Red Dead Redemption 2 is a great example of a open world game with a strong protagonist. The character Arthur Morgan finds out he’s dying along with his community and way of life. You enter in the twilight of his life story and it makes for some incredibly impactful moments. The story for that game was fantastic.
@@trevorhorn551I actually think it’s better the second time around, because the second time, you’re not wondering “how will this gang fall apart” - you already know, and you take your time appreciating the moment for what it is.
I see where he's coming from, but I generally prefer RPG games where you play a "blank slate" type character. A previously defined character can be done well like with Witcher. But I like it when a "blank slate" character is handled well. It's essentially putting you in the shoes of that character. You have to act like what you would act like in a fantastical setting. In New Vegas, the choices I made felt more important than any other RPG, because they feel like choices *I* made, and the world reacts to *me* and all the consequences of my actions are *mine* . It's a very personal experience where you essentially get inserted into a fantasy world. Like, I was the one who killed Mr. House. I made that decision based on my moral principles, and I personally caused the consequences of his death, intended or otherwise. It wasn't Bob or Sarah who made that really impactful decision, it was me.
@@spheremode3271 yes, I always do playthroughs for every faction in the game making bullshit stories in fallout and elder scrolls are my number one favourite thing
Dragon Age: Origins had the best approach IMO. You have a set background that you choose at character creation, but you are free to respond to that however you want; whether you embrace that role or reject it or anything in between. It can also alter the context of certain events in the story quite dramatically, depending on your character's perspective. Too bad the later games didn't do the same thing.
Yup, it's a real shame they didn't keep the silent protagonist tbh, when the player character is not voiced it gives the player much more leeway in how the line you choose may end up actually being said.
I do much prefer games that have a character creator as the story feels more personal and tailored to you. W3 is a good game, but just could not hold me as long as other RPGs could.
"Gambling in video games should be illegal" "RPGS with blank slate characters suck" Diablo 2. This is my imagined hypocrisy that i will gesture towards.
@@jizburg There is an actual gambling npc in the game. But with that said gambling in games are only a problem if the game has micro transactions. But if the game doesn't than the "gambling" is just a minigame. Which is the case of Diablo 2, or the casino minigames in GTA San Andreas.
I really liked the Witcher but other games like baldursgate 2 or divinity give me a better feeling with choices and consequences going through the story compared to Witcher
@@otto_jk right? You can try your damnest to make everyone happy, but sometimes it leads to the worst possible ending of certain quests. It goes way beyond what most RPGs do: press this button to be good, this one to be bad(ass in case of ME).
You can still have great characters without them being the player characters, blank slate characters are good for roleplay potential. But you will need actual well-written NPCs and storylines(with choices that actually enable player agency) to give your blank slate character some sense of a character, the problem is that none of it exist in things like Skyrim, most characters in Skyrim are jsut quests giving machines without an story arc what so ever. You are just a yes boy/girl to those quest givers. Another example is Fallout New Vegas which also has a blank slate protaganists, but the world and story actually interact with you, and you actually make various choices that actually mattered to give your own character. Ultimately blank slate, half-defined(Commander Shepard, Inquisitor, V, etc), fully-defined have their ups and downs, but the essential part is your connection to the world and story.
@@chaserseven2886 Diverting power to certain sections of the map Preventing/Causing destruction of a powered monorail station Literally all companion focused quests Forlorn Hope/Nelson stalemate There's more but these are the immediate ones I thought of
Yeah I thought Commander Shepard was done really well. I felt like I was playing a real person, and like they would be held accountable by other characters and allies. But was also just blank enough to the point where I could really fill their shoes with my own wishes as well
Vaush is comparing one of the best RPGs with a pre-established MC to all of the worst RPGs with a blank slate MC. These are two distinct categories of game that do different things to achieve different aesthetics of play. The Witcher III (and RPGs like it) can use character and story to create tension that allows for a more dramatic experience. Games like Planescape Torment, Morrowind, or Fallout 1 aren't trying to do what the Witcher does. They want to create a sense of place, of the mundane in another world.
Knights of the Old Republic was a uniquely weird one, because you can create your own character but, then you recover lost memories and you turn into some weird hybrid character that's partly scripted and partly not.
@@SA-mo3hq no idea. If the statement was "what the learned from witcher 3 was cyberpunk 2077" that would make sense and point to that they essentialy learned to make worse games. But what the devs "should" learn is a wierd statement. It could also be that he meant that "the developers of cyberpunk 2077 should look to witcher 3 for lessons in how to make their game better"
I would say mass effect. You can decide shepherd's personally though dialogue options that locks off certain solutions to problems depending on if it makes sense for your shepherd to do. Like you can't use the slaughter everyone in the room option if shepherd has talked out of every previous situation It's not good vs evil more angry vs calm shepherd
I like Shepard and the ME games, but lets be very honest here: he/she is not even comparably remarkable as Geralt. Garrus may be, or Tali, or Wrex, but definitly not Shepard.
@@AwkwardPain Totally. Same here. As a side note, I don't know if ME would be improved with a more defined character, though. It would bring a different approach for the game than the one intended. Although I prefer more defined protagonists and I maintain that they are, in general, way better written than anything a player may "write" by themselves, the fact is that there is a place for all types of narratives and "blank character" are a valid option for certain styles of games. More linear and defined characters doesn't fit all artistic approaches and I don't think it would fit ME, for an example.
Link is essential blank as a character, but Termina remains a beloved local due to its varied citizenry that have a multifaceted last moments as their world slowly breaks down. The issue with games like Skyrim is that you’re a blank slate character and the characters around you have very little character. If you MC doesn’t have personality, you have to compensate. Skyrim does have some characters with decent personalities, but on the large, they’re just quest givers. One of my favorite moments is following the one guard as she sets to rally the troops for the first dragon fight and the guards cheer…with one saying “we’re all going to die.” That was actually charming. I wish had more of that in its main gameplay loop. Vaush does have a bit of a point, but I think he got caught up in the idea of it being a conceptual flaw rather than an execution flaw.
