"Role-playing game" might be the most-abused phrase in the universe - a phrase which tells us little up-front about the games it supposedly corresponds to. After all, most games invite you to play a role, whether that role be "village mayor" or "dabbling cop-slayer". What sets the experiences formally known as RPGs apart? Why not zero in further on the specifics - thus "Rat Punching Game", "Infinitely Big Backpack Customisation Engine", "Gruelling Acquisition of the Capacity to Save Princesses Simulator"?
The safest way to get a lock on a genre's antics is to study those of its foremost representatives. And with that in mind, here's another instalment of Ye Olde Best Xbox 360 games feature. Entries are ranked in no particular order, because doing otherwise would necessitate such a frenzy of calculation that our brains might catch fire.
25 comments so far...
msbhvn on 13 Jun '12 said:
I've got every game in that list, bar Fable 2, which I had but traded in for next to nothing because I couldn't bear the embarrassment of owning it anymore.
GallifreyDog on 13 Jun '12 said:
I agree about ME3, can't even mention the bloody thing without everyone going mental about the ending for the millionth time. I hate to admit that the only one I've played from this list is Fable II. Not really an RPG person, though I'd like to be. I've played Mass Effect 1 though, and I will play 2 soon.
Clanger67 on 13 Jun '12 said:
I am only missing Lost Odyssey.Good list,fine set of games.RPG's RULE in my book.What more could you want ?.
SidTheSloth on 13 Jun '12 said:
I have them all - what do i win?
All good games, although i think Dragon Age: Origins is better than a few of those on the list but then i'm picky, although not so picky that i'd start a 'Mass Effect - RPG or not' type debate!*
*Seriously Mr Over-sensitive Internet, twas a joke before, i hope they're still allowed...
golliwoza on 13 Jun '12 said:
I own only three of those games, and two of them are Bethesda titles. I did try Fable 2 but I absolutely hated it, sold it the very next day and I try to block out any knowledge of it existing.
Clanger67 on 13 Jun '12 said:
Yeah i would have said Dragon Age : Origins in place of Fable 2.
STE MO on 13 Jun '12 said:
Hold on for one of those darn minutes of yours, since when did Mass Effect 2 become a RPGS? I was under the impression that it was a 3rd person, as they took all the good RPG stuff from Mass Effect out and left you with shooting. I loved Mass Effect, but 2 was no where near as good, for me anyway.
But good list I was wondering where Two Worlds was
maybe that could be the next list RPGs to avoid, here's another to avoid Star Ocean! Kay
SidTheSloth on 13 Jun '12 said:
I quite liked Star Ocean, wasn't amazing but not bad - but admittedly i hated Lymle & the creepy intentioned Faize. Some strange ideas in J-RPG's now and then - but isn't that part of their charm?
msbhvn on 13 Jun '12 said:
Agreed, except I've never replayed DA:O because of the combat system being a pain and the Fade and Orzammar being tedious. DA2 made a lot of mistakes with its story and characters, but at least it played well. DD's the same, story is a bit naff, but the combat is fantastic.
schwepterbrowser on 13 Jun '12 said:
Have to agree with Dragon Age: Origins, my favourite RPG ever, not just on 360.
STE MO on 13 Jun '12 said:
I had it when I didn't have the Internet, and found it a slog, often falling asleep with the controller in my hand and only waking up due to snoring!
don't get me wrong I enjoy JRPG's but the lack of, or what I couldn't find, way points was really annoying. I didn't mind the game but felt lost half the time 
Alaric14 on 13 Jun '12 said:
Hmm, I see no Final Fantasy games made the cut here. I approve.
Maverick_McCool on 14 Jun '12 said:
I had to stop playing Star Ocean because of Lymle , I seriously couldn't take it any more!
Good list on the whole although I'd have gone for ME1 over ME2 as far as an RPG goes and stuck in DA:Origins rather than Dark Souls , but I can appreciate why DS is there , I just don't have to like it!
To be fair I'm suprised we haven't seen Mr JRPG crying about this list yet!
Oops.
msbhvn on 14 Jun '12 said:
He's been warned about trolling articles, so I assume he's keeping his mouth shut lest he suffer the wrath of Kernow's hammer!
terry cheyne on 14 Jun '12 said:
what about tales of vesperia it's easily the best jrpg on the 360
ItchyRash on 14 Jun '12 said:
Lost Odyssey was great. Certainly agree with that. I loved Fallout 3 but I wonder if I preferred New Vegas. I remember thinking at the time of playing that I though New Vegas was a bit more fun but perhaps that's down to not having Fallout 3 fresh in the mind. DA: Origins over Fable 2 as well. I didn't actually hate Fable 2. I quite enjoyed it, but it wasn't anywhere close to what my friends thought it was. Are there any other good JRPG's on 360? Heard a lot about Blue Dragon and obviously Final Fantasy 13
STE MO on 14 Jun '12 said:
So where is Deus Ex? Surely you can forget about the poor boss battles and short story. I mean the game was pretty solid
Clanger67 on 14 Jun '12 said:
Hasn't stopped him though,he posted another cheery comment yesterday in article comments somewhere.
CunningSmile on 14 Jun '12 said:
I'd second (or possibly 6th) the shout out for Dragon Age:Origins. It did a much better job of setting out its world than something like Fable, and I also thought the DLC was really well done. It was nice to have a range of stuff from small and cheap (Return to Ostergard) to the ridiculous (Awakening if that counts as DLC rather than sequel) and the fact many of them tied into secondary plots rather than continuing the main plot just made the whole world seem more well rounded compared to many games where you get the feeling everyone else is just standing around until you get there.
