Is it just me?

Is it just me or does RPG news for the last few years seem underwhelming to the rest of you? I come here almost every day to get the news like I have since the days of RpgDot but hardly anything interests me anymore. I feel like there are too many Indie games with dated visuals and uninteresting mechanics while the AAA games look prettier and prettier as they become increasingly less sophisticated and uninteresting. Maybe it's just a mid life crisis and it'll pass...

Nope not just you as I agree somewhat.

1. I agree there are far to many uninteresting indie games.
2. Also AAA games especially RPGs are too mainstream.

I had high hopes for crowd-funded games but that seems to have fizzled out in the last few years. Still that doesn't mean a few gems are not released every year.

Nowadays I mostly play older games I never finished or replay games I already finished.

I think it's a combination of the things already mentioned and the fact that our habits and tastes change as we get older.

Even if there were a larger amount of games I'd be interested in, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be spending more time gaming or reading about gaming than I already am.

I used to bemoan not having more time for gaming and gaming related activities, and now I find that I actually game less despite having more time.

Not just you and it's not new.
Indie scene has a serious problem with visuals for years now. Of course there are deliberate horrible graphics presentations to repeat the success of rubbish that looks like shit (Rick and Morte, Bo Jack and alike), but in most cases it's not.
AAA almost completely shifted to mmos and cares not about player's fun but about milking schemes.

But as it happens, every now and then appears an unexpected gem. Thanks to the news here I learned about Troubleshooter. Practically no gaming site mentioned it. No reviews either. It's just an example.

Unlike JDR I actually have less time for games then ever thanks to the stupid coronavirus in past few months. For anything in fact, not just for games. Here's hope the virus is gone soon.

Have there been any recent indie RPGs that you've liked? I get the feeling that with indies, the only viable route is sacrificing visuals and either coming up unique mechanics or doing the mechanics better than old beloved game.

Why do indie games have to sacrifice visuals? Because those fancy 100,000-triangle character meshes with their photo-realistic subsurface-scattering skin shaders and hair physics take up so much time and resources that an indie developer couldn't hope to compete there. That's not to say they have to look like crap. They can look great, with a sub-AAA aesthetic.

Octopath Traveler, although developed and published by gigantic megacorp Squeenix, is an example of how good a AA title can look with cute pixel characters and low-poly backgrounds. That kind of quality is definitely within reach of dedicated indies.

Have there really been no indie RPGs in recent years with fun enough mechanics to get your attention?

Definitely isn't true for me. I'm as interested in games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Bloodlines 2 (on the to be released side) and Disco Elysium (on the recently released side) as I have been in any RPGs. Plenty more I could mention. Meanwhile, while I pass on plenty of Indie RPGs, there are games like Underrail that I like, and in development Indies like Encased and Gamedec that interest me.

Nathaniel3W said:

Have there been any recent indie RPGs that you've liked?

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There have been some good Indie games of course. A few years back I thought Indie games were going to be the answer to my prayers and some have been good. But as time has gone on I've become less interested in what is being offered. I can live with dated visuals, it's the art direction that turns me off to many of them. When it's not the art direction, it's the setting. If it's not the setting then it's the mechanics which are too shallow or too cumbersome.

I do admit that I have a fairly narrow scope of preference - I love a fantasy Tolkien-esque settings and become less interested in the post-apocalyptic settings and even less interested in outer space settings - this is all on me. Still, as a gamer since the late 1970s, I can't remember a 2 year stretch where really nothing on the horizon excited me... even through the early 80s game crash and the mid-late 1990s RPGs slump.

Still, the last few Indie games I was excited about fizzled out into offerings that were nothing like how I imagined they would be (Shroud of the Avatar, Underworld Ascendant, and even Bard's Tale IV). Since UA and BT4 nothing in the Indie department has piqued my interest.

Also, for the record, this post implies nothing negative about RPGWatch… they are just posting the news that is. It's just that the news has been so underwhelming.

These days I've been replaying old games, MM7, Oblivion (heavily modded), Gothic 2 (modded), and even some Dark Souls 2.

Last game I finished was Operencia. Probably the best crawler since Lands of Lore, released this year on steam / last year on epic.

This years RPG releases have not been that awesome so far in general. But there are good times and there are bad times. Let's see if the second half of the year will catch up, though besides Wasteland 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 I don't have anything with fixed release dates on the radar yet and you cannot call these indie I guess.

Nathaniel3W said:

Why do indie games have to sacrifice visuals?

