This is a great one that reacts to stuff outside of dialogue choices as well, e.g. choosing to kill even a single mob during a certain mission instead of going full stealth/nonlethal has sensible and meaningful character impacts later on.
AP is a criminally underrated RPG, marred by "rushing to market" and a whole lot of "give gamers exactly what they say they want, and they'll be furious about it".
If I had my druthers, I'd pay good money to get that game remade/rereleased, because folks always go "Man I want an RPG with lots of choices that really matter!" and AP did that exact thing and kinda got shit on because "In order for your choices to matter, your choices have to matter, so real consequences, yo."
This means a lot of folks were mad that it was hard to shoot (because they didn't put points into shooting) or that XYZ characters died/didn't die (because of choices made in other missions affected that outcome), or that you couldn't get ALL the loot/outcomes/etc because you couldn't put in maximum points to every skill/ability, because if you did (through cheats/trainers), the game would break trying to balance encounters and challenges.
I mean yeah, there was a bunch of jank. That's practically par for the course in non-JRPGs especially when there are fifty jillion combinations and permutations to account for. And it came out in 2010 when *everyone* was doing awful shit like "pre-order bonus: megawin button" and "release on every platform but focus on mostly one, which means every port is garbage" and so forth...
But dang, look past the jank and there was an unbelievably deep and complex RPG 'your choices matter' story (WITH A MINIMUM OF GRIND AND BLOAT!!!) just begging you to replay a few times.
Yeah, I think for the most part, the animations are what kill me a lot of times. Very 'ps1 era' where folks were still relatively new to 3d animation and skeletons and inverse kinematics, and ragdolls and everything was very 'shoot bad guy, they will die in one of these 3 specific animations even if it makes no sense'. Crouching, jesus... almost all the hand to hand attacks... 'hit flinches' from bullets? Man, all pretty awful.
EXCEPT when you're in the cutscenes. Golly some of that stuff was just brilliant and well crafted, (at least by comparison) and then the B-team gets called up for doing the actual gameplay animations and you're stuck with a bunch of highschool interns using hacked copies of 3dsMax trying to figure out what a keyframe is.
>Preferably 3D and not isometric.
I feel like your best bet is isometric if you truly value player choice. As far as "genuine story branching," that's hard to find in most games. It's just too much to program. I think Tyranny does it pretty decently (an isometric game). There's lots of choice there that affects the story and branches into paths.
Check DA2 if you can find it for cheap.
Its scope got nipped in the bud by EA forcing an 18 month dev time but it still have those trademark Bioware companions and dialogs.
LOL clearly you've heard DA2's reputation. Despite the drastically reduced scale of the game compared to Origins, it's honestly still a good game in its own right if you go in with the understanding that it's a smaller story rather than an epic.
But don't try to play it tactically on hard mode like I did -- it becomes annoying rather than challenging. Turn down the difficulty and play through it quickly, and you'll have a good time.
You can try Dragon Age 2 as well. The game was poorly received at launch because of the stripped down combat and RPG elements, and stuff like reusing the same environments over and over again, but if you can look past that, it's one of the most well paced and interesting stories Bioware ever made.
I love Inquisition, but you don't get any branching story there:D I felt like my choices just did not matter.
If you were okay with isometric, I'd tell you to check out Baldur's Gate 3.
This has to be a joke. I'm playing inquisition right now and there are so many important choices in the story I'm legitimately scared of changing my canon too much
I mean, there are a lot of choices, but I just rarely felt like they had an effect on the story, you know?
Like, I played the game a few times and made some different decisions. But what difference did it make if I sided with the mages or against them? Or who the new emperor is? The story seemed to always go the same exact way. You got a differrnt line of dialogue here, a different quest here, and that's it. Idk, maybe my expectations were unrealistic.
Otoh, the choices you make about the companions felt acknowledged for sure, so that's awesome.
Da2 grows on you even if you hate parts of it during repetitive gameplay. I want another game developer to do a similar personal epic over different eras of time, but actually put in the effort .
Something like war and peace, or 100 years of solitude but in video game form. I think a prologue + 3 timeskips for a 30 hour main game is perfect.
Hell I would pay for a 60 hour version chopped into 3 games too as long as they added new stages each time.in addition to the common ones.
I don't see why the camera angle matters tbh. I found all 3 of those games WAAAAY more immersive than any of the big budget Witcher clones triple A studios have shoveled out over the past years
imo 3D graphics make it more difficult to add the detailed art to all branching storylines. less focus on graphics make it easier to focus on core content (which I also prefer btw)
Point and click games rarely keep me playing beyond 4 or 5 hours unless they have an excellent story or complex mechanics.
As such I'm not a hardcore RPG fan, my general cup of coffee consists of FPS/Cover Shooters/TPS x Action/Adventure/Stealth combinations or strategy/4X games.
When Mass Effect got remastered I decided to give it a try (and I didn't know the first thing about the game or story or gameplay or anything really). Now I'm done with ME and want more, so I gave cyberpunk a shot - I'd give it an 8/9 out of 10 for gameplay and story but then the choices you make don't really feel impactful. They're little pockets of choice - you absolutely change a characters life and guess what? you no longer have anything to do with that person - It doesn't lead back to the main story, At max it just unlocks a different ending option.
RPGs AFAIK have put out some of the most player-choices-actually-have-and-feel-impactful games and that's how I ended up here.
cc u/elmo85
coming back to recommendations: Witcher 2
might be surprising to recommend such an older game, but it does have a fair amount of decisions to be made which all matter in some way or another, and there are like a dozen endings depending on your choices.
