If Google had released an AI skinner-box geneation tool, publicly traded video game companies would all collapse over night.

You nailed it.

Here specifically is where consumers have drawn the line with the Postal series, a game series about doing mass killings for fun.

I think that’s the right approach. Once it starts getting old it won’t get better. That being said, the writing of the DLCs does not have the problem of the main story and are often pretty good. If getting access to all your character’s abilities wasn’t attached to playing the main story I would advise skipping the main game and only playing the DLCs.

I, like you, heard the story was bad but figured I could just focus on the gameplay and ignore the writing. Unfortunately, the reason the bad writing is so notorious is that the game is setup to jam it in your face consantly. It’s unrelenting.

Imagine playing a pretty decent game while a dead-eyed 50 year old comedian is making the worst jokes you’ve ever heard in your life while doing a very poor impression of gen-z internet slang they barely understand. The comedian thinks you the player are actually stupid so the jokes are as condescending as they are awful. Now imagine they won’t shut up. Every time you do anything in the game, you get a few minutes of these whacky jokes. Accepting a mission, every bullet of the mission, skits that you have to watch before progressing, etc. You have no choice but to engage with the lazy, insulting, horrendous writing that wears thin after minutes and goes on for the entire hours-long game.

There are mods that disable the endless chatter which I can’t recommend more highly. I made the misake of playing the game raw. The game is actually pretty fun, but the aggressive garbage of the writing is not something easily ignored.

Definitely. They could do something about this but they would make less profit.

This is, very unfortunately, what happens in every internet space which is targeted towards children and allows communication among users. It is by far the easiest way for anonymous predatory adults to make contact with typically unattended children. I would like at some point to see a child-oriented space on the internet have the highest priority of children’s safety at some point, but there hasn’t been one yet.

Haha, yeah. The courier probably has the biggest turnaround of any bethesda game protagonist. They go from a completely anonymous average person delivering packages to being essentially a demigod capable of pretty much anything. No fate, no destiny, no special heritage, just you and your choices.

In New Vegas, it will make sense for your character to look any way they want. In the game’s story, nice clean things are available but restricted to the rich and powerful. The player, however, is the most powerful and the most influential as to who ends up getting what by the end of the game.

To be honest, this is what kept me from playing it at first as well. It’s a pretty old game, but mods can help a lot toward making it easier on the eyes. With Vortex through Nexus modding is super easy nowadays.

Since New Vegas isn’t on your list it has to be my top recommendation. Of all games I’ve ever played, New Vegas is the most reactive to and acknowledging of the insane and unbelievable things the player does. The actions the player takes have permanent effects in the game, and everyone affected will know that the player is responsible for whatever happened and say so. You personally control the fate of every community in the Mojave. In other games, you are powerful on behalf of the story, but in New Vegas you personally are all the power in the entire game.

$80? How much is that, like 4 bananas?

It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, because in that case it usually ends up being nothing. If you have the desire to limit what you described in any way you can as much as you can, it’ll be something. If everyone does as much as they can, it’ll be a huge something.

This is very interesting to me because I wanted to keep going after BoTW ended. ToTK is like a full game sized DLC with all new gameplay elements, so it was exactly what I wanted. It’s kind of like an indulgent victory lap showing off all the cool stuff the engine can do with some new tools to play with. I will say that this is enough for me. Really hoping they do something completely original again.

Dynasty Warriors series. Some criticism is correct, in that they really did release the same game several times in a row with minor adjustments. The gameplay is much more strategic than it was given credit for, though. It’s true your warrior basically feels like a lawnmower demolishing hundreds to thousands of hapless footsoldiers at a time, but the trick is that you are the army’s only lawnmower. Almost everything your allies try will fail catastrophically unless you help them. You really have to time your presence on certain parts of the fight to be where you’re needed. It feels very heroic. Also, the cutscenes are without exception hilarious and drew me to the source material Romance of the Three Kingdoms which has greatly enriched my life.

The Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy series are probably what you’re looking for. Golden age Square JRPGS, especially Xenogears, are also generally great Jrpgs.

Toad in the streets, Link in the sheets.

You know, I think that’s accurate.

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Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis is one of the best tactical rpgs I’ve ever played. I was shocked how short it was when I finished only to find I had been playing for over 40 hours.

Bethesda has needed a lot more humanity for a long time.