Meta-Knight's Top 10 RPGs

Earthbound



While I do like Earthbound, it ends up in tenth place. The humour is a bit too weird, the gameplay didn't appeal to me in particular and overall it isn't my type of game. Even so, I think it's a great game and I enjoy playing it. The story is good, the music is nice and the graphics are fitting.
In the end I like the game, but I don't like it as much as I could. I enjoy its weirdness, but it's not my type of weirdness.

Pokémon Crystal Version



I had to put a Pokémon game on this list. Pokémon was one of the first series I got into, and probably was what got me into gaming. I spent about half of my childhood with Pokémon, and that was cool. I made friends at school because I played Pokémon, then was bullied for for 8 years. But still, it was all worth it.
I chose Pokémon Crystal as my favourite game in the series because it was the first one I got, played and beat. I was terrible at English back then, so I played through the beginning of the game quite a few times until I figured out how to save. Good times.

In the end, I loved the game and enjoyed almost every moment of it. These days, I dare not touch it because of all the memories it would bring back.
Honorable mention to Pokémon Yellow. I think that's the best Pokémon game, but Crystal is my favourite because it holds the greatest place in my heart.

Final Fantasy VI



This was the first Final Fantasy game I ever played, and to be honest, it confused me more than it interested me at first. I dropped it for a while, played through FFIV, then picked it up again, then able to recognize how great it really was. I enjoyed playing the game a lot - I loved the characters, the music, the graphics, the writing, the story and even the gameplay was kind of neat. The reason it ended up in eight place is because I don't find it as unique as some other people do (I did play this game in 2015, after all) and it doesn't have any nostalgia value to me. Also, it wouldn't be very fun if my list looked the same as everyone else's.

In the end, it's an amazing game which I have few complaints about. And it's #8.

Golden Sun



A friend told me about this game, and soon after I started playing it, I realized I had missed out on a great GBA RPG. Golden Sun may not be the most unique of RPGs, it is in fact fairly similar to the typical RPG of its kind, which I don't really have anything against. The story is good enough, the graphics are neat, the characters have bland personalities but neat designs, the cutscenes are painfully slow and drawn out, the gameplay is pretty good and the soundtrack is amazing. The gameplay is something I especially like about this game - it feels smooth and natural, and Djinni were fun to use once you got the hang of it. The battle music being great helped too. Although it still bothers me that characters switch to "defend" instead of attacking another enemy if the enemy they were targeting died before they were able to attack.

It has some flaws but little that makes it stand out a lot, but overall I think it's a great and enjoyable game. The first game is my favourite, but I enjoy the gameplay in the second game more.

The Last Story



I got this game early this year, and wow, few games have impressed me this much. Despite being a Wii game, the graphips look amazing - character models look a bit odd sometimes, but the environments and CGs make up for it. My only complaint is that it's not very colorful, like many "realistic" games. The soundtrack is good - not that memorable, and a lot of the time there's no music at all. But when music is used, it's used well. The story is a typical predictable RPG story, but I feel like it's somewhat of a deconstruction, which I like. I really loved the characters - some of them didn't get as much time in the spotlight as they deserved (because the somewhat boring main characters got most of the attention), but I thought what we did get was good. Maybe it's because the game has a fairly small cast. The amazing English voice acting helped a lot too, the dubbed voices are so great I haven't even bothered to listen to the Japanese ones.

However, my favourite part of this game is the gameplay. It doesn't play like a typical turn-based RPG, it feels more like a Zelda game with both stealth, shooter and real-time strategy thrown in. This makes combat more focused on what you actually do (and tell your allies to do) rather than your stats. Combat isn't just standing in one place and hacking away at your enemy until they die, you have to move around, find cover to hide behind, run to the closest healer, find a good spot to sneak attack and such. This makes the game feel somewhat like a cross between an Eastern and a Western RPG, which I love. Variety is great. What I don't like about the game is the awkward controls if you use Wiimote + Nunchuk, the low framerate which leads to lag (it's not that bad, but it happens often) and how there's no higher difficulty level than the standard.

Overall, it's one of my favourite Wii games and I love RPGs that are different yet still typical RPGs. But why did I put this game in sixth place again?

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim



Theis is the only western RPG on this list, I promise.
As my signature has made clear the last months, I've been playing Skyrim a lot recently. Like, a whole lot. 400 hours since around April. Keep in mind that I have no access to any console every other week. I feel no shame or regret.

I have many complains about Skyrim. They're as many as all the various bugs and glitches found in Skyrim. The controls are sometkmes awkward, the gameplay feels unrefined, the graphics could use a lot of work, gameplay mechanics are really lacking in some areas, combat still doesn't feel special, the game lacks in depth, the guilds were boring, radiant quests were mostly a bother, magic was lame, there are bugs everywhere, the game could have used a lot more work before release should even have been considered. Those are just a few of all my complaints.

Despite all my complaints, I genuinely love this game and there's a reason I put 400+ hours in it. I love the environments, some areas are stunningly beautiful and even some of the more boring areas look great to me. The soundtrack is beautiful - most songs aren't that memorable, but they usually fit what you're doing at the time and help making adventuring and exploring feel more interesting. I think the voice acting is great too, I can't think of any voice I didn't at least like. The main story was decent and I like most of the new lore, though most of the guilds' questlines weren't as good as I had hoped for. Exploring was great in this game, I still discover new things I didn't know about before and the variety in environment helps a lot. Unlike some others, I never get bored of snow. I don't think I've ever spent this many hours in any other RPG before, and that's saying something.

In the end, it's a game I have a lot of complaints about and can think of many ways to improve, even so, I love the game despite its many flaws.
Also, it has a Norse theme and that's awesome.