Exist when they cared more and had less things to compare it to so that nothing can ever surpass the nostalgia of the game, regardless of quality.

The story and engagement. Ultima IV let you talk to literally every NPC in the game, everyone had a name and a job and something to say.

Phantasy Star II was essentially ripped off for Final Fantasy VII to the point where from the minute they introduced Aerith I was like "Well, shit, better not give HER anything I want to keep, she's dead 1/2 way through the game." (That was Nei in PSII).

To be clear, those are just the first two off the top of my head, there were other excellent, excellent RPGs.

I really liked the gold box D&D games from SSI - Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades. They don't hold up well now due to all being turn based RPGs. There is a Steam Collection of ALL of that.

Speaking of, before Fallout, there was Wasteland which has had a modern reboot and sequel. Also a great game that had copy protection built into a story book full of backstory paragraphs.

For JRPGs, it's hard to go wrong with Suikoden 1 and 2, recently re-released on PS5, drop dead gorgeous RPGs. The Golden Sun games were great too.

I've played probably hundreds of RPGs since the start. Disco Elysium isn't even top 10. It LOOKS great, the writing is dogshit.

Just because an RPG was made 25 years ago that does not automatically make it bad lol

well to say Xenosaga surpassed it...I mean that's not hard to do.

Xenogears is great but keep in mind it's not finished. the entire second disc is proof of this. It's an unfinished game that is regarded as one of the greatest RPG's of all time. Same with Xenosaga. that's an unfinished series. so to say Xenosaga surprassed it...well yeah it got further along than Xenogears did.