Side Quest, Episode 50: The 10 Best RPGs of the Last Decade

I know =p To be honest, I think you'd enjoy Persona 4 Golden more. That elusive Vita swan song...

Christian Nava

LOL. To be fair, I cannot include what I didn't play!

Colin Moriarty

Thank you! It seemed appropriate to give 'em a nod.

Colin Moriarty

This one should have been called "Persona Non Grata" XD All joking aside, great list!

Christian Nava

Really enjoyed the inclusion of Pokémon Heartgold/Soulsilver. Best Pokémon game(s) of all time

Craig Carter

I played the first one fairly extensively, but never beat it. Always wanted to get back to it, but alas.

Colin Moriarty

Great video Colin! One question regarding SRPG's though - have you tried The Banner Saga? Seems like one you may want to give a look.

Phil Crone

The way people talk about Nier makes me feel like I should really go back to it sometime.

Colin Moriarty

Final Fantasy IV came out in 1991 and Chrono Trigger in 1995, though.

Colin Moriarty

Thank you!

Colin Moriarty

Never played more than 10 or 15 hours of it, I don't think.

Colin Moriarty

I definitely lean more toward JRPGs with Persona 5, Dragon Quest XI, and Nier Automata being some of the best ever in the genre, but I love the Mass Effect trilogy shout out. I love those games and I think they deserve so much praise.

strawhatninja

Huh great list I agree with most of these, I thought for sure you'd go with chrono trigger or final fantasy 4.

Dennis Sobieski

Whenever I hear about Horizon, I can almost sense the presence of the bell-ringing "shame" nun from Game of Thrones behind me...

Justin Matkowski

this is some good shit

Simon Concepcion Jr.

I just don’t get JRPGs. No Skyrim?!?! Wow. You’re a bold man Colin.

Gavvyn

I'm OCD like you, I just had to make a mental priority list for each area and the question marks were lowest on the triage since they don't really offer much outside of loot and a little xp. Haha

Jason Stafford

Dude, if you've not played Horizon, you really should.

Colin Moriarty

It's so good. And while I'm not a regular South Park viewer by any means, it's cool to go back once in a while now to watch and enjoy, like I did when I was younger.

Colin Moriarty

It's funny, because there have been a few games where I've felt like that (most recently Far Cry 5), where I feel like I'm leveling up and dumping skill points into shit I don't care about, because there's nothing better.

Colin Moriarty

Thank you!

Colin Moriarty

I'm too OCD for that. I need to just embrace it. LOL.

Colin Moriarty

I'm glad to be there for you. Thank you for taking the time to watch!

Colin Moriarty

Taking your time with RDR2 is the right way to do it, no doubt about it.

Colin Moriarty

I'd go as far as to say Mass Effect 1 is underrated.

Colin Moriarty

Glad you enjoyed the video! I'm still aiming to do 2-3 episodes a month, alongside Let's Plays. See what happens.

Colin Moriarty

I'll get there, but it does suck that I dumped like 50 hours into it, and I'll need to do that all again.

Colin Moriarty

Yeah. Ni No Kuni II was fine, but... I didn't really get what they were going for.

Colin Moriarty

I encouraged a horrendous bug when playing (the infamous Cowboy Hat Glitch), and it almost ruined my save.

Colin Moriarty

I'm confident I'll get back to it.

Colin Moriarty

Wow! Good on ya.

Colin Moriarty

I made a video about Mass Effect 3 not too long ago...

Colin Moriarty

Poland has some great stuff going on right now, man! Really pulling for the dev scene there.

Colin Moriarty

Did I give it away?

Colin Moriarty

=)

Colin Moriarty

Bloodborne (along with The Last of Us Remastered) was the original reason I went with a PS4, and I haven't looked back since. Definitely dive back in when you get the chance, especially for the incredible "Old Hunters DLC". The atmosphere, art direction, and gameplay make for a fair argument that it is From Software's finest. Witcher 3 is one of my favorites in quite some time, especially in how "alive" and rich that world felt in regards to its lore, politics, and player decisions that actually affected its outcomes. All told, it took me about 18 months (while still retro gaming and playing a few other titles) to complete the main game, the Witcher contracts, the side quests, and the DLC while meticulously exploring the world and crafting armor etc. Wild Hunt made most other open-world RPG's look like paper-thin dioramas, by comparison. I need to pick-up Zero Dawn; I'm thinking of grabbing that when I'm done with Red Dead 2. Definitely before 'Shadows Die Twice' drops...

