Disco Elysium
this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
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Gaming
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Not scifi or fantasy, but have you heard of Pentiment? It's by Josh Sawyer, lead designer of New Vegas. You're an artist in 1518 Bavaria completing your masterpiece at a monastery, when someone gets killed and you must collect evidence. There's much more to it than that, of which I can't speak without giving anything away. However, I can tell you that the game has no combat, it's just exploration and dialogue. The whole game looks like an illuminated manuscript, and you walk around engaging in some of the most captivating conversations ever to be in a video game. The character creation is extremely unique; in the beginning, you pick where you spent your year abroad, what you do in your free time, what you got your Master's degree in, and what your favorite subject was at university. All of these determine your attitude on and knowledge of pretty much every subject in the game. It has one of the most unique speech check systems in any RPG, with entire conversations counting toward convincing someone, showing you what you said right and wrong at the very end. Masterpiece.
Never heard of it, but it sounds like a well crafted non-combat game. Niiiice :)
Planescape Torment, Disco Elysium.
Oooh, nice! Watched some trailers. Steam version? Or are they better on a console? Both look like they're PS4 titles as well.
I'll chime in and suggest PC, as you can probably get them at a lower price than on PS4.
Price doesn't matter. Just want a low bug comfortable experience. Sometimes games are better on one or the other. I liked No Man's Sky a lot more on the PS4pro than on the laptop, for example -- just felt more like it was the right tool for the job :)
Those games seem more tailored to PC. With point and click gameplay.
Excellent - thanks!
As people already said, Disco Elysium for sure.
Baldur's Gate 3 on the lowest/story difficulty.
The old RPG Arcanum. Great steampunk fantasy setting and story. If you play a persuasive character you can avoid combat and skip entire dungeons. The game has some balance issues (magic tree is fine, but the tech tree is underpowered, and early combat encounters are horrible to dela with). Various fan patches and mods are available, including a balance mod, a bugfix patch, and an HD patch. Since it's an old game I recommend getting it from gog.com, since sometimes they fix up older games a bit to run properly on new systems.
Dragon Age, since you liked Mass Effect. Though, I personally found the combat more annoying in Dragon Age than Mass Effect. Mileage may vary.
The Outer Wilds (different game than Outer Worlds). It's a sort of an archeology/space adventure game. It's not strictly speaking an RPG, but if you want a story game it's top tier. Please do not look anything up about the game and go in as blind as possible, as the feeling of discovery and exploration are the main draw of the game and once you have something spoiled you can't un-know it. Also, I recommend getting the dlc immediately with the main game, as it's a huge expansion that fits into the main story perfectly and affects the ending of the main game.
You sound a lot like me, and probably get annoyed with a lot of grindy mechanics. Especially when you have limited time to play games.
Sea of Stars and Chained Echoes will really scratch that Chronotrigger itch.
Outer Wilds is also incredible (don't read spoilers, just go in blind). It's mini space exploration with cartoon-arcadey newtonian physics.
Sword & Sworcery is also great, and a good point-and-click adventure with an amazing soundtrack. I'd almost argue it's better on a tablet or largeish phone through. It's very touch input focused, which is OK with a mouse, but I think is better with a finger (as intended)
Others I enjoy :
- Kentucky Route Zero (point and click with a wild vibe)
- Firewatch (walking Sim with pretty low poly art)
- Dishonored 1 & 2 (gritty fps with stealth and magic)
- Inside (short puzzle platformer)
- Abzu (undersea exploration, relatively chill, but I never completed it)
- The Invincible (more recent than the rest, a very pretty walking sim in a retro-future sci-fi setting (Stanislaw Lem) that kept me pretty engrossed and occasionally worried)
- Horizon: Zero Dawn. (Absolutely adored this world and story. Story mode combat was good, but I just used cheats for a lot of the basic pickup/crafting stuff. Yes, I can take 30 minutes to run around and gather basic materials, but I don't have that kind of time irl.)
Sword & Sworcery! Yes! A true diamond in the rough.
For real. Its high time I replay it, too. Been long enough that I just remember general themes.
Thanks for the recs! Already played Chained Echoes and quite liked it. Wish it was longer haha. Seen Sea of Stars reviews saying weak on story and dialogue and such, so I backburnered it, but maybe it's worth it for the exploration elements alone?
Never played Outer Wilds. But seen it recommended before and it's on my radar. Should it be played on console, do you think? Or is the steam version fine.
I'll look into the rest when I have time. I appreciate all the details :)
Re: Outer Wilds, either console or Steam is fine but I would recommend a controller in either case. The flight mechanics can be a little tricky with a keyboard and mouse, but I had no issues getting it with a controller.
