RPG Video Games Bucket List

The 2023 game that summons the heroes of every earlier Fire Emblem as rings you equip.

The 1987 original that saved Square: four Light Warriors, a job you pick at the start and a time loop at the end.

Zion Canyon, a Mormon missionary and the Burned Man everyone in the Mojave talks about.

A linear thirty-hour corridor into Gran Pulse, with the fastest battle system the series has had.

The handheld one built for playing next to other people, with a shared map and grottos traded on the street.

Five chapters, each following a different party member until they all meet in the last one.

The Sierra Madre casino, a bomb collar and three companions you should not trust; the DLC people argue about.

The Trinity Sight system: the same war told three times, from three sides, before they converge.

Two generations across a continent, with children who inherit their parents’ skills and weapons.

The job system proper, twenty-three classes swapped at will, and the last of the trilogy that never left Japan for years.

A crashed colony ship on the alien Mira, an open world four times the size of the others, and mechs to cross it.

Ike’s mercenary company in a war between humans and laguz; the GameCube entry the series is still writing about.

The last of the main run: a court intrigue in the Queendom of Falena, and the closest the series came to Suikoden II.

The 1986 game that invented the Japanese role-playing game: one hero, one slime at a time.

No experience points - your stats grow from what you do - and the first game in the series with a real story.

Back to Solstheim to face Miraak, the first Dragonborn, and learn to ride a dragon.

The expansion that ends the Bhaalspawn saga, with Watcher’s Keep and levels past the original cap.

The walled city of Mournhold and an audience with a living god who has stopped answering prayers.

Sheogorath’s realm split between Mania and Dementia, and the best writing Bethesda has published.

The 2003 sequel: universal ammunition, smaller levels and an ending that lets you pick which conspiracy wins.

Durlag’s Tower and three more areas for the first game, still the hardest dungeon BioWare built.

Solstheim in the snow, a werewolf questline and the first Elder Scrolls expansion with a build-a-colony thread.

The Dragon Isles, dragonriding flight with real momentum, and talent trees handed back to the players.

Norrath in 1999, where dying left your corpse and your gear where you fell and you had to walk back naked; still running.

A character creator people spend an evening in, combat built out of directional combos, and a trade network that runs while you are away.