1Up - 2009: The Year of the Old-School RPG

Kat Bailey from 1UP's the grind takes a look at how the biggest RPGs of the year took a step back from innovation and tried to bring back that old school flavor to the games.

I don't agree with everything that was said, like Fallout 3 trying to advance the genre. If anything it devolved the genre, but it's an interesting read nonetheless:

Dragon Age: Origins is another RPG that is actually much harder than it looks. Unlike the more action-oriented Mass Effect, it's a point-and-click RPG in the best tradition of Baldur's Gate. In fact, it contains numerous references to those classic games, with phrases like "Gather your party and venture forth?" and exhortations to "go for the eyes" guaranteed to warm the hearts of old RPG fans. No surprise given that it's basically the spiritual successor to that series.

By comparison, the biggest RPGs of 2008 seemed more determined to advance the genre. Fallout 3 and Fable II were both designed to perfect the new ideas put forth by their predecessors (I consider Oblivion a spiritual predecessor to Fallout 3) in creating a massive world for players to explore. Meanwhile, two of the best Japanese RPGs of the year were highly experimental. Valkyria Chronicles brought a number of fascinating innovations to strategy RPGs, and The World Ends With You did the same for more traditional JRPGs with its unique brand of scaleable difficulty.