I Want To Get Into CRPG's, But....

CRPG's are tough to enjoy, but I'm committed, I just have no clue where to start to be honest, any ideas?

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[judostar]

As someone that's felt the same with CRPGs, I would recommend starting with the more beginner friendly ones. The ones that I recommend are:
- Divinity Original Sin 2. It's Larian Studio's IP and they made it just before Baldur's Gate 3. It's fully voice acted, shares a similar feel to BG3, and it's beginner friendly. While not as cinematic as BG3, it's still a great experience and it has a good story to it. I would recommend playing as an origin character that interests you the most and have Fane as one of your party members. Fane is also awesome to play as but you'll need to understand his background as he is deeply connected to the main story. The game also has a dungeon maker in it.

- Baldur's Gate 3. Fully voice acted, very beginner friendly, great story, awesome companions, and it's very cinematic. The ruleset is based on DnD 5e. As someone with a lot of experience with it (I played and I ran a lot of tabletop DnD), I can tell you that the barrier to entry isn't as high because it's not as number crunchy as previous editions and other rulesets (looking at you Pathfinder 1e). If you play BG3, I recommend playing as a custom character for your first run. It'll allow you to experience the game at your own pace and get to know all of them (aside from the dark urge) as companions. I also caution against playing as most of them because they feel like a custom character with a bit of flavour to them. For a second run, I recommend playing as the dark urge. The dark urge is a custom character that is connect to the story and is a callback to the previous games. I have played the game at least 6 times at this point and my favourite playthrough of all time is a good path dark urge. It's is incredibly rewarding and there's only one thing that happens early on in the game that is outside of your control.

- Solasta Crown of the Magister. This game is rough around the edges but it's charming and it is the most faithful adaptation of DnD 5e into a video game. The developers were able to use the system reference document (open licensed DnD 5e) to create the foundation of their game. They did not get the license for DnD's world so they had to fill in the blanks with their own story. The game is fully voiced, you control a party of 4 adventurers (either created or pregens), it feels like you are playing a homebrew DnD campaign. The voice acting isn't that great but it's serviceable and the voice lines are based on the personality traits that you set up in character creation. The game also has it's own custom campaign/dungeon maker which adds a lot of replayability. You can also get custom made adaptations and campaigns off of the steam workshop as well. My biggest critique of Solasta is that it's fairly linear. You can play as an evil character but you will be railroaded.

- Dragon Age: Origins. This game is the most CRPG out of the Dragon Age games. There's not much more that I can say about the game that hasn't already been said. It shows its age, some mods needed, but it's still a very good game because it was made when Bioware was still at their peak. It also is their spiritual successor to BG1 and BG2.

- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2. They show their age, definitely recommend the mod guides, but the stories are awesome and the CRPG DNA are in them.

-Wasteland 3. You play as a ranger in a post-apocalyptic Colorado. It's cinematic, the story is pretty good, fairly easy to get into, and some of the squadmates are hilarious. You control a squad and it's similar to X-com.

- Pillars of Eternity 2: Dreadfire. PoE 1 is good but Dreadfire is easier to get into because it's fully voiced and the mechanics are better. If you don't play PoE 1, you won't be completely lost because PoE2 has a synopsis of PoE 1.

Ones that I recommend that you stay away from until you get used to CRPGs:
- Pathfinder Kingmaker and Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous. These are made by Owlcat and they are both incredible games with a ton of replayability, great companions, and awesome stories. However, the system that they use is Pathfinder 1e. This system is a modified version of DnD 3.5e with a ton of rules and modifications added onto it. 3.5e DnD was a good system but it was number crunchy. You can imagine how number crunchy Pathfinder 1e will be in comparison. Don't get me wrong, Pathfinder 1e isn't as daunting once you are used to it but it can easily overwhelm a newcomer. The games also have minigames in them that can be hit or miss. The games are also not fully voice acted. They do have voice acting but a newcomer might be put off by the fact that they have to read a lot more than they were expecting.

- Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader. This is also made my Owlcat. In terms of being more newcomer friendly, it's a step up. It's more cinematic, character creation and progression is more straight forward, the story is good, the companions are cool, it's majority voice acted, and the ruleset is easier to get into than Pathfinder 1e. The issue with it is that, like with other Owlcat games, it has bloat to it that could turn a newcomer away. Owlcat enjoys adding minigames in to their games and Rogue Trader is no different. In Rogue Trader, you have ship combat and planet/colony management. That said, it is a huge step up from the tedious kingdom management in Kingmaker and a step up from the crusade management in Wrath of the Righteous.

