The video game industry has a wide variety of successful franchises across a wide range of genres. One of the most popular of these are genres is the role-playing game community. There have been countless successful titles that have found themselves in this category with players falling in love with many RPG franchises.
Although these franchises have done well, unfortunately they haven't been able to repeat this success with their sequels as any second or third title was rated lower on the site of Metacritic. This isn't to say that these franchises didn't continue to perform well, but they officially peaked with their audience in the first game.
5 Golden Sun
- Metacritic Score: 91
- User Score: 9.0
Debuting on the Game Boy Advance, this classic RPG title named Golden Sun sent players on the typical adventure to stop evil from slowly spreading across the world. Although players may say this story sounds simple, those that played the original on the handheld console praised Golden Sun for how incredibly in-depth the story was.
The whimsical history of the world that this amazing story was set in continued in other titles both released for the Game Boy named Golden Sun: The Lost Age and its final title of Dark Dawn on the Nintendo DS. Both of these titles ultimately did well in both sales and rating on Metacritic for having equally an incredible story and gameplay mechanics. In the end it wasn't enough to usurp their predecessor of its place as the best in the franchise.
4 Dragon Age: Origins
- Metacritic Score: 91
- User Score: 8.8
In the origins of the Dragon Age franchise is a game that many players across a variety of platforms adored. One of the features players were most fond of is the chance to pick not only from several races but also backgrounds that altered the beginning story. This only improved upon the already impressive main quest and characters available.
While Dragon Age continued to be a successful franchise it stepped away from how in-depth the background selection mattered on the story of the game, this meant that many of its later sequels, although loved, did not beat Dragon Age: Origins in its rating. Fans of the franchise of that the next title Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will return to its roots with the backstory of the player's customized character having more of an impact on the story.
3 Xenoblade Chronicles
- Metacritic Score: 92
- User Score: 9.1
Xenoblade Chronicles is praised for many things including its humorous dialogue and imaginative world. When this title released on the Nintendo Wii it received a successful cult following of those that looked forward to additional releases. Thankfully, Nintendo did supply these sequels for those that enjoyed the Xenoblade franchise with a total of six games supplied over the years and a definitive edition of the original.
However, even with all these games provided for its fans, the original Xenoblade Chronicles remains the most loved from the series. While the franchise may have peaked with its first title this doesn't mean the others did poorly as the most recent game called Xenoblade Chronicles 3 that released on the Switch still earned itself an impressive 89 on Metacritic.
2 Paper Mario
- Metacritic Score: 93
- User Score: 9.0
While the original Mario Bros may not rate the highest out of the main series of games, this classic of the N64 is still crowned the best Paper Mario to date. Since releasing in 2001, Paper Mario has had countless other sequels created for it, but all have been unable to touch its brilliance. This spin-off series was something that was deemed creative at the time of it being published, this may partly be the reason many of the other Paper Marios haven't been able to surpass it.
Once again the sequels have managed to still score highly on Metacritic with the most recent Paper Mario: The Origami King scoring a confident 80, this however doesn't compete with the classics of the franchise though all titles have been praised for their adorable art style and introduction of an all-new roster of characters to enjoy.
1 Diablo
- Metacritic Score: 94
- User Score: 8.6
Diablo transcends the key aspects of what makes a great role-playing game according to fans of the franchise. When it first released in 1996 it amazed its players with not only its gameplay but also the world-building that had been developed to create an experience that went further than crawling through dungeons. Unlike other RPGs at the time of its release the combat and other gameplay was mentioned to be easily approachable for all those that were new to the genre making it a great beginner game.
While allowing the players to get as close to experiencing Hell as possible Diablo continues to be a great example of what an action RPG should be. This in itself is quite funny as even Blizzard themselves have not been able to improve upon its gameplay even when expanding the genre to online play such as Diablo Immortals. However, there is promise of it being beaten by Diablo 4 that many fans are looking forward to the release of.