I am currently playing Dawnwalker. It is a perfectly adequate open world action RPG, but in one area it has failed to meet my expectations.

I've played a lot of fantasy RPGs, including all the three main Witcher games, but over the years, I have developed an interest in history. Kingdom Come, Pentiment and Pillars of the Earth really made me excited about historical fiction in video games.

Dawnwalker is set only half a century before Kingdom Come and not that far away, so I guess I went into it expecting Kingdom Come with vampires and Witcher-style gameplay. It may have been an unrealistic expectation. It certainly wasn't met.

Kingdom Come (and Pentiment and Pillars) does an excellent job of creating a sense of place. You really feel like a tourist to the past. You hear about political turmoil, meet real people, travel to recreations of real places, and see people doing normal medieval shit. You talk to charcoal burners, inspect mines, work at a vineyard and hold a sermon.

In Kingdom Come, you go to the monasteries in Sassau and Sedlec to solve mysteries, forcing you to familiarize yourself with its inhabitants in true Umberto Eco fashion. In Dawnwalker, you go to a monastery for some zombie hack and slash. It's basically Diablo.

Dawnwalker feels like a Witcher game with a less grumpy protagonist and only one sword. You could easily play it without realizing that it is not set in a fantasy world. You go into a church, and there is a vampire St. George, vampire Jesus and vampire Mary. There's no normalcy. There are quests, monsters, caves, dungeons, loot and vampires.

There's none of the "fluff" from Kingdom Come. We're here to kill monsters, level up, talk about how unfair life is and how much it sucks to be a vampire, gather some loot and maybe have a sex scene at some point.

It sounds like I'm really shitting on this game. I actually like it well enough. There is a lot to enjoy if you love narrative open world games. It just isn't a history game in the way I hoped it would be.

The games are Baldur's Gate 3, The Witcher 3, Dark Souls 3, Elden Ring, Bloodborne, Sekiro, Chrono Trigger, Breath of the Wild, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Path of Exile 2 (early access).

A game staying fun on subsequent replays is a really cool element of most RPGs. For example, with mods, Skyrim is a practically infinitely replayable RPG you can easily sink thousands upon thousands of hours into. Likewise for some games in other genres like Minecraft as well as lot of strategy games.

Now, they don't need to be as replayable as Skyrim, but I'm wondering if any of these other games also provide thousands of hours of replayability for most people? And which probably don't? Not easily any way. I'm on PC, so you can factor in mods.

If you've played any of them, can you weigh in? To make it simple, you can categorize the games you've played as: "Easily Thousands," "Possibly/Probably Thousands," and "Probably Not Thousands," and "Definitely Not Thousands." Or your own way of categorizing them. That would really help give me the right idea.

Does anyone else feel like the random loot makes your characters overpowered without you even noticing it? I don't mean only looting dead enemies but rather the random containers/crates. For example, going through a world where every random crate has a certain amount of gold coins, a special item, it may feel nice in the first few hours but quickly takes away the sense of achievement while also giving you easy ways to equip your characters and earn money. I recently replayed PoE 1 and 2 and, although I think they are great games, the endgame encounters quickly became trivial, not only because of my characters levels but also because I had too much money (due to selling random loot) which enabled me to buy everything. And I was playing Deadfire with some challenges turned on, like weapons needing repair and food spoiling. I imagine it would have been even easier if food and equipment was not a concern. I mention PoE but there are other games that fall into the same trap (for example, I started a playthrough on DOS2 and pretty much every container has either gold or an item, sometines scrolls and so on. In DOS2 this problem is mitigated by the encumberance limit (which does not exist in PoE where you have a stash), nevertheless, I find the random loot OP in the long term. Anyone else?

How big is the difference in replayability between these games? Looking for a game I can play for thousands of hours, without burning out anyway. I'm on PC, so you can factor in mods. Also, are either of these games as replayable as Diablo or Path of Exile, or even close?

This is one of my biggest pet peeves in just about every jrpg (especially square Enix it seems like) where you have to enter a 3-4 round tournament battle to unlock the next story element.

Light spoiler ahead: I've been playing Digimon Time Stranger and you have to do it not 1x but 2x!

