Action/RPG: where are these games?

[FieryTrainwreck]

Am I the only person in the world still waiting for a really good action/rpg?

I'm talking about something with the smooth and intuitive combat of God of War *and* the massive world and character development of Oblivion. A game where I can build my character from the ground up, explore a non-linear countryside, engage in non-wonky combat, and do all of this for days on end. There doesn't seem to be anything like this on the market.

Some games come close. Darksiders had some open world elements and decent combat, but you were still shoe-horned into this static character with unchanging appearance and, well, no roleplay. Demon's Souls gave you the character creation and combat, but the game was very linear and shallow in terms of environment and story. Oblivion gets the creation, customization, and massive scale right, but the controls and combat are borderline retarded.

Fable 2 might be the closest thing yet, but that game's combat and controls were still mediocre - and the world/mechanics were more gimmick than substance. I wanted deeper, more developed gameplay and less social experimentation/housekeeping.

Am I missing any games here? I want something sprawling and real time with solid controls and combat mechanics, character creation and customization, and plenty of play time. Have they simply not made such a game? Would it be exceedingly difficult to do so?

Could Bethesda just do me a favor and hire some new guys to handle the swordplay?

 

[FinalDream]

If such a game was released the total amount of awesomeness would force the universe to collapse in on itself, and simply wink out of existence.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

EuRPGs are for you!

Risen, Gothic, and stuff like that.

Actually, they generally are technical and glitchy messes.

 

[gigastrike]

The Legend of Zelda series (primarily Twilight Princess) can do this decently. I'd really like to see a game that does this well too, but game companies today are too focused on shooter combat or epic linear stories.

 

[Flying-Emu]

How are the controls in Oblivion "retarded?"

I can only think that you mean in the Xbox version, in which case I agree. But the PC version works perfectly well, aside from the fact that you stagger with every goddamn hit, making a shield nearly useless after sliding the difficulty slider past "wussy" level.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

If such a game was released the total amount of awesomeness would force the universe to collapse in on itself, and simply wink out of existence.

That's my feeling, more or less. I can't think of a better game concept. I'd play the crap out of it. I'd buy add-ons indefinitely. I'd buy sequel after sequel after sequel, especially if character importation were supported. It almost seems like the holy grail of gaming.

The best description I can think of is still "Oblivion with great combat". That game has so much going for it in terms of depth, story, character creation/freedom/customization - and then you fight a rat for the first time and it's like "damn... they were so close." Maybe if you just combined Bethesda's worlds with Demon's Souls swordplay and drastically fleshed out magic and archery systems?

Maybe Bioware could do something like this. They've really made strides combining the RPG and FPS. Here's hoping they try to graft that RPG framework onto a third-person hack-and-slash action/adventure game at some point.

Edit: just about every major review cites combat as a major weakness in Oblivion. If the game had the sort of smooth, intuitive, satisfying swordplay as Demon's Souls or any number of purely action-oriented third person games, I wouldn't have made this thread. It's certainly not unplayable, but quite far removed from the polish of a God of War or Devil May Cry.

 

[Joe Deadman]

If kingdom hearts counts then thats a pretty good action-rpg.
Its a shame that I can't think of anymore. There should be more dammit.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

Maybe Bioware could do something like this. They've really made strides combining the RPG and FPS. Here's hoping they try to graft that RPG framework onto a third-person hack-and-slash action/adventure game at some point.

...sort of. I'm not convinced that they've figured out how to do that yet, at least not to my satisfaction. Their actiony games feel to me like great RPGs tacked onto strictly mediocre TPSes (Mass Effect) or brawlers (Jade Empire) or whatever. I haven't played any Dragon Age stuff yet, but out of everything else, I haven't been particularly satisfied with their combat systems since KotOR.

I've wanted something like what the original post is talking about for a while, too, although even more specifically in a multiplayer or MMO setting. One of the things that really drives me away from MMORPGs is the..."loose" combat/interaction that pretty much feels like a text-based MUD with pictures and a mouse and not like something that takes advantage of the fact that it has an entire 3D world operating in real time (yeah, I know, it's next to impossible to do that with hundreds/thousands of people on each server, but I don't care, because their "solution" to that isn't fun to me). I don't care if the entire game is instanced and doesn't let me have more than half a dozen people together at a time or whatever; if it has Zelda-quality combat and environmental interaction, I'll play it.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

the only ones I can think of are Odin sphere and Muramasa, but I do know your idea would flop horribly.