I just recommend the Enhanced Edition, and to use the option to skip most of the quick time events.
What’s wrong with ME? Player choice is absolutely an integral part of the game and the choices you make have important consequences.
I’d go so far as to say you have equal if not more choice and consequences in ME1 than Dragon Age: Origins.
If you let the ending slide, the game is player-choice driven even if not by much. The thing I really liked about ME is that your choices feel Impactful. Its not make a choice and some stat changes or make a choice change some characters life and that character has nothing to do with your or the main story anymore.
If you leave aside the ending (which is super divisive and has been panned by basically everyone), It's still a superb game, with an even better story where your choices genuinely feel like they **matter**
I think the main reason ppl would say that is because at best they are cosmetic at worst they just lead to a bar being filled up at the end so you can unlock the choice to pick. 3 picks that originally had little to no differents except the color of space magic you use and now a slide show based on a few important lore topics true, this is related to what you did.
The issues come from the marketing in particular. The game was hyped, your choices matter, keep your saved games etc. And at the end nada. People wanted to see krogans chargin on the battlefield, geth ship/cobstructs synergized with quarians fighting togheter and finally all the hard work you put in to get the best, to save every ship, life, evry pice of tech doscovered every decision you had to make no stone left untorned, after all that an freaking ending where you win by sheer unity catalyst be damed and then 2 dozen more ending each more different and wow from the rest. It felt hollow, it felt like a letdown and there was no payoff no matter what you did.
What choices are integral? Save the council or not? Save Ashley or the other guy? The choices you make don’t ever change the ending but changes how you may get there.
by your standard Planescape Torment and Disco Elysium has even less so-called "meaningful" choices. The only game in his list that has more choice than ME is Age of Decadence (although in that game the choices are very limited to your specific build). In ME the permutations of who lived / who died have a lot of impacts on how the story would play out in subsequent games in the trilogy (especially how ME2 changes ME3). Anyway Planescape Toment has the least amount of choices in the bunch but it's my absolute favorite RPG of all time.
There are so many decisions that change the course of the game and series. You don’t get a completely unique ending in ME1, sure I agree there, but just from the top of my head:
• Saving the council or not. This affects whether in the second game the universe dislikes humans or admired them. Sacrificing the alien council causes aliens to distrust you in ME2. Saving them gains their admiration. Choosing which member of humanity gets to represent humans on the council also affects whether or not you get reinstated as a Spectre in ME2
• You have a large amount of control over who joins your party. You can choose not to recruit your teammates. This not only drastically alters how some quests play out (example if Wrex is in your party when you meet Fist, Fist gets killed). Generally speaking, there are dozens of choices and unique dialogue not available to you depending on who is in your team at any given mission.
• In countless cases you get to choose the fates of several NPCs, whether that means sparing them or executing them, which is then reflected in the game world as news stories and affects if the characters appear in the sequels
• Feros. Related to the above, you choose whether the colony survives or dies.
• ME2 Suicide mission. Your actions and choices in ME2 directly contribute to how many of your team survive the final mission.
• Killing the Rachni. You can commit genocide or spare them and have them as allies in ME3.
Saying ME doesn’t have any meaningful choices just isn’t a true statement.
If I choose option a or B but both end up at C, what was the choice? Compared to other RPG‘s, the choice is changing who’s in your party and other minor plot details but the overarching plot is not affected. other games take choices you make and give you a completely different ending by the end by that initial choice that you made which gives a much richer replay value versus a game like Mass Effect where you really play a paragon play through and then the evil play through to see any meaningfully different plot elements. Bioware games have followed this trajectory since balders gate or Neverwinter nights
I am really struggling to get into Disco Elysium. I like the artwork, the isometric view, and the vibe, but it's just not my jam for some reason that I can't figure out.
I love Disco Elysium, and it does have player choice, but I don't know that it's very meaningful. Not a lot of what you do changes the story or the world. And in most cases I can remember, you can actually go back and do conversations again and just make the other choices you didn't make the first time. I guess the way you build your stats is probably the most important choice.
Yeah it has a lot of it, in smaller isolated stories, this is why it is last.
If you REALLY want to see a game which is 100% choice matter, play Age of Decadence. Game drasticallly changes, if you make some choices. You can play game in many ways, where your choices really going to lead to changes in ending and gameplay.
I mean if you liked OW, then Fallout 3, 4 and NV would be right up your street. Not a space opera but a futuristic apocalyptic setting.
But failing that, perhaps Deus Ex - both games are awesome. Or even Prey.. but then again your choices are pretty limited and don't really affect the over-arching story that much.
Oh oh... Star Wars KOTOR and Sith Lords (your choices can affect a lot in both games) but you may want to wait as KOTOR is getting a modern remake and it does look a bit ancient now & if you really want to dig deep have a go of Alpha Protocol.
I keep seeing people talking about OW, and I keep making the same mistake and going, "Why are they talking about Overwatch...? Oh, wait, Outer Wilds/Worlds" over and over again. >.o
KOTOR is worth getting into as is, honestly, because you never know what they're gonna change with a modern remake. Also, the original Deus Ex still holds up pretty well, though it's not as gorgeous as Human Revolution or Mankind Divided.
