I have a love-hate relationship with Skyrim. To me, it's an incredibly underwhelming RPG - and every time I step onto the TES General Discussion forum (or worse, visit RPGCodex), I get riled up into writing some nasty diatribe about how impersonal the game feels. Then I go back to playing or modding Skyrim and fall in love with the sheer amount of effort and enjoyability put into the game. It's a horrible cycle.

But lately I've also been playing lots of old DOS RPGs as well. Currently, I've been playing http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/realms_of_arkania_1_2 and loving it. It's a turn-based, party-based RPG so it may not be for everyone, and there isn't much to do in the way of sidequests and exploration (overland travel is similar to Fallout 1), but the complexity appeals to me greatly. The series is based off of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Eye pen-and-paper ruleset from Germany, which is apparently a fierce competitor of D&D over there.

The first game is a bit tedious to play, with a barely functional automap, lack of graphical diversity and step-based movement. The second one uses actual 3D environments and free movement, but other than that they more or less play similarly. There's little story carried over from the first one too, so unless you want to play the entire series I think the second is the best one for getting a feel for the games first.

Character creation alone will probably take you upwards of an hour the first time around. That's how I knew that it was a good RPG - before I even started playing, I was already enamored with all of the apparent specializations and interactions the characters could have with the world.

The games themselves are challenging. A lot of micromanagement and survival elements (hunger, thirst, diseases), rather than primarily centering around combat. But there's a lot of oldschool pen-and-paper things you can do in the world for roleplaying, such as performing for money at taverns.

The dungeons are filled with riddles and puzzles, although in Star Trail's case there appear to be no optional dungeons - only the ones for the main quest. It takes a lot of getting used to the interface, and you ought to keep lots of extra saves as you can become permanently stuck in a few places, but otherwise it's a brilliantly captivating and complex series that was sadly overlooked in America. My only real disappointment with the games is that they're relatively linear, with very few sidequests. The towns are lonely (no NPCs on the streets, just encounters told via dialog boxes) and there's no factions to join. I admittedly tried to liken the game in many ways to Daggerfall due to the similar mid-90's 3D style of the second one, but that's unfair. This is a completely different type of RPG, but a thoroughly enjoyable one.

You can see my merry band http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/5145/dosbox074cpuspeedmax25ca.png. Unfortunately, Uncle Monty (the condescending voice of reason for the entire group) died falling off of a mountain, but I managed to get through the first dungeon without him by bringing along a rogue NPC I encountered on the road with me against his will (he wanted us to escort him to a town). As a roleplayer, there's a lot of fun to be had micromanaging this rowdy gang of misfits and imagining their interactions with one another. It's like an old 80's Saturday Morning cartoon.

What old RPGs have you been playing as of late? Any recommendations?

Thousand Arms comes to mind. Maybe even Dragon Valor and Alundra series, oh yeah those are really obscure.

As for recommendations... Legend of Legaia.

Does Dragon Warrior 1-3 count?

Definitely.

Darklands is an old DOS RPG I liked, that game has a really complex character creator too. It plays more like Daggerfall though, not the perspective but the whole open-world aspect where you can do anything you want.

And here I thought I was the only person who's played that game.

fallout was the best 90's rpg hands down
same with tes arena and daggerfall

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drakkhen is another one worth taking a look at, if only for the freeform design of the world. It's a bit too...JRPG for my liking (and character stats seem to just be your usual HP/MP deal), but I adore the look of those early flat-shaded 3D worlds.

Definitely. A lot of great RPGs came from that era. I think because the developers were almost overwhelmingly actual gamers who enjoyed D&D and the like, so they understood the need for complexity and freedom of choice. Nowadays there's so many writers in the industry who aren't actually gamers and don't understand the niche appeal of those things. I definitely think I'm overdue for replaying Fallout 1 and all the usual Interplay/Bioware/Black Isle classics again sometime soon.

Right now though, I'm trying to track down less well-known RPGs, especially from Europe. Most JRPGs don't do much for me.

Diablo 2 (although not RPG) might be my favorite 90s era game.

I love Realms of Arkania's character creation / development system. Possibly the best i've seen in an RPG.

