CRPGs/WRPGs - Computer/Western Role-Playing Games - No Squares or Atluses allowed

[Give Them Enough Rope]

What is a CRPG/WRPG?
A Computer or Western Role-Playing Game can often be spotted through a number of factors: A keyboard/mouse-oriented layout; a set of varied skills that must be leveled separately from each other; the ability to make your own character and customize it to suit its preferences or abilities; an abundance of manners to complete quests with; conformity to an existing tabletop RPG ruleset. Not all of these need to be present.

CRPGs, as the name implies, started out in the microcomputers of the 80s before advancements in technology expanded their storytelling capabilities and ambition. Whereas most console RPGs from Japan prioritized a linear story with a prebuilt set of characters who could only level up through battle, which advancements would only be felt through a general increase in battle stats, their Western computer counterparts are significantly more inspired by tabletop RPGs such as Dungeons and Dragons and placed more emphasis on the "role-playing" aspect, having characters advance not just through battle, but also by completing quests, and allocating skill points to suit what fit the character's backstory and expertise.

What are you playing? What's grinding your gears?
What are you looking forward to?
Discuss!

 

[Elite Kipchak]

my only contribution to this thread will be to say that DOS1 and DOS2 are among the best games ever made. thank you and have a nice day.

 

[Neodanthril]

i am currently playing warhammer 40k rogue trader and i am very pleased at how many QoL features it has. it is a breath of fresh air to have an unlimited intelligent inventory that sorts all your stuff into categories to make it easier to resell your shit. and all the extra items that reward item hoarding. and the whole trading system in general is much more enjoyable to me. way more streamlined and less tedious. that and grabbing items from multiple corpses if they are near each other, and the game even letting you know if you missed items.
the game also automatically picks the character with the highest relevent skill to attempt the skillcheck. so nice not having to track 8 different skills across six party members to see who is best suited to pass a check.
on normal diffuclty combat is fast and rewarding. so far the game hasnt fallen into railroading specific playstyles to beat a mandatory segment (looking at you shadowrun returns and underrail)
it makes great use of the setting and has lots of worldbuilding opportunites for the player to interact with if they want, and does not assume the player is knowledgeable about warhammer, it has a built in, not an external link but a built in, encyclopedia to explain just about everything.

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

I know I've said it before, but those Shadowrun games (mostly Dragonfall and Hong Kong) have some of the best writing I've ever seen in any game. Their characters and dialogue manage to be unique and interesting without screaming "LOOK AT ME, I'M A WRITER ATTEMPTING TO BE UNIQUE AND INTERESTING!!!", which is an extremely uncommon thing in gaming.

I just stumbled across those one day without knowing anything about the series or the setting and was so pleasantly surprised.

 

[BONECRUSHER]

my only contribution to this thread will be to say that DOS1 and DOS2 are among the best games ever made. thank you and have a nice day.

Larian is a dogshit company with dogshit writing and dogshit games

 

[R00T]

my only contribution to this thread will be to say that DOS1 and DOS2 are among the best games ever made. thank you and have a nice day.

i didn't love or understand the switch in armor mechanics from DS 1 and DS 2. it was fun to mix and match everything possible to try and boost all your resistances as high as you could in 1 and potentially beat out status effects, and in 2 all that goes away just to have it all negated by the armor. It never felt good though because enemies almost always have more of it than you and with the split between magic and physical being so 50/50 you typically end up doing one or the other. It either meant my caster got demoted to supporting because there were so few enemies they could control with magic damage, whereas my physical characters got far more done because the essential targets had little physical armor. Felt like you either had to go all in magical or all in physical, and as a result any characters that are the opposite don't get to be as effective because of it.

Also DS 1 letting you get like a billion AP and lowering AP cost and cooldown on spells that were below your skill level was pure fun. Nothing like dishing out 4 different spells and obliterating people.