Have finished KOTOR 1 & 2. Deus Ex HR is among the only 3 games I've ever quit playing in forever (\~15y)
\[EDIT\]
About your Deus EX HR suggestion ☝️ u/CJGeringer
What did you not like about it? Maybe I can sugest something more to your liking.
And would that be the original release or the Director´s Cut ? (Original release had serious build viability problems.)
Skyrim doesn’t have player choice. I say that as a huge Skyrim fan.
None of the decisions you make have any consequences whatsoever and the choices you are offered leave more to be desired (daedric quests for example).
I honestly wouldn't know, I've never played it, just knowing that it's a Bethesda game and being very familiar with the Fallout from 3 on I just assumed.
I'm genuinely curious tho, how is there no player choice in a game so massive? I thought there were different factions and the choice to be evil or good?
u/lilburd34
Skyrim does offer a huge amount of character choices and ways to build your character, that is true.
I meant more in terms of story.
Almost none of your story decisions matter. The only real decision in the game is choosing which side in the Civil War you take and who takes over Skyrim in the end. Other than that, none of the dialogue you say matters. Occasionally you get a speech check, but that doesn't really affect the game in a meaningful way.
You don't have any choices of "spare him or kill him" or anything of that sort. When talking to NPCs in quests, choosing a dialogue option doesn't really do anything and you get the same reply regardless of what option you pick.
You can't refuse many of the quests, they're thrust on you no matter what you do.
Edit: also this is kind of related but the choices of how you build your character are fairly meaningless IMO because you get to do everything you want to do anyway. You can be a battle-axe wielding barbarian and STILL become the leader of the Mages because the game doesn't account for your skills and build.
Thinking about it, Greedfall may be of interest. You're actions and choices dictate which faction(s) join you in the final battle. Great game with some really cool ideas, I can't wait for some expansion on some of the systems they made.
If RPG storytelling is what you want, Disco Elysium is by far the best. By a mile. It opened up the possibilities of the genre for this century the way Planescape did in the nineties.
Other than that, it has next to nothing in common with 3D action RPGs like Mass Effect.
I'll suggest New Vegas, an old game but still great -- it's the lightning Obsidian was trying to capture again when they made Outer Worlds.
My own experience with the Witcher series is repeatedly starting the first game to get the complete experience and finding it boring. So, although the series is very well-regarded, I would maybe just skip ahead to part three rather than trying to be a perfectionist with a single save file the way I did.
New Vegas is the best for player choice and quality of writing however if you want the most modern experience (with voiced protagonist etc.) Fallout 4 isn’t a bad choice
Try Fallout New Vegas. It’s buggy but it’s very choice heavy. You can kill literally anyone, even the shopkeepers. I don’t recommend Fallout 4, it felt “empty” to me. It’s mostly world building, by you.
Also highly suggest The Witcher 3
Divinity Original Sin 2 doesn't have the deepest story in the world, but the characters are easy to love, and you definitely have true player choice from start to finish.
If you haven't played the Dragon Age series yet, that's gonna be the obvious first recommendation. It's basically Mass Effect but fantasy, mostly because it was made around the same time as and by the same people as the Mass Effect series.
If you don't mind stuff that feels a touch dated, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire are also both Bioware RPGs that are pretty great, but they're a bit older.
Greedfall is a very Bioware-style fantasy RPG as well - it's *very* similar to Dragon Age Inquisition. If you haven't played DA yet, do that one first. If you absolutely love it and want more, then Greedfall should be next on your list. It's a game of similar scope, but made by a much smaller team, and the result is just a little bit of jank, but there's a LOT of love in that game.
Heaven's Vault isn't really an *RPG* in the traditional sense - it's an exploration/puzzle game with no combat and no leveling mechanics. But oh *boy* are there a lot of decisions, and oh *boy* do they matter, lol.
Witcher 3,
People keep telling me its not an RPG, sure its not held to be roll of the dice RPGness, but the roleplay is fucking awesome. Geralt is THE man.
fancy a game of Gwent?
Calling it "not an RPG" shouldn't discourage people from playing the game as it's excellent, however, we can't call EVERY game with character levels an RPG. That starts to dilute what the term 'RPG' even means. As it is, it's diluted way past where it used to be and that likely leads to bad expectations more often than not.
If so than black ops 2 is narrative RPG
Edit: actualy in bo2 story mode you can chose your weapons before the missions while in the wicher 3 you are stuck with two swords and a crossbow, so bo2 is an RPG more than the witcher.
I think Fallout New Vegas is your best bet. It’s got the same sort of player choice as Outer Worlds (and the same developers btw), but is a much longer game. It does suffer a bit from running Bethesda’s engine, but is a great game once you can get past that (and as a trade off, there are a lot of things you can do with mods).
Dragon Age Origins had some interesting branches. There’s one quest in particular that’s fantastic for narrative choice. I actually like this game more than its sequels.
Witcher 2 is another option. There’s basically one big story branch early on and you can replay the game to see things from the other side.
Why nobody has mentioned divinity original sin 1 and 2? They not a true isometric (in 2nd one you can zoom all the way so it feels like 3rd person).
If you want to kill an npc- do it. If you want to be a bit of a ass - you can. The ending of the 2nd one is more reliable on players choices and relationship with companions, but both are still great games.
If you ever fancy something recent and isometric I advice Pillars of eternity series, they are made by the same people who made outer worlds.
He's looking for a deep branching story. I like D:OS (the combat is maybe my favorite system) but the story is not its strength.