I played Witcher 3 on console, I didn't really like it I prefer rpgs that have blank slate player characters with no established background it's much more fun making up bullshit backstories
The fact that vaush calls New Vegas a Bethesda game actually makes my fucking skin crawl. EDIT: He's also wrong about roleplaying in video games. One of my favorite playthroughs of New Vegas was when I was a mad scientist who relied entirely on companions to fight for him before becoming a cyborg cannibal and siding with house to do some weird bioshock shit
@@jamesmunn576 I'm a massive nerd for the classic fallouts and when people call New Vegas a bethesda game, it just seems like pissing in the faces of all the talented devs at Obsidian. The game design of New Vegas and 3 are polar opposites despite being made in the same exact engine. New Vegas at its core is a true roleplaying game, where fallout 3 is literally a fan game, just an open world action game with light rpg elements (literally just stats) like every bethesda game. It's like saying the metro games are just call of duty clones
Oh and one more thing: if Vaush's argument of Witcher's superiority is the rich and well-rounded character of Geralt then it's not thanks to CDPR because they did not create the character, it's thanks to Sapkowski's writing.
Sapkowski literally doesn't even consider the games canon. I agree, but take that in for a moment: these games owe all their greatness to him, and he still dismisses them.
@@Bryndleson Different story but it still gains a lot from the stories. Most of the setting, characters, tone, & politics are inspired or lifted straight out of them. They didn't pay for the rights to make games based off of The Witcher novels just for the name and then did everything uniquely.
I disagree with that take. Fallout 2 is a great game BECAUSE you can create any type of a character that you want and play the game however you see fit. So I do not believe that Witcher's approach is strictly superior. Yeah, his character is one of the big strenghts of the game but it's possible to create a great game with a tabula rasa approach as Fallout 2, Baldur's Gate series, Vampire: Bloodlines or Dragon's Age: Origins have proved. Edit: What is even worse is that he is so smug about being wrong and aggravated by people pointing it out.
Man, I disagree on your point about Fallout 2. When I played it, I just did all the quests. There was just about zero role playing from my perspective. Now, I liked Fallout 2, but I didn't play a role, I played the game. I dunno how you do it, tbh. I just couldn't...
@@Boomerrage32 Ohkay... I do not know what you tell you. You build character, you roleplay that character. That's what RPGs are. Fallout 2 is as classic as they come.
the blank slate character is merely overused. And while it's fine, I do like a character with characterization upon entry. It does make interactions more dynamic.
when Regis said "After all that, we deserve a bit of rest" And Geralt answered "That we do" and then turned to the player my brain literally orgasmed. It's one oft the most memorable moments to me out of any game I have ever seen and it would not have been possible were I playing as my own character. Imagine your skyrim character turning to you thorugh the screen and looking at you in a fully animated cutscene.
@@jizburg there are a few variations on the ending (including there being a bad ending), but the core ending remains (mostly) the same. I'd say that your character's build and political leanings has the most influence on how you experience the story (as it affects how you achieve your objectives and what interpretations your character arrives at when it comes to people and politics). This isn't exactly a game where the protagonist's decisions have long reaching influence on the world (it would actually be bad for the story if it was a power fantasy like that). If you like CRPGs / Tabletop RPGs, Visual Novels, or just great stories (featuring a compelling world and fleshed out characters), Disco Elysium isn't one to pass up.
The Witcher never really held my attention. I played a bit but I always just ended up uninstalling it and playing something else. Mind you I'm an RPG nut. Mostly for western RPGs, going back to the Baldur's Gate days. But W3 just could not hold me for what ever reason. Some folks say it gets better later on but I've yet to see it. That is why it is hard for me to relate to people that want to say it's the greatest RPG of all time. Give me Dragon Age Origins any day.
Witcher 3 is a lot closer to JRPGS then western RPGs I feel. The gameplay is distinctly western, but the structure is pretty different. Main story quest, progress from area to area, gameplay is simple instead of deep, lot of dialogue with limited dialogue options, and emphasis on very likable characters and their interactions. These are all pretty common in a lot of JRPGs, and as linear as they are, you can't really say that's the wrong way of doing things. Maybe this distinction is why you bounce off of it?
@@sauceinmyface9302 Yeah, I think that is a fair assessment. I personally like RPGs that let you roleplay a character of your own creation rather than roleplay a specific character with their own predefined defined personality and goals.
I'm conflicted. I think W3 is one of the best games ever but I burned out hard at 70 hours and drug myself to 80 after a break. I wonder if there's just too much of it?
on the “what if dark souls had a real character?” question, Jedi: Fallen Order is there. Cal isn’t the strongest character and Jedi isn’t the same as the souls games, but it’s a really good game.
i think it's more of a problem of lazy game design than actual the actual idea of a blank character. the idea of starting a game as a noone and building a personality as you play the game sounds a lot more fun, replayable and interesting than being bound to a single character who can act a little out of line. the problem with the blank slate characters is that their personality is usually just reset to blank for every different questline/npc. imagine if you had chosen to nuke the town in fo3 fucking EVERYONE knew it and shot at you on sight, and even if you tried to talk to them your personality was already down a psycho path (heh) so all you could do is at best threaten them. that'd be fucking dope, but most sandboxes' philosophy is that of player freedom instead of player choice, so you have to be capable of experiencing the entire game in any single playthrough
Well that's exactly why New Vegas is a masterpiece. It focused on player choice instead of player freedom and you suffered real consequences for your choices. Perhaps in the future, more developers will realise that people who play these kinds of blank slate games want choices and consequences, not endless freedom to do whatever you want.
@@zixx844 not really either. at the end of the day your character still was a blank slate with no personality. yes your choices have consequences, but your dialogue is always really functional, the most personality you could have is to have 0 inteligence. in the end, all your choices were reduced to WHAT you did, never HOW you did it.
