Keith's Favorite RPGs

This is something that I'd normally say is below the level of discourse I'd like established for this site, but I felt compelled to go through and name my favorite RPGs. At the very least, this will get some positivity flowing on this curmudgeoney site. Let's get started!


Best Ambition & Best Style: "Arcanum"
If you're looking for a deep character creation system, Arcanum is the game for you. Between Magical/Technological alignment, several schools of magic, a bunch of technological disciplines, two dozen skills ranging from combat to stealth to speechcraft, as well as a robust stats system, Arcanum is a game that you will want to play through at least twice. It's also got several different endings, and is generally decently non-linear.

The style of Arcanum is also noteworthy, being a strange mix of 19th century railroad tycoons and tolkienesque orcs and elves. It has a beautiful, moody string quartet soundtrack that adds a lot to the already wonder-inspiring atmosphere.


Best Writing: "Planescape: Torment"
Playing video games can make me wonder, "do I just not enjoy reading?" But I pored over every word of "Planescape: Torment", making me realize what I always suspected - that most writing in video games is just crap. I've never played a video game that was so insightful, funny, and moving all at the same time. I am haunted by the world of Planescape and its characters.

What's funny about "Torment" is that it is so good that it forces me to break my own rules. Normally, I judge a game very harshly on its gameplay. Well, the gameplay (combat) in Torment kind of sucks. It's the Infinity engine (by Bioware), so it has that horrid real-time-with-pause system, and feels like Baldur's Gate. But the writing is so goddamn good that I don't even care that the combat sucks, and neither will you. Music and style of this game are a close second to Arcanum.


Best Combat: " Temple of Elemental Evil"
After playing Planescape: Torment, you'll be hankering for some kickass combat, and that's exactly what ToEE will deliver. This is, without a doubt, the BEST implementation of D&D (3.5 Edition) into a computer game. It's true turn-based combat, with great sounds, animations, and effects. It feels really great to play. I wrote in detail here about other reasons why ToEE is outstanding, namely the depth of gameplay combined with the rough difficulty.

Unfortunately, ToEE was incomplete and buggy upon initial release, which is why you've never heard of it. However, at this time, it's been completely patched up by the community, and is totally playable. If you want to know what's possible in RPG combat, ToEE is in my opinion, the game to beat.


Best Music & Characters: Final Fantasy 6
Among the hardcore RPG fans, J-RPGs are mostly considered a joke. I understand the reasons for this - the gameplay is much less in depth, and the writing is often somewhat anime-cliche and bland. Well, one of the best attempts at this style of RPG was Square's sixth Final Fantasy game. The gameplay and writing are both solid, and other elements take it to the top.

Final Fantasy 6 was really the end of an era for Final Fantasy. It was the last 2D Final Fantasy, and by this point they had really mastered the medium, doing perfect, beautiful pixel art. It was the last game that the brilliant painter Yoshitaka Amano played the role of character designer (hence a strong noticeable shift in character design quality for 7). Composer Nobuo Uematsu is at his peak here, writing classic melody after classic melody (a practice which continued on to the next Final Fantasy game). The brilliant characters combined with the Uematsu's moving themes and solid storytelling creates a very compelling experience. I fell in love with this game, and to date, it's the only RPG I have ever "100 percented".


Best Tactical JRPG: "Final Fantasy Tactics"
Kind of a weird category, I guess. But I have played a lot of tactical JRPGs, and they are sorta their own animal. Final Fantasy Tactics just kicks ass. The combat is just outstanding, rivaling any game on this list. The character creation options are great with a wonderful jobs system. The art is beautiful, the music's great, and the difficulty is good, provided you don't use the story-characters. Highly recommended!


Best Overall: "Fallout 1+2"
What really highlighted for me just how great these games are, was the recent failed attempt by a group of out-of-touch nerds, "Bethesda Softworks", to recapture the spirit and greatness of the original games. Black Isle had the maturity and intellect to give Fallout an insightful bite to it, a strong voice, consistency of conviction. Bethesda is like the Michael Bay of video games.