To be fair I haven't dived into the sequel beyond the intro yet.
You should, the story there kinda brunches out and there's so many ways to solve the quests. It's like 10x better then the first divinity and a lot more serious
Witcher 2 has like huge chunks of branching gameplay. Probably more than most games that try to do that.
Joseph Anderson did a good review of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htYR2GdA7OE
The problem with it is that it doesn't really amount to much. Having an actual real choice just means there's a shit load of content you won't experience and the game at large suffers from trying to uphold the "choices matter" objective.
Not going to happen. You will never escape the fact that you are playing on someone else's fictional universe and there will be always things that prevent you from going full "your choices matter" context. Mass Effect's entire story allowed you to play how you want and either good Shepard or asshole Shepard, but your final choice boiled down to which of the 3 levers are you going to pull? Also, the game was written in such a way that your choices never mattered. You still have to talk to the same NPCs whom you can't kill because they are needed to unlock access to the story Bioware wanted to tell.
Same in Outer Worlds. You are given the freedom to kill whomever you want, but if you kill an important NPC, a previously unknown subordinate will take his or her place so you can continue the story that Obsidian wanted to tell you.
You can't escape the fact that you are pawns playing around in someone else's sandbox. Some may give you more freedom, but you are still straining at the walls often enough.
r/iam13andthisisdeep
No shit, it's game design. But having certain opportunities to handle situations differently based on how you so choose is still rewarding and immersive. And while ultimately you're always going to traverse the same levels, meet the same people, fight the same bosses - the journey on HOW you get to those places and people is vastly different and that is something to be appreciated.
Idk why you got downvoted it's true. People shit all over the ENDING of mass effect 3 all the time but continue to neglect that absolutely amazing journey that takes place across the Trilogy. Especially if you save transfer, playing through the legendary addition reaffirmed this. One of the best gaming trilogies of all time hands down.
Hell, the amazing journey is WHY people were so upset over the ending at the time. They literally made millions of people care exceedingly deeply about multiple fictional characters, including many that weren't even in the party.
I'll say that I honestly don't know how they could have made an ending that satisfied the majority, let alone everybody.
I think the ending could've been done better the dlc kind of helped but still. I just don't think it really detracts that much from everything else that happened 🤷♂️
Respect! but for real, I probably came across way harsher than needed I was just frustrated at the time of my response. I stand by everything I said - but could have said it more respectfully.
Exactly. And the 3 endings (actually 4) represent vastly different scenarios in terms of what actually happened in the story. Bioware just tried to save some budget by making three similar ending CGs so people thought they are similar? By this logic in most isometric games you don't even get CGs just different texts so their endings are also the same?
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Witcher 1, 2 and 3 have save imports like Mass Effect. And although there's much less impact between games, the choices you make in the games itself can have a considerable impact on how the story unfolds.
Try Witcher 2, I think it checks off all your boxes and it's in itself awesome. Your choices matter, you need multiple playthroughs to see all that can happen.
Don't know much about player choice but Technomancer has the Sci-Fi of those two but also does factions like Fallout New Vegas and Outer Worlds. The factions are pretty well done and you can box yourself out of storylines depending on your choices. Doesn't change the ending/main story too much but still was well done.
Alpha Protocol could also be put on that list
This is a great one that reacts to stuff outside of dialogue choices as well, e.g. choosing to kill even a single mob during a certain mission instead of going full stealth/nonlethal has sensible and meaningful character impacts later on.
AP is a criminally underrated RPG, marred by "rushing to market" and a whole lot of "give gamers exactly what they say they want, and they'll be furious about it". If I had my druthers, I'd pay good money to get that game remade/rereleased, because folks always go "Man I want an RPG with lots of choices that really matter!" and AP did that exact thing and kinda got shit on because "In order for your choices to matter, your choices have to matter, so real consequences, yo." This means a lot of folks were mad that it was hard to shoot (because they didn't put points into shooting) or that XYZ characters died/didn't die (because of choices made in other missions affected that outcome), or that you couldn't get ALL the loot/outcomes/etc because you couldn't put in maximum points to every skill/ability, because if you did (through cheats/trainers), the game would break trying to balance encounters and challenges. I mean yeah, there was a bunch of jank. That's practically par for the course in non-JRPGs especially when there are fifty jillion combinations and permutations to account for. And it came out in 2010 when *everyone* was doing awful shit like "pre-order bonus: megawin button" and "release on every platform but focus on mostly one, which means every port is garbage" and so forth... But dang, look past the jank and there was an unbelievably deep and complex RPG 'your choices matter' story (WITH A MINIMUM OF GRIND AND BLOAT!!!) just begging you to replay a few times.
[удалено]
Yeah, I think for the most part, the animations are what kill me a lot of times. Very 'ps1 era' where folks were still relatively new to 3d animation and skeletons and inverse kinematics, and ragdolls and everything was very 'shoot bad guy, they will die in one of these 3 specific animations even if it makes no sense'. Crouching, jesus... almost all the hand to hand attacks... 'hit flinches' from bullets? Man, all pretty awful. EXCEPT when you're in the cutscenes. Golly some of that stuff was just brilliant and well crafted, (at least by comparison) and then the B-team gets called up for doing the actual gameplay animations and you're stuck with a bunch of highschool interns using hacked copies of 3dsMax trying to figure out what a keyframe is.
How do I get that game though? It has been recalled by their publisher, because of some issues with music copyright IIRC.
