I've been thinking quite a bit about RPGs lately, and how many I haven't played that many people seem to swoon over. I haven't played any Final Fantasy games, or any of the Tales series, or any number of others. That being said, I enjoy the genre, and would like to give props to my favorites. So I've set out to call out what I think are the best Traditional RPGs to date. Traditional meaning turn-based with an experience and leveling system primarily. Here they are in no particular order:
Showing 1-10 of 10 items
Lets start with something lighthearted: Mario. Maybe you don't associate Mario with the greatest rpgs, but I do. The Paper Mario series took a world as nonsensical and bizarre as the Mushroom Kingdom and made it feel alive and slightly believable. The story, while fairly standard Mario fare, was written with a fair amount of wit and charm and the characters (Bowser and Peach in particular) are written very well. The badge system that added and took away powers from your repertoire was a clever mechanic, and the more active battle system that allowed you to influence how powerful your attacks and your defenses were as the attacks played out made the turn-based battles more exciting. Paper Mario was one of the first rpgs I spent enough time with to see credits roll, and I enjoyed every minute.
Paper Mario TTYD did everything the first game did, but it did it all a little bit better. Or in some cases, much better.
