Even if Computer RPG are ok in the lists, this topic is more to allow browse lists of people with a large experience in Console RPG, and I don't qualify at all for that.
Anyway, my current list (it changes each time I do such one):<ol type='1'><li><b>Gothic 2 with NoTR</b>: The ticket entrance has a cost a bit high because of old controls and many undocumented important controls (check forums to find them). This will take time to get use of the controls, but once done you'll find them very practical and easy to use. When the module Night of the Raven (NoTR) is also installed the difficulty is quite high. You'll get beat and stolen quite often, you will die often, you will have a rude learning curve to learn the (great) fighting system. But this rudeness is a part of its mood and with NOTR installed the game is much better because it adds many details that improve even more the player choices and the depth of the RPG. The rewarding for the effort is high. It's from far the best sword fighting I ever saw in CRPG. The story is ok but also is quite deep and very immersive with an excellent voice acting (at least in my native language). Very often you have many different way to achieve a same goal. The exploration and world discovery is just excellent with plenty freedom and many little things to discover. But despite the freedom, it keeps a high depth and density of story.</li><li><b>Fallout 1</b>: One of the rare CRPG with a story that has an adult feeling. The emotional impact doesn't reach the best you can have with some JRPG but is quite good anyway and much better than usually in Western CRPG. On top of that, a great fighting system with a nice complexity, a good and detailed class system, and the best is the depth of the story and of many characters, plus many alternative choices and even some alternative paths leading to some very different progressions and endings.</li><li><b>Ultima Underworld</b>: After Dungeon Master it is the CRPG that build all the bases of the genre where most modern Computer RPG seems to go. Even some JRPG seems to try to go to this RPG genre, it's full 3D and first person perspective. But I don't put it in my list as a sort of "in memory to precursors" but because I replayed it recently and its gameplay is amazing. The graphics are old but you get used to them quite fast and then discover the real 3D design, where area has a real 3D design, instead of too many modern CRPG that are full 3D but have a flat area design. The exploration is also a great part of the game, a lot of mood, interesting progression with a nice difficulty, plenty puzzles well diversified and extremely well merged to the story and the exploration. The story itself is average but with a nice depth and its merging to the gameplay is unmatched. Unlike many CRPG, no area where to fight and other area where you dialog and interact, nope, it's much better merged. The controls are very original and will get some time to learn them. But once you learned the controls they prove to be great to interact with the objects or the maze, to manage the inventory and for exploring. But there's one point in controls that will hurt many modern players, it's for the fights. The fights controls are very difficult and you'll never learn them enough to feel fully comfortable with them. But with some training and by learning some fights tricks, you can master them better up to be able to discover how interesting and deep the fights can be, much more tactical than you can think first.</li><li><b>The Witcher</b>: A great CRPG with a dark and adult mood. Don't be wrong it's not the sexual content that makes it adult, that is only weird smiles throughout the whole game. But that's its gray morale that builds this adult feeling. It's not simple black and white as you find in most CRPG. This adult mood is reinforced by a story writing much better than in any CRPG I ever played including some JRPG. The dark mood is also very well reinforced by the graphic style. This style isn't only to reach more realism but more importantly there's a graphic design that is dark and dirty. Like in best JPRG I played, it is also very emotional, less often but not only. It is also sometime disturbing, sometimes make you think and so on. Its class system is very original and has an interesting complexity but the fight system can be too simple if you stick to the more sample tactic and stick to it. If you do that, beside some bosses fights involving more complex tactics you'll end in fights not enough interesting. But it's quite simple to go over that, just try improve your fighting and make it more complex by mixing movements, jumps and some magic use with the swording. At this small price you'll get very good fights with a good fun and a nice depth.</li><li><b>Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer</b>: This game is based on the CRPG design line of Roguelike games. This genre name is coming from the first game to implement it, Rogue. The core of this genre is:<ul><li>If your character die, it's forever, no save backup, the save is only when you quit the game</li><li>They are turn based for exploration and fighting and you won't change of mode or ground when you fight.</li><li>They allow to explore different dungeons/area each is divided in different levels.</li><li>They have an extreme random diversity. That's very important because you'll replay much more often the game because of the rule "no save backup, if you die you lost your character".</li><li>They have a complex fighting and exploring, very tactical and very inventory based. It's not only the fights but as fights are constantly merged to progression that complexity also includes the exploring itself with complex elements like how to manage traps, doors, cursed items and other stuff. That makes some of those games quite complex and long to learn but also that's the core of their fun.