Justin Matkowski

Southpark is something I have not watched in well over 10 years but heard a lot of good things about it and recently picked up The Stick of Truth for the Switch making it much easier for me to play on the go overall making the game for more enjoyable for me. As a RPG is simple but and rather accessible and solid game with a very well written story and characters making this game more of a timewaster for me then a lot of typical RPGs.

Joshua Chap

The first Witcher game was even worse with that, there was a patch about a year or 2 ago that made the 1st Witcher game controls more like the newer games so it's not as bad now, but it's still a mess and takes a while to fully understand them properly.

Joshua Chap

I'm definitely an outlier on my feelings about the Witcher 3, because even though the story and world are awesome, I felt that the combat and leveling up mechanics were boring. It took forever initially to level up, and then later in the game I didn't really find any interesting perks or pieces of gear to obtain. I barely dragged myself through the entire game and then never felt any pull to try to platinum it or play the DLC. I think most modern RPGs have this issue, where its like the devs are too worried about game balance for a single-player game, and compensate by making all of the perk/ability/gear trees in their games really vanilla and underwhelming.

desperateLuck

Great list.

PanzerG2

Witcher 3 is such a good game. I know in the past you said you got overwhelmed with the question marks on the map, my solution for this was to ignore them until I'd finished the quests for each region. Some of them I'd hit organically while doing the quests, but then when the region was done, I'd quickly ride from mark to mark and knock them out then move on. The question marks were rarely of any consequence, the real meat being in the main and side quests. Just a suggestion if it helps!

Jason Stafford

Great video, Colin. I know you've gotten frustrated with YouTube lately (which I totally get - there have been quite a few times my recommended feed shows a video from years ago, rather than one you posted earlier in the day), but I really love having a side quest to watch while I eat a meal. Love all the shows, hope your holidays are going well! (Also, can't wait to hear your Fireside Chat with my bro, Michael Steinmetz!)

Jeremy Echols

Great list! I’m not much in to the JRPGs, but all the others you listed are fantastic games. I love the South Park games especially, as that is one of my favorite TV shows. And what more really needs to be said about the Witcher. That game is truly something special. It and Red Dead 2 (also something truly special) are probably my games of the generation so far, and I’m not sure if they’ll be topped. I was thankfully able to take my time with The Witcher and am doing the same thing with Red Dead.

Adam Niksch

Yo! Mass Effect 1 is my favorite game of all time!

The Chicken Chaser

I know YouTube fuckery has hurt your motivation for SQ, but let me tell you, a Monday with a SQ episode is a good god damn Monday. You turned me on to the Mass Effect games back in the day (proud owner of the ME2 Plat) and Witcher 3 is a Top 3 all time for me. Gotta say I’m surprised there’s no Amalur here, but like you said, these sorts of lists change from Monday to Tuesday. Thanks for the video, have a great week!

Ian (616Entertainment)

I hope you do get around to Witcher 3 at some point. It is a giant game, to be sure, but a very worthwhile ride (and platinum). The expansions are incredible as well.

Kevin Sullivan

Ni No Kuni and Witcher 3 are my top 2. I couldn't get through Ni No Kuni 2... it was such a shell of it's former self that I would almost rather just go back to the original.

Carson Smith

New Vegas has not aged well graphically. It's a game that drove me crazy, I played on PS3 and it was a crash fest. At one point my save file corrupted and I lost about 10 hours progress to my back up. I'd never stick with it these day.

Always86

Awesome list I'm replaying through Witcher 3 almost 100% the main game, finished Heart of Stone, and started Blood and Wine.

Anthony Stewart

Very solid list. Happy to say I've played all of them.

Jason Bolla

Great episode! You should make a video on Mass Effect 3 and talk about how people are too hard on it :)

Sean P.

Wiedźmin! Thx for the bit of love towards Polish dev Colin. This month I got my second plat in Witcher Wild Hunt (platinumed both standard and GOTY editions) with easily over 500 hours spread across 4 playthrough. Can't wait for Thronebreaker to come to consoles next week. Fun fact: Thronebreaker is actually titled Blood War in Polish because we can't really find a fitting polish name for Thronebreaker

tejotl

South... Park...?

Ahmed Mohamed

Nice, can't wait to listen! Hopefully Mass Effect made the list in some form!