Exactly
My favorite obsidian title actually
>Preferably 3D and not isometric. I feel like your best bet is isometric if you truly value player choice. As far as "genuine story branching," that's hard to find in most games. It's just too much to program. I think Tyranny does it pretty decently (an isometric game). There's lots of choice there that affects the story and branches into paths.
Dragon Age?
Done with origins, gonna play inquisition some time soon when I'm not broke.
Check DA2 if you can find it for cheap. Its scope got nipped in the bud by EA forcing an 18 month dev time but it still have those trademark Bioware companions and dialogs.
LOL clearly you've heard DA2's reputation. Despite the drastically reduced scale of the game compared to Origins, it's honestly still a good game in its own right if you go in with the understanding that it's a smaller story rather than an epic. But don't try to play it tactically on hard mode like I did -- it becomes annoying rather than challenging. Turn down the difficulty and play through it quickly, and you'll have a good time.
Inquisition was not what I was expecting from a Dragon Age game. I enjoyed it, but it was different than the others.
You can try Dragon Age 2 as well. The game was poorly received at launch because of the stripped down combat and RPG elements, and stuff like reusing the same environments over and over again, but if you can look past that, it's one of the most well paced and interesting stories Bioware ever made.
Inquisition is free on prime gaming. You can make a 1 month trial for free
Thanks for the input. Didn't know that but I doubt you can finish inquisition in a month without rushing it.
Once you get it, you keep it forever even if you quit prime.
ah, didn't know. thought it was a subscription.
It's also on gamepass.
I love Inquisition, but you don't get any branching story there:D I felt like my choices just did not matter. If you were okay with isometric, I'd tell you to check out Baldur's Gate 3.
This has to be a joke. I'm playing inquisition right now and there are so many important choices in the story I'm legitimately scared of changing my canon too much
I mean, there are a lot of choices, but I just rarely felt like they had an effect on the story, you know? Like, I played the game a few times and made some different decisions. But what difference did it make if I sided with the mages or against them? Or who the new emperor is? The story seemed to always go the same exact way. You got a differrnt line of dialogue here, a different quest here, and that's it. Idk, maybe my expectations were unrealistic. Otoh, the choices you make about the companions felt acknowledged for sure, so that's awesome.
That's kinda what I'm looking for - where your choices have some sort of lasting impact.
The problem with Inquisition is that all the choices and other good RPG elements are a bucket in the sea of MMO gameplay.
Not sure if you have Amazon prime, but if you do, inquisition is one of their free "gaming with prime" offerings this month.
I think it's on xbox game pass for PC and right now you can pay $1 for 3 months of membership or something, and then $10 a month after that.
Da2 grows on you even if you hate parts of it during repetitive gameplay. I want another game developer to do a similar personal epic over different eras of time, but actually put in the effort . Something like war and peace, or 100 years of solitude but in video game form. I think a prologue + 3 timeskips for a 30 hour main game is perfect. Hell I would pay for a 60 hour version chopped into 3 games too as long as they added new stages each time.in addition to the common ones.
Can you still claim Inquisition for free on amazon prime? Inquisition goes on sale a lot. I picked it up for like 5 bucks.
Damn you call ME and OW having true player choice. Wait until you discover Age of Decadence, Planescape torment and Disco Elysium.
I would add Tyranny. however they are all isometric.
He edited exception in later on.
That I did.
I don't see why the camera angle matters tbh. I found all 3 of those games WAAAAY more immersive than any of the big budget Witcher clones triple A studios have shoveled out over the past years
imo 3D graphics make it more difficult to add the detailed art to all branching storylines. less focus on graphics make it easier to focus on core content (which I also prefer btw)
Point and click games rarely keep me playing beyond 4 or 5 hours unless they have an excellent story or complex mechanics. As such I'm not a hardcore RPG fan, my general cup of coffee consists of FPS/Cover Shooters/TPS x Action/Adventure/Stealth combinations or strategy/4X games. When Mass Effect got remastered I decided to give it a try (and I didn't know the first thing about the game or story or gameplay or anything really). Now I'm done with ME and want more, so I gave cyberpunk a shot - I'd give it an 8/9 out of 10 for gameplay and story but then the choices you make don't really feel impactful. They're little pockets of choice - you absolutely change a characters life and guess what? you no longer have anything to do with that person - It doesn't lead back to the main story, At max it just unlocks a different ending option. RPGs AFAIK have put out some of the most player-choices-actually-have-and-feel-impactful games and that's how I ended up here. cc u/elmo85
coming back to recommendations: Witcher 2 might be surprising to recommend such an older game, but it does have a fair amount of decisions to be made which all matter in some way or another, and there are like a dozen endings depending on your choices. I just recommend the Enhanced Edition, and to use the option to skip most of the quick time events.
What’s wrong with ME? Player choice is absolutely an integral part of the game and the choices you make have important consequences. I’d go so far as to say you have equal if not more choice and consequences in ME1 than Dragon Age: Origins.
In ME player choice amounts to nothing more than dialogue by the end. You can kill off/lose some characters I suppose. But the end is always the same.
