recent: tears of the kingdom, or as i like to call it botw 1.2, its the same thing all over again just with one or two added gimicks, the open world is dead, npcs are boring and nintendo just got away with it like that
not so recent: i cant stand persona 5, joker and his entourage are annoying teenagers, the time management is a horrible gameplay addition and the artstyle is just a visual overstimulation
with that being said,~~ plz dont kill me~~
I agree wholeheartedly. I don’t feel like Bethesda has innovated with their RPGs in a single meaningful way since Oblivion. Every single game they make just feels buggy and samey, and the “systems” (generous to even call them that) don’t make up for the synthetic quality. Games like Prey, Stalker, The Witcher, CP2077, Mass Effect, Dragon Age: Origins or Elden Ring all take various approaches to the idea of open ended gameplay/questing/story/experience and they all do so many individual things better than Bethesda’s games. I’d rather play a game that gets a few things right with a narrower focus, than just doing a lot of everything “just okay.”
Here’s hoping Starfield does something genuinely refreshing.
The Oblivion Gates absolutely blew my mind when I was young. The quests in Oblivion felt very unique and the map had a lot of variety. I didn’t even know there was fast travel until midway through the game, but I’m happy I didn’t. The random encounters with Oblivion Gates, bandits, monsters, and animals while traveling made the game feel very alive. Skyrim on the other hand felt really empty and repetitive without mods.
It’s kind of odd the New Vegas is singled out here, because I’d agree that both Fallout 3 and 4 have these issues to varying degrees, but New Vegas was not made by Bethesda. Completely different team of writers and developers than the Fallout 3 and 4 teams.
So much so, that there is quite a heated schism between FNV and Fallout 3 & 4 fandoms.