TemplarKnight on 14 Jun '12 said:
Skyrim is the greatest 360 RPG? Really?
When it has the same narrative we see in games like Dragon Age: Origins and The Witcher 2 with choices having consequences come back to me. Even Dark Souls had consequences. Kill an NPC and they're gone forever and sometimes this leads to you losing potential help. Even your class influences certain stuff in some situations. *Minor spoilers for Dark Souls might follow* Patches won't offer friendship with a cleric for example and you'll be forced to kill him no matter what. Meanwhile betraying a Covenant and killing its members lasts forever and you can only be part of one Covenant at a time. Then there's choice of whether to side with Petrus and kill Reah or save her. Then we have the whole scenario between who to choose out of Kaathe and Frampt. Even your Covenant impacts what areas you visit and how enemies react to you. Some enemies (like the ones in the forest) will actually become allies should you join the Forest Covenant. I don't think Dark Souls was even trying and yet it still ends up with more consequences and old school feel than what Skyrim offers.
Play Baldur's Gate and then play Skyrim. You won't even like Skyrim afterwards. Skyrim only has the open world going for it and Baldur's Gate does that better. Put simply, Bethesda's bland and boring open worlds with random generated loot and enemies in caves don't strike me as anything unique or interesting as I've seen better. Bethesda's stories aren't great either. I found a more entertaining and emotional story in the Mage Circle quest-line in Dragon Age: Origins than I have done in any Bethesda game. Hell, all the side stories you go through while gathering an army in Origins have better plot, characters and dialogue than anything that's ever been in a Bethesda game.
While we're on that note, remember Oblivion's story was about an evil invading the world while the player needed to find a way to stop them? It's a generic fantasy story. An optional part of that quest was gathering an army too along with those Septim relics. The final climax isn't even epic and the story remains a generic fantasy story with a deus ex machina at the last minute.
Meanwhile Origins was about an evil invading the world while the player needed to gather allies - to stop them - with a treaty which reminded me of the free-peoples pact in LOTR. Origins has a generic fantasy story preface but the difference between Oblivion and Origins is that Origins actually branched out and made everything interesting. You had the grey moral choices and as you progressed through the story you saw the darkspawn spreading out across the land as you randomly encountered them on the road. Meanwhile the darkspawn themselves were an interesting enemy and all the small conflicts you have to resolve before the final battle are entertaining and awesome in their own way. Then the whole conflict is resolved in a final huge and epic climatic battle where we can experience multiple endings.
Skyrim has one ending and one very linear main quest. The world is as open as Hell but this doesn't change the fact that actual role playing in terms of dialogue and choices is terrible. We have the immortal NPC's and the guilds which anyone can join. You don't even need to be a mage to beat the mage's guild quest-line.
At best Skyrim is a sandbox game but...well you have Minecraft for that crap.
But who am I to say what an RPG is in this day and age where some people consider Diablo 3 and Borderlands to be the best RPG's ever? These very same people probably haven't even heard of Baldur's Gate or Planescape Torment let alone played them. Classes, statistics and loot do not make an RPG. If that's the case then Halo: Reach and CoD are RPG's.
And what the Hell is Fable 2 doing on the list? Like Skyrim, it suffers from choices not having consequences. One of the major advertisements for the Fable series has been that every choice you make should have a consequence but we didn't get any of that and then we got easy combat and a story with a poor ending.
This list missing out Mass Effect 1, Dragon Age: Origins and Divinity 2: The Dragon Knight Saga make it a poor list IMO.
OXM ETboy on 14 Jun '12 said:
/points at "in no particular order"
SidTheSloth on 14 Jun '12 said:
Try these:
Tales Of Vesperia
Enchanted Arms
Infinite Undiscovery
Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope
Eternal Sonata
Resonance Of Fate
The Last Remnant
Unfortunately, MS invested a lot a few years ago in J-RPGs to try and help 360 sales in Japan, the experiment didn't work out too well so they dropped it and we get J-RPGs very rarely now as a result, only the ever diminishing Final Fantasy...
Maverick_McCool on 14 Jun '12 said:
Sid's covered pretty much it there , if you can stomach Lymle long enough Star Ocean isn't bsd , similarly if you can put up with almost the entire cast Eternal Sonata is a great little game.
Also , there is a little known XBLA game called Faery : Legend of Avalon which is a great little JRPG type game , it has a great world , nice characters and a battle system ripped straight from the old FF games.
If you can find it cheap , well worth a look.
Oh , and Rise of the Argonauts is also a great underrated RPG if you can find it.
CunningSmile on 15 Jun '12 said:
Never been a big fan of JRPGs but if you're a fan of really old (pre-FF7) style look on the Indie games for Cthulu Saves the World. It's only about 240 points but will give you six hours of 8 bit fun ripping the p*ss out of JRPG conventions whilst also actually being a pretty good turn based game in itself.
And I'll second Mave's Rise of the Argonauts. It's got some major flaws (bad voice acting and dislikeable support characters amoungst them) but offers a fairly satisfying story in a Bioware sort of mold.
GHOSTY05 on 15 Jun '12 said:
FF7- Now that is an RPG! best game ever made if you ask me.