Mass Effect 2

"Just once I'd like to ask someone for help and hear them say, 'Sure. Let's go. Right now. No strings attached.'"

I do try to show off a game in its opening image, but I must admit that this isn't exactly the best depiction of BioWare's stellar space RPG sequel, Mass Effect 2, and there's a good reason for it - I'm still yet to play through Mass Effect.

Gutting what didn't work from the first game and cramming the space left over with hours and hours more dialogue between you and the many characters you'll meet across the galaxy, Mass Effect 2 is introduced to us in the 1001 list as the streamlined, story-lead game of science fiction adventuring.

Is streamlining an epic RPG possible? Have we lost anything in the decision to focus on what's important? Is there enough room in the galaxy for all of these characters to coexist? Let's get stuck in already.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II

"Do not waste what the Emporer provides!"

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War was a phenomenal game for me, seemingly coming out of nowhere to become one of the highlights of this 1001 list. I've started but not finished the Winter Assault DLC, and there are two more after that, full of new armies to base-build and Zerg-rush across the galaxy to purge the enemy, whomever it may be. That's what it's all about in the far future - war.

Following Dawn of War was Company of Heroes, the Second World War retheme, if you will, though it's much more than that. I've played it twice as much as I've played Dawn of War now, some 32 hours, finishing all the DLC and generally loving everything I was doing.

I like it even more than Dawn of War, but now the Emporer is back with Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, which takes a little of Company of Heroes, rethemes it back into the grim darkness of the far future and then reinvents the gameplay almost entirely to focus even more on your squads and even less on your base building... just stop, I can't wait any longer, let me play already.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade

Blink and you'll miss it.

The Nintendo Wii was not a powerhouse compared to the bigger home consoles, but as sales figures have proven, the average consumer doesn't care about the raw numbers under the hood. They want a damn good time, and for many, that meant waggling a Wiimote controller.

You'd think that having players waggling a Wiimote in the same way as they'd waggle a sword would make for some great gameplay, but the developers behind Muramasa: The Demon Blade knew better than to churn out a crappy waggler. There are basically only two buttons in this game, and just look at what you can do with them.

Look. Up there.

There's a lot to look at.

Torchlight

Dog! To the shops!

Loot. Everyone loves loot, right? Ever since Diablo, crawling through a dungeon to shove everything that isn't nailed to the floor into your inventory is pretty cool.

I didn't have particularly good experiences with Diablo itself but casting my mind back to any of The Elder Scrolls games, I'll have memories of not being able to move because of being weighed down by loot. Remembering Borderlands, I'll be reminded of how difficult it can be to drop one weapon for another, even if, strictly speaking, the numbers are better on this new one.

But these games aren't pure dungeon crawlers, are they? Not like Diablo, and not like spiritual Diablo sequel, Torchlight.

One down. One very big dungeon. Are you ready to push deeper into it?

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

"Do I look like I need logic? Listen, I NEED to breathe fire!"

The Mario & Luigi line of handheld RPGs have surprised me, and they have annoyed me. I'm surprised by their control scheme and the mechanics of controlling both brothers at the same time, but I'm annoyed at how even an hour into a game - on a handheld console, remember - I'm still sitting through tutorials as the story crawls into view.

Superstar Saga on the Game Boy Advance kicked things off, Partners in Time gave us four characters to juggle, and now Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story takes us on an adventure to a part of the Mushroom Kingdom we really didn't need to see, did we?

Little King's Story

For the King?

Source // Nintendo

We've all been there. We've all dreamed about ruling the world with an iron fist. It'd always be a better place if we were in charge, bossing the citizens around like the little tyrants we are. But we've never quite had a game that gives us that same feeling.

Sure, we can be powerful warriors that might as well be rulers, or command grand armies, and even build entire cities, but nothing captures the daydreams of a young kid quite like Little King's Story, a game described as - brace yourselves - a real-time strategy life simulation role-playing game for the Nintendo Wii.

Give me the crown already.

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes

"By the trees! Demons sneaking through our woods unnoticed?"

The Might & Magic series is completely alien to me. I can guess what it's about, of course - fantasy, magic, probably competed with Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest and untold numbers of other RPGs that have far more entries in the series than is sensible, but I've always viewed it as 'cheap', as though it were a store-brand version of those more successful series.