You think people aren't interested in playing Oblivion with really tight and nuanced combat? Or God of War with an open world and character creation/customization?

I cam very confident you are completely wrong.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

the only ones I can think of are Odin sphere and Muramasa, but I do know your idea would flop horribly.

You think people aren't interested in playing Oblivion with really tight and nuanced combat? Or God of War with an open world and character creation/customization?

I cam very confident you are completely wrong.

no, I'm certainly interested, but anything containing Oblivion is bound to suck, and if you fix everything that's wrong with it, it becomes oblivion in name only.

Don't let your hatred of Oblivion cloud your objectivity, bro. Even if the game isn't your cup of tea, you can't honestly deny its positive attributes. The graphics, game world, scale, dimension, detail - certainly not perfect, but definitely eclipsing just about anything else going right now. Pretty much the only single player game with MMO scope I can think of. None of that makes it fun, necessarily, and altering the combat dynamics to mimic those of a true action game would probably fix much of that missing "fun factor" for you and other critics.

 

[Daedalus1942]

EuRPGs are for you!

Risen, Gothic, and stuff like that.

Actually, they generally are technical and glitchy messes.

Gothic 3 was a piece of shit. So many game breaking glitches I just gave up. And no matter how good your computer is, it runs like shit.
Risen I heard was okay, but it wasn't anything special and didn't sell all that well.

 

[Daedalus1942]

the only ones I can think of are Odin sphere and Muramasa, but I do know your idea would flop horribly.

You think people aren't interested in playing Oblivion with really tight and nuanced combat? Or God of War with an open world and character creation/customization?

I cam very confident you are completely wrong.

no, I'm certainly interested, but anything containing Oblivion is bound to suck, and if you fix everything that's wrong with it, it becomes oblivion in name only.

Don't let your hatred of Oblivion cloud your objectivity, bro. Even if the game isn't your cup of tea, you can't honestly deny its positive attributes. The graphics, game world, scale, dimension, detail - certainly not perfect, but definitely eclipsing just about anything else going right now. Pretty much the only single player game with MMO scope I can think of. None of that makes it fun, necessarily, and altering the combat dynamics to mimic those of a true action game would probably fix much of that missing "fun factor" for you and other critics.

You are kidding right? There were so many awful things about Oblivion, I can't even name them all. Pretty much the only thing good thing to come out of Oblivion was Fallout 3.
Oblivion was just a clusterfuck of boredom and glitches. The only time I ever had fun was the Knights of the nine quest.

 

[Harn]

If kingdom hearts counts then thats a pretty good action-rpg.
Its a shame that I can't think of anymore. There should be more dammit.

Kingdom Hearts is indeed an Action RPG. So is the .Hack Series.

Fable and Mass Effect also count as Action RPGs.

 

[Enigmers]

I think ActionRPG applies to games like Diablo, Titan Quest, and Torchlight.

By the way, Torchlight is the best thing that came out last year. You should totally go out and buy several copies.

By the way, an RPG with fast and fluid action is an awesome idea and there needs to be more of it.

 

[JWW]

DWARF FORTRESS

It's extremely deep, allows you to do almost anything, but it is a basic ASCII game, so it won't look pretty.

It's truly the closest thing you and I are looking for.

 

[NoNameMcgee]

Yes, we need more of these. I hate the boring DnD style combat and laughable turn based combat which is in 90% of RPG games. It's like they put the actual gameplay of these games on low priority like it's not important and then work hard on the rest of the experience. KOTOR, Diablo, Titan Quest, Torchlight, Final Fantasy, Jade Empire and Dragon Age all BORED me for this very reason, I'm not saying the combat was bad in all these games though, but it's just not involving and they don't play the same as other action games.

We need more RPG games where the combat is very much the same as any solid action game but with all those nice RPG extras to immerse us. I have no idea why there isn't more demand for games like this.

I would recommend Fallout 3 (apart from the horrible leveling system) Mass Effect 2 (plays like Gears of War in my opinion except with a good story and setting, pretty graphics and RPG-ness) and The Witcher (very 'different' style of combat but just as fun as a good action game and feels very involving)

I would also love to see something like God of War but in an RPG world. Or something like Prince of Persia. and Hey, call this idea 'crazy' and 'out there' but something like a Half-Life 2 RPG would be bloody amazing. (But not as a main game in the series or anything, that would suck.) there definately needs to be some FPS RPGs besides FallOut 3.