Suggestions? I'm a hardcoe RPG player, but the truth is, I never really have drifted outside of the world of Tamriel or WoW for my RPG/fantasy needs. I'm a hardcoe Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim player. Put thousands of hours into EACH game (well not Skyrim yet, but am still playing it.)

But the truth is, I've never really ventured out into other types of RPGS. I want Fantasy, I love fantasy. I've played Final Fantasy 9 and 10, and they were AMAZING games. But those are really oldschool. Are there any new games that match the depth of TES with the high fantasy and action/fun just general awesomeness of Final Fantasy 9 and 10? Are the new FF games fun?

I have an Xbox 360, not a PC or PS3, so Xbox 360 is all I got to play on. I want a game that lets me UPGRADE my gear, as in Morrowind Oblivion and Skyrim, a game that has a great story, a great gameworld, depth in the gameplay, it's ok if it's grindy as I'm used to that. But something along the lines of TES and FF.

I tried Fable, and lol, no thank you. Fable 1 was great, a little too linear for me though. 2 was good, not as good as 1 though. 3 was an absolute joke. So, nothing like Fable please. I want something non linear with a gameworld I can explore, not follow a strict path.

If you love fantasy RPG's then you have no excuse not to play The Witcher 2.

Dragon Age Origins and The Witcher are rather nice games, I recommend them both. The Witcher is also available completely DRM free from GOG.com, very nice.

That said, asking for something like TES and FF is kinda hard, no? From my point of view they are fairly opposite, with TES being large open world games where the focus is on exploration rather than story and cutscenes, while FFX (and the most recent FFXIII) are both very linear games with focus on a story with lots of cutscenes that doesn't really offer much exploration.

But is the Witcher really all that good? I've heard it's linear.

How about Fallout 3/New Vegas? Both offer something the other one doesn't have, so both are kinda flawed but still great open world RPGs.

Try Two Worlds II

One question, how was FFXIII? Was it good? Is it worth buying if I loved FFIX and X?

This forum has made me hate that word.

No, neither of the Witcher games is open world, yes, their story and side quests offer a huge amount of choice and yes, both The Witcher 1 and 2 are absolutely amazing and if you're even remotely interested in fantasy RPGs you should at the very least try them.

But what of Final Fantasy 13? Is it worth buying? If you enjoyed 9 and 10?

A lot of fans of the series didn't like FFXIII but I had no issues with it.

It focused on story, character development, and battle but exploration was very limited (almost nonexistent).

It's a good game that probably gets more flak than it deserves but I can certainly see why a good portion of the fanbase would be disappointed.

It's about $20 (probably less if you can get it used) so I'd say it's worth it if you have some money to throw around. I wouldn't say it's up to FFIX standards though.

Does it have less exploration than X? Because X had virtually none at all either lol. It was pretty much straight paths that you couldn't deviate from less than 4 feet haha.

A question about the Witcher 2, how's the language? I really hate games that have heavy language in them, it's the reason why I quit playing Red Dead Redemption, the profanity was off the charts and simply isn't enjoyable to me at all. Does it have heavy swearing? I mean a few "damns" and "hells' here isn't bad, but if the F word is being dropped every 5 minutes I"m not going to play the game.

About 20+ hours of running down a hall.

Well... There is a lot of swearing in it, but I can't say how much it is compared to RDR as I never played it.
It's a gritty game, there is heavy swearing, and you will no doubt hear a "hell" or "damn" at least once every 5 min. But still, the game is fantastic, it's a great RPG.

Ah..sounds like I'll pass on the Witcher 2 then. Not my style to listen to swearing like that, no taste in it. Glad I asked, as I was about to buy it. Looks like I'll check out FFXIII though.

If you want jrpgs you should start investing in portable systems. or a ps2

I don't think the swearing is that bad, but it's definitely too much for you.

What I don't get is why one would want to start with The Witcher 2 and skip the original. They're both great games, I can't even decide which one I like better.

Kingdoms of Amalur is pretty open world and offers atleast 60 hours of gameplay, though I havent tried DLC

Dragons Dogma and Dark Souls. Might not be what you are looking for though. DD is pretty open. Not quite as open as TES nor as big but the gameplay is worlds better and the story is interesting if slow paced. It also has one of the most impressive customization systems i have ever played in a game. I highly recommend it. I put 400 hours into it. No swearing or very rare swearing. I cannot think of any examples and all the gear is upgradable.

Dark Souls is a whole other beast. Upgradable items. Good combat. Impressive depth to the combat and each and every weapon is slightly different and can be used to varying degrees of success depending. It is its own type of game though. It is also considered very difficult. But it is built that way. It had an interesting but laid back way of telling its story. Mostly environmental. The lore is also quite interesting as well. It is an open world RPG but pathfinding is somewhat linear as that is also part of the design. I highly recommend this as well. I have about 150 hours in and counting.

Both games have a unique and organic means of online gaming. One is essentially a trading nwtwork in DD and DS has pvp. Someone can invade your world. Though if you do not want that to happen you can just play them both offline. Both games are on the 360 as well. Both are also high fantasy games.

Kingdoms of Amalur is also one that is probably a good candidate.

Two Worlds 2 is a game, that while i would not really recommend perse, I would say it is worth playing if you can get it cheap.

Hope that helps. They are not similar to TES though. For something like that I would highly recommend Fallout 3 and NV. Play FO: 3 first though and then FONV. Get the GoTY edition for both.

I hear that Two Worlds 2 and Dragon's Dogma are decent fantasy sandboxy games, but I have not tried them myself.

Why has nobody mentioned FFXII yet?

They are Linear... And kind of boring.. No matter what people say they are Linear and not true RPGs

Dragon Age: Origins.
Fable series (if you don't read/hear anything about them, and thus have no expectations, they're actually a lot of fun)

Edit: Fable isn't hardcoe by any measure though.

And if you like JRPGs, definitely check out the Kingdom Hearts series. One of my favorite game series' of all time.

What he said. But yeah - it's amazingly "walk down a path" except for the first half or more. (On the other hand, XIII-2 took "non-linear" way too far - between the time travel thing, and the ability to just bounce between any of your discovered areas/eras at will, I frequently had no clue where I should go next. Liked it less than the first game.)


Yep.


Good point. Good game, and less "walk down a hall" than 10 or 13.


re: arguements about "linear"
Two different kinds of linear people are talking about: 1. linear world (just walk down halls); 2. linear dialogue/quests (few choices).
So, a game could be very non linear (world) and very linear (story); or it could be very linear world (stuck in a hallway) but non-linear dialogue (you may be in a hall, but you can deal with the quests and NPCs differently). The Elder Scrolls games tend to be the first. Not alot of choice in story or quest resolution, but plenty of exploration.

Mass Effect 1/2/3, Dragon Age: Origins, The Witcher 1/2, Fallout 1, 2 or 3 and New Vegas, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura, Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, Deus Ex. All really good games, all have a lot of choice involved, whether it be in dialog or simply in what direction you wish to wander.