</li></ul>Shiren is based on those bases designs but bring many shift to the genre in order to make it much more friendly. And clearly the basics are very well implemented and all the new elements not only make it more friendly but also contribute to the gameplay and the result is one of the best gameplay I have seen in any game. One thing to understand with this sort of games is how it changes the mood of the game that if your character die, it's for real, no reload. That push you into your limits and that rises tremendously the adrenalin, so the fun. If you add to that a complex gameplay very diversified but also very tactical, so despite the apparent random, you progressively learn that most time you die because you forgot apply some tactics you could have used. The price of this is that you lost all if your character die and that's where Shiren changes the rules so smartly, keeping the adrenalin effect but also adding plenty persistent elements to reward the player and don't let him with nothing after a death but a better learning/mastering of the game. I won't detail those persistent elements but there are plenty. For example, many stories will evolve along your multiple death and in fact most require your character death to evolve to next point. There are also storeroom with a complex management, features that you'll open through the evolution of some of the stories/quests, some NPC you can unlock to be able to bring them as companion, and so on. If you add to that, a nice design of the interface when you use the buttons (the touch design is less good but practical anyway for few points), a very good use of the two screens of the DS, cute graphic and some attaching NPC, you just get a unique game, with a great gameplay even if not anybody will be able to play. But for those who can, the rewarding is extreme.</li><li><b>Dungeon Master 1</b>: The older game in my list but I played it only recently. The graphics are ugly, the sounds just symbolics, the class system is less complex than in most modern computer RPG but quite complex anyway and more than the JRPG I played. On top of this old stuff you also have a CRPG with a minimal story line. But here, the story is the exploration itself, with many tricky but very interesting progression problems, many great and very diversified puzzles with a great merging with the progression. The comparison on this point with Golden Sun is very interesting. Golden Sun has also a great puzzle design with diversity and plenty puzzles with a constant merging with the progression. But in Golden Sun, for many puzzles, it's very clear that "here is the next puzzle", "here logs ho ho another puzzle". So despite the smart merging with the progression, it's not the same level of merging than in Dungeon Master. In Dungeon Master, they setup mysterious elements, often you have to recognize that there's a puzzle, fighting and puzzles is merged. Some puzzles are for example how to use some puzzle parts to setup traps to win some very tough fights, and so on. Objectively this can be debate forever, it's just my feeling. The last and not the least is the fights. At first it seems quite simple and even looks like a weird turn based system. But once you learn more its tricks then you discover hot real time fights fully merged to progression and that adds a lot. The fights controls are excellent the fights have a depth you learn as the game progress. They aren't realistic at all but they setup a fun fighting that too few more modern CRPG succeed to reach.</li><li><b>Neverwinter Night 2: Mask of the Betrayer</b>: It's only an addon of the original game but big enough to worth a place in a top list. I enjoyed a lot the original campaign but this addon just setup another level of quality. It is great because of its writing quality. Despite it is quite dark for its central theme, it is also epic and very gray from a morale point of view. It's not even that it's not the standard black & white, but it's also that some important player decisions will just cause you difficult morale choices with no clear better choice from any point of view, from morale.. to grinding(!). It has also some interesting puzzling, some good fighting and an interesting and intriguing soul bar that helps to build up the the mood of the central point of the story, a terrible curse on the main character. It's a point that some players hated but there are tricks to manage it and even enjoy it. Among other strong points, there's a very complex and detailed relationship with other the companions of the main character, and the more fascinating NPC I ever seen, a weird mix of pure evil, kindness and naivety that is quite fascinating, sometimes funny and sometimes very attaching... well ok, sometimes almost disgusting too!