Xbox RPG(ish) recs?

[usernamenumber]

M and I have been playing BioWare games together as one of our preferred "ugh, we has no brains tonight" activities for almost as long as we've been dating, and it's been a lot of fun. True they're not two-player games per se, but the stories and character interactions tend to be just interesting enough, and the combat just monotonous enough, that we just periodically hand the controller back and forth, and debate every quest and dialogue option. The fact that we've done this for four longass games (Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Awakenings, Mass Effect, and now Dragon Age II) without murdering one another is, I think, one of the strongest signs about our relationship. :)

That said, we've been thinking of branching out (he says, shortly after ordering a copy of Mass Effect II), so I thought I'd ask for some recs.

I've been thinking about what I look for in a game, and the list I've reached for myself (and I think it's similar for M) is something like...

1) Story-driven. Sandbox games are cool on a technical level, but I'm actually realizing I don't like having too much freedom. I don't want to be railroaded either, but I've found that the quickest way to make me lose interest in a game is to make me forget why I'm doing whatever I'm doing, and why what I'm doing matters.

2) Character/interaction-driven. My biggest complaint about the changes from DA:O vs later BioWare games, is that we lost the ability to have conversations with party members anywhere other than "in camp". One of the things M and I loved about DA:O was the aspect of "Hey, bored fighting monsters in this dungeon? Take a break to flirt with a blood-spattered companion! Have a heart-to-heart with the dwarf! Send your dog to find random things! etc!". Basically, managing inter-character relationships is one of our favorite aspects of these games. ...so maybe what we really want is a dating sim with bonus combat and world-saving. Hmm...

3) Lots of customization. I like tweaking things. Skills, items, whatever. I like it when I by tweaking a character I can both improve stats and alter gameplay. This is a place where M and I differ somewhat. I feel so stereotypical saying so, but it drives me nuts when she picks up Bob The Mighty's Legendary Axe of Floor-Wiping and just chucks it in the backpack without so much as looking at it, let alone equipping it to replace our current weapon, the butter knife we found on a dead gnome three levels ago. Conversely, it drives her nuts when I endlessly futz around comparing equipment stats. We've reached a mostly-workable solution by taking advantage of the fact that she usually falls asleep at some point, so we just pretend there's a mini-game called "Inventory!" that I can spend as much time on as I want when she's not there/conscious for it (same goes for shopping/crafting/enchanting/etc).

4) Tactical(-ish) combat. While I like shooters, bad AI and/or overly monotonous combat kills a game for me. I don't (think I) want an RTS, but I do like it when being able to stop and think about what I'm doing, coordinate attacks among the party, etc, really makes a difference.

I think that covers the basics, and I think for me they're pretty much in priority order, too.

For example, I just played through Halo 3 and, like all the games so far in that series, I loved it despite it only having one thing on the above list. Feeling like I'm playing out a story with stakes that interest me is huge, and the Halo games do a great job of having a strong narrative through all of the missions, so fighting through to the next room feels like turning the page in an action story. Ditto Portal 2, which... oh man, <3 <3 <3ing that game (yes, I'm late to the party).

On the other hand, I grabbed Fallout 3: New Vegas a while back (maybe a mistake having not played Fallout 3?), and have been kinda meh, even though on paper it has all the things on my list. I enjoy the leveling system, but the AIs (at least on the 360) are dumb as rocks, which makes the combat boring, and the only companions I've found so far are a sullen sniper and a mute robot (hint: the robot's more interesting). While I have tons of power to affect the world, most of the NPCs just... don't really grab me enough for me to feel invested in one side or another, and the world is *so* big and open that I find myself forgetting or just not caring about why I'm doing what I'm doing. It's not that it's a bad game, it just... isn't grabbing me.


Soooo... yeah. I guess what I'm saying is: So far, BioWare has come the closest to having the formula right for me, but I'd kind of like to branch out. Any suggestions (needs to be available for the 360)? Games I've been considering include Arkham Asylum (not usually one for beat-em-ups, but the demo was interesting, and made M and I both nostalgic for playing Tenchu back in the day), Skyrim (really, this should be a no-brainer, but I tend to like to wait for games to come down in price, and Oblivion never grabbed me that much), and some other random RPGs that seem to have at least gotten OK reviews, like Kingdoms of Amalur, Two Worlds II, etc.

