Word to the wise: Tides of Numenera has even less combat than Planescape, and a lot more text, so if you don’t like reading through long expository paragraphs and surreal dialogue, you should skip over this game. Though it didn’t manage to surpass the quality of its bigger brothers, Tides of Numenera is a worthy spiritual successor that tackles many difficult subjects such as the nature of humanity and consciousness, metaphysics, semiotics and many issues that you would expect from an Umberto Eco essay, not a video game released in 2017. The spiritual successor to Tides of Numenera features equal parts strange characters, captivating dialogue and descriptions, and a surreal world filled with grotesque images that has a dream-like quality to it. If Planescape Torment was the cool college philosophy teacher, Tides of Numenera is its brooding, edgy prodigy that shows a lot of yet-unfulfilled potential.
Note: Since this RPG is the spiritual successor of Planescape Torment, there’s very little combat to speak of. So, without further ado, here’s our list of the best fantasy RPGs that you should definitely play. Does it have good dialogue and interesting lore? Is it fun? Does it make sense in the context of the game? Is it user-friendly? Here are the main elements we examined before including a game in our top: So don’t come yelling at us if your favorite RPG from 1991 hasn’t made the list. This doesn’t mean that we’ll ignore factors such as innovation and cultural impact – they just won’t weigh as much. When it comes to deciding what ‘’best’’ means, we have identified the games that are fun to play now. Mythical beings or supernatural forms are either at the center of the plot, or an important part of the universe.Contains spells and/or magical items and contraptions.Has mythical beings such as gods, dwarves, elves, etc.We’ve prioritized games with no references to real world locations, events and people, but it’s not mandatory. When it comes to defining whether a game can be considered ‘’fantasy’’, we took the following criteria into consideration: As a result, our list contains some titles that you would not normally classify as ‘’fantasy’’ – Shadowrun: Hong Kong, for instance. The definition has broadened so much that it would be silly to stick to the basics. The same thing goes when it comes to defining fantasy. Combat – though some games on this list have little to no combat.The ability to make choices that affect the game world.When it comes to defining whether or not a game is an RPG, we have included titles that contain: If we were to follow its canonical definition, every game is a role-playing game.Īs a result, we have decided to choose the games that stick the most to the traditional formula, taking great care not to ignore those titles that played around with the genre conventions. The fact that they were focused on story, character progression and exploration made them easily distinguishable from the platformers and action titles that were dominating the industry.įlash forward to now, and role-playing games are getting increasingly harder to pinpoint, as virtually all modern video games have at least a couple of RPG mechanics, whether we’re talking about skill trees, dialog options or freedom of choice. Twenty, even ten years ago, identifying a role-playing game was easy. Our Criteria for choosing the best fantasy RPG What Makes an RPG?