Console RPG thoughts

[Chairman7w]

You know, I love my RPGs - It's a good time for RPGs lately.

Having recently finished Mass Effect 2, and of late played (but not finished yet) Kingdoms of Amalur, Dragon’s Dogma and the old school Chrono Cross, I’m SO in RPG mode right now.

On a side-note, I put in Skyrim last night to get back to that for a bit and… wow. It is SO far ahead of the others in graphics, world, NPCs, sound, music, depth and quality. What a freakin’ amazing game. You play the others to Win, or to finish. With Skyrim, you just kind of live in the world.

I sat in the bar in Whiterun, and listened to some converations, then requested “Ragnar the Red” from the Bard and sat and listened.

Admittedly, it's not perfect, but in my opinion, Skyrim freakin’ rocks.

Overall though, it's a great time for Console RPGs, I'm having a blast.

 

[Agamon]

Yep, Mass Effect and Fallout 3 got me back into video game RPGs big time a few years ago. Skyrim is a fav, having recently finished ME3 and Borderlands, I'm doing my second playthrough now that Dawnguard is out. I'm playing Bastion, too, a fun little game with a funny narrative. Looking forward to playing KoA, Witcher 2 and Borderlands 2 (once it comes out).

Edit: I wanna punch that bard in the nose...Ragnar the Red seems to be is the only song he knows (oh, wait, I did punch him the nose, repeatedly). lol

 

[Janx]

I just LOVE Ragnar the Red. I've been thinking about covering it.

Skyrim's good. Got some shortcomings, but over all, one of the best of its class. The DragonAge series gets some props too. It seems to cover what Skyrim lacks. If only the state of the art could merge between those two.

 

[Mallus]

I've been playing Skyrim lately, too, and while it's a pretty amazing environment simulator --even on a PS3!-- I really don't like the writing/dialog, though it does give me some perspective on what epic fantasy sounds like to complete non-fans.

Whereas in a Bioware game, I seek out every possible conversation, I find myself skipping through most of them in Skyrim. I almost wish Bethesda would have dropped any pretenses of the game being cinematic (lose the spoken dialog completely) and went with a more Dark/Demon Souls approach.

Why pack the game with so much story/backstory/spoken dialog when the quality level struggles to reach "serviceable"? Play to your strengths.

The Skyrim team made a really great dungeoneering/wildernes/Medieval-urban-stalking/household-item-stealing simulator. But as directors of adventure stories, they're kinda terrible (where Bioware is mostly good/great).

Eh, what's good about Skyrim is so good I'm sure I'll put another 10-20 hours into it, but ultimately, I'd rather be playing something like DA or ME, or, god help me, a recent Final Fantasy.

(I hear The Witcher 2 is damn good)

 

[Chairman7w]

I'm actually considering picking up an Xbox 360 just to play Witcher 2.

I think you're WAY too critical of Skyrim to call the dialogue and story terrible. I respect your opinion, but it sounds like you're being a bit overly dramatic. Not GREAT? Not to your liking? Not perfect? All fair.

Terrible? I don't think so.

 

[Agamon]

Yeah, ME and DA are storylines, so the dialogue is going to be better in them, as the story is tighter. Whereas Skyrim is a sandbox, so dialogue is not going to be as good, as there are exponentially more NPCs to converse with (and every single one has something to say, unlike ME), and that much more needs to be written.

That said, I don't think it's all that bad either. The games just have different approaches.

 

[Chairman7w]

I heard Xenoblade Chronicles was excellent, too. Wish I had a Wii just for that.

 

[Artur Hawkwing]

One underrated PS3 one is Last Rebellion. Once you get down swapping between the two characters, it's a challenging yet fun game.

Also, for the Wii/PS2 crowd, there is the anime style Sakura Wars: Farewell My Love, a great game. Fifth in the Sakura Taisen series, and the first to be translated to English and released in the US. Fun game play, great storyline and if you have seen the Anime (which is based on the games) then you know the kind of story you're going to get into.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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[Mercutio01]

I heard Xenoblade Chronicles was excellent, too. Wish I had a Wii just for that.

I think I will be picking this up sometime this month. Everything I've heard from friends has been exemplary, so it moved to the top of my list of games to buy.