3rd most famous RPG ever?

What would you say is the 3rd most famous RPG ever?

(Final Fantasy VII and Pokemon Red And Blue being the most famous.)

Chrono Trigger.

Citation Needed.

Especially on the second as it is out-sold by Skyrim (If one considers Skyrim sold on 3 platforms for 17 million units vs FFVII's 10 million)

If you're talking RPGs in general, it seems that Skyrim has reached that point.

If you're talking just JRPGs... maybe Tales of Symphonia.

edited 15th Aug '13 10:53:17 AM by WaxingName

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If it's not immediately obvious, then we'd probably be here till the cows came home arguing.

But Fallout 3 seems up there

edited 15th Aug '13 11:17:15 AM by Alucard

Skyrim may be famous, but is it blended into nearly every gamer's DNA like the first two?

(I mean FF 7 and RBY)

edited 15th Aug '13 11:17:02 AM by Smasher

I'm not sure this question is capable of being answered objectively. I'm also not sure what purpose the thread can be said to serve.

The answer will shift over time inevitably, as games like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII fade in the awareness of the average gaming demographic and new games take their place.

edited 15th Aug '13 11:13:12 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Pokémon as a franchise is extremely famous, but I'm not sure that RBY specifically is. Among the hardcore Pokémon fanbase, there's a lot of debate over whether GSC or Insert Current Gen Here is the best Pokémon game, and outside the hardcore fanbase, more people know Pokémon as an anime than a video game.

And, as Fighteer noted, this isn't really something that can be answered objectively. My personal opinion is that Final Fantasy VII can go screw itself, with FFVI and Chrono Trigger being my favorite JRP Gs, but not everyone shares my view.

edited 15th Aug '13 11:13:39 AM by TobiasDrake

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However you may personally feel about FFVII, it proved conclusively that RPGs can survive in the mainstream market and not be a niche product.

Are we including MMORPGs in this count? Because World Of Warcraft eclipses almost every other game of that nature in the public consciousness, but I'm not sure whether most people would mentally classify it as an RPG alongside things like Final Fantasy or Skyrim.

We also can't ignore sci-fi properties like System Shock, Bioshock, and Mass Effect. The latter may be the most famous sci-fi RPG in recent times if only for the controversy about the ending.

edited 15th Aug '13 11:18:09 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

@Smasher: YES! I heard that it's the most played game of all time.

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Where did you hear that from?

On these forums. I didn't take the time to find the citation, though.

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That'd be WiiSport. Followed by Super Mario Bros.

edited 15th Aug '13 11:24:54 AM by CobraPrime

Not best-selling, most played. The time people spend playing Skyrim surpasses all other games is what they meant.

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That sounds false BUT considering today's younger gamers are more likely to have played Skyrim instead of Chrono Trigger that's probably a fair pick.

Chrono Trigger is the 3rd most famous JRPG though.

That's Nostalgia Goggles talking. Remember Pokemons Red and Blue only came out on one console (more if you include remakes that game later). So gamers who didn't have it aren't so poetically "dna blended". FFVII too (It did have a shitty PC port at the time that was infamously broken and barely bought, and a more recent PC port) so people who never had a playstation again (PC and N64), most likely didn't play FFVII.

Compare with Skyrim who was released on 3 out of 4 major non-portable gaming systems (PC, 360, PS 3, only missing the Wii). It has far wider reach.

edited 15th Aug '13 11:33:07 AM by CobraPrime

But both FFVII and Pokemon have appeal and fame beyond their original games now. Pokemon was probably the biggest anime in the entire world at one point and FFVII had a rather well-known EU with a successful movie and everything.

I'm just saying that it's impossible to judge anymore because FFVII and Pokemon are way, way, WAY more than just JRP Gs at this point.

And Skyrim has appeal from Oblivion and Morrowind before it (ie: Appeals beyond the game itself as you call it), and like FF 7 is getting a shitty spin off in TES:O. You can bet your pants that TES:VI whatever forms it takes will also garner appeal and fame.

The only difference is that Bethesda has no interest in turning Skyrim into a series or a film (Because it's sort of like missing the complete point of the franchise).

Could we please label opinions as opinions rather than presenting them as facts? Thanks.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

That's because Skyrim is already part of a series.

Also, there's no denying that Pokémon did something to the gaming world. It sort of revived the entire collecting stuff genre. Skyrim by itself did nothing special, heck, it was that other game that was an RPG that had a big open world that did something, I don't know, I'm still a bit tired from doing nothing.

edited 15th Aug '13 12:44:00 PM by GaryCXJk

Signatures are for lamers.

As far as Individual games go, sure I guess we could say Red/Blue (and its premakes and remakes), Final Fantasy VII (and all related to it) Elderscrolls Skyrim (whatever its immediate relations are)

If we are talking about ongoing things it is probably Final Fantasy (for general CRPGS), Pokemon (for Mons) and Warcraft (for online, though their subscriptions have been rapidly falling as of late it will still be a while before something knocks them out of public memory). I believe the game fandom is bigger than the cartoon fandom of Pokemon at the moment too, even if it never did reach the brief period of insanity the cartoon and card game had in the 90s.

Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack

I think, for the non-mainstream audience, Pokemon is the most pervasive, though I think the anime is as much to credit for that as the game. The Final Fantasy series are what one thinks when the word RPG is mentioned, but their significance appears to have been declining. Skyrim is pretty much the most popular "hardcore" RPG in recent memory.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

Pokémon is definitely huge, but Red/Blue isn't so huge. RBY was buggy, simple, broken in some ways, poorly-thought-out in others, and just generally unpolished. GSC is what really cemented the Pokémon games into the franchise behemoth they are today.

I would say more people know Pokémon from the anime and from the second-gen onwards than for those first broken games.

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I would have perhaps expected the Ultima series to be somewhere in the top three, perhaps in second place, given the legacy that it produced in terms of RPG tropes and narrative in RP Gs. It might be less easily (from my perspective, at least) included if we have to include only a single game; Ultima III or IV would perhaps be the best bets for a place in the top three.

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It really depends on the circles you run in. Pokemon and Final Fantasy are hard-coded into pop culture thanks to Red/Blue/the anime/the TCG, and Final Fantasy VII, respectively. They're names you can drop in a non-gamer context and people will probably at least understand that they're games.

Somewhere in there with them (don't know whether it's first, second, or third) is World of Warcraft. Unless, for some reason, we're not counting MMORPGs. In which case I'm not even sure if another RPG exists that is as famous as the two above-mentioned examples.