have a working theory that everyone's favorite FF game coincides with their first FF game.

Interesting theory, but it doesn't apply to me. My first FF experience was with FF1 on the NES, back in the 80's. I didn't particularly care for it...in fact, I beat it in less than a week and never played it again.

Then I played FF2 (also on the NES), and while I liked it better than the first one, the story wasn't particularly memorable.

Then I played FF3 (aka FF6 in Japan), and it changed the way that I look at CRPGs forever.

 

[CleverNickName]

I am loving this thread. I also like how everyone is being very spoiler-safe, and either masking their text or encapsulating it in SBLOCKs. You guys rock!

Yesterday, I placed an order on Amazon for Planescape: Torment, since it comes so highly recommended by my fellow ENWorlders. I am squeaky with excitement over it, and can't wait for it to get here so I can start playing it.

Based on what I've read in this thread, though, there are a ton of good CRPGs out there that I have missed out on. Most of them sound like they would be right up my alley, too. So I am adding the following on my must-play list of CRPGs:

Fallout 1
Fallout 2
Balder's Gate II
Final Fantasy Tactics
Final Fantasy X
Suikoden 1
Suikoden 2

Now, I've heard good things about Fable and Fable 2 from a coworker...but nobody has mentioned them yet. I've never played them myself, but he has offered to loan them to me whenever I want to try them out. Are they worth my time?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Fable and Fable 2 are quite good, really. I'd rank them high because of how flexible the story is.

I'm saving this thread for my post-christmas buying sprees, too.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

The great thing about PS:T is that it's actually rather hard to spoil it. It's not just the story itself that makes the game so wonderful, but how it's told - you'll want to talk to every NPC you come across (and you come across a lot), and you'll talk to your companions multiple times. And I do mean multiple times. Personally, I'd recommend strongly that you go mage, if just because intelligence, charisma, and wisdom are probably your three most important stats in the game, and not because they help you do the fightan, but because they add so much to dialogue.

On a side note, I recommend you read Dungeons and Dreamers. It's a great book and has a lot about cRPGs and tabletop gaming, and how they're related.


Oh, and a note on the console games - avoid the re-translated Chrono Trigger for the DS. Instead of localizing it with awesome they did a stupifyingly bad blind translation, and the game became a lot more needlessly wordy and lost a lot of charm.

Also, I cannot forgive myself for missing this, but Lunar: Silver Story Complete and Lunar: Eternal Blue Complete are both utterly fantastic. Someone mentioned Oblivion being vanilla in a good way, but for me, these two games fit that description perfectly. The setting is fun and familiar, the story is gripping even with it's slight predictability, and the characters aren't cliche for the same reason Rocky isn't cliche - because they're genuine. It's vanilla like ice cream - some people may find it plain at times, but it's always delicious for everyone.

 

[Askaval30]

Nostalgia kicked in upon re-reading this thread: I'm off to install P:Torment again!

what a genius of a game.

 

[TheSleepyKing]

Really? I found the story of Fallout 3... rather lacking. The world is big and well built, but there's a grand total of ~17 quests in that entire giant world. And, as the OP quoted, wandering around looking for uber-loot doesn't keep me interested for long.

To compound it, I didn't think what storyline there was, was that great. To make it concrete, at the dramatic choice at the end, I found that I didn't really give a damn, because I didn't care about the other character involved.

...

All of this criticism aside, I did enjoy the game, but I wouldn't classify it in my list of best CRPGs. Somewhere in the "enjoyable for a while, but wouldn't play again" range.

I kind of agree with you. The plot of Fallout 3 seemed to be a rehash of the (brilliant) plotlines of the first two games. It didn't add to the mythology of the Fallout world at all. I did enjoy playing it, though -- it's still a fantastic game.
Another vote for Planescape: Torment here as well (although it's so text-heavy the game can drag a little). Mass Effect is also very good -- a fully realised universe built from scratch.
Is there no love for the old SSI "Gold Box" games (Pool of Radiance et al.), Lands of Lore or Thief: The Dark Project games here, though?

 

[Spatula]

Is there no love for the old SSI "Gold Box" games (Pool of Radiance et al.)... games here, though?

As very fun AD&D tactical simulators, yes.
As great or interesting stories, no, not really.