You should try the game 'Ambermoon' as well if you have WinUAE. Different gameplay, with much simpler character stats, but a lot of fun.

I might reinstall Fallout 1&2 on my PC once I get a new one. Harddrive is fried on my current PC and it's loaded with viruses. Time for a new one.

Good first person RPGs from the 90's (these are all MS DOS games, if you're on a modern system, use DOSBox):

I am not sure if I am allowed to link directly to "abandonware" but you can just do a Google search for these games, you'll find them quickly on what appears to be legitimate websites (whether the subject of the matter is legitimate or not is a different topic altogether)

Dungeon Hack - randomly generated dungeon crawler set in The Forgotten Realms
Dungeon Master - the dungeon crawler game that started it all!
Dungeon Master II: The Legend of Skullkeep
Eye of the Beholder - I only recommend the first game; the 2nd and 3rd games are kinda meh
Menzoberranzan - another Forgotten Realms-based first person RPG
Might & Magic 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 - legendary first person RPGs
Ultima Underworld
Ultima Underworld II - VERY immersive first person RPGs. PLAY NOW

Wizards & Warriors-A pc game that's infamious for it's game breaking bugs...has an awesome soundtrack though.

Yeah then, I play Dragon Warrior, Dragon Warrior II, and Dragon Warrior III.

Those are the Dragon Quest games from way back before the series name changed to Dragon Quest.

Dragon Warrior FTW.

You're most certainly not. I have dual saga as well. I need to buy a new disc.

I was playing fallout for a large amount of time last week, then it kept crashing whenever I went to the second level of the military base, I was sad for a moment, but then I just started another playthrough of fallout 2

Let's see, I recently started replaying Fallout and Zork.

One RPG that really stood out for me is a game called Albion.

In fact I think it's so good I didn't even play it in the 90's or loved it for nostalgia...it was recommended to me by a friend and I played it about 5 years ago. The game starts out futuristic in space with guns before quickly turning into a sword and magic RPG within at any point seeming strange. It has squad based tactics, and turn based battle (the battle system is dull, but not terrible) and the game is about learning the world and exploring and the characters you can have join your squad all have really good backstorys. The game is rather tough at times and you can end up gimping characters that you need in you squad by upgrading the wrong skills, but the puzzles are fun and the dungeons are long.

If you are into 90's RPGs, it would be a game you like. Unlike most other games, it does not borrow much (if anything) from tolkin, and it makes a really unique world to play in.

I really used to enjoy an SSI RPG by the name of The Summoning. It was one of the few SSI RPG's that wasn't based on a D&D licence, but instead used a levelling system not unlike TES, in that the more you used a skill the better you became at it. Unfortunately due to the fact that it was an almost entirely linear game unless you focused almost entirely on magic your skill progression would probably be the same throughout. For the most part it was just one long dungeon romp, but the dungeon was also home to a number of colourful NPCs. And some boring NPCs.

I never did finish that game. I got to the last or second-last district of the labyrinth and couldn't figure out how to go any further. Every other time there had been somebody to tell me how to open the next barrier, but for the final gateway there was nothing. Makes me sad to this day.

I ought to find that game again. I still have the original disks, but after twenty years they no longer work.

Bumping this thread. Thanks for the suggestions! A few particular ones I want to address:

That one looks really promising. The RPGCodex folk (ooh, scary) seem to periodically mention it in discussions about the Realms of Arkania series, so I imagine that it's a relatively high-tier game. The slightly tattered handwritten fonts look as though they may prove tiresome to read, however. Reminiscent of TES: Arena's, even.

The Realms of Arkania series is absolutely brilliant. I'm currently at Lowangen in Star Trail, and am already dreading the day that I complete the series and have to go back to playing games with less engaging skill systems. I noticed that Ambermoon is but one of two games, the other being Amberstar. Have you heard much about that one?

I've seen that game before actually. It scares me. Multiple 2D overworld perspectives, multiple 3D perspectives, these old RPGs sure enjoy experimenting with different graphical formats. It's definitely one I want to get to trying, although there doesn't seem to be a lot of information on the internet about it.

Only RPG I really liked from the 90's was Earthbound Motherboard, in fact that was the game that got me into RPG's in the 1st place.