@@popocaDice True, good point. I think the next evolution for these style of games need to come from ever changing stats. What I mean is that something like intelligence or agility is not always going to improve, it can get worse depending on your decisions and actions. Perhaps like a sanity meter that slowly builds up the more traumatic things your character experiences and eventually results in them becoming psychotic. There are lots of potential ways to bring about character development on blank slate characters that would be fun and organic. But the biggest challenge is for game designers to throw out the concept of a power fantasy and instead make their games purely about choice and consequence, with the potentially for it to all go to shit cause your character went insane and hallucinated the regular citizens of a town to be feral ghouls.
I like this because I can contextualize Vaush’s opinion by what I know about him as a person. Dunkey made some really good points about this in his videos on game reviewers (or game journalists idk) with his example being turn-based strategy games. He can’t stand turn based strategy games so if you watch a vid by dunkey about these types of games you can contextualize it. I don’t fucking know what I’m talking about, I just like hearing Vaush rant about pop culture or video games sometimes.
I agree with vaush's take. In KOTOR, the main character is revealed to be Darth revan, but this shock never felt like betrayal more like, "we were the baddies all along" the characters brush over it and we never explore how it would feel for our revan who just found out they were a horrible piece of shit regardless if you were play as a dark side or light side character. And I genuinely believe that if our mc wasn't some sort of blank slate and that the devs would take time to write out his character, it would improve significantly improve an already amazing game.
This is exactly what I thought of as well. One of the reasons I don't hate the Revan novel as much as most other KOTOR fans is that it tried to give Revan even the slightest hint of a solid personality who has conflicting feelings about the Jedi and his past. That said the novel still shits on KOTOR II so I do still hate it a little bit.
The Elder scrolls during the 90s and the original fallouts were great RPGs. I agree that the Witcher is better then most modern RPGs but it cant even compete with games like Fallout 2 or Daggerfall
I kind of get this, I like playing Borderlands 2 since your classes are just six different characters with their own pre-set personality and have specific quips when doing certain things. That said blank slates can sometimes be better at pulling yourself into the game
I think Souls games are some of the most capable of doing a blank slate character. The whole story is derived directly from the world and its lore, the mcs are treated as meaningless compared to scale of their adventure.
Player-made characters are objectively superior for *role playing* games. If I want to play a game with a protagonist that has their own well-defined backstory and personality, I am just going to play another type of game. And why would I even want to make choices for a fleshed out character? Seeing the choices a character makes, what it says about themselves and how it may impact their development in the future is part of the charm of character-writing. The only exception to this rule I can think of would be a game which actively aims for letting the player impact the development of a character who isn't them, maybe making a point about autonomy and our relation to fictional characters. On the other hand, you also run into the issue that your own choices become less meaningful, because there will always be this barrier between you, the player, and your character that simply shouldn't exist in a game focused on role playing. And Vaush subconsciously knows this is correct because one of the best RPGs with a nameless protagonist is one he loves too - Dark Souls. These games simply wouldn't work as well if they had someone else inside the player character's had but the player, and the same is true for every other real RPG that actually tries to make proper use of its own strengths ... not just the "lore" as he says, but the narrative the player actively experiences by playing the game (which I think is VERY undersold by a lot of people, eventhough they would likely agree once it is explained to them). If Vaush has ever done something worth cancelling him over it's this! lmao
Seriously, I disagree with Vaush a lot but rarely he is so wrong and smug about being wrong that I want to shout at my monitor as in this video. Those are not the same, no one is arguing that. Those are two totally different approaches with their strenghts and weaknesses and neither is objectively superior. It's like saying that Altered Carbon is better s-f series than Black Mirror because it has an evolving arc instead of episodic nature. It's silly and a clear sign that Vaush is talking out of his ass on this one.
I have played a little bit of the Witcher games but I'm reading through the books right now and the story is so so SO good! It's not just about Geralt all the time, it switches perspectives pretty often so you can see how the politics and events of that world play out. The tone of the series is dark and everyone is as progressive as you'd expect for a setting in the Middle Ages (which is to say not at all) and it's Geralt and the others in the thick of it all dealing with how fucked up their world is I love it so much
"it's not just about Geralt all the time" You understand that the main character of the novels is literally Ciri, right? She's the focus of everything. It's LITERALLY not about Geralt AT ALL.
Also if you have a mute character, have a goddamn mute character. Mute people don't just communicate with nods and pantomiming while [mascot character] talks for them to save budget.
Neverwinter Nights 2 Mask of the Betrayer has no voiced character, the character is completely custom, and all your choices are meaningful and the game is interesting and well written and SUPER memorable, I remember every character and the moral dilemma that didn't have an easy answer it presented me with.
I am pretty much the opposite for most games. When I make a character I try to make decision that I would make, not some other person that i'm playing as. That is why FNV and the Mass Effect series are some of my favorite games of all time.
LUL, Vaush so mad. Wrong and mad. It's also telling that he compares a great RPG with a pre-written character (Witcher 3) against a bad RPG with a tabula rasa character approach (Fallout 3). Yes, Fallout 3 is a bad RPG but it's would not be made objectively better if the character was pre-made.
There was one character in Skyrim who I gave a single fuck about. It was Serena from the Dawn-guard DLC. She had the most depth out of any character actually gets you attached to her and she wasn’t fucking able to marry which is bullshit.
I'm fairly certain there is a lot more content within the Witcher 3 and larger outcomes for the endings.... I agree completely about different styles of game play thou!
Ugh Vaush always has an unpopular opinion on things people love. I almost don't care what he thinks...almost. I just wish he didn't have to be so condescending to his audience.
Although I love games with a full character creation system, background and all; RPGs with a character that has a set personality & such almost always draw more emotional and substantial connections. Like, I have a far deeper connection to Commander Shepard and Aloy, than I do for The Dragonborne and The Lone Wander.
I can connect with both as long as they're good games and try to have focus. Skyrim let me wander around doing stuff, and get into random encounters. A bear suddenly attacks me while I'm running through the woods. I literally stumble into a cave. It's a sandbox, not unlike sandbox games like Minecraft, where similar encounters occur. Witcher 3 to me is more similar to a JRPG than western RPGs. Take a game like Final Fantasy X. Linear as can be storywise, and the characters are what they are. But they're likable, and I enjoy playing as them, and I enjoy watching the ride. I feel the same way about Witcher's character and world. It's not a sandbox, it's a collection of stories, much like the novels it's based on. Hell, you could even think about it like a Visual Novel with some additional gameplay as flavor.