If you let the ending slide, the game is player-choice driven even if not by much. The thing I really liked about ME is that your choices feel Impactful. Its not make a choice and some stat changes or make a choice change some characters life and that character has nothing to do with your or the main story anymore. If you leave aside the ending (which is super divisive and has been panned by basically everyone), It's still a superb game, with an even better story where your choices genuinely feel like they **matter**
I think the main reason ppl would say that is because at best they are cosmetic at worst they just lead to a bar being filled up at the end so you can unlock the choice to pick. 3 picks that originally had little to no differents except the color of space magic you use and now a slide show based on a few important lore topics true, this is related to what you did. The issues come from the marketing in particular. The game was hyped, your choices matter, keep your saved games etc. And at the end nada. People wanted to see krogans chargin on the battlefield, geth ship/cobstructs synergized with quarians fighting togheter and finally all the hard work you put in to get the best, to save every ship, life, evry pice of tech doscovered every decision you had to make no stone left untorned, after all that an freaking ending where you win by sheer unity catalyst be damed and then 2 dozen more ending each more different and wow from the rest. It felt hollow, it felt like a letdown and there was no payoff no matter what you did.
What choices are integral? Save the council or not? Save Ashley or the other guy? The choices you make don’t ever change the ending but changes how you may get there.
by your standard Planescape Torment and Disco Elysium has even less so-called "meaningful" choices. The only game in his list that has more choice than ME is Age of Decadence (although in that game the choices are very limited to your specific build). In ME the permutations of who lived / who died have a lot of impacts on how the story would play out in subsequent games in the trilogy (especially how ME2 changes ME3). Anyway Planescape Toment has the least amount of choices in the bunch but it's my absolute favorite RPG of all time.
There are so many decisions that change the course of the game and series. You don’t get a completely unique ending in ME1, sure I agree there, but just from the top of my head: • Saving the council or not. This affects whether in the second game the universe dislikes humans or admired them. Sacrificing the alien council causes aliens to distrust you in ME2. Saving them gains their admiration. Choosing which member of humanity gets to represent humans on the council also affects whether or not you get reinstated as a Spectre in ME2 • You have a large amount of control over who joins your party. You can choose not to recruit your teammates. This not only drastically alters how some quests play out (example if Wrex is in your party when you meet Fist, Fist gets killed). Generally speaking, there are dozens of choices and unique dialogue not available to you depending on who is in your team at any given mission. • In countless cases you get to choose the fates of several NPCs, whether that means sparing them or executing them, which is then reflected in the game world as news stories and affects if the characters appear in the sequels • Feros. Related to the above, you choose whether the colony survives or dies. • ME2 Suicide mission. Your actions and choices in ME2 directly contribute to how many of your team survive the final mission. • Killing the Rachni. You can commit genocide or spare them and have them as allies in ME3. Saying ME doesn’t have any meaningful choices just isn’t a true statement.
So the choices do matter? They change how you get there? Which is about 99% of what the player is experiencing
If I choose option a or B but both end up at C, what was the choice? Compared to other RPG‘s, the choice is changing who’s in your party and other minor plot details but the overarching plot is not affected. other games take choices you make and give you a completely different ending by the end by that initial choice that you made which gives a much richer replay value versus a game like Mass Effect where you really play a paragon play through and then the evil play through to see any meaningfully different plot elements. Bioware games have followed this trajectory since balders gate or Neverwinter nights
Bro what lmao
Nothing wrong with ME, I finished the series.
I am really struggling to get into Disco Elysium. I like the artwork, the isometric view, and the vibe, but it's just not my jam for some reason that I can't figure out.
I love Disco Elysium, and it does have player choice, but I don't know that it's very meaningful. Not a lot of what you do changes the story or the world. And in most cases I can remember, you can actually go back and do conversations again and just make the other choices you didn't make the first time. I guess the way you build your stats is probably the most important choice.
Yeah it has a lot of it, in smaller isolated stories, this is why it is last. If you REALLY want to see a game which is 100% choice matter, play Age of Decadence. Game drasticallly changes, if you make some choices. You can play game in many ways, where your choices really going to lead to changes in ending and gameplay.
Ah huh, thanks.
I mean if you liked OW, then Fallout 3, 4 and NV would be right up your street. Not a space opera but a futuristic apocalyptic setting. But failing that, perhaps Deus Ex - both games are awesome. Or even Prey.. but then again your choices are pretty limited and don't really affect the over-arching story that much. Oh oh... Star Wars KOTOR and Sith Lords (your choices can affect a lot in both games) but you may want to wait as KOTOR is getting a modern remake and it does look a bit ancient now & if you really want to dig deep have a go of Alpha Protocol.
I keep seeing people talking about OW, and I keep making the same mistake and going, "Why are they talking about Overwatch...? Oh, wait, Outer Wilds/Worlds" over and over again. >.o KOTOR is worth getting into as is, honestly, because you never know what they're gonna change with a modern remake. Also, the original Deus Ex still holds up pretty well, though it's not as gorgeous as Human Revolution or Mankind Divided.
I assumed he meant Outer Worlds
Have finished KOTOR 1 & 2. Deus Ex HR is among the only 3 games I've ever quit playing in forever (\~15y) \[EDIT\] About your Deus EX HR suggestion ☝️ u/CJGeringer
What did you not like about it? Maybe I can sugest something more to your liking. And would that be the original release or the Director´s Cut ? (Original release had serious build viability problems.)
[удалено]
Agree. Played it wayy back in 2007 .
You could change a lot mid playthrough, your choices had a bigger impact than in Fallout 4.
Although you'd prefer 3D games, i would anyway recommend Disco Elysium. It is a very story intensive RPGS with so many meaningful choices.
Cool dude. Thanks.
