YOUR top 4 non-japanese rpg's?

Again, this time wondering what people's favorite non-j rpgs's are, I have a few that come to mind!

Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings

Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt

Skyrim

hmmm.....this is harder than I thought......

KOTOR

KOTOR 2

honorable mentions:

Neverwinter Nights (on a different day this could be number one)

Fallout 3

Fallout NV

NOTE: sorry meant to make it top FIVE, but I cant edit the title.....

None of them. They are all shit. jethrovegas was a liar.

Its funny how westerners call RPG's made in Japan JRPG's, and call western ones RPG's, at least be consistent and say WRPG's.

For normal people we just call them RPG's, what's next an arcade racing games from Japan gets called a Jracing game, yet fucking stupid hey.

Me I don't add letters to the front of genres, that's what weirdo's do lol.

Fallout 3 probably. Still remembers my first step to the capital wasteland.

My top 5 list would be:

• Diablo
• A Blurred Line
• Fable
• World of Warcraft
• TERA Online

@MarkoftheSivak: You can edit the OP to say top 5.

For me those would be:

1. Mass Effect trilogy
2. Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2
3. The Witcher 3
4. Skyrim
5. Knights of the Old Republic

Honourable mentions:

• Icewind Dale
• Oblivion
• Fallout 3, New Vegas, and 4
• The Witcher 2
• Jade Empire

• Morrowind
• Disco Elysium
• CrossCode
• Dragon Age: Origins
• Wasteland 2

DA:O, Mass Effect 2, TW3, FO:NV, Divinity Original Sin 1.

I haven't played a that many WRPGs, but i like these quite a bit:

• Planescape: Torment
• Kingdoms of Amalure: Reckoning
• Dragon Age: Origins
• Diablo 2

They have distinct characteristics that I think warrant some kind of differentiation. It's like how the Brits don't make a distinction between muffins and english muffins. These things way are too different to just call them by the same name, but they do. It's chaos over there.

Have to agree that we should be consistent and say WRPG or JRPG though.

Baldur's Gate I-II
Diablo II
Fallout 1-3
Mass Effect series
Planescape: Torment

Witcher 3

Fallout 3

Fallout 2

Diablo 2

Mass Effect 2

Man, that kinda doesn't feel right. I would have picked stuff like Soulsborne games or Dragon's Dogma but even though they are WRPGs gameplay wise, they are still Japanese.

By the way, keep these threads coming.

I think we overcomplicate things, and I will just call them RPG's.

1. Planescape Torment

2. Witcher 3

3. Witcher 2

4. Fallout 2

There's a ton of cRPGs I haven't played though, like Baldurs Gate, Divinity and Arcanum. They're still somewhere in my seemingly endless backlog...

• Grim Dawn
• Torchlight 2
• Assassin's Creed Origins
• The Witcher 3

no specific order

• Jade Empire
• Star Wars KOTOR
• Skyrim
• Fallout 3
• Mass Effect

• Kotor
• Baldur's Gate 1+2
• Diablo 2
• Dragon Age: Origin
• Pillars of Eternity 1+2 (I know a lot of people did not enjoy them, but I found them to be really fun games to play through.

Planescape Torment

Disco Elysium

Fallout New Vegas

Vampire Masquarade Bloodlines

1. Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
2. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic/Sith Lords ( I didn't cheat, I swear)
3. Mass Effect
4. Skyrim
5. Dragon Age Origins

Too many to pick, tbh.

It doesn't hurt to be specific, but it does hurt to be oversensitive; I'm not really sure what about the abbreviation of "JRPG" seems to have triggered you, but I don't think it is as big a deal as you want it to be.

JRPG's tend to fit a very specific criteria and, in general, have very similar presentation.

Western RPG's, however, are very diverse and often include other genres and various presentation. "Western" is a bit broad because you'll find fantasy RPG's from Bioware (Canadian) play differently from RPG's made by Obsidian (California, USA) which play differently from RPG's made by Larian (Belgian).

