You could give another system a try maybe?

I dunno, maybe Sequence, which is extremely good.

As far as RPGs go, the moment they stray too far from the formula they were using over a decade ago a bunch of RPG purists start screaming bloody murder. It's a small wonder anything's changed in the core of that genre at all due to that (there has been innovation).

Still, there's plenty of good games left, Trenched, SPAZ, From Dust (yes, this was actually pretty good), Heroes of Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes, Sequence, Trine, Defense Grid, etc. Those are just from the last year or so. Before that I can think of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom, etc.

I don't know if you want to play any of the above, but if you listen to nothing else, play Sequence. There's an easy mode if you need it, play Sequence.

I would suggest checking out Bastion, Braid, Magicka and VVVVVV. They're all quite original and fresh.

Also check out Evolva, Sacrifice, Messiah and the Little Big Adventure series on this site.

Terraria, Bit Trip Runner

As the others have said - depends what you mean by original.

The Void is original, though it can also be described as a fps/adventure thing

The Path also, though you don't do anything else then running around in 3'd person.

Kenshi seems to become something original, though it is only a rpg-rts

Vanquish gets credited for original game play, but all it did was adding some boosting to 3'd person shooting, and so on.

I am not sure if you are asking about completely new kind of game that has nothing similar to any other game ever made, or "something new"?

For instance, the original Starcraft felt quite refreshing the way it added story telling to a RTS game, and also how it was able to combine three quite different races in one game successfully (I think WarWind 1-2 might have done the latter before Starcraft, but they are mostly unknown RTS games). Or doesn't Starcraft count because it didn't create a completely new genre?

Other RTS games you might want to check out is e.g. Genewars, but it seems to be a flawed diamond.

The original Half-life could be praised the same way, new way of integrating story telling into a standard FPS game, but again it was not a new genre. And do for example following games fit your criteria, or do you consider them also "same old same old"?

- Carmageddon
- GTA (the first one, with 2D overhead view)
- Tomb Raider

Just off the top of my head some games from late 90s which I found refreshing in some ways, even if you'd be able to name some even older game that resembles them somewhat.

Having said that, you might still have some point, because two things might have curbed game innovation a bit around 1995 and after:

- CD-ROM media was finally so common that we started seeing lots of "interactive movies" with cheesy FMV acting. I am now playing Heavy Gear 1, and frankly the "movie parts" are quite painful to watch. Fortunately rest of the game seems quite ok for a mech game.

- Arrival of 3D accelerators meant that much more brain power was used to making new 3D engines for existing games, rather than coming up with new genres.


EDIT: Now I see I apparently read your message wrong. You were not asking original game ideas during years 1995-2000 (where bulk of the GOG games come from), but that there hasn't been much innovation ever since.

I think you can look at least to indie side for newer fresh ideas. Does e.g. Minecraft count, even if it was influenced by other games?

I think the Spellforce series is pretty good for gameplay. Its similar to hack n slash games like Diablo but there are also sections on some levels where you have to do base building to enforce an area. The mix between RTS and RPG is literally seamless and it appeals to the player. Instead of the constant grind of just wave after wave of enimies the pace slows when it enters the RTS side of things.

This. I gave a try to playstation 2 last year and have had so much fun playing it's exclusives, like Okami and SSX 3.

Well, you know, now we have those fluffy "quick time event" stuff in action/adventure video games... So you really can't say there hasn't be any evolution to gameplay overall :-P

Well Minecraft is totally newish almost.

Second Life is a cool social game.

World of Tanks is a cool online tactical action game.

I would never call Second Life a game - it is more comparable with Facebook, but with a 3D interface... You can play games within it, but in itself is not a game.

(Dangerous grounds here, someone may draw parallels with Minecraft)

Rock of Ages.

sorry, mistake

As for RPGs there are also the 2D side-scrollers like Aztaka or the MMORPG Maple Story.

Or Desktop Dungeons which turns rogue-likes into some kind of puzzle.

The problem is, as Orcish Gamer pointed out, that if they stray to far from the genre conventions, they're not accepted as RPGs anymore by the purists, so a new type of RPG might not be considered a RPG at all. ;)

Plus, RPG elements are integrated into all kinds of games nowadays (even if the idea to let players choose their upgrades and equipment themselves is not really a new thing).

What about Portal, the puzzle FPS?

Granted, most of the time the innovation is a new merge of old ideas, genres and mechanics, but that's the postmodern age for you. ;)