Ranking: 2D WRPGs

[A Black Falcon]

And...the list seems a bit small. Which is because there are a lot of these games that I just haven't played that much and I'm quite certain that ABF will admonish me for THAT. I'll update when I can.

Hey, my all-platforms all-tiles "RPGs I've finished" list includes like twenty games, and that's including each GW campaign as a separate game, too... I didn't really play RPGs before Baldur's Gate, you know. And even after that I've still played much more of strategy games than RPGs, Guild Wars aside.


Also,a lot of '70s to early '90s RPGs were first-person, and I don't know that I'd call that 2d... some are hybrid titles, like the Pool of Radiance games, where you wander around in first person, but the battles are top down and strategic, but others are straight first person, like the Wizardry games, etc.

I'm sure there are many examples out there of purely isometric or top-down PC RPGs, but a lot of them would be European games none of us have played. I've heard of some of them, but haven't played most such games...

So yeah, my list wouldn't be much longer than yours, actually, going just by stuff I've actually played.

I mean, I at least wouldn't call first-person dungeon crawlers "2d". You seem to be, by putting Wizardry VII on your list, but, well, they aren't 2d... I would only list topdown, isometric, etc. games as 2d.

1. Planescape: Torment
2. Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
3. Baldur's Gate
4. Quest for Glory I: So You Want To Be A Hero (such an amazing series, Sierra's best! I prefer the VGA remake to the EGA original.)
4. Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness (I and IV I consider equally great)

(I won't use numbers below this, but I'm trying to vaguely organize them by how much I liked the games. All of the games on this list here I liked, no bad games here... and the order is definitely very preliminary.)

Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal
Fallout
AD&D: Curse of the Azure Bonds (the only SSI Gold Box game I own; first person exploration, but with top-down combat so I'll put it here)
Icewind Dale II
Quest for Glory III: Wages of War
Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire (the fanmade graphical interface remake is the way to play it!)
Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura
Diablo II
Castle of the Winds (a classic, in my opinion)
Diablo II: Lord of Destruction
Seal of Evil
Prince of Qin
Sacred
Ultima I
CaveQuest (good game for its time, though, I'm only ranking it low because it's simple and dated... if I also include total playtime and nostalgia, though this definitely should move up at least three places. :))

I also own Fallout 2, but haven't actually played it at all. Similarly I have the Siege of Avalon Anthology, but have barely started it.

I've only played the demo of The Temple of Elemental Evil; I thought about getting it when it came out, but didn't, and haven't played more than the demo. That was enough to know that yes it is the most accurate D&D rules in a game, but evidently like all of Troika's games you need to mod it to fix it to a playable state. The game is on GOG now, so I'm sure I'll get it there eventually.

I'm sure I've played demos of quite a few more, but I don't remember them enough to list them here, and I'd want to play more than a demo to do that anyway. I can remember playing the Blade of Darkness demo; seemed like a quite average Diablo clone, except set in Japan.

Oh, how about games with 3d polygon characters on 2d backdrops? Examples:
Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire (okay, worst game in the series though)
Silver (decent but unspectacular)


As for first-person RPGs without polygons, again they really are definitely a different category, but if you MUST put them here (it's odd), I've played parts of a few. Again I put them in order of how much I liked them, mostly.
Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge
Ultima Underworld
Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant
Eye of the Beholder (I've only played the Sega CD version, actually, but it's a pretty good port, particularly with a Sega Mouse; also on SNES and PC)
Dragon Wars (very dated, hard to judge impartially, but seems good for its time)
Mazes of Fate (GBA original uses sprites and 2d environments; the DS remake is full 3d, decent and fun but not outstanding game)
Stonekeep (I just don't like this one that much...)