SYSTEM WARS VOTES- Greatest RPG of All Time Face-off: The Witcher 3 VS Chrono Trigger

Come on now,admit it,how many alts have you just made to turn the poll around eh? >.>

Chrono Trigger. On the virtue that I cant even bring myself to care to even play Witcher 3. I can only feel apathy towards The Witcher 3... no matter how much I try to force interest.

Chrono Trigger was a moderately fun game at least. Nothing mindblowing though. Perhaps due to the fact that it wasnt until 2009 till I could finally play the game, and games had advanced quite a bit since then. But also perhaps because even back then, it kinda paled in comparison to what wRPGs such as Betrayal at Krondor were doing.

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I'm actually happy the votes are so close

Of course.

I am just saying that downplaying a game because of so called "nostalgia" isn't a smart move. And Witcher 3 is a fantastic game. No one can deny that.

The fact the votes are close shows people don't know what good rpgs are. Disappointed with this part of the forum.

Chrono Trigger, duh. This isn't even a game I have nostalgia for, because the first time I played it was on the DS.

Both are excellent games.

And they were both chosen based entirely on popularity.

It would have been Chrono Trigger versus Mass Effect 2 if the thread were made before TW3 came out. And the thought of that is just downright hysterical.

One is excellent and one is near perfect. TW3 is no where even being the best WRPG, let alone best RPG at all. This thread is pretty much a joke.

@Renegade_Fury agreed 100 percent.

While you might not agree, I think Witcher is the best modern RPG game. I think that there is a clear reason why Witcher 3 dominated the reviews for both critics and users this year. You cannot just claim it's only because of story and graphics, we have seen games praised for their graphics and story but falter on some other aspect, we see how it reflects on reviews.

You might not like the game, it's not for everyone. I certainly can't see how my 7yr old cousin would like it over Xenoverse; but just because you are in the small minority, doesn't change that the game is a modern masterpiece for Rpg games. How it holds up to the much older games, games that are 20+ yrs is an entirely different matter

BANNED!!!!

Not just from Gamespot, from the internet altogether!! :P

This is a very weak excuse to undermine Witcher 3's success, both commercially and critically.

I mean sure, why not just ignore that it's a highly polished game; from graphics, to art direction, story, nuance & themes, characterization, dialog, setting, music, atmosphere, world exploration, gear building, meaningful choices with far reaching consequences... from beginning to end this game is an impressive feat. OK, so the combat can be a bit wonky at times but hardly a deal breaker.

Let's not hide behind the "honeymoon" facade to avoid that this game ... oh I don't know, deserves and through pains taking efforts has earned its unanimous chorus of accolades?

Chrono Trigger. No contest.

my vote goes to Chrono Trigger, never get tired of playing that game

This thread is a microcosm for why democracy fails.

But don't let the weird results fool you into thinking The Witcher 3 is not a good game. In fact, it is an excellent game, one of the best in recent times.

EDIT: Lol the quote in my signature still applies. @drinkerofjuice on some prophetic shit.

There still is a honeymoon phase. How many people 5 years from now will feel the same way about the game? Even if they don't play anything new in the same genre from now until then?

It definitely doesn't withdraw it from such a competition as this (it's all a popularity contest anyways; the fact ME2, a shooter got second place is just laughable), but to say that people don't feel the way they do about it because it's new and fresh in their mind is ignorant.

@AdobeArtist:

I don't think he's saying honeymoon phase to undermine anything though. Shit, from what I understand, it's his goty too.

Every well liked game goes through it, even if they are still loved for years to come. There is always that initial "arrgghh omg best thing evar!!!" phase and TW3 is still in it for the time being. Just as Chrono Trigger had one too.

Dark Souls was fucking robbed. Also Chrono Trigger is boring.

Dark Souls is boring. All Souls games are boring even though I'm awesome at them.

Lame. I wondered why it was close.

CT is better but I cant understand why TW3 is being called the best wrpg. Put CT up against games like FO2, BG2, or Planescape Torment, that's a fair fight.

That's just how the votes went down man.

Doesn't surprise me though. Obviously the biggest release of the year was going to perform well in its own genre.

Also: lolSystemWars

@treelog187: Newb gamers are the majority here on SW, I suppose.

Just by bringing up the honeymoon phase argument, seems to me as tantamount to arguing that the only reason said game is polling so well is because it's new and fresh. I mean why mention it at all unless one felt it stood on its own merits?

But I point out again all it's actual qualities I did in my previous post, all that polish and detail on so many levels (visuals, story, engagement with the world, and so forth...) does anybody really take reason that Witcher 3 won't stand the test of time?

What I said above, hell I'll bet an Alienware PC people will still look back on this game with reverence 10, even 15 years from now.

It's actually the opposite for Crono Trigger, which never had a honeymoon phase when it first came out. In Japan, Famitsu only scored it 34 out of 40 upon release. And while North American magazines scored it 90-100%, Chrono Trigger never won any GOTY awards. The original SNES game only sold 290,000 copies in North America, and wasn't sold in Europe at all. And yet, despite never winning any GOTY awards in its own year of release, Chrono Trigger is now second only to Ocarina of Time in terms of GOAT status.