 

[Fag Albert]

Might and Magic 8 is probably my favorite CRPG of all time. Don't have a real good reason besides I like the dungeon crawling and all the kooky classes. I used to do a playthrough of it every couple of years but I've decided to tackle 7 & 6. 7 was cool, played mostly the same, liked having the branching good and evil paths.

I've tried several times with 6 so far and I just haven't been able to get myself invested. Just something about these drawn over actors really puts me off.

 

[DefinitelyNotMe]

Here's some attempt at a review on all of the Owlcat games cause i am quite fond of them.
Kingmaker
A very autistic and very long game, my first playthrough was like 120 hours.
Character creator is great, it is different from PnP version of pathfinder but in acceptable way, if you beat any of PF games you can go and try tabletop version with little to no adjustment.
Story is actually kind of clever if you stop and think about it instead of just going along with it, which i don't really blame anyone to stop caring since pacing in the game is awful and it hard to keep focus 100 hours in. Character are alright, some can find them boring, but i dont mind. They make sense, they are not freaks they are people that might be actually in the head of the government.
Gameplay is your typical RTwP with bad pathfinding (ironic) BUT you can go turn-based for more difficult fights. Game really expects you to read and prepare for fights, which i can respect, i don't feel like the game thinks I'm an idiot and thats rare nowadays. some fights on the overworld maps feel like puzzles that you need to solve with a certain spell or a scroll. Especially Delay Poison, always have Delay Poison scroll on you as soon as you can get assess to one. The game does pull some shit that you can't know about unless you have meta knowledge which is bullshit. For example you basically required to have Blind Fight feat for all of your characters because it gives you immunity for gaze attacks (for some reason).
Secret ending is neat and you can achieve it without looking it up and it requires you to actually think somewhat, getting it was very satisfying.
Side game sucks it gets old very quick just put it on effortless if you care about secret ending.
Wrath of the righteous
WAAAAAY more autistic character creation. That comes with the price cause game tries to keep up with your bullshit and you may encounter some harsh difficulty spikes unless you have some meta build.
Story is also good but its better packaged, the secret ending is so convoluted though that its pretty much impossible for you to get it without looking it up.
Characters got worse imo. They suffer from "I'm not the stereotype actually" syndrome.
"I'm succubus but I'm good", "I'm paladin but I am a chaotic retard", "I'm a gnome but I'm not a chaotic retard". You are playing as a holy commander during the day and a head of the freak cicrus troop during the night to the point where you ask "is anybody around me is normal?".
Side game once again sucks but its a bit more engaging this time and auto resolve hwlps a lot.
Rouge Trader
The more casual of their games. Me even not knowing system at all (i still dont know it really) was able to create a pyromancer monster that kills everything as soon as combat starts.
Story is the best that owlcat ever produced so far. Good twists that i didn't saw coming. Characters are finally in the right spot. Dialog has quite a bit of tastefull humor in it. If you care about 40k lore you should be happy (can't say that i care a lot about it though)
Side game finally doesnt suck, i was actually kinda looking forward to break up the gameplay a bit.
Secret ending is basically handed to you this time which is lame.
And thats basically it.it's just kinda good.

 

[Waifu Denier]

One thing I miss from the Golden Age of WRPGs was the prevalent of save imports. Sure, there are instances today, like with Mass Effect, but as a whole it is largely abandoned, or if it exists is mostly token, like how Witcher 3 had your Witcher 2 import barely affect anything when they built up that your decisions (which had very divergent outcomes) would have a large impact. Ultima had save imports between many entries, Might and Magic combines IV and V if you have both installed, and Wizardry retained save imports even when Wizardry 8 came out 9 years after Wiz VII.

Larian is a dogshit company with dogshit writing and dogshit games

They are held up by having better and more fun combat than most of their competition, but I can't think of anyone who can seriously say they have any talent in writing.

 

[Mike Matei's Penis]

I'd just like to bring up Gothic, Risen, and Two Worlds, for all being some great 7/10 eurojank.

 

[DefinitelyNotMe]

I'd just like to bring up Gothic, Risen, and Two Worlds, for all being some great 7/10 eurojank.