[Goldfish_Guy]

Start with bg3
It does a much better job at introducing you to its mechsnics. Visuals and voiceacting also help a lot.

You basically started your crpg journey on veteran/expert mode

[bermedcruz]

I myself had always thought about CRPG´s as boring and slow games, however recently upon buying baldurs gate 3 i can say oh boy was i wrong. It grows slowly in you but when it does it never stops.

[tale_play]

I grew up playing CRPG's. although they were slowly transitioning to WRPG I enjoy them as part of nostalgia and understand them to a certain degree. Old, slow and clunky ones might not entirely appeal to me, but they sure are something I'd like to play some more. Just like JRPG's, I've not touched one properly in a long time.

[TNTITAN]

You talked about trying to beat Baldur’s Gate. Did you read the 100+ page manual? It could help.

[orieLab_]

Okay first of all, picking an almost 3 decade old game to start a genre doesn't seem smart. It's like picking morrowind as your first open world arpg and saying the genre is too complex. BG3 or Divinity 2 are much more begginer friendly games where you need no prior knowledge to enjoy them, sure, if you know the basics of DnD lore it makes understanding the games lore easier, but you can learn as you play.
And mechanics wise, it's literally 3D turned based combat, it is just as hard as playing pokemon

[razclark]

If BG3 feels like too much i genuinely suggest trying Solasta, got me into the genre and now BG3 is one of my favorites of all time

[MagpieMcGraw]

I tried and dropped Planescape Torment and Neverwinter Nights. But I was able to get into Baldurs Gate 3 first try. Without guides or manuals. Whenever the game gave me choices, I just picked whatever sounded good. That was a valid strategy for beating balanced mode.

[spellandshield]

BG2 is arguably better than 1 but not every genre is for everyone. I have been playing CRPGs for over 30 years and I don't play many other genres. Nothing wrong with not playing CRPGs but IF you had to play one to start with I would go with Tyranny; amazing game and it is also pretty short so you could get through it in 25 hours and decide whether you wish to do a 2nd playthrough. Just my 2 cents.

[ΣτελιοςΛουκοπουλος]

As someone who has played all the crpgs you listed, here is my advice. Either start with bg 3 which is beginner friendly, (don't worry about thes story, bg3 isn't a direct sequel storywise anyway) or pick up pillars of eternity which has a ton of quality of life improvements compared to the original bg series. Finally, don't feel shame in reducing the difficulty if you are a beginner and aren't familiar with ttrpg rulesets, a lot of these games explain this in the difficulty setting.

[spacelion]

I haven't played Baldur's Gate III yet...but the first two Baldur's Gate games are incredible. My guess is that people feel they are slow because of the pause and play feature.

I love the combat and stories in the BG games. You could also try Planescape: Torment which has less focus on combat and more on story

[maynardburger]

A lot of people will recommend BG3, and I will go against that. Not because I dont think it's a great game, but because it's such a great game. It will potentially spoil other games after that. It doesn't leave you anywhere upwards to go. For that reason, I'd recommend perhaps Divinity Original Sin 1, or maybe Dragon Age Origins. DOS1 is a lot more accessible than older Baldur's Gate games, but it's still challenging enough to where you'll be forced to engage with the systems and options on offer(which is a ton of fun). Dragon Age Origins if you want to ease yourself into things more, as it's not as hard. DOS1 is also a lot more light hearted in tone compared to Dragon Age, if that matters to you. Both are really good games, but wont spoil you for the rest of the genre.

[raul.supremacyTabitha]

While Baldur's Gate 1 is definitely not a masterpiece of a game in my opinion nor is it all that amazing it did essentially lay the groundwork for CRPGs to come. Baldur's Gate 2, however, is LEAGUES better. ASTRONOMICALLY so. The story is much more involved, the companions aren't mindless bots (like they are in BG1) and they have multi-layered personalities and many of them go through character development and progression (or regression depending on how you influence them).

BG1's combat is very luck based because early levels of DnD adapted into video games are always like that, but BG2 starts you off at level 7-9 depending on class. I would say play BG1 for an understanding of the story, then play 2, but you can skip 1 because BG2's opening cinematic summarises the events of BG1 with enough detail that you'll understand what's going on.