Interesting perspective. I remember Aloy better than my blank slate characters, but that might be because I played multiple playthroughs of the blank slate character games. I will never play HZD twice but idk if that's a win or not. I do distinctly remember renegade and paragon Shepherd but I also played or watched them be beaten many times. I'm not sure if connection correlates to game quality.
@@anthonynorman7545 Both archetypes have standout examples, even from games that aren't necessarily of a high quality. And both archetypes are equally valid. The only notable difference between the two is creator intent. It's more likely for the players to feel a particular connection or fondness for a more established character, rather than a blank slate one of our own creation. Not to say blank slate characters are impossible to connect deeply with, it just takes more dedication and skill.
Isn't Commander Shepard a blank slate character since you decide his/her history (both military and pre-military), personality (paragon, renegade or some combination of the two) and their skill set (the classes as well as some of the skills in the first game)?
This is basically true. I've never been into "blank slate" protag RPGs. The main issue with trying to build this flimsy imitation of myself in a video game is....I already know who I am. I already know what I would do in X situation. I don't need to learn about ME. I want to learn about the characters. I want to learn about THEM in the world the author designed without trying to awkwardly accommodate this blank protag running around. I didn't come here to tell you a story, I came here for YOU to tell ME a story. I'm not narcissistic enough to want to self-insert myself into every fucking story I see. I don't want to tell you what I would do if I was superman, I want to see what superman would do.
You don't have to play as yourself in RPGs with an undefined protagonist. Part of the appeal of those games is that you can choose what kind of character you want to play as. If you want to play as Superman, then make Superman.
Well enjoyment of those kinds of games comes from watching how the world changes and develops according to your actions. In New Vegas for example, the main character isn't the Courier, the main character is the Mojave and it works so well because your choices all have consequences. For example at the start of the game with Goodsprings, you can either side with Goodsprings in which you'll have the powder gangers hate you and prevent you from experiencing their faction. Or if you side with the Powder gangers the town will be wiped off the map and your character will be stuck with that reputation with the rest of the Mojave for the rest of the game. You can't get that sort of world development in a game like the Witcher cause your characters choices are limited by their backstory. Then once you've beaten the game for the first time, then comes the fun of creating various true role play characters with backstories and motives that fit within the world. The world of Fallout is extremely deep and interesting with tonnes of potential characters you can create to experience the story in a different way.
I think a better idea is if you go blank slate, make your background and choices and design like race matter. The problem isnt a blank character and choice, its that the game gives you blankness and no choice. Baldurs gate 3 is the prime example. Make your choices impactful to make.
I like the Witcher 3 and like Skyrim. They are really different games though, saying Skyrim is not good because it doesn't have a main strong character and "you can be anything" is indeed missing the whole point of Skyrim. The great thing about Skyrim is that you can replay it a hundred times and feel your still having new adventures exactly because of this openness. The Witcher, however as much as I love it, I would never play it more then once. Anyway It's all about taste, I love the Witcher, Zelda, Skyrim, Elden Ring and some good JRPG's equally for different reasons.
Tbh, I don't really agree with this take. The Witcher games weren't good because Geralt is a character, but because he's an incredibly well-written character. While something like Fallout or Skyrim looks obviously bad compared to Witcher, now compare Fallout to your typical JRPG, like Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger or what have you. Most JRPGs have pre-written characters too, but the story (typically) doesn't go nearly as deep. In these cases, the open world sandbox games often tend to be better because they let you make actual choices, whereas JRPGs typically only railroad you along a set story (which of course can be a good story, but that's not the point being made here). The issue isn't whether or not there's a defined character, but how good the writing is. That's the case in 99% of these types of criticisms, btw. It all comes back to actual quality, not to this trait or that trait being better.
I'm really noticing this with Divinity Original Sin 2. I'm playing the Red Prince so some moments feel way more impactful than if I was a blank slate. I refer to the Red Prince as the Red Prince when playing or talking about the game, not me because he feels like a character. However, the game tries to have it's cake and eat it too. The moments where the Red Prince questions himself and his supreme arrogance are amazing! And then it'll be followed by me being presented with two dialogue options anyone could've picked that are Good(TM) and Bad(TM). Which doesn't work for the Red Prince. He's complicated, he has the ability for great good but is caught up in his loss and selfishness and arrogance. It makes a really good story feel kind of weak because I'm not dealing with a consistent character. There's the Red Prince and then there's me, the character jumping between each like they have bipolar.
the witcher also have way better moral qoustions like in crook bag bog where you can chose to save the kids but it comes at the cost of the barons wife and the village downtrodan
I'm gonna get so much shit. I absolutely hated the witcher 3, Geralt is such a boring character, the quests never grabbed me, I never cared who Ciri was. And it sucked because I really wanted to like it, I've started it like 5 times trying to give it a try and every time I'm so thoroughly bored that I just hate playing it.
It's fine to feel this way. And you shouldn't get hate for having an opinion. I absolutely love the Witcher 3, though it doesn't give me the right to attack you. Not everything is for everyone.
@@awsomeboy360 I think I wasn't very charitable to the game. I don't hate the Witcher 3, I hate that I didn't like it. I saw it and it looked so cool and I was excited to have a new RPG to play. It really bummed me out that I didn't see all the good everyone says about it.
You are...important to the plot, but it's not about you, not really. It's about the people around you and you are simply experiencing life and trying to help them.