Two worlds is a 6 max

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

They are held up by having better and more fun combat than most of their competition,

I'm not a huge fan of it, but I can understand why somebody might like Original Sin 1's combat. But as @R00T said, the armor system in OS2 is just awful and it makes every tactic besides dealing maximum damage as quickly as possible totally useless.

 

[WonderWino]

Still prefer the original 2 baldurs gate games. Never could get arcanum to run for very long without bugging out to the point it was unplayable and frankly I wasn't impressed with colony ship at all. From what it says on steam its implied to be a far better game than it actually is. That aside its non combat options are a joke and what combat there is in the game is clunky and for the most part poorly implemented. Most of the stat boosting stuff is useless as its never really needed. Plus, despite whats implied about the game there is no way to get anywhere near getting through the game without a mostly combat oriented character. a non combat character will just get killed outright with no way to avoid it in multiple areas that are required for the main quest and talking your way out of the other situations won't get you anywhere near as much XP, plus you'll be missing out on what little useful equipment there is. I'd never recommend paying more than $15 for it on a sale. Its regular price on steam is absurd for what it is

But yeah, overall my preference is baldurs gate 1. 2 is mostly better on a technical level but its also alot smaller as far as the world goes and more linear. It loses alot of the exploration and feel of the first one

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Obligatory Skyrim mention.

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

Huh, thought we had a thread on this subject. Then again I assume that most people would just go to RPGCodex or something, but nice to have a thread here about Crpgs. Maybe the OP could be longer by very briefly describing some of the games shown?

 

[God of Nothing]

Playing Dragon Age Origins
god what the fuck happened?
everything after this is just a complete mess

I know I've said it before, but those Shadowrun games (mostly Dragonfall and Hong Kong) have some of the best writing I've ever seen in any game. Their characters and dialogue manage to be unique and interesting without screaming "LOOK AT ME, I'M A WRITER ATTEMPTING TO BE UNIQUE AND INTERESTING!!!", which is an extremely uncommon thing in gaming.

I just stumbled across those one day without knowing anything about the series or the setting and was so pleasantly surprised.

Hong Kong had way too much unnecessary dialogue.

 

[Muad'Dick]

I know I've said it before, but those Shadowrun games (mostly Dragonfall and Hong Kong) have some of the best writing I've ever seen in any game. Their characters and dialogue manage to be unique and interesting without screaming "LOOK AT ME, I'M A WRITER ATTEMPTING TO BE UNIQUE AND INTERESTING!!!", which is an extremely uncommon thing in gaming.

I just stumbled across those one day without knowing anything about the series or the setting and was so pleasantly surprised.

I picked these up for cheap on GOG ages ago and only got around to playing them in the past year or so. I love the setting, sunk more time than is healthy into the pen & paper RPG and the SNES game, yet I always had reservations about getting into these. I was genuinely shocked at how good they were when I finally got to play them. I think it was probably the prospect of the writing that put me off in the first place. The Cyberpunk setting in general seems to attract some really dire writing, but these were all pretty engaging. Hong Kong can plod a little, especially on subsequent playthroughs, but you're never left instinctively clicking through stuff on your first try (a massive red flag for any RPG).

 

[RollerGator]

Started playing Gladius on the PS2 and it's really fun addictive. It has an option for co-op so another player can jump in at anytime to help with the campaign, you basically just split your troops with them. More strategy RPG games should've had that feature.

 

[Waifu Denier]

I'd just like to bring up Gothic, Risen, and Two Worlds, for all being some great 7/10 eurojank.

The easiest way to anger fans of said games and get guaranteed responses is to call Gothic Morrowind at home and Two Worlds Oblivion at home

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

Hong Kong had way too much unnecessary dialogue.

I strongly disagree. I actually found myself going around and having optional conversations with NPCs after major plot points just to see what they had to say.

I can't stress enough how uncommon that is for me - I find myself skimming through most RPGs just to get the vague gist of the text because that's all the quality of the writing warrants.