BEST RPG games you ever played?

It's more than just RPG but still RPG, you can check for Mount & Blade: Warband. If you live long enough, you may even play Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord.

NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer - Epic story. Cool characters. Great atmosphere. Mechanics that make you RP.
Pathfinder: Kingmaker - a little buggy but great. It is more combat focused than some RPGs, but the story is good.
Witcher 3.
PS:T

Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead

For a quick setup if you are using Windows:
https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/cdda-game-launcher-automatic-updates-and-more/11168

It seems the best were already posted already!
But I didn't saw thoses ones:
Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, a cult one like Arx Fatalis...
Avencast & Legend - Hand of God, both nice hack n' slash like the Dungeon Siege series...
Faery - Legends of Avalon, a little & short one.
I guess the Star Wars - KOTOR series were already mentionned too...

If you want to try something different, try Outward ( https://store.steampowered.com/app/794260/Outward/ ) :)

Rather than being a powerful hero.. you're just another person in the world, until you start training/practising weapons, etc..

Suikoden II and it's not even close for me. I love that game to death.

Some other very incredible ones: Witcher 3, Morrowind, Mount and Blade: Warband, Mass Effect trilogy, Golden Sun.

Recently?
Tyranny, made my love for classical CRPG go bananas again
Fallout New Vegas, the plot was good, and way better than F3

Other than that i feel obligated to say: Fallout 1&2, Planescape Torment, The might and magic series, and all the others i forgot

The problem with good RPG is you have to commit a lot to finish them, since i have issues with commitment, that's not easy ^^'

Edit: don't know if aRPG count really but i loved Secret of Mana on SNES

For me it's Final Fantasy IX.

ELEX <--- loved it. The Setting, the meaningful progress, the possibilities to alter the storyline... but be aware: fighting melee is a pain in the ass. Ranged weapons strongly recommended :D But still with this flaw...just wow.
Gothic 1 + 2
Risen 1 (+2+3 not THAT good)
Witcher 3
MassEffect 1+2+3

I'm not sure all the things tagged RPG in my Steam library are RPGs.

Here's one you might not have heard of: La-Mulana, the only game I've played that manages to capture that old-fashioned sense of difficulty which comes not from too many things being too good at killing you, but from needing to understand the numerous obtuse puzzles and riddles that litter every screen. It really does feel like you're exploring an ancient tomb of endless secrets.

You might like to give Anodyne a whirl, too. It brought back memories of the first time I played A Link to the Past as a kid.

Ok, this depends a bit on "What is a RPG?"... So eliminate games from my list if you decided they are not RPGs:

1. System Shock (yep, the old one... I loved it, it is great... I bet it did not age well, though, its mechanics were a bit obtuse even at the time)
2. Mass Effect 2
3. The Witcher 3
4. Planescape: Torment
5. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Final Fantasy 7, Chrono Trigger, NieR: Automata, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The Witcher 3, Illusion of Time, Terranigma

Morrowind

Fallout 76

Morrowind, not just the RPG, it's the best game ever.

Final Fantasy 6-10 (original versions of all of them)
Grandia 1-2
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Skies of Arcadia
Persona 4 (PS2 version only, not a fan of some of the changes made on the other version)
Parasite Eve 1
Ys Seven

Hoping they do a good job on the upcoming Grandia 1 port, but a bit scared they're going to destroy the beautiful pixel textures. Unfortunately this worrys me a lot: https://www.gameinformer.com/2018/09/19/exclusive-details-on-grandia-and-grandia-ii-hd-remaster

• Enhanced details to UI, sprites, and texture art. 2x to 4x upscaling
• Addition of MSAA, bloom, normal mapping, and blur effects

So depth of field blur, bloom lighting, run all the textures through a normal map filter, and redraw the character sprites (in a mobile-game style?)...that just sounds horrifying. :(

First two Fallout games and Arcanum

There are so many good RPGs... but here are a few that I really enjoyed:
Planescape: Torment
Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2
Temple of Elemental Evil
Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines
Divinity: Original Sin
Shadowrun (SNES)
Shadowrun Returns, Dragonfall & Hong Kong
Albion
Lands of Lore
Legend of Grimrock 1 & 2
Vaporum
Baldur's Gate 2
Icewind Dale
UIltima 7 part 1 & 2
Ultima Underworld 1 & 2
Final Fantasy 9
Gothic 1 & 2
System Shock 2 (kind of RPG)
Fallout 1,2 & New Vegas.

Metacritic has a pretty good list of great RPG's here. I've found that games I've played in a genre I like with a Metacritic score of 84 or higher, and an average (Metacritic + User Rating) score of at least 84, have been pretty good. So -- for instance -- Mass Effect 1 has a MC score of 89 + User score of 86 = average score of 87.5. Though of course there can be games with high ratings that just never click.

Personally:

• Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - base game was a really great adventure RPG, and the fan-made mods boosted it to another level (especially companion mods like Vilja)
• Neverwinter Nights - base game was meh for me, however the fan-made mods were excellent (Tangled Web, etc.)
• there are a bunch of games that other people have already mentioned :)

I know you said you dislike mods though. I agree some mods (that are more like cheats) can ruin the game, and even hi-res mods can make a game feel strange. However, I still like the freedom of essentially creating / customizing a game. E.g. With Baldur's Gate, the banter pack mod really made me feel immersed in the game, whereas without the banter pack the characters felt like they were dying to express themselves and just unable to. :)

Parasite Eve, a forgotten Playstation 1 game; the Resident Evil RPG... :3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExyxNT3erUk&feature=youtu.be&t=47m1s

Xenogears
Never coming on Steam. Never. Ever.