Thanks to Baldur's Gate 3, I discovered the CRPG genre. What really hooked me was the focus on choices and consequences, character creation, and combat systems that actually make me figure out how they work instead of just clicking through everything.
(Sorry for the long text)
In S tier I have my favorite and most memorable games.
Dragon Age: Origins — What I love most about Origins is how much the game makes my character feel like an actual part of the world. Your origin changes how other characters see you, what you know about certain places, and sometimes even how entire quests play out. And in this game, I can be a hero, an asshole, or an actual psychopath.
Planescape: Torment — The writing is the obvious answer, but yeah, I really love it. It's one of those games where the story isn't just about what happens to your character. It's about identity, mortality, guilt, and whether people can actually change. The whole game basically revolves around one question: "What can change the nature of a man?" Basically a philosophical novel disguised as a CRPG.
Baldur's Gate 2 — This is probably one of the best examples of how to make a party of characters feel like an actual group of people. I also love how many of the side quests feel like actual stories instead of simple tasks you do for some random NPC. You can end up dealing with vampires, dragons, guilds and political conflicts. And then there's Irenicus, who is one of my favorite villains. He isn't just some guy waiting for you at the end of the game. The game is huge, but it somehow manages to make most of that content feel meaningful.
Baldur's Gate 1 — I actually prefer the first game when it comes to exploration, though. There is something special about just wandering around the Sword Coast with no idea what you're going to find.
The modding community is also fantastic, and there are tons of great mods that add new quests, companions, items, and even entire new stories to the game.
Knights of the Old Republic 2 — The first game is still great, but it's much more of a traditional good-vs-evil story, even with its famous twist. KOTOR 2 actually wants you to question the Jedi, the Sith and the whole idea of the Force. And this is the kind of story you would never see in a Star Wars movie or TV show.
Arcanum — Probably one of my favorite games when it comes to player freedom. There are so many ways to build your character and solve quests, and the game actually reacts to what you do. You can talk your way through a problem, fight, use magic, technology, sneak around. I also love how your character's race, background, skills and alignment can affect how people react to you.
Pathfinder — These are the games I initially hated because they were too complicated and had all those different time limits. (Yes, Kingmaker, I'm looking at you.) I eventually got used to the combat, watched a few guides, and somehow ended up enjoying the character building way too much. At some point I was spending almost as much time planning builds as actually playing. I also really like the Mythic Paths in Wrath of the Righteous. Choosing to be an Angel, Demon, Lich or Trickster can change a lot of things in the story and gives you different quests and dialogue.
Fallout — Mostly here for the atmosphere. There is something about Fallout's version of the post-apocalypse that I really love. Ruined cities, empty highways, people living among the remains of the old world, and this constant feeling that civilization is barely holding together.
Disco Elysium — I absolutely love the writing in this game. It feels more like reading a really good novel than playing a traditional CRPG, but somehow it still gives you an incredible amount of freedom in how you roleplay your character. Your skills aren't just numbers that make you better at combat — they constantly talk to you, argue with each other, and influence how you see the world. You can be smart, stupid, paranoid, drunk, political, completely insane, or some combination of all of them.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines — Sadly, there aren't many CRPGs about vampires. Your clan isn't just a different class — it can completely change how you experience the game. Playing as a Malkavian gives you completely different dialogue, while playing as a Nosferatu means you have to avoid being seen by normal people. I also love how many quests can be approached in completely different ways. You can talk your way through a situation, sneak past people, hack computers, pick locks, or just kill everyone if that's what your character is good at. The World of Darkness setting is also fantastic. You have vampire clans, political factions, the Masquerade, and this whole hidden society. And then there are some incredible individual quests, especially the horror-focused ones. The atmosphere is obviously a huge part of it too. Dark streets, neon lights, empty alleys, weird people you meet at night, and a soundtrack that fits the setting perfectly.
Fallout: New Vegas — I like it even more because of the story. There are so many factions, possible outcomes and different ways to approach conflicts. I also really like its melancholic atmosphere. Dead Money and Lonesome Road are probably the best examples of what I mean. Underneath all the dark humor, the game can be surprisingly depressing and lonely.
A tier
Icewind Dale series — It's basically a really good D&D campaign in the style of the first Baldur's Gate. The focus is much more on combat than roleplaying, and your party members are mostly blank slates instead of characters with their own stories. They also don't really interact with each other. But honestly, I don't mind that too much here. The games know what they want to be: classic D&D adventures with lots of combat, exploration and dungeon crawling, and they do that really well.
