Not trying to be aggressive, but what's the point of having the thread be annual? If voting threads are frowned upon and supposed to be rare, wouldn't it be better to do a brand new topic like Best Videogame Composer or something?
The thread's main purpose is to highlight the rpgs that NeoGAF collectively feels are worth playing, and to encourage people to try games they might have missed previously.
I feel like doing the thread annually is useful because:
A) GAF has a lot of turnover. We get a lot of new members each year, with insights worth sharing. Also, people don't dig up threads that are years old for recommendations, so the newer members probably missed out on the previous threads.
B) On top of new releases, old games are being re-released on services like GOG, PSN, and Virtual Console, letting younger gamers experience them for the first time. The first time I ran the RPG thread, none of the Ultima games had been in print for years. Now all of them are available for cheap on GOG.com. If I re-run the thread, I would like to do a better job pointing out the venders that sell classic titles for reasonable prices.
C) Unlike most vote threads, people are encouraged to back up their choices. Most actually do, and some of those posts from knowledgeable members are excellent. They are fun to read, and sometimes inspire me to pick up a game I skipped or haven't played in awhile. The threads also have a mostly positive spin, which is a nice change of pace from a lot of threads on the Gaming side.
D) It might just be me, but I think it's fun to see how the rankings change from year to year. Especially the newer titles.
Voting threads are discouraged because most of them are just hundreds of posts listing things with no explanation. The Rpg threads mostly avoid that, and we get good discussion each year. If we can have 4-5 "What games are worth picking up on Dreamcast?" threads a year, and 4-5 "Was Diablo 3 worth the hype" threads a month, I think we can have one Essential RPG thread a year.
Was the Tales of Destiny they added to the list the Tales of Destiny R Director's Cut version or was it the mehtastic vanilla version on the PS1?
Additionally, was it the crappy Phantasia GBA version or was it the superior Tales of Phantasia X version? Because they've mostly alluded to localized efforts so far (and thus I don't think Mother 3 is going to be anywhere on this list at all which is a big fat shame).
These questions must be answered.
To quote IGN:
While Tales of Phantasia began the Tales series, Tales of Destiny was the first game in the franchise to make it to the west, and it remains to this day an extraordinary example of a solid Japanese RPG. Focusing on a guy named Stahn and the crew of characters he meets on his journey, Tales of Destiny departed from JRPG conventions by making battle realtime, almost like a side-scrolling fighting game with a twist. Tales of Destiny toted beautiful graphics, a great soundtrack and a compelling story, making it one of the most memorable RPGs from its era.
Definitely the PS1 version. They list Tales of Phantasia as the SNES version, and seem to give it a spot on the list simply because it started the franchise:
The Tales series is a huge phenomenon, but it all started rather modestly nearly two decades ago in Japan in the form of Tales of Phantasia. While it didn't come out in the west until over ten years after it arrived on Super Famicom, Tales of Phantasia held a special place in gamers' hearts around the world for beginning a franchise that gave us the likes of Tales of Destiny, Tales of Eternia, Tales of Symphonia and more. Phantasia may not be the best game in the series, but it began one of the best-selling and most beloved modern RPG franchises, and that's really saying something.