Why would anyone hold the lonesome road up as something that puts new vegas in the same catagory as Witcher 2 or 3 when Lonesome Road is the worst part of it? All Uylesses does is yell at the mailman when he was Ceasers right hand man after Graham. Except unlike Graham he doesnt even try to redeem himself. Dude was a waste of a cool voice and charater design
@@TheKnizzine the three dlc Pitt point lookout and to a letter degree broken steel were fun, I prefer operation brainwash over zeta because it was shorter
Bro, Lonesome Road was fucking great when compared to something like Honest Hearts. Uylesses was looking to the path of redemption, that was the point. The Courier showed him a vision of hope for tomorrow, one that is not merely tracing the Old World ideologies. A world built of and for the Wasteland and its realities. Uylesses found in that place future and he looked up to the Courier as the one who brought it about. Which is why, when, unknowingly, the Courier was the one to destroy the Divide and dash all of Uylesses hopes away, it impacted Uylesses so. He thought he could do better, he thought that he could find hope in the vision the Courier brought but it was that same person who also destroyed it all. It baffles me how people either miss it or choose to overlook it because "Bear, Bull, Bear, Bull, Divide, Courier, Divide, Bear, Bull". The things he does as a result of it is motivated partly by revenge, he just refuses to accept that fact, it's what makes him interesting, that's his flaw. But still, partly he wanted to do the same thing the Courier did, almost. He watched as a new ideology was growing in the Divide, one that did not rely on the Old World ideas to build itself. And so, he wanted to do the same thing in a much more radical way. By destroying a nest of the Old World he would both take revenge on the Courier and give the Wasteland more room to create its own identity and purpose. Yeah, it's not perfect and something to soy-face about but it is better than people give it credit for. At most I can see how the linearity can get on your nerves but that is present, if in lesser degrees, in Honest Hearts and Dead Money. I'd still argue Dead Money and Lonesome Road were some of the better DLCs for New Vegas.
For clarity, for as progressive as the third game is, it doesn't come close to the books. The book series reads as an allegory for reproductive rights, from the different ways Geralt and Yennefer had their ability to have children taken from them, to literal nations trying to force Ciri to have a baby, as well as a prominent characters abortion.
AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THE LOVE TRIANGLE WITH TRISS! Good lord they butchered my Triss! She's so out of character in the games. She's an awkward little dork in the books with a crush on Geralt, but doesn't want to get between him and Yennefer, because they are both her friends. It's a bit more complicated than that, but you get the gist.
I like the arpg gameplay of dark souls more but the story (and side missions) of the witcher is woaaah. A mashup of soulsborne gameplay and witcher mission structure and storytelling would be game of the century
Role-playing in video games never made much sense to me As in like the idea that you're tryna replicate the level of player expression in tabletop game within the confines of a video game There it makes sense cuz the only limits to player expression is the human imagination In a game like Fallout 1 I can draft up a player backstory and in depth personality but it's never gonna satisfyingly come into the plot
Actually, I found it really frustrating in games like Skyrim where I'm sometimes expected to be super mercenary to resolve a quest for some daedric artifact and not give me the ability to adequately resolve it in line with my character's motivations even if it requires personal sacrifice like missing out on some epic loot. That Abandoned House in Markarth was particular egregious to me regarding this. I always felt in the Witcher series that I had options that could fit my alignment to the character I wanted to play, even it proved costly and could play without fear of it coming across vastly different than my intention. I felt more immersed and complete with the character I wanted to play as as Geralt than any of the Bethesda games except maybe Morrowind and that could just be 20 year old nostalgia. The game that felt closest to me before Witcher 3, regarding that, was Baldur's Gate 2. Witcher 3 also was always kind of transparent with regards to the possible stakes of most all choices (with 5 or so specific ones not withstanding) that I never felt baited into a choice, Often it was just a matter of being a good detective. Where as often times in FO or ES it felt like a dumb narrow good/bad choice or just stupid HAHA you need prescience to actually know enough to make the right choice for replay-ability.
‘But nothing happens after you decide to do it’ > karma down to lowest option > mercenaries get sent after you > dad hates you > quest giver become a ghoul Bethesda bad
I 100% feel what Vaush is saying about blank characters... I remember wanting to do a badass Vampire Lord playthrough in Skyrim, and halfway through I thought "well, when I achieve that, then what? this mf will still just be a silent blank space with Vampire powers"
The Witcher 3 is very very good and what they did with garalt was great but most rpgs are meant to simulate ttrpgs so being able to choose your character is pretty important to that.
(No spoilers in this comment) The Witcher 3’s story’s was so fucking good that when I got to the Bloody Baron part and I made the choice with the weird character that gave you a bad ending, I felt so sad about it all that I cried. Like, a lot. I couldn’t play the game anymore because I was so torn up about it. That thing that happens (if you’ve played this part then yo probably know what I mean) just hits too close to home, but it was still a very moving and involving story. I know that this isn’t a special or unique opinion but Witcher 3 is in my top 3 favorite games of all time
I love Geralt but I don’t think every main character has to be super set in stone, I just think the choices you get in a lot of games are underdeveloped and meaningless, but if you look at a game like Divinity 2, they are actually able to make your character feel meaningful despite that you get a lot of freedom to do a lot of shit because the writers actually know how to write good choices. I also feel like it’s weird Vaush is only talking about the protagonist because I feel like having a blank slate character is usually less of a problem than you feeling like the characters your characters interact with are just rando quest givers. For me, this is what makes me feel like a game’s choices are meaningless, because if I don’t feel like the other characters don’t care about what I do, I feel like there is no consequences to choices I make. Also, I think Vaush should give FFXIV a shot, even though that game starts slow and your main character is pretty much a blank slate, some of the dialogue choices you get are very meaningful despite not changing the story much, in comparison to almost any other game I’ve played, simply because the other characters are so well developed and seeing their reactions to some of the dialogue you get feel very emotional.
What is the point of RPG if you're forced to play a pre-defined character who you may not even like? Its a roleplaying game. Some theater of the mind is supposed to be part of it.
I don’t know what it is but I just could never get into the Witcher, the gameplay is good but honestly nothing special IMO and honestly I found a lot of the characters pretty one dimensional and boring, also i found the story kind of convoluted , feel free do dunk on me I probably deserve it lol
wanted to upload this yesterday but for some reason final cut pro took forever to render it
Cancel final cut
And the withcer has a great soundtrack steel for humans being the greatest song in the game
Red Dead Redemption 2 is a great example of a open world game with a strong protagonist. The character Arthur Morgan finds out he’s dying along with his community and way of life. You enter in the twilight of his life story and it makes for some incredibly impactful moments. The story for that game was fantastic.
fucking love that game.