Whatchathink?

Edit Oh, also totally open to recs for actual co-op games. We've been enjoying Schizoid a lot, though it sometimes takes more brain than we have available in the evenings, and I feel like we should be enjoying Trine 2 more than we have. Probably worth another chance, that one.

Comments

[sprrwhwk.livejournal.com]

I hear good things about the Persona games from Atlus (mostly 3 and 4), which I think will cover all the items on your list. Particularly, they were immediately what I thought of when you said "dating sim with bonus combat and world-saving" -- which is to say, my understanding is they're what happens when you run a Japanese dating sim game into a Japanese tactical fighting game at high velocity and watch the fireworks.

[dot_fennel]

I had a lot of gripes about the gender politics of Catherine, but it was certainly fun to play, and it sounds like a pretty good fit for the play patterns you describe-- it alternates block-climbing-puzzle sequences with time spent chatting with the other characters, and which characters you spend your limited time chatting with (eventually the bar closes!) affects the story. It's not an RPG at all, though.

You're welcome to borrow my copy.

[staystrong62805.livejournal.com]

Skyrim, while Sandboxy, everything you do has meaning and purpose. You're not just doing things for shits and giggles. While the level of "change the world" is not quite on par with other Bioware games, you can still make a difference, and there is usually not a lack of reasoning of why you are doing what you are doing. There's also /so/ much customization.

[bleemoo.livejournal.com]

The Batman series is amazing, and I also am generally not a fan of beat-em-ups.

I'm not sure which console you have. Fez is out now for XBLA and should be coming out soon for PS3. It's... kind of story driven I guess, and has nothing else on your list, but it's absurdly good. It might not be your style, but it's an XBLA game, so it's cheap, and I've been playing it with Sheena and it works as a non-2-player 2-player. And really, you should try it. Whoever isn't holding the controller will probably want a notebook and pen, and possibly access to the internet unless you are opposed to using walkthroughs.

Actual co-op games: the Lego series is surprisingly fun. Some of the earlier games are a bit cheesy, but Lego Batman 2 actually has really funny original plot. And even the cheesy ones are fun.

[gilana]

I asked Aaron, who is a big game nerd but not on LJ. His response:

My first thought is Fable. The 1st game is for the original Xbox and the next 2 are for the 360. The 1st game will play in a 360, but of course one must get past the clunky graphics and fewer options when compared to a more advanced 360 game. Combat is action-based, but fairly easy to handle, and the writing is full of British humor. There are good and evil choices to make that affect your character and the game world (particularly in the 3rd game), and while it may not be super deep in terms of game play it's in my opinion a lot of fun. A variety of weapons, choices in spending experience points, the ability to buy homes and shops in towns and adjust the rent/prices and likewise the happiness or misery of the populace, and other light management options round out the package.

Another option is Record of Agarest War. Definitely more of a "JRPG" (Japanese role-playing game) than a Mass Effect or Dragon Age. It's a tactical battle system, meaning it plays a bit like a chess match-- you move your small band of characters, choose your actions, then the enemies do the same. This will have more of the "stop and think about your next move" style of game play. In addition to an involved (if a little generic by JRPG standards) story, it also has a dating-sim mini game woven into the game. As you meet female characters and they join your party, you must win them over. Do so, and you can woo them and eventually marry one. Your offspring (which changes depending on who you marry) continues the quest. There is a second game, Record of Agarest War Zero, which I have not played but I understand it's a prequel of sorts.

I have a fondness for a game called Eternal Sonata. Again, very much a JRPG, but the battle system is one of my favorites in any RPG. A great meld of action and turn-based, powers that change whether you're in a light or dark area of the battle, and a colorful graphical style. Plus, you play as Frederic Chopin (yes, the composer). Definitely a bargain bin game these days, and it wasn't very well known even when it was released, but I really had a good time with it.