I don't think it is uncommon for an RPG fan to like games such as Skyrim, Diablo, Fallout 2, and Pillars of Eternity but to not like games like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. Likewise I am sure a lot of diehard JRPG fans prefer to play solely JRPG's.

While I would not be so ignorant to say that "all JRPG's are the same", I'd argue they are similar enough in most respects to be warrant being called JRPG.

Not sure why this is such a big issue, however; if my state of California was known for creating a great sub-genre as popular and beloved as JRPG's and we called them CalRPG's, I'd be pretty stoked.

In the end I don't really care though; you're not wrong to call RPG's from Japan simply "RPG's" but it can be a bit misleading in conversations. It often helps to be specific. And contrary to your post, as a "westerner" I do often specificy sub-genres outside of JRPG; I call DnD-style RPG's as either "Classic RPG" or "DND RPG"s, I call action-RPG's "action-RPG's", and I call games like Diablo as isometric action-RPG or clickfest RPG.

I guess I'm racist though :P

@mrbojangles25:

If anything, Japanese RPGs are arguably more diverse than Western RPGs.

Examples of Japanese RPG sub-genres:

• Traditional JRPG (e.g. Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest)
• Action RPG (e.g. Ys, Mana, Tales, Nier)
• Tactical RPG (e.g. Fire Emblem, Shining Force, FF Tactics)
• Soulslike (e.g. Soulsborne, Nioh, Dragon's Dogma)
• Hunting RPG (e.g. Monster Hunter, God Eater)

Japanese RPGs cover a wide variety of sub-genres. The traditional JRPG is just one of those sub-genres. And it's no longer the most prominent Japanese RPG sub-genre anymore, with the "Hunting RPG" now being Japan's most dominant RPG sub-genre. Modern Japanese RPGs like Persona, Nier, Soulsborne, Monster Hunter and Fire Emblem all look and play very differently from one another, and demonstrate just how diverse Japan's RPG output is.

P.S. I don't think there is any real correlation between racism and the JRPG/WRPG divide. After all, many of the most hardcore white-supremacist racists out there are often hardcore JRPG or anime fans.

Fallout: New Vegas

SW: KOTOR 2

Neverwinter Nights 2

TES V: Skyrim

@Jag85: People generally use JRPG to refer to the very specific sub-category of traditional Dragon Quest- and Final Fantasy-like games. They all feature basically no roleplaying, and they all have similar-ish gameplay and narrative structures.

Fire Emblem and whatnot are SRPGs. Dark Souls and Monster Hunter are ARPGs.

Also, let's not pretend that Western RPGs are less diverse than Japanese RPGs. I can't think of a mainstream Japanese RPG that replicates a pen and paper game, for starters.

1. Deus Ex
2. System Shock 2
3. Dues Ex HR

True. here we can agree with each other champ.

RPG games suck terrible because they all have terrible gameplay mechanics. and rely on more and more boring dialogues.

Back on topic, ugh, this is a tough category. I'll try:

- Planescape Torment

- Disco Elysium

- Fallout 2

- Vampire Bloodlines

- The Witcher 3

@Planeforger: Eh, that's what I already said. I've already listed several different Japanese RPG sub-genres, one of which is of course the "traditional JRPG" that you're referring to.

I said Japanese RPGs are "arguably" more diverse than Western RPGs. Besides, I'm not aware of mainstream WRPGs that play very much like tabletop RPGs either. Many tabletop RPG purists would argue there are no video-game RPGs that play like tabletop RPGs.

It's cool. Play your RPGs while eating some muffins, and "toast" if we want to bring the French into this. Embrace the chaos :)

All those actually exist in Western Versions too.

Granted, The Western Soulslikes and Hunting RPGs are trash compared their jRPG counterparts.

There is no real traditional western RPG though. As they practically went 3 seperate routes. One following Richard Garriott's vision, one Following Wizardry, one Following the groundwork laid by Goldbox Engine.

These ideas would then intermix somewhat.

In the AAA scene, JRPGs are definately more diverse than WRPGs, but if we include the massive indie scene, I would argue WRPGs are somewhat more diverse.