But the quest design sucks balls and if not for the excellent storytelling it would be borderline unplayable.
@adammansour7999 its a give and take for me, and the first time you experience the story fuckin hits
One of the best games of all time!
@@trevorhorn551I actually think it’s better the second time around, because the second time, you’re not wondering “how will this gang fall apart” - you already know, and you take your time appreciating the moment for what it is.
I see where he's coming from, but I generally prefer RPG games where you play a "blank slate" type character. A previously defined character can be done well like with Witcher. But I like it when a "blank slate" character is handled well. It's essentially putting you in the shoes of that character. You have to act like what you would act like in a fantastical setting. In New Vegas, the choices I made felt more important than any other RPG, because they feel like choices *I* made, and the world reacts to *me* and all the consequences of my actions are *mine* . It's a very personal experience where you essentially get inserted into a fantasy world.
Like, I was the one who killed Mr. House. I made that decision based on my moral principles, and I personally caused the consequences of his death, intended or otherwise. It wasn't Bob or Sarah who made that really impactful decision, it was me.
I remember playing new Vegas and other games pretending my character was Hitler isekied, I was a very strange kid
@@chaserseven2886 So you went with the legion then? Lol
@@spheremode3271 yes, I always do playthroughs for every faction in the game making bullshit stories in fallout and elder scrolls are my number one favourite thing
@@chaserseven2886 didn't you hear Vaush? Apparently this is a non valid way to experience a videogame built entirely on that premise xD.
@@ThumbSipper to be fair to him i think he was being facetious about it
Dragon Age: Origins had the best approach IMO. You have a set background that you choose at character creation, but you are free to respond to that however you want; whether you embrace that role or reject it or anything in between. It can also alter the context of certain events in the story quite dramatically, depending on your character's perspective.
Too bad the later games didn't do the same thing.
Hey that sounds pretty good
Yup, it's a real shame they didn't keep the silent protagonist tbh, when the player character is not voiced it gives the player much more leeway in how the line you choose may end up actually being said.
Origins is awsome. Love the ability to pause and the posibility to zoom out to an isometric view. I do like voice acting tho.
Check out Baldur's Gate 3
I do much prefer games that have a character creator as the story feels more personal and tailored to you. W3 is a good game, but just could not hold me as long as other RPGs could.
"Gambling in video games should be illegal"
"RPGS with blank slate characters suck"
Diablo 2. This is my imagined hypocrisy that i will gesture towards.
Is there gambling in diablo? I must have missed that part. Altho its over 10 years since i played it last.
@@jizburg He means the rare drops I think
@@Fisolenmann yea.. maby but thats grinding, not gambling.
@@jizburg There is an actual gambling npc in the game. But with that said gambling in games are only a problem if the game has micro transactions. But if the game doesn't than the "gambling" is just a minigame. Which is the case of Diablo 2, or the casino minigames in GTA San Andreas.
I really liked the Witcher but other games like baldursgate 2 or divinity give me a better feeling with choices and consequences going through the story compared to Witcher
I really liked how unpredictable the choices were in Witcher 3
@@otto_jk right? You can try your damnest to make everyone happy, but sometimes it leads to the worst possible ending of certain quests. It goes way beyond what most RPGs do: press this button to be good, this one to be bad(ass in case of ME).
Baldurs gate 1 and 2 slapped. I picked them up at like age 8 or 9 and i still play it today sometimes. And i am 33 now.
That's because those games are actually rpgs and the Witcher is not lol
@@beezusHrist why don't you think the Witcher series are rpgs?
You can still have great characters without them being the player characters, blank slate characters are good for roleplay potential.
But you will need actual well-written NPCs and storylines(with choices that actually enable player agency) to give your blank slate character some sense of a character, the problem is that none of it exist in things like Skyrim, most characters in Skyrim are jsut quests giving machines without an story arc what so ever. You are just a yes boy/girl to those quest givers.
Another example is Fallout New Vegas which also has a blank slate protaganists, but the world and story actually interact with you, and you actually make various choices that actually mattered to give your own character.
Ultimately blank slate, half-defined(Commander Shepard, Inquisitor, V, etc), fully-defined have their ups and downs, but the essential part is your connection to the world and story.
what world interactions does new vegas have?
@@chaserseven2886
Diverting power to certain sections of the map
Preventing/Causing destruction of a powered monorail station
Literally all companion focused quests
Forlorn Hope/Nelson stalemate
There's more but these are the immediate ones I thought of
@@Mikidy when it comes to the diverting of power I never noticed any differences
What about dragon quest 9?
Yeah I thought Commander Shepard was done really well. I felt like I was playing a real person, and like they would be held accountable by other characters and allies. But was also just blank enough to the point where I could really fill their shoes with my own wishes as well
Vaush is comparing one of the best RPGs with a pre-established MC to all of the worst RPGs with a blank slate MC. These are two distinct categories of game that do different things to achieve different aesthetics of play. The Witcher III (and RPGs like it) can use character and story to create tension that allows for a more dramatic experience. Games like Planescape Torment, Morrowind, or Fallout 1 aren't trying to do what the Witcher does. They want to create a sense of place, of the mundane in another world.
Knights of the Old Republic was a uniquely weird one, because you can create your own character but, then you recover lost memories and you turn into some weird hybrid character that's partly scripted and partly not.
The main lesson developers should learn from the Witcher 3 is Cyberpunk 2077
It's pretty true
I dont understand what you mean.
"Never meet your heroes" maybe?
@@SA-mo3hq no idea. If the statement was "what the learned from witcher 3 was cyberpunk 2077" that would make sense and point to that they essentialy learned to make worse games. But what the devs "should" learn is a wierd statement.
It could also be that he meant that "the developers of cyberpunk 2077 should look to witcher 3 for lessons in how to make their game better"
I would say mass effect.