It was actually polling quite terribly when that discussion was going on lol. We were assuming that it would be doing better with the honeymoon phase in effect. Then suddenly in a 7 minute span around 4am eastern time, TW3 got alt spammed with votes.

It's not the picture you're trying to paint here man, and we're certainly not saying that TW3 is without merit. But to pretend the honeymoon phase has no effect? Come on bro. This isn't a jab at TW3, every big title comes with this.

I'm not even talking about scores or sales though, I'm talking about gamer reception. That's pretty much what a honeymoon phase is, a continuation of glowing praise after release.

Chrono Trigger was non-stop talk of the town. It was the first time I saw non-rpg gamers not only being all over an rpg, but saying it was the best game they ever played. It was a big deal man. And that word of mouth carried through over the years.

I can get that every new game, assuming it does have a successful launch, is the toast of the town. But I do still submit that under objective scrutiny, all the Witcher 3's merits hold their own as a quality piece of gaming production, and that it's present accolades is very deserving. And therein, it shouldn't be a stretch to surmise that it will stand the test of time, and subsequently there's NO reason for this game not to be in consideration for best RPG, new or otherwise.

@AdobeArtist:

Definitely man, fair enough.

And that's pretty much what Chaz and I were getting at on the first page. Honeymoon phase or not, this game isn't just going to fade away. Personally, I'm not a fan of the game, but I'd be foolish to think otherwise. It hit a high note with so many gamers this year it's unreal. It'll still be in the discussion come end of the gen when we're discussing game of the gen. It'll be ranked highly among games of its genre for years to come. Maybe not at the very top of the stack, but it will be in good company for sure.

Abstaining for two reasons:

Never gave Chrono Trigger a fair shake.

In no logical universe is The Witcher 3 the greatest WRPG of all time. The game is great, but come the **** on.

@ConanTheStoner: really we gonna start with that alt votes ? The same crap can be said for CT. outliers in statistical inference always exist

Maybe it might be a regional thing, but here in Europe, Chrono Trigger never had a honeymoon phase. It wasn't even officially released here until the DS release in 2009, so it was largely unknown to most Euro gamers in the '90s. The way I discovered it wasn't even through word-of-mouth, but through an illegal ROM downloaded from the internet in the late '90s... But by the mid-2000s, many Euro gamers had played CT (whether through importing, or illegal emulation) and agreed it's one of the best games they ever played.

I did mention earlier that it could be a coincidence.

But let me ask you, do you not find this odd?

During the most dead hours of SW, those hours in which there are typically 20-30 minute gaps between any activity, TW3 shot up 18% in 7 minutes man. It went from getting no votes to plenty of votes and then it completely flat-lined for the next couple of hours without a single vote after that. No board activity, nobody posting, just an influx of votes over 7 minutes.

Impossible? Nah. Improbable? Yeah man.

I mean, it doesn't matter. It's a SW poll lol. But that's still an odd occurrence, legit or not.

@Jag85:

Oh for sure man, everything I'm saying is anecdotal obviously. I was just surrounded by peeps who loved the game. In my neighborhood and in my high school, it got all the talk.

@Jag85:

Curious, you got me thinking, how was Terranigma received in Europe?

It's a really cool game, but of course nobody stateside played it back then and it's rarely ever discussed. Just wondering if that's like the inverse to the situation with Chrono Trigger. Tbh, I never knew that Chrono Trigger SNES didn't get a release over there.

Terranigma got great reviews, and almost almost everyone who played it loved it. But it was a very niche release, and didn't sell a lot. It released here in 1996, when most gamers had already moved on to the PS1. And RPGs in general were very niche in Europe, up until FFVII popularized the genre.

At least it beat out Mass Effect 2.

Haters gonna hate :P

In the realm of "role-playing" Mass Effect is one of the worst franchises in existence.

But otherwise, they are fantastic experiences.

@ConanTheStoner:

Okay, so there is a reason why I said CT would start losing to Witcher by the time I woke up,. I was eastern time still at work at ~2 am when I posted that comment. CT had a considerable advantage of 34% but at the time it was actually only 28 votes, so assuming that someone actually gave Witcher 3 18% it was roughly 3 votes, nothing bigger

Don't forget the entire voting for all these thread so far has not passed over 200 individual votes yet

@Berserker1_5:

It got 9 votes in that time. Wouldn't even add up to a big difference maker now. It was just a funny short burst in a small, dead traffic time frame.

That said, I have no proof of any alt foolery. And for all we know, there could be some CT fan dumping alt votes in at a more reasonable pace as we speak. No way to know anything really.

Most importantly? I find it funny that we're even discussing this man. :P

I know I started this mess, but I withdrawal.

@ConanTheStoner: you started it, but we all thought about it

Something like Mass Effect 2 would have been far more deserving of winning the WRPGs contest and going up against TW3. That victory would have been much more credible.

Tw3 vs me 2, that would be better

No generation gap

Mass Effect 2 is more a shooter than it is a role-playing game. Don't make me laugh.

If the degree to which a game is an RPG is the only criteria here, then sure, ME2 probably shouldn't even BE on the list. If we're talking about sheer quality though, the list could do a lot worse.

This is a "greatest RPG of all time" contest.

The lurkers are coming out! :D