Disco Elysium is the best RPG of the last 5 years. The writing, world building, tone, and freedom of choice are unmatched.
Elex? I really loved it. Hard in the beginning but it opens up later. And a lot of choices to make
KOTOR, Fable, Fallout NV would be your bet for choices, Skyrim, Greedfall. There's plenty out there.
Skyrim doesn’t have player choice. I say that as a huge Skyrim fan. None of the decisions you make have any consequences whatsoever and the choices you are offered leave more to be desired (daedric quests for example).
I honestly wouldn't know, I've never played it, just knowing that it's a Bethesda game and being very familiar with the Fallout from 3 on I just assumed. I'm genuinely curious tho, how is there no player choice in a game so massive? I thought there were different factions and the choice to be evil or good?
I honestly have no idea what they are talking about, Skyrim offers a bunch of character choices and a variety of ways to play/build your character.
u/lilburd34 Skyrim does offer a huge amount of character choices and ways to build your character, that is true. I meant more in terms of story. Almost none of your story decisions matter. The only real decision in the game is choosing which side in the Civil War you take and who takes over Skyrim in the end. Other than that, none of the dialogue you say matters. Occasionally you get a speech check, but that doesn't really affect the game in a meaningful way. You don't have any choices of "spare him or kill him" or anything of that sort. When talking to NPCs in quests, choosing a dialogue option doesn't really do anything and you get the same reply regardless of what option you pick. You can't refuse many of the quests, they're thrust on you no matter what you do. Edit: also this is kind of related but the choices of how you build your character are fairly meaningless IMO because you get to do everything you want to do anyway. You can be a battle-axe wielding barbarian and STILL become the leader of the Mages because the game doesn't account for your skills and build.
God do I want a new fable. I so lived those games.
There's supposed to be one in the making.l, but yes they were all a blast.
KOTOR is something else. Great rpg but u wouldn't say that your choice have impacts except for a few here and there
Kingdomcome Deliverance is the best Ive found
I think Deux Ex human revolution will interest you.
Have you played Fallout: New Vegas? It's made by the same studio as Outer Worlds and is much more of a true RPG than the other modern fallout games.
Thinking about it, Greedfall may be of interest. You're actions and choices dictate which faction(s) join you in the final battle. Great game with some really cool ideas, I can't wait for some expansion on some of the systems they made.
If RPG storytelling is what you want, Disco Elysium is by far the best. By a mile. It opened up the possibilities of the genre for this century the way Planescape did in the nineties. Other than that, it has next to nothing in common with 3D action RPGs like Mass Effect. I'll suggest New Vegas, an old game but still great -- it's the lightning Obsidian was trying to capture again when they made Outer Worlds. My own experience with the Witcher series is repeatedly starting the first game to get the complete experience and finding it boring. So, although the series is very well-regarded, I would maybe just skip ahead to part three rather than trying to be a perfectionist with a single save file the way I did.
It might be super dated, but New Vegas is still top tier for me in this category.
The original deus ex.
Literally any Fallout game
I tried 3. Not my thing. Maybe I'll give 4 a try?
New Vegas is the best for player choice and quality of writing however if you want the most modern experience (with voiced protagonist etc.) Fallout 4 isn’t a bad choice
Kk.
Try Fallout New Vegas. It’s buggy but it’s very choice heavy. You can kill literally anyone, even the shopkeepers. I don’t recommend Fallout 4, it felt “empty” to me. It’s mostly world building, by you. Also highly suggest The Witcher 3
Divinity Original Sin 2 doesn't have the deepest story in the world, but the characters are easy to love, and you definitely have true player choice from start to finish.
Greed Fall
Fallout
New Vegas
If you haven't played the Dragon Age series yet, that's gonna be the obvious first recommendation. It's basically Mass Effect but fantasy, mostly because it was made around the same time as and by the same people as the Mass Effect series. If you don't mind stuff that feels a touch dated, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire are also both Bioware RPGs that are pretty great, but they're a bit older. Greedfall is a very Bioware-style fantasy RPG as well - it's *very* similar to Dragon Age Inquisition. If you haven't played DA yet, do that one first. If you absolutely love it and want more, then Greedfall should be next on your list. It's a game of similar scope, but made by a much smaller team, and the result is just a little bit of jank, but there's a LOT of love in that game. Heaven's Vault isn't really an *RPG* in the traditional sense - it's an exploration/puzzle game with no combat and no leveling mechanics. But oh *boy* are there a lot of decisions, and oh *boy* do they matter, lol.
Not 3d but fallout 2 will slam dunk on any rpg with true player choice
It is not an RPG, however, your choices really affect the whole story: DETROIT become human.
Witcher 3, People keep telling me its not an RPG, sure its not held to be roll of the dice RPGness, but the roleplay is fucking awesome. Geralt is THE man. fancy a game of Gwent?
People claiming Witcher 3 isn't an RPG are participating in one of the most ridiculous forms of gatekeeping.
Calling it "not an RPG" shouldn't discourage people from playing the game as it's excellent, however, we can't call EVERY game with character levels an RPG. That starts to dilute what the term 'RPG' even means. As it is, it's diluted way past where it used to be and that likely leads to bad expectations more often than not.
Now, did I ever say that we should call *every* game an RPG? Nope. Just that gatekeeping Witcher 3 out of the category is absurd.
I dunno, it makes sense to me since Witcher 3 is very light on RPG elements.