You can decide shepherd's personally though dialogue options that locks off certain solutions to problems depending on if it makes sense for your shepherd to do.
Like you can't use the slaughter everyone in the room option if shepherd has talked out of every previous situation
It's not good vs evil more angry vs calm shepherd
I like Shepard and the ME games, but lets be very honest here: he/she is not even comparably remarkable as Geralt. Garrus may be, or Tali, or Wrex, but definitly not Shepard.
@@monnaranzoti732 I play these games for the other characters, not for my character. My character is a medium in which I can interact with them.
@@AwkwardPain Totally. Same here.
As a side note, I don't know if ME would be improved with a more defined character, though. It would bring a different approach for the game than the one intended. Although I prefer more defined protagonists and I maintain that they are, in general, way better written than anything a player may "write" by themselves, the fact is that there is a place for all types of narratives and "blank character" are a valid option for certain styles of games. More linear and defined characters doesn't fit all artistic approaches and I don't think it would fit ME, for an example.
@@monnaranzoti732 Agreed. They wrote the games to fit that kind of character.
I think there's room for both defined and blank slate player characters. Gerald works for The Witcher and "The Corrier" works for New Vegas.
Link is essential blank as a character, but Termina remains a beloved local due to its varied citizenry that have a multifaceted last moments as their world slowly breaks down.
The issue with games like Skyrim is that you’re a blank slate character and the characters around you have very little character. If you MC doesn’t have personality, you have to compensate.
Skyrim does have some characters with decent personalities, but on the large, they’re just quest givers. One of my favorite moments is following the one guard as she sets to rally the troops for the first dragon fight and the guards cheer…with one saying “we’re all going to die.” That was actually charming. I wish had more of that in its main gameplay loop.
Vaush does have a bit of a point, but I think he got caught up in the idea of it being a conceptual flaw rather than an execution flaw.
I dont think there is anything they need to learn...TES and Witcher is to completely different games for different audiences.
True. Altho the things he is talking about could be applied to TES.
The function of those different design decisions are just different, not better or worse.
Dragon Age Origins does a great job of making your decisions and your backstory feel impactful
I played Witcher 3 on console, I didn't really like it I prefer rpgs that have blank slate player characters with no established background it's much more fun making up bullshit backstories
You are allowed to have wrong opinions.
Agreed. I have tried a handful of times to get into Witcher 3 but I hate the gameplay.
@@stickboy79 i am hoping to try it again on pc when it goes for sale but after their latest failure with cyberpunk eh
@@chaserseven2886 yea. Dont judge witcher 3 because of Cyberpunk. They are totaly diferent.
@@linusorm yeah man, imagining actually roleplaying in a roleplaying game. pff
The fact that vaush calls New Vegas a Bethesda game actually makes my fucking skin crawl.
EDIT: He's also wrong about roleplaying in video games. One of my favorite playthroughs of New Vegas was when I was a mad scientist who relied entirely on companions to fight for him before becoming a cyborg cannibal and siding with house to do some weird bioshock shit
Yeah I thought it was clear that was an obsidian game
It was indeed an Obsidian game, but Bethesda still licensed it out.
@@jamesmunn576 I'm a massive nerd for the classic fallouts and when people call New Vegas a bethesda game, it just seems like pissing in the faces of all the talented devs at Obsidian. The game design of New Vegas and 3 are polar opposites despite being made in the same exact engine. New Vegas at its core is a true roleplaying game, where fallout 3 is literally a fan game, just an open world action game with light rpg elements (literally just stats) like every bethesda game.
It's like saying the metro games are just call of duty clones
He doesn’t. He calls it an Obsidian game.
@@Markunator you didn't watch the whole video did you?
Oh and one more thing: if Vaush's argument of Witcher's superiority is the rich and well-rounded character of Geralt then it's not thanks to CDPR because they did not create the character, it's thanks to Sapkowski's writing.
Sapkowski literally doesn't even consider the games canon. I agree, but take that in for a moment: these games owe all their greatness to him, and he still dismisses them.
The games have a different story
@@Bryndleson still the same characters...
@@Bryndleson Different story but it still gains a lot from the stories. Most of the setting, characters, tone, & politics are inspired or lifted straight out of them.
They didn't pay for the rights to make games based off of The Witcher novels just for the name and then did everything uniquely.
I disagree with that take. Fallout 2 is a great game BECAUSE you can create any type of a character that you want and play the game however you see fit. So I do not believe that Witcher's approach is strictly superior. Yeah, his character is one of the big strenghts of the game but it's possible to create a great game with a tabula rasa approach as Fallout 2, Baldur's Gate series, Vampire: Bloodlines or Dragon's Age: Origins have proved.
Edit: What is even worse is that he is so smug about being wrong and aggravated by people pointing it out.
Vaush thinks that blank slate characters are uninteresting is just bullshit
Man, I disagree on your point about Fallout 2. When I played it, I just did all the quests. There was just about zero role playing from my perspective. Now, I liked Fallout 2, but I didn't play a role, I played the game.
I dunno how you do it, tbh. I just couldn't...
@@Boomerrage32 Ohkay... I do not know what you tell you. You build character, you roleplay that character. That's what RPGs are. Fallout 2 is as classic as they come.
the blank slate character is merely overused. And while it's fine, I do like a character with characterization upon entry. It does make interactions more dynamic.
when Regis said "After all that, we deserve a bit of rest"
And Geralt answered "That we do" and then turned to the player my brain literally orgasmed.
It's one oft the most memorable moments to me out of any game I have ever seen and it would not have been possible were I playing as my own character. Imagine your skyrim character turning to you thorugh the screen and looking at you in a fully animated cutscene.
I still cry when he does. God that game touched and marked me in so many ways...
I'd like to see what Vaush thinks of Disco Elysium and it's protagonist after he finishes it.
Am i wrong or is it not like a milion diferent endings depending on how you act in the game, i have heard good things about it.
@@jizburg there are a few variations on the ending (including there being a bad ending), but the core ending remains (mostly) the same.