One handheld spinoff, first emerging on the Nintendo DS and then sweeping over to iOS and Android and then consoles and computers, serves as the sole Might & Magic entry on the 1001 list, a puzzle RPG by the name of Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes.

Is this an entry point to the series, or merely an entertaining off-shoot to occupy your hands on a commute?

Dragon Age: Origins

"Before us stands the Darkspawn horde. Gaze upon them now, but fear them not!"

The BioWare RPG. Baldur's Gate, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect. Even the 'smaller' projects that the wider world won't remember, like Jade Empire, show off such a devotion to the genre and a focus on building new worlds that they are deserving of a spot on the 1001 list.

It should come as no surprise that there is yet another to add to that list, a darker generic fantasy that puts the sex back in... fantasy? I have no idea where that sentence was going. Let's just go back to the start in Dragon Age: Origins.

Dissidia Final Fantasy

"Destiny is at hand. We might as well enjoy it."

The 1001 write up for Dissidia Final Fantasy does a far better job at introducing it than I ever could.

To paraphrase it, Final Fantasy combat involved characters standing in place, attacking nothing in particular, and watching numbers spring out of their opponent's heads, but Final Fantasy cutscenes or spin-off movies showed incredibly animated, over the top action where characters did the absolute opposite of sitting still.

Dissidia Final Fantasy is an attempt to merge those two things together. To let Final Fantasy characters fight it out in a way the RPG series hasn't seen before, all in a dense package on the PlayStation Portable.

It's one of the few physical PSP games I've got left, and coming to it 12 years late is better than never coming to it at all.

Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride

"Your father looks strong and powerful. You're a bit weedy compared to him."

Even in 2010, remakes of old games for new systems was something for publishers to consider putting some money into, and the 1001 list has thrown up another one from Square, again on the Nintendo DS, but for another RPG series with a great many numbered entries in the series, Dragon Quest.

Originally released in 1992, and having already seen a 3D remake on the PlayStation 2, it is this most recent remake - at the time of the 1001 list - of Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride that should grab our attention.

A blend of 3D environments and 2D sprite work, along with a few more additions and enhancements to the game itself, this version of Dragon Quest V should serve fans and newcomers well. Does it?

Demon's Souls

Cor, you're getting those words quite a lot, eh?

Source // PlayStation

I don't like hard games. There, I said it. Now we can make this post about Demon's Souls go by a whole lot easier. Masochism disguised as an RPG, this game, and more definitively its sequel, brings the brutality of needlessly difficult video games of the past to the graphics of the future, wrapping everything together into a game that will push you to your limits, break you, almost taunt you to try again, over and over until you bloody well get it right, yeah?

But then 'needlessly' is a word that brings quite a lot of debate, as does the game of Demon's Souls itself. Is it needlessly hard, or worryingly realistic? Must it be hard to sell its ideas of overcoming incredible odds and rewarding the patient and the persistent? Is it just trying to do something nobody else seems to have bothered to do, and hope it pays off?

Whatever the reasons behind Demon's Souls, it sure rooted itself into video game history, and won't budge from it, though it is overshadowed by Dark Souls. Let's see what's what - and no, I didn't get very far at all.

Half-Minute Hero

Time goes by, so quickly.

You learn an awful lot over the course of playing far too many videogames, and one of those things is that RPGs are just too dang long. Who wants to grind out levels or hunt down unique trinkets over a long afternoon when you can, instead, crank out entire quests in thirty seconds?

That's the thinking behind the PlayStation Portable title Half-Minute Hero - sort of. It's a little more complicated than that but intriguing enough for me to dive right in and waste no more time.

Borderlands

Pre-WUB WUB

Players love getting rewarded with new loot. Whether it is heaps of cash or experience to splurge out in shops or level-up screens, or new weapons and equipment to push your characters towards their strengths and personalities, getting more, better stuff, again and again, keeps us engaged.

So open-world first-person action-RPG shooter Borderlands gives its players lots of stuff. Like, more than a bucketload of it. Think three and a half million different weapons alone. I hope you like gathering loot. Or maybe 'swimming in loot' would be a better phrase.

Valkyria Chronicles

"I'll do it. Even going to war, I'll do it."