Do you go to battle arenas during your main run? As bonus post-game content, or like me, you avoid them at all cost?

Generally speaking, what makes a good NPC and side character? Their personality traits, quests or items they can give, if you can romance them, befriend them or add them to your party? How about their influence on the world in game, interactions with them deciding future paths?
Currently trying to build my own story game RPG, and am curious what other gamers think.
Thanks in advance!

in the game "tale of legends" (2017, by Gemini Stars Games), i noticed that sometimes i enter the maze and the chests are already open.

AI say it's a bug but I'm not sure..

and i also notice that some levels have events

so my questions are:

1. is it a bug?

2. how do i make sure i didn't missed any event when upgrading the town?

It's a simple request so I don't know what more to add. I basically want an RPG where your main character (preferably if you can customize them/ make one from scratch) can be something other than a humanoid creature, so I'm also excluding orcs, elves, dwarves, and most other fantasy races. Yes, that also goes for humanoid looking cats and lizards (looking at you Argonians and you sneaky sneaky Khajit)

Simple request, but I myself haven't found anything like this, so I'm beginning to wonder if it even exists. Maybe I just haven't dug deep enough.

Various preliminaries info. I usually don't buy games at full price... but for once I've decided to treat myself and I want a game to play from now until the end of the year. Time-wise I usually get a couple of hours on weekday evenings (work permitting) and longer sessions on weekends. I've added a bit of context for each game. Platform-wise I'm on PS5, since my old gaming computer is kaput and my current PC is a working laptop with no graphics card. Taste-wise I lean toward single player (mostly RPGs, action RPGs and soulslikes, but I'm happy with a bit of everything).

BG3. I had this on PC too and completed about 3/4 of it. Then I lost my saves 😭 I really want to finish it, but the thought of starting over from scratch is a bit demoralizing.

Elden Ring + DLC. Also had this on PC, but right now I can't play it decently anymore. And lately I'd been getting the itch to do a nice full run.

Armored Core. The only FromSoftware game I've never touched. Giant robots appeal to me a lot (childhood Gundam influence) but I have doubts about the game's structure.

Kazan. I heard some content creators speak very highly of its combat, and that's mainly what draws me to it.

Dragon's Dogma 2. I tried the first one years ago but the combat didn't win me over. I've always wanted to give it a chance, and the second one has a decent reputation. Plus the DLC is coming out now, so I'd go straight for base game + DLC.

Starfield + DLC. I know it has all its limitations... but I love space exploration. And I grew up in elementary school on a steady diet of Oblivion. With all its flaws, I like the Bethesda formula. But I've heard it runs poorly on PS5 and various people told me it's not worth the price.

Crimson Desert. I've seen all the hype and I'm aware of its limitations... but I find it fascinating, and I like the sense of spectacle and freedom the trailers give off. Plus they're about to push out the update now.

System Shock (Remake). Prey is one of my favorite games. I guess this is more immersive sim than rpg.

(Other games I'd like to play but not strictly rpg : Astrobot, black myth wukong, Stalker 2)

Games I'd avoid

MH Wilds. I really liked MH World and I've thought several times about getting Wilds, but at this point I'd wait for the DLC (I know it's more a multiplayer game but I play it usually as a single player rpg)

Gothic Remake. I really appreciated Gothic 3 back in the day, and later Risen and Elex. Especially the "roughness" and the sense of progression. But for the remake I can wait for a price drop.

Hell is us, Lord of Fallens. I already have them through PS Plus

Also if you have any other suggestions I'm happy to hear them.

Thanks for all your suggestions

P.s. a short (incomplete) list of games I already played. Nier Automata, factorio all From Software games, TBOI, Kotor 1 and 2, mewgenics, all the borderlands games except the 4, all modern fallout, Hollow Knight and Hollow Knight Silksong, all piranha bytes games, GOW, GOW ragnrock, Last of Us 1 and 2, Dyson Sphere Program, XCOM and XCOM 2 (the modern one), Morrowind, Skyrim, Oblivion (and the remake), Cyberpunk, all the witecher games, Divinity Original Sin 2