Abzu (undersea exploration, relatively chill, but I never completed it)
@[email protected] Abzu isn't an RPG, but I'd still second this recommendation, as it's very chill to play, has zero combat, and has a lovely story to it. Would also recommend Spirit of the North for the same reason. No dialogue in either, though - the story is very much in the visuals, music, and atmosphere rather than words.
Fair. I did stray from the "rpg" theme on... Most of my responses.
Will look up Spirit of the North though! It sounds right up my alley
Oh yes, if you liked Abzu, you'll very likely like Spirit of the North too. :)
As has been mentioned already, Disco Elysium should be right up your alley. Not exactly Sci-Fi but has very interesting alternative reality world building and suits your wishes perfectly otherwise.
Don't be afraid to be wild and weird in dialogues and remember that failure is often just as good or better as success in this game (they pioneered a fail-forward type design). Basically, treat it like an interactive book and you won't be disappointed.
Cloudpunk is nice, although it's more of a "walking simulator" than a fully-fledged RPG. It's a cyberpunk-ish indie game in which you're a delivery driver, although with a flying car and a sentient dog.
visual novels: Digimon survive, Danganronpa
Steins;Gate is one of my favourites here. And Sam and Max. :)
On the topic of Visual Novels: I'd like to recommend basically everything from Winter Wolves Games that is tagged as RPG. The classic is of course Loren the Amazon Princess, but, to be honest, their writing has improved since then, so you might want to check out their newer Tales of Aravorn games, like Seasons of the Wolf. Also, Loren is really long, so if you don't have a ton of time, the newer, shorter games might be a better choice.
A word of warning though, by Winter Wolves themselves: https://mastodon.social/@winterwolves/111588943770965424
If you've not yet played through the Kiseki (The Legend of Heroes: Trails) series, I highly recommend them. They are very story heavy. You'd definitely want to begin with the Trails in the Sky series since every game in the series is connected (and if you want to get the whole picture and experience the greatest impact from the events that happen throughout the series).
I have had that one in my steam wishlist for a while, starting with Trails. Never pulled the trigger. I've heard that it is very much a slow burn, but ends up being a favourite for a lot of RPG fans. Accurate?
I'm a big fan of the series and would consider it to be my favorite JRPG series, not just for the story but because I enjoy the gameplay it offers as well.
It's a fairly "cheap" series to try out and see if you're into it. The entire series is a singular, continuous story, so the recommended place to start is Trails in the Sky First Chapter, which can be picked up fairly cheaply on Steam, especially during Steam sales. It's not as long as future games in the series, and is fairly representative of the pacing and storytelling format that later games will follow (though it is considered one of the slowest-paced games in the series). Basically if you're not a fan of Sky FC, you're not likely to be a fan of the future games in the series either (especially given that the substantial improvements to gameplay over the series' 20 year history likely won't have much appeal to you).
There are also demos available for some of the newer games in the series (e.g. Trails of Cold Steel III), and while I would not recommend actually playing through those games out-of-order, they may serve as a quick/cheap way to see if the format of the games is right for you.
I will say that while the combat of the games is rarely very difficult, and the game provides difficulty modifiers to make it even easier if you'd like, that the combat system is still fairly fleshed out and quite good casually IMO, but if you're really not into doing it even at easy difficulties, one option (PC exclusive) may be to download completed game saves and play through the games on New Game+ and completely trivialize the combat.
Thanks for the detailed reply. I wish my holidays were longer -- this one sounds very interesting 🤔
I'd say that is accurate. It is a slow burn to start, and it took me several tries to actually get into it. Once I did, I ended up plowing through all of the games. :) They are all excellent. The series is really something special. Trails to Azure is actually one of my most favorite games of all time, too.
Moonring has been really fun, and it's free! Not F2P, just free. The developer made it as a passion project, and it's easily worth $10, imo. Lots of reading.
It's akin to an old NES or early 90s PC game with the polish and applied game theory of modern times.
Moonring is made by a dev of Fable right?
Yep, one of the co-creators. Has a website that he hasn't updated in a year or two that's geared towards teaching people programming, so seems like a pretty cool guy!
Yeah he's a good one. Left the studio over his convictions, can't get much better than that.
Except of course when you follow up with what you mentioned - didn't know that part. Even more awesome than I thought!
Saible. I just recently played through it. No combat whatsoever. It's mostly about exploring the desert on your hover-bike. I've heard comparisons to Gension Impact, but I haven't played that one, so I can't say for sure.
Vastly different from Genshin Impact. Sable is closer to a modern 3D Zelda game than Genshin, especially with its puzzle platforming sections.
I've only played the first three you mentioned, but I would say they're all far from minimal focus on combat...
Void Terrarium is quite cute, I don't know how combat heavy it gets later in the game though.
Cyberpunk now that it's been updated. It has combat but is not combat focused. I'd drop it to easy and just play it for the story tbh.
Been through it, although not since the last update or two. Don't really want to restart it. Also wish it wasn't first person :)