It's not strictly a first person RPG but there is a game that breaks these limitations, Mount and Blade: Warbands.Dr. McD said:1. First person is shit for melee combat, plain and simple:
I'm supposed to be trying to kill someone, not swatting flies.
2. Real time is shit for bringing a team with you:
It's got nothing to do with tradition and everything to do common sense. Strength in numbers, plain and simple. You could be a fucking idiot and bring only two at most companions who will be nothing but meat shields to the dark overlord Von Fondlebottom's castle, or you bring your entire team. Commander Shepard doesn't have a party of companions, he has two useless meat shields that will inevitably fall within seconds.
3. Real time is shit for tactics:
Remember what I said about Commander Shepard's useless meat shields? Well it's even worse in Bethesda games, you can have one "companion" (and they're so utterly braindead as to not even be useful as meat shields) because "three's a crowd". Of course you can't actually give them commands to cease fire unless attacked so you can use stealth, nor can you call them from far away. And you can't have a sniper set up on a nearby tower with a silenced sniper rifle and aid you infiltrating a massive raider encampment because they'll just shoot anything they see. This leads to another problem, the "solution".
4. As a result of problem #3, you end up being the do-anything soldier:
There is only one playable character in Bethesda games, Mary Sue/Gary Stu. This character will rarely encounter any obsticle because there is only two quests, "go here, kill that" and "go here, get this thing". There are statistics but they don't actually do anything, they're just there so Bethesda can pretend they make RPGs. There is no replayability, you can gleefully accept quests with a happy smile on your face, or can do with an angry frown while rolling your eyes but you can't actually not accept the quest or have an alternate solution.
5. There's no fucking point in customizing your character if you can't see them:
Seriously, I don't care how many hairstyles you have, I'm not going to be looking the character anyway.
1. The melee combat is tense and strategic, the game actually takes into account your speed in relation to the direction of your swing, so lunging forward while thrusting will give you a distinct increase in damage while moving backwards or away from the direction of an enemy's attack will minimize the damage to you. Essentially, footwork actually plays a role. There are four types of attack, which are changed by the direction you move the mouse during your attack, there are also four directions to block that correspond to the directions of attack, in addition to this you can perform a feint, if your opponent blocks early you can change the direction of the attack in mid swing.
While it's possible to take on 5 equally armed people in melee on foot, it's very unlikely you can keep up with all of them, it's determined by your skill in reading them and your character's strengths and weaknesses. Also, the Mounted combat is uniquely exemplary. Because speed determines the advantage of the attack mounted combat is quick and dangerous, and going head to head with another lancer almost insures that one of you won't be getting back up. Against enemies on foot mounted combat is devastating, it truly allows you to see why a full plate mounted knight was the medieval equivalent of a main battle tank.
2. In Mount and Blade you can bring 2000 of your closest friends to battle, including allied lords with their own armies. The largest battle I ever fought was 3400 vs. 4400, the size of the on screen battle is only limited to the power of your PC and the depth of your character's pockets.
3.The tactics are limited but perfectly functional, you can ask your archers to stay back while protected by ground infantry while you tell your mounted troops to charge and there are plenty of mods that add onto this functionality with formations and such.
4. Not only do you have your main character, you have a selection of for hire heroes which you can choose the development of, they have their own in group dynamics and it can be difficult to find out who works well with who, but in the end you choose who specializes in what and as such you can do whatever role you find the most interesting and leave the doctoring, architecture and troop morale to others.
5. The default view in Warbands is third, but it's incredibly helpful to switch between them depending on the circumstances, you'll get plenty of time to see your work.