As Street Fighter IV has recently shown, stylish graphics can be just as engaging as photo-realistic depictions, and one of the games that I've always been aware of for its style but haven't yet dipped a toe into to find anything out about it is Valkyria Chronicles.

One part watercolour memoir, one part tactical role-playing game, Valkyria Chronicles takes players through the Second Europan War as a band of brave peasants determined to prove that nobody is going to get trampled on without a fight.

All I know about it before playing is that it looks mighty interesting.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4

"Every day is great at your Junes."

When I played Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3, I wondered just when it would actually become a playable video game. It had my attention, and an hour or so later it finally gave me something to do that wasn't advancing the next in a long line of dialogue text.

But I liked it, somehow, and now the 1001 list tells me that Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 is an even better place to start in the series.

Does that mean it'll get going before the hour mark, or should I settle in for the afternoon and just go along with it?

Fallout 3

Oblivion. Oblivion has changed.

Source // MobyGames

"I don't want to set the world on fire." Where were you when that Fallout 3 trailer landed? Alright, as far as monumental occasions go, the trailer for Fallout 3 isn't exactly earth-shattering, but this would be the first Fallout title in a long while, and not only was it coming to consoles, but it was coming from the folks behind The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I could not be more interested. Oblivion With Guns was coming.

My literal first encounter with the series was an afternoon at a friends house, watching him on his computer, but I consider Fallout 3 to be my introduction to the Fallout universe. For those familiar with the isometric RPGs of the past, the drastic switch to a first/third-person perspective would be controversial, among many other topics for discussion, but for me, this was simply kinda cool. I played the hell out of Oblivion and wanted to play the hell out of Fallout 3 as well.

And so I did. Bugs and glitches and all.

Fable II

You can pet the dog.

Source // Microsoft

I wasn't too pleased with Fable. Even with the English language being correctly represented through all kinds of colourful accents, a lengthy beginning section sapped all the enjoyment I may have had for the game itself, and I haven't gone back to it since.

Perfect time to see if the sequel has improved on things, then. Enter Fable II, open-world action-RPG where everything matters, and by everything, I mean how long you maintain a fart for. Don't understand? Neither do I.

The World Ends With You

"You're like some kind of psych genius!"

Inspiration for video games can come from anywhere. Books. Films. Fever dreams. Shopping districts? Shopping districts is a new one, but Shibuya and its youth of the mid-2000s were ripe for use in an action-RPG on the Nintendo DS.

What would such a game look like? Thick stylized artwork and colours that pop. What would it play like? Different. Fairly different. What's it called already? The World Ends With You.

A bold title for a game based on a shopping district.

The Witcher

"People like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves. They feel better then. They find it easier to live."

Source // MobyGames

Geralt of Rivia hasn't been around the video game scene for too long, but over the course of just a few games that lean heavily on the more mature side of fantasy monster hunting that the source material provides, he has become one of the all-time greats.

Originally starring in a series of novels and short stories, it'd be a decade before he was picked up by a developer who wasn't really a developer, but a publisher of foreign games in their native Poland, CD Projekt Red. You might know their development history. The Witcher, The Witcher 2, The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077. And like Valve with Steam, they're the brains behind GOG as well.

They've done well for themselves since their first game, an action-RPG in the world of the supernatural and the fantastical, of monsters both inhumane and mere man and woman. The Witcher is here to collect the bounty and move on, and he's damn good at it.

Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords

Challenge of the Warlords? Since when has that subtitle been there?

I wasn't lying when I said we're in a bit of a puzzly bit of the 1001 list, but I can see light at the end of the tunnel. Before we get there, though, comes a title that I absolutely did not expect to see get released on the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable before mobiles phones.

I could have sworn Puzzle Quest was exactly the kind of match-three drivel that came out with a bang when the iPhone hit, taking a simple game and applying the most generic of fantasy theming on the top, turning a puzzle game into a quest, and adventure to take a hero on.

I say drivel, I don't know if I mean that yet. I've not played it, but it sounds intriguing, turning a puzzle game into an RPG. The only similar gaming experience I can immediately bring to mind is some WWE game that did a similar thing to this. Well, identical thing to this, only a decade later (typical) and crammed full of adverts to spend money on it (again, typical).

Anyway, let's go on a quest, shall we?