Both of the original games are so goddamn awesome I can't even contain myself. The combat kicks ass. The world is rich and interesting and the characters are memorable. The character creation system is just outstanding. Crank your strength and give yourself almost no intelligence, and walk around the world saying "Darrr dar" and other nonsense to people. Crank your intelligence and cut your Charisma and go around being an asshole, but an asshole who's right about everything.

If you haven't played Fallout 1 or 2, play them right away. If you have played them before, play them again. For if Fallout 1 or 2 is fresh in your mind, they will not be able to sell you shitty games.



Honorable Mention: These are some RPGs which totally kick ass and you must play, but I couldn't think of any snazzy "Best _____" titles for them, and they're not quite as good as the ones above.

Ultima 7

Dragon Warrior 3

Wizardry 8

Daggerfall & Morrowind

Final Fantasy 7

Betrayal at Krondor


Many will complain that Baldur's Gate isn't on here. Well, I haven't been able to get into that game. I've tried about 12 times, and that game and me just do not vibe. Between its lengthly, nerdy dialogue and AWFUL combat, it just turns me off. Thanks for reading!

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New Super Mario Brothers Wii

First off, I want to complain about the title of this game. I know "Super Mario World" isn't anything spectacular, but at least it's simple and iconic. I can just see, 10 years from now, the conversation going,

"Hey man, did you play the new Super Mario Brothers?"

"Oh shit, there's a new one? I thought Nintendo went out of business five years ago!"

"No no, I mean the game, 'New Super Mario Brothers'."

"Oh. Yeah for DS? I played it a bit-"

"No no, the OTHER New Super Mario Brothers, for the Wii."

"...I gotta tell you man, this conversation is awful."


That's what is going to happen. Thanks a lot. But anyway, onto the game itself...

Basic Gameplay: This is solid, probably the most solid thing about the game. It feels good, I could immediately do the things that I wanted to do, from basic jumps, down to even the run-and-slide to get under 1-platform high floating bricks when you're big. It is a tiny bit slow overall though. I also don't think you need the ability to wall jump in this game, or at least they should make it difficult to do if they are going to have it. I think it hurts far more than it helps.

Multiplayer Aspect: Honestly, while playing this, I just wanted to put my controller down and watch the other players play and take turns. Mario games are actually a lot more fun single player after all, it turns out. All the other players do is get in your way, and screw you up. It just adds chaos to the mix, makes it more of a dumb party-game.

Level Design: It's big, open, and slow. Gone is the feeling of ZOOMING through a mario level from this one. I can't say it's bad, but I can say that it's uninspiring and forgettable.

Music: There are a couple of good tunes, but they're recycled from other games. The castle song sounds like they didn't have the license to the castle song from "Super Mario World". Most of the original writing is not melody driven, and again, forgettable.

Powers: These are better than the awful ones in the DS game, but they're still nothing too great. The main powers you deal with are the fire flower (fine), the ice flower (like the fire flower except you have to break these ice blocks after you shoot to kill the enemies - an extra step that's just a pain in the ass - give me back the fire flower), and the propeller hat. There are some others, but these are the most common, and I want to make a point about the propeller hat.
The propeller hat works by shaking the controller, instantly making Mario fly upwards about a full screen height, and slowly, slowly float back down. This can be done at any time, even in mid-air. In all of the older Mario games which included flying, it required some kind of running start or other preparation to begin flight. Generally, you needed a good little strip of clear land to get going. There's a really good reason for this - it's so that platforming is still an element. If you can always just fly, then who cares if you miss the jump? So, this propeller hat has a significant bad effect on this game. Hats off, Nintendo.

Challenge: No, the game isn't always drop-dead easy, for a change. It's actually rather difficult in spots. But the problem is that most of the difficulty comes not from the game itself, but from a combination of two factors: one, the game being mostly snore-fest easy and lulling you into a coma-like state where you just don't care, and two, the chaos caused by three other players dancing around the stage like mad.
There's also, I should mention, a really horrible feature in this game that can definitely detract from the challenge and fun of the game. At any time - and I want you to listen to this very closely - you can push the "A" button and go into a bubble, safe from all attacks, and able to pass through enemies and walls. Falling down a hole? Well, even if your wall-slide/wall-jump doesn't save you, just tap "A" and you're instantly completely saved. Separated from your friends way up high and don't want to jump up? Tap "A" and float up to them. They can then break you out and it's like nothing ever happened! It is MIND-BOGGLING that this feature made it into this game.