[Theshrimp]

I'm in a similar boat in that I want to get into CRPGs but just haven't got properly hooked in yet.

CRPGs that I own from Steam sales:
Fallout 1/2
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Pillars of Eternity
Disco Elysium
Dragon Age: Origins
Knights of the Old Republic


I've played a little of Disco Elysium and enjoyed it quite a bit but put it off until I'm in more of the mood for that type of story.

Other than that D:OS2 is the only one I've really spent any time in. I managed to make it to act 3 on classic difficulty despite having never played a tactical RPG nor a CRPG in my life yet it got to the point where the difficulty just wasn't fun for me. This is in no way shape or form a fault of the game but I'm just not into tactics in RPGs all that much nor do I like RPGs that focus on positional advantages, terrain advantages etc so I ended up turning the difficulty down one step and the game become substantially easier. It doesn't help either that I don't want to meta game, I want to roleplay and immerse myself, not look up builds or strategies and I kind of gimped myself by splitting physical and magical damage too evenly. There were times where I was really enjoying the game and others where I was just completely over it. I still haven't finished it (up to act 4 now) and I'm not sure when I'll get back to it but I just feel like I burned myself out from it.

I think an issue for me might be that I like grinding in games and CRPGs generally don't seem to let you do that, which I understand why since encounters are supposed to be part of a pre-setup map and carefully placed. I'm not sure if there are CRPGs out there that let you grind.

I'm trying PoE now and the story and characters might have a better grip on me since it seems a bit more dark and serious than D:OS2 but ultimately I'm looking more for a CRPG that really goes all out on writing, characters and immersion. One that also focuses more on class fantasy and satisfying combat rather than focusing on tactical combat or difficult combat and without any metagaming. I love the turn based combat in things like Final Fantasy, Persona, Pokemon, Dragon Quest etc but I'm also enjoying the real time with pause combat in PoE so far.

[Ratty]

I learned to appreciate crpgs more when I became older than when I was younger and more impatient, if that amounts to anything. In general, the fun you look for with CRPGs is the same kind of fun you would get playing chess, not so much the quick-paced action games. You have to approach them with a degree of patience and a willingness to try and fail to learn the game, which explains why they are generally the least popular subgenre of RPGs.

Also Baldurs Gate 1 is probably the worst way to get into them lmao. Just like with JRPGs, many of the older ones from the early/mid '90s are much more confusing to control and figure out. IMO the modern ones like Wrath of the Righteous and ESPECIALLY Baldur's Gate 3 are better games to get your feet wet in the genre.

[noway]

My recommendation for your first actual CRPG would be "Shadowrun: Dragonfall".

Uses a pretty simple system to understand even for a novice and is turn-based, and has a really nice story and companions to keep you hooked from start to finish.

Do not play things like Baldur's Gates, Pillars, Tyranny, Divinity, Underrail, Dragon Age, Solasta or anything of the sort. Too beefy for your first taste of the genre, and all of them besides Tyranny are also quite long.

[Ty-douken]

I had a similar experience with CRPGs, specifics BG2. I created my character & was trying to figure out what to do that n ended up killing a guy in town & fraught off the guards from the starter town & died, then promptly un-installed the game.

This was when I was younger & I'm sure I'd have an easier time figuring out what to do, but I expected more Diablo & less talking from it back in the day. For me the reality is most CRPG games just don't do anything for me. I get why people like them, but they're too slow paced for me as I generally want to engage with gameplay first & foremost with a fun story & characters as set dressing.

The one I remember loving as a kid was Fallout 1 + 2, but it's been so many years that I couldn't tell you why or for what reason.

[DanPeters]

I tried the Divinity series and Pillar of Eternity and never really felt like I was on top of everything. I want to get into them too but I just don't think I'm approaching them correctly.

[MrTohawk]

If you're looking for a good easier crpg to start with you could try Dragon Age:Origins

[scullyy]

Definitely Underrail on DOMINATING difficulty :-)

I'm kidding! If Underrail is on the far end of the complexity and difficulty curve, then the Shadowrun games must be on the opposite side. I'd honestly caution you against most of the games that have been suggested, as they are too complex/difficulty for someone having a tough time with Baldurs Gate 1. Give Shadowrun Returns, Dragonfall and Hong Kong a try.