</li><li><b>Golden Sun 1</b>: I haven't yet played the 2 nor have finish the 1 but I already played a large part of it. The story is average, the child approach is ok for me but the story writing is average. The good point is that it's good job anyway and there's a lot of story and mini stories. All that density of story build successfully the life of this world and overall the result is quite good. The amazing feature of this CRPG is the puzzling, there's a ton, not too tough but also many not too easy. All are well merged with the progression. The puzzles have a very good design diversity even if some principles are used a bit too much. Also some aren't as much complex than they seem because it's (too) often "what can I do next" instead of "what to do to solve a complex puzzling". But there are also a ton of excellent puzzling with a nice difficulty level, not too tough and not too easy. For the fights I'm more shared. My first grin is like in too many JRPG, a total abuse of random fights with a too high rate of random fights. At least the flee feature is quite clear and easy to use, but you still get interrupted too often. Also beside too many random fights that quickly don't rise enough interest, I also found that the overall system doesn't work that well. If the Djinns bring originality I haven't found the whole working so well, and even that the Djinns intensive use is too powerful and breaks a bit the whole system by making it a bit repetitive. I got some good fights anyway but more because of the sweat they generate. To end with a more positive note, I must remind that its story density is very good and build well a living world, and among CRPG I played, this is the best puzzling I ever saw with Dungeon Master and Ultima Underworld.</li><li><b>Baldur's Gate 1</b>: Between the 1 and the 2 there are so many similarities that it's hard to choose one more than the other. I put it in this list instead of the 2 because in my memory it had more attaching NPC and a much better story and world mood. I replayed it recently and that didn't change that feeling. On another point of view, BG2 improved many things like more detailed NPC companions and in some chapters many deep secondary quests, with a design much more detailed and diversified. But at this date I haven't replayed it yet and the feeling I keep from playing it many years ago is that I didn't enjoy its main story because I often found hard to believe it. In my memory BG2 hadn't the magical charm Baldur's Gate 1 had. Even if NPC companions was much more detailed in BG2, even those coming from BG1 weren't as attaching in BG2 than they was in BG1. Also if in BG1 the fights was a bit too much unbalanced in favor of long range weapons, in BG2 despite a better intensity, the importance of the very first rounds was too often too important, involving too much a precise and intensive pausing at first seconds of the fights. Anyway the point is that Baldur's Gate is a very strong RPG, with no real weak points. The only weak points are the final that should have been better and that at the beginning your characters could die a bit too easily because of some bad luck. Other than that it's good fighting, good story, attaching companions, area design diversified and interesting, good density of story, good main story, excellent setup of the overall mood, interesting class system. The whole is a very solid quality and the fusion of the parts generates a great CRPG.</li><li><b>Citadel: Adventure of the Crystal Keep</b>: That's an obscure RPG developed only for the old Mac computers. I remember a very good fun from playing it decades ago. But with nobody ever quoting a game you end to believe that you are wrong and it's just exaggerate enthusiasms of your younger time, even if in fact I was closer to 30 than to 20 years old when I played it, so not young anymore since some time. But when I replayed it recently through an emulation of old Mac OS, it's been a chock how fun it was, despite some weak points I noticed. This game has a strange design for a CRPG. Overall it is influenced by the old SSI CRPG based on D&D licenses. But from that base, many changes and improvements plus many original design approach make it quite fascinating. Overall, like the Golden Box RPG (SSI RPG on D&D licenses) it is turn based and use two point of view, one 3D like for exploration and another top down on a board for fighting. But for both point of view it's a strange mix of time based and turn based and both work quite well. It's main originality are coming from some singular elements. It has only one quest, all other elements come from intriguing elements you find in the different levels of the Citadel. There are many intriguing objects and the trick is to find how use them and when, there are multiple writing on walls that either setup disparate information about the main story, either setup some intriguing clues about some more intriguing puzzles. There's even few strange companion to find (difficulty) in the maze. There's many interaction to find to solve some problems, interactions with objects or with elements of the maze. All of that setup a strong mysterious mood that is quite fascinating. The gameplay quality is also build by many rough but intriguing problems/puzzles/riddles to solve and linked to many different elements including interaction as I mentioned above, or on spell use, and even there are some puzzles around some NPC companions. One weak point to quote about puzzling is that, most probably, some puzzles are just too tough. But it's hard to be sure of this without to have any walkthrough or the hint book. The fights are challenging and interesting if you don't abuse of a hole in the design with some advanced long range weapons with unlimited ammo. There's also a very good and complicate exploration with complex links between the different levels and some setup some nice puzzling. The game is also based on a roster of adventurers and the possibility to split your party. That brings some interesting puzzles and some interesting tactics. For example if your team die or is blocked in a part of the maze you could build up another party to rescue your team and bring it back to town to resurrect them if needed. Its mysterious mood and the very intensive, complex and diversified puzzling don't remind me another CRPG, but a totally different game, Myst. Sometimes I even suspect it to have been an influence to Myst design. Well it's not that these games have a similar gameplay, but they share some original designs that make them feel quite similar.</li></ol>