Presentation: This game feels like it was rushed, and it feels like they did not hire a graphic designer to help design the GUI. The text is all this lame, ugly Arial-like font that has ZERO personality, and the hud elements look like those found in a lot of Wii shovelware games. The cutscenes have this bizarro-cutesy thing going on, not unlike Teletubbies or even the dreaded Boohbah.


Other notes: Others have already complained that the two toads were chosen for players 3 and 4, and I completely agree. This adds to the unfinished feeling of the game, and is actively a problem when you have four dudes running around, especially given that some powers change your colors around.

Conclusion: This game draws a lot of inspiration from Mario 3, down to the bonus card game that you play in a toad house. But the new card game exemplifies perfectly what the spirit behind this game was. In Mario 3, when you would flip a card, and flip another, and it was wrong, they would both turn back around, and you'd have to remember which cards went where if you had any shot of uncovering cards. In this one, all flipped cards stay flipped, and it only ends when you flip two of the same Bowser card. This of course means that the game is reduced to nothing but a TOTALLY random card flipping game. There is no skill, strategy, or thought that you can involve in the process.

This game IS better than the atrocious nonsense that was its DS predecessor, but the way in which it has become acceptable to trample on the Mario-platformer says a lot about where we are in general. With all that said, it's playable, and if you can't find anything else to do, it will occupy your time. If you have really funny friends, they might even make it fun. And it comes in a cool red box.


2 / 5 stars.


Editor's note. I just went back and realized how inconsistent I've been about ratings (C-, 3/5 stars, 10/10 to name a few of my ratings). Sorry about that! I'll try to stick to an out-of-five stars system from now on.

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The Modern Videogame & Me

There's a lot of great things to do out there in this world of ours. I enjoy doing many, many of these things. I like to draw, play music, read the news, or just talk to friends. Games are also something I enjoy, but I've realized that it may be in a slightly different way than I've always believed.

It feels good to be outdoors.

When you pick up a new game, you generally don't know what it will offer. Maybe it looks kind of crappy, but it might be fun once you get into it. Or maybe it looks visually interesting, but has generic and boring gameplay. There's no way to tell for sure how good a game is until you sit down with it and give it a good run. How much time is a "good run"? That amount is getting longer and longer. These days, between loadtimes, cutscenes, tutorials, and a cripplingly easy first quarter (if not more), it's always at least 20 minutes and sometimes hours before you can start enjoying yourself with a game. Count in the fact that most games suck and will never deliver you the enjoyment, and one can see why I'm so hesitant to play new games these days.

Here's the thing - I actually don't want to play video games - I'd rather be doing anything else, unless the video game KICKS ASS. Because you can walk outside and be experiencing nature in 5-10 seconds (well, at least I can, I live in the woods). You can open up a web browser and read reddit in less than a second. You can draw a picture, kiss a girl, play guitar, do some pushups, or 1000 other activities that all give you at least something right away. Even if you suck at drawing or guitar or whatever craft, it's still a learning experience, and hence worth your time. The modern video game with its tutorials, shitty cutscenes, loadtimes, and lack of innovation and challenge, is about the least worthwhile way that a person could possibly spend their time.

It feels good to read Reddit.

So I'm realizing that I'm different in this way than a lot of gamers. I think a lot of gamers really just love videogames. I'd say I love games more than specifically video games, but really, I just love things that are good. I know a few gamers who don't really care if a game is good or not, they'll just plug away at the thing until it's beaten. I don't have this mentality at all.

So in a way, I guess this makes me less hardcore of a gamer. But I've always been primarily an "artist" or a "communicator" (or really just what I would call a normal, curious human being), and games, for whatever reason, just happen to be my means to that end.

NO SHIT! WHAT AM I, RETARDED? ARGHHH!

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