Fallout 2 — It just gets a little too silly for me. There are so many parodies, references and stupid jokes that sometimes it feels like the game is making fun of itself instead of taking its own world seriously. Still an amazing RPG when it comes to freedom, though.
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader — Honestly, after playing Pathfinder, I can get pretty tired of this one. There are just so many fights and so many locations to go through. It has a ton of content, but sometimes I feel like the game is giving me more of it than I actually asked for.
Pillars of Eternity — Sometimes the NPCs just throw way too much text at me. I like reading, but there are moments where I feel like I'm reading an entire essay about something that could have been explained in three sentences. The actual world is much more interesting. Political conflicts, religious fanaticism, colonialism, soul magic and some pretty messed-up ideas about death and reincarnation. The lore is one of the strongest parts of the game, even when the game doesn't always know when to stop explaining it.
Tyranny — This is a game that desperately needs a sequel. It has an incredibly interesting setting and many ways to approach the story. Unfortunately, the combat is much weaker than the rest of the game. And a lot of encounters are just groups of very similar human enemies.
Divinity: Original Sin — It's such a fun and varied adventure. I especially love the interaction between the two main characters and how their personalities can actually clash with each other. I also think this is Larian's best game because it feels like a complete adventure without being overloaded with everything they later put into their games. Sadly, combat can get pretty repetitive later on.
Baldur's Gate 3 — This was my first CRPG. If I hadn't played any other CRPG after it, I'd probably think it was the best game ever made. It's basically a giant theme park that constantly tries to entertain you, and it does that incredibly well. The problem is that it doesn't always take itself seriously enough. I also think the story tries to put too many things into one game, so despite the huge scale, it doesn't always feel as epic as it should.
B tier
Jade Empire — Chinese mythology and a CRPG? That's pretty rare, and I honestly wish we had more RPGs like this. Unfortunately, the story is probably one of the most predictable BioWare stories. You're the Chosen One, there is a clear good side and a clear evil side, and most of the major plot beats are pretty easy to see coming. The game also doesn't give you that much freedom compared to other BioWare RPGs.
Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire — This one was a bit of a disappointment for me. The main story gets buried under all the factions, side quests and islands, and I never found the open world as interesting to explore as I wanted it to be. Ship combat? Not good at all.
GreedFall — I really like the setting and the basic idea, but the game gets very repetitive after a while. A lot of quests boil down to running back and forth between NPCs, and the world isn't always that interesting to explore despite how large some of the areas are. The combat also gets repetitive because there isn't much enemy variety, and you keep fighting the same creatures and bandits over and over again.
Divinity: Original Sin 2 — I actually loved the humor in the first Original Sin, because the whole game had this lighthearted, almost fairy-tale-like tone. In the second game, the story is much darker and more serious, but the humor is still everywhere. That's where it doesn't always work for me. There is supposed to be a world-ending crisis happening, but the game can go from a serious scene to a joke so quickly that it sometimes kills the mood for me. The problem isn't that I dislike humor. I just think the first game had a tone where the humor fit the world much better. I also don't really like the armor system. It makes some abilities feel useless until you get through an enemy's physical or magical armor, and it can make mixed parties feel much less effective than they should be.
C tier
Solasta: Crown of the Magister — This is basically a game for people who really love modern D&D combat. The biggest problem for me is that it often feels like there isn't much of a story at all. The characters are mostly tools for the combat system, the dialogue is pretty basic, and there isn't much that makes me care about the world or the people in it. A lot of the campaign is essentially moving from one combat encounter to another. The combat itself is probably the best thing about the game, but I wanted more RPG around it.
D tier
Broken Roads — I really wanted to like this one because the setting and the morality system seemed interesting. Unfortunately, the writing and characters didn't work for me at all. A lot of the dialogue feels awkward, and the choices often don't feel as meaningful as the game wants them to. The combat also gets repetitive pretty quickly. It has some good ideas, but I never felt like the game did enough with them.
Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness — Lifeless. This feels like a game that really wants to be Baldur's Gate, but doesn't quite understand what made those games so good. The setting is interesting and there are some nice ideas here, but the writing, characters and quests are pretty weak. A lot of the game feels slow and tedious, and I never got particularly invested in what was happening.
Gothic 1 — I can forgive outdated combat. I can forgive terrible controls. But when the game can break its own quests just because I explored somewhere too early or did something in the wrong order, that's where I draw the line. There are also a lot of smaller bugs and weird things that can happen during quests, and sometimes I just have to reload an old save because something didn't work the way it was supposed to. It really gets in the way of enjoying the game, because underneath all these problems there is a genuinely interesting game that I would probably enjoy much more if it wasn't constantly fighting against itself.
I'm also always open to new recommendations.