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Beats me. Perhaps we should ask whomever developed Hellblade.
When they answer then we should check the opinion from rubbish game journalists like these:
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/Sin...cant_serve_as_a_role_model_for_developers.php

I have played a lot of great games this year:

Finished:
Vestaria Saga I: War of the Scions
Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception
Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth
Banner of the Maid
Langrisser I & II
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III
Forever Home
Trials of Mana

Nearly finished:
TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children

At the beginning:
Horizon's Gate
Heroines of Swords & Spells
Radiant Arc

HiddenX said:

I have played a lot of great games this year:

Finished:
Vestaria Saga I: War of the Scions
Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception
Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth
Banner of the Maid
Langrisser I & II
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III
Forever Home
Trials of Mana

Nearly finished:
TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children

At the beginning:
Horizon's Gate
Heroines of Swords & Spells
Radiant Arc

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I haven't checked these games, but it sounds like the vast majority is asian or has an asian style. So if you don't like this style I guess you are screwed.

It's not devs' problem someone doesn't like the visual style.
Played only two of those on his list. Not interested much in the rest, but not because of the potential asian style. I just don't think the content will be fun to me. But who knows? Maybe in the future I do try some more.

joxer said:

It's not devs' problem someone doesn't like the visual style.

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Obviously, but you could say that about everything. Like
"It's not devs' problem someone doesn't like to play on console/mobile phone."
"It's not devs' problem someone doesn't like to grind."
"It's not devs' problem someone doesn't like to buy their games on epic."

But I guess most of us here are centered around western style games on the PC.

Definetly not devs' problem I don't want a phonegame or a grinder. I have nothing against Epic though, some do for reasons of their own.

But see, I've tried phonegames and grinders before realizing it's just not fun to me. Most of those if not all… Didn't ditch them instantly without checking what's it about under the hood.

As for indie graphics, depends on what you call "indie." The term seems all but meaningless these days. It's always been iffy because the relationships between developers and publishers vary a lot. Sometimes the publisher is neck-deep in development, sometimes they put a lot of cash up front then demand the game meet various milestones, sometimes they just publish and that's it. Kingdom Come: Deliverance didn't sign Deep Silver until the game had done a lot of development and I don't think they used them at all for publishing through Steam/GOG - so is it indie?

But, honestly, most folks can't be bothered to look that kind of detail up anyway. They seem to look at the graphics and, if they are low rez, then the game is indie. End of discernment. Obviously, you aren't going to get good graphics under that definition.

To the topic - I guess it isn't just you but it sure isn't me. What about Kingdom Come: Deliverance, actually? GREAT visuals and good mechanics, too. No spells, though.

I do not like indie or primitive type graphics most of the time, so yea, I skip those games. I'll admit I'm a bit of a graphics snob, in that way. That said, I also think that what others may consider to be "primitive" or ugly graphics like in Wasteland 2, well, I disagree with them completely, and think those graphics are beautiful too.

But overall, no, I think rpg gaming is in a good place and am still excited and interested to see what the cutting edge games (like cyberpunk 2077) will do.

Zloth said:

To the topic - I guess it isn't just you but it sure isn't me. What about Kingdom Come: Deliverance, actually? GREAT visuals and good mechanics, too. No spells, though.

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Yes I played and enjoyed KC... that was back in Spring 2018 though.

TheMadGamer said:

Yes I played and enjoyed KC… that was back in Spring 2018 though.

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Heck I still have to finish Kingdom Come - Deliverance. Real life is a pain in the ass.

Arkadia7 said:

But overall, no, I think rpg gaming is in a good place and am still excited and interested to see what the cutting edge games (like cyberpunk 2077) will do.

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Man I'm to over-hyped for Cyberpunk 2077 I'll probably be disappointed.

It's my most anticipated RPG and I hope its not delayed again.

It's definitely not just you. I've played hundreds of games in the last few years BUT I almost never finish them and often refund them before the 2-hour mark if they're not grabbing me. I've moved to Survival to fill in the lack of decent single-character crpgs that are my staple. For every Dragonborn or Lone Wanderer, there are 60 party-based games so full of combat that I just get sick of it too fast.

Cyberpunk won't work for me, because I have less than zero interest in playing the main character of that game. I'm too mature for punk anything. Tattoos and scars and body piercings are just gross. I'll stick to looking like a human from planet Earth, thanks

Couchpotato said:

It's my most anticipated RPG and I hope its not delayed again.

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They say they're on track, and that includes sending out review copies in mid August. I think we're good this time. I get the distinct impression that the new release date wasn't just about how long they actually needed, but also what they thought would be a good date for sales (in other words, I don't think they necessarily needed 5 months)