What do you mean by Western hunting RPGs? Either way, it's pretty well-known by now that Western action RPGs struggle to get the "action" part right, compared to their Japanese action RPG counterparts.

Pretty sure the traditional CRPG has always been the Western equivalent of the traditional JRPG. I would classify Ultima, Wizardry and the Gold Box games as traditional CRPGs (not including the many Japanese Wizardry spin-offs, which could arguably be classified as JRPGs).

Not too sure about the indie scene. There's just so much stuff out there (mostly trash, but with plenty of gems) that it's hard to keep count. There are loads of JRPG-style RPG Maker games being made by both Japanese and Western indie devs, as well as SRPGs, Roguelikes and Soulslikes from both. Then there's Western indie devs doing CRPG revival projects on Kickstarter, and Japanese indie/dojinsoft devs doing Wizardry-like games. I wouldn't be surprised if Western indie devs have the edge though, since there's a larger quantity of Western indie devs compared to Japanese indie/dojinsoft devs.

1. Fallout: New Vegas

2. Skyrim

3. Witcher 3

4. Mass Effect 2

5. Kotor

Oblivion, Morrowind, KotOR 1-2, and Neverwinter Nights. Others include 2 Worlds (Yes, I really liked it, so screw the haters), Jade Empire, Kingdom Come Deliverance, Jade Empire, Mass Effect games, and Dragon Age games. I know there are a lot of others I really enjoyed but these came to mind.

Dauntless as the Western Hunting RPG. Monster Hunter is of course, way better.

Traditional CRPGs like Ultima, Wizardry and Goldbox all went pretty seperate routes. They have a lot less in common than say... Dragon Quest, Phantasy Star and Final Fantasy did. Ultima sought its hardest to simulate a fantasy world and would go further on to worldbuild heavily. Wizardry was pure gameplay, save for some extremely minimalistic storytelling, it wasn't really until 7, till it started having proper lore. The Goldbox games tried to emulate the tabletop RPGs, even going as far as to using a licenced ruleset.

All 3 were so different, that defining any one of these as the traditional WRPG wouldn't fit right with me.

So far we have seen revivals of every old RPG style

Blobbers (Grimoire)
Real Time Blobbers (Legend of Grimrock)
World Simulators
Tabletopesque games (BG3, Pathfinder)
Roguelikes
Immersive Sims (Underworld Ascendant. Prey)

As well as some new stuff like Grand Strategy RPGs (Crusader Kings) and Mountain Blade.

Planescape Torment

Morrowind

Everquest (the first one)

Dragon Age Origins/Inquisition

My favorites, by far ... Mass Effect (not a huge fan of the first one ... but i adore the next two ... yes, even 3).

I also quite enjoyed Fallout 3 ... it was a fun game.

Last on my list (haven't played that many WRPGs) ... Pillars of Eternity, man that game was sooo good.

Might and Magic 7

Skyrim

Diablo 2

Champions of Norrath

Baldur's Gate 2

Alright, top 5

Cyberpunk 2077...

Skyrim

Fallout New Vegas

RDR 2

Mass Effect Andromeda?

Oblivion

Mass Effect

Dragon Age: Origins

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Fallout 3

Just KOTOR honestly.

I have only played about maybe 6 or 7 of them.

Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 comes to mind.

• KOTOR 2
• Fallout: New Vegas
• Divinity: Original Sin
• Gothic

The Witcher 3

Kingdom Come Deliverance

Mass Effect 1

The Elder Scrolls (series)

The ones that has the best wiafus so I guess Witcher 3.

Uh not in order

• Kotor
• The Witcher 3
• Skyrim
• Sacred 2
• Borderlands 3

@MarkoftheSivak:

Hyperdimension Neptu....ohhh, never mind..

Kotor 1 and 2

Fallout 3 and Fallout 3NV

The Outer Worlds

Mass Effect 2

Skyrim

Skyrim the witcher 3 diablo 3 fallout 4 mass effect 2 for me

Borderlands 3?

kotor

deus ex

warhawk

World of Warcraft, Diablo 2, Morrowind, Dragon Age Origins