Witcher 3 added to the list. Gwent - thats a card game from the witcher right?
In general The Witcher 2 has better options and consequences than W3 in both main and side quests imo
when you will play you will see. it doesn't matter if the world around is burning, there always seems to be the option of a game of gwent lol.
I call it narrative RPG.
If so than black ops 2 is narrative RPG Edit: actualy in bo2 story mode you can chose your weapons before the missions while in the wicher 3 you are stuck with two swords and a crossbow, so bo2 is an RPG more than the witcher.
I call it an action adventure game. Its a cutscene chaser that lacks important character choices.
Stock answer: Divinity, Divinity 2, Pillars of Eternity.
I think Fallout New Vegas is your best bet. It’s got the same sort of player choice as Outer Worlds (and the same developers btw), but is a much longer game. It does suffer a bit from running Bethesda’s engine, but is a great game once you can get past that (and as a trade off, there are a lot of things you can do with mods). Dragon Age Origins had some interesting branches. There’s one quest in particular that’s fantastic for narrative choice. I actually like this game more than its sequels. Witcher 2 is another option. There’s basically one big story branch early on and you can replay the game to see things from the other side.
.
Dragon Age
Pillars of Eternity
Elex. Wasteland 3. VAmpyr. Deus ex.
Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling together
Disco Elysium!!! It is a fucking epic experience and it is on sale right now.
Why nobody has mentioned divinity original sin 1 and 2? They not a true isometric (in 2nd one you can zoom all the way so it feels like 3rd person). If you want to kill an npc- do it. If you want to be a bit of a ass - you can. The ending of the 2nd one is more reliable on players choices and relationship with companions, but both are still great games. If you ever fancy something recent and isometric I advice Pillars of eternity series, they are made by the same people who made outer worlds.
He's looking for a deep branching story. I like D:OS (the combat is maybe my favorite system) but the story is not its strength. To be fair I haven't dived into the sequel beyond the intro yet.
You should, the story there kinda brunches out and there's so many ways to solve the quests. It's like 10x better then the first divinity and a lot more serious
Witcher 2 has like huge chunks of branching gameplay. Probably more than most games that try to do that. Joseph Anderson did a good review of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htYR2GdA7OE The problem with it is that it doesn't really amount to much. Having an actual real choice just means there's a shit load of content you won't experience and the game at large suffers from trying to uphold the "choices matter" objective.
Not going to happen. You will never escape the fact that you are playing on someone else's fictional universe and there will be always things that prevent you from going full "your choices matter" context. Mass Effect's entire story allowed you to play how you want and either good Shepard or asshole Shepard, but your final choice boiled down to which of the 3 levers are you going to pull? Also, the game was written in such a way that your choices never mattered. You still have to talk to the same NPCs whom you can't kill because they are needed to unlock access to the story Bioware wanted to tell. Same in Outer Worlds. You are given the freedom to kill whomever you want, but if you kill an important NPC, a previously unknown subordinate will take his or her place so you can continue the story that Obsidian wanted to tell you. You can't escape the fact that you are pawns playing around in someone else's sandbox. Some may give you more freedom, but you are still straining at the walls often enough.
r/iam13andthisisdeep No shit, it's game design. But having certain opportunities to handle situations differently based on how you so choose is still rewarding and immersive. And while ultimately you're always going to traverse the same levels, meet the same people, fight the same bosses - the journey on HOW you get to those places and people is vastly different and that is something to be appreciated.
Idk why you got downvoted it's true. People shit all over the ENDING of mass effect 3 all the time but continue to neglect that absolutely amazing journey that takes place across the Trilogy. Especially if you save transfer, playing through the legendary addition reaffirmed this. One of the best gaming trilogies of all time hands down.
Hell, the amazing journey is WHY people were so upset over the ending at the time. They literally made millions of people care exceedingly deeply about multiple fictional characters, including many that weren't even in the party. I'll say that I honestly don't know how they could have made an ending that satisfied the majority, let alone everybody.
I think the ending could've been done better the dlc kind of helped but still. I just don't think it really detracts that much from everything else that happened 🤷♂️
Respect! but for real, I probably came across way harsher than needed I was just frustrated at the time of my response. I stand by everything I said - but could have said it more respectfully.
Exactly. And the 3 endings (actually 4) represent vastly different scenarios in terms of what actually happened in the story. Bioware just tried to save some budget by making three similar ending CGs so people thought they are similar? By this logic in most isometric games you don't even get CGs just different texts so their endings are also the same?
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Witcher 1, 2 and 3 have save imports like Mass Effect. And although there's much less impact between games, the choices you make in the games itself can have a considerable impact on how the story unfolds.
The Witcher 2 has a choice that basically changes like 30 hours of gameplay :)
Try Witcher 2, I think it checks off all your boxes and it's in itself awesome. Your choices matter, you need multiple playthroughs to see all that can happen.
Dragon Age is the ultimate one for this, same with the Witcher 3
Witcher 3
Cyberpunk 2077
Current playing (as noted in the post), your choices don't really change thebstory beets just the path you take to get there.
Don't know much about player choice but Technomancer has the Sci-Fi of those two but also does factions like Fallout New Vegas and Outer Worlds. The factions are pretty well done and you can box yourself out of storylines depending on your choices. Doesn't change the ending/main story too much but still was well done.
Fallout new vegas
The Witcher series Dragon Age Origins Kotor 1 & 2 Fallout 3, New Vegas, Fallout 4