[mirrored-echo.livejournal.com]

In addition to the things already recommended, I've managed to play Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain with Eddy as date games pretty successfully. They're story-heavy adventure games with no real combat, not RPGs, but otherwise they are quite good, and work well if you're looking to hand the controller back and forth with someone.

(it looks like Heavy Rain is PS3-only, but Indigo Prophecy seems to have an Xbox 360 version.)

Persona 3 and 4 are amazing, but they've got a very different feel than Bioware games, plus they're not Xbox compatible. They're literally dating sims with a dungeon crawl and save-the-world storyline, but dialog decisions tend to come down more to saying the optimal thing to score points with an NPC rather than roleplaying your character, which can be frustrating.

[elenuial.livejournal.com]

First off, go through Bioware's back catalog:

* If you like Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic is a really good game.

* Even if you don't like Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic 2 is a GREAT game, and you can get by without having played the first one.

* Jade Empire is a really underrated Bioware game set in Magical Ancient China. It's one of my favorites of theirs.

I feel like I should point out the company Obsidian Entertainment, and the company it used to be Black Isle Software. A lot of their games are older D&D based rpgs, often coproduced with Bioware, that set the formula for the Bioware games you play today. The gameplay is a little older, so it might not work out for you, but if you can get into it, they will definitely hit all the buttons you list above--maybe better than the Bioware games these days.

If that sounds up your alley, I should point out two in particular:

* Planescape: Torment -- The most story-driven and unique-settinged of the games. I am playing this right now, btw, and enjoying it.

* Project Eternity -- This is a game going to be made by this studio in the same style. They have a Kickstarter going for it now that has already doubled its requested funding (at 2.3 million (!) dollars right now). You might want to check it out. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity

Now for other titles:

* Vampire: the Masquerade Bloodlines -- ESPECIALLY if you are fond of the old World of Darkness stuff, but even if you're not, this game is still stunningly good. You have to be okay with things being a little over-the-top in the way WoD stuff is, but if that's no issue I can't recommend this game enough.

* The Metal Gear Solid series. I think it pretty much hits everything you want in a game, though it's stealth instead of action. The second game makes some pretty unique formal choices that make a lot of people angry, but given your taste in other media, I think you'll be okay with that.

* Deus Ex is really old, but is considered one of the best games of all time, even compared to stuff presently. It's a judgment that I can agree with. I wouldn't have suggested if you didn't mention Halo 3; it's not a shooter per se, but it is definitely more level focused like Halo is. Be warned: the story is kind of like Neuromancer had a mind-baby with the Illuminatus Trilogy, so it can get wacky, but it's really well designed.

* I'm currently playing the recently-released prequel Deus Ex: Human Revolutions. It captures a lot of what's good about the original while toning down some of the goofiness. If you don't want to play something as old as the original, I would still recommend this one, probably.

* If you like JRPGs, Lost Odyssey is an extraordinarily good bet.

* I can second the Fable series. It doesn't have the character-driven parts as strongly (especially the earlier titles), so it's not higher on the list, but I think its strengths hit the rest of the points you list. Also, goofy British heroic fantasy.

* I can also second Indigo Prophecy. It is a unique game, and you will know in the first five minutes whether it's a game you can get behind. There's no action except for some very scripted sequences, but I suspect you will love it all the same. As a warning, the story kind of goes off the rails by the end, but up until that point it's really good. Heavy Rain is put out by the same company and supposedly improves on the formula. I haven't played it, but I want to, badly.

I can't tell from this post if you've played any games from Square-Enix, but if you haven't, some of them might work well for you if you like the JRPG genre. In particular:

* Final Fantasy X-2 -- But you should probably play Final Fantasy X first, which is a great game but doesn't hit all these buttons as hard as the sequel. Be warned that the sequel is at-best pretty ridiculous at times, and my wife calls it "Yuna's magical hotpants adventure." I happen to like it a lot, though.

* Final Fantasy Tactics -- This is an oooold PS game, but I think you will groove on it.

* Chrono Trigger, and maybe Chrono Cross.

I could keep going. If I think of anything else, maybe I'll put it up. XD