I'd say that your character's build and political leanings has the most influence on how you experience the story (as it affects how you achieve your objectives and what interpretations your character arrives at when it comes to people and politics). This isn't exactly a game where the protagonist's decisions have long reaching influence on the world (it would actually be bad for the story if it was a power fantasy like that).
If you like CRPGs / Tabletop RPGs, Visual Novels, or just great stories (featuring a compelling world and fleshed out characters), Disco Elysium isn't one to pass up.
The Witcher never really held my attention. I played a bit but I always just ended up uninstalling it and playing something else. Mind you I'm an RPG nut. Mostly for western RPGs, going back to the Baldur's Gate days. But W3 just could not hold me for what ever reason. Some folks say it gets better later on but I've yet to see it. That is why it is hard for me to relate to people that want to say it's the greatest RPG of all time. Give me Dragon Age Origins any day.
Witcher 3 is a lot closer to JRPGS then western RPGs I feel. The gameplay is distinctly western, but the structure is pretty different. Main story quest, progress from area to area, gameplay is simple instead of deep, lot of dialogue with limited dialogue options, and emphasis on very likable characters and their interactions. These are all pretty common in a lot of JRPGs, and as linear as they are, you can't really say that's the wrong way of doing things. Maybe this distinction is why you bounce off of it?
@@sauceinmyface9302 Yeah, I think that is a fair assessment. I personally like RPGs that let you roleplay a character of your own creation rather than roleplay a specific character with their own predefined defined personality and goals.
I'm conflicted. I think W3 is one of the best games ever but I burned out hard at 70 hours and drug myself to 80 after a break. I wonder if there's just too much of it?
on the “what if dark souls had a real character?” question, Jedi: Fallen Order is there. Cal isn’t the strongest character and Jedi isn’t the same as the souls games, but it’s a really good game.
Easily the most boring game i played all throughout 2019. That game alone stands against half of Vaush's argument.
i think it's more of a problem of lazy game design than actual the actual idea of a blank character. the idea of starting a game as a noone and building a personality as you play the game sounds a lot more fun, replayable and interesting than being bound to a single character who can act a little out of line. the problem with the blank slate characters is that their personality is usually just reset to blank for every different questline/npc. imagine if you had chosen to nuke the town in fo3 fucking EVERYONE knew it and shot at you on sight, and even if you tried to talk to them your personality was already down a psycho path (heh) so all you could do is at best threaten them. that'd be fucking dope, but most sandboxes' philosophy is that of player freedom instead of player choice, so you have to be capable of experiencing the entire game in any single playthrough
Well that's exactly why New Vegas is a masterpiece. It focused on player choice instead of player freedom and you suffered real consequences for your choices.
Perhaps in the future, more developers will realise that people who play these kinds of blank slate games want choices and consequences, not endless freedom to do whatever you want.
@@zixx844 not really either. at the end of the day your character still was a blank slate with no personality. yes your choices have consequences, but your dialogue is always really functional, the most personality you could have is to have 0 inteligence. in the end, all your choices were reduced to WHAT you did, never HOW you did it.
@@popocaDice True, good point. I think the next evolution for these style of games need to come from ever changing stats.
What I mean is that something like intelligence or agility is not always going to improve, it can get worse depending on your decisions and actions. Perhaps like a sanity meter that slowly builds up the more traumatic things your character experiences and eventually results in them becoming psychotic.
There are lots of potential ways to bring about character development on blank slate characters that would be fun and organic. But the biggest challenge is for game designers to throw out the concept of a power fantasy and instead make their games purely about choice and consequence, with the potentially for it to all go to shit cause your character went insane and hallucinated the regular citizens of a town to be feral ghouls.
I like this because I can contextualize Vaush’s opinion by what I know about him as a person. Dunkey made some really good points about this in his videos on game reviewers (or game journalists idk) with his example being turn-based strategy games. He can’t stand turn based strategy games so if you watch a vid by dunkey about these types of games you can contextualize it.
I don’t fucking know what I’m talking about, I just like hearing Vaush rant about pop culture or video games sometimes.
I agree with vaush's take. In KOTOR, the main character is revealed to be Darth revan, but this shock never felt like betrayal more like, "we were the baddies all along" the characters brush over it and we never explore how it would feel for our revan who just found out they were a horrible piece of shit regardless if you were play as a dark side or light side character. And I genuinely believe that if our mc wasn't some sort of blank slate and that the devs would take time to write out his character, it would improve significantly improve an already amazing game.
This is exactly what I thought of as well. One of the reasons I don't hate the Revan novel as much as most other KOTOR fans is that it tried to give Revan even the slightest hint of a solid personality who has conflicting feelings about the Jedi and his past.
That said the novel still shits on KOTOR II so I do still hate it a little bit.
Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn is another example to how you play a distinct character, amazing game.
My headcannon is that whenever Aloy hacks a Thunderjaw and watches the resultant robo slapfight, she's giggling hysterically and making trollface
The Elder scrolls during the 90s and the original fallouts were great RPGs. I agree that the Witcher is better then most modern RPGs but it cant even compete with games like Fallout 2 or Daggerfall
I kind of get this, I like playing Borderlands 2 since your classes are just six different characters with their own pre-set personality and have specific quips when doing certain things. That said blank slates can sometimes be better at pulling yourself into the game
eyyyyy i asked this question im responsible for this segment GIVE ME MONEY
I think Souls games are some of the most capable of doing a blank slate character. The whole story is derived directly from the world and its lore, the mcs are treated as meaningless compared to scale of their adventure.
5:47 he’s slightly wrong here, but Geralt wish actually _kept_ him and yen from getting together for long periods.
10:00 Geralt does this as well
Okay well Fallout New Vegas has a better and more meaningful story than most games that are fully voiced with a "developed" character
Player-made characters are objectively superior for *role playing* games. If I want to play a game with a protagonist that has their own well-defined backstory and personality, I am just going to play another type of game. And why would I even want to make choices for a fleshed out character? Seeing the choices a character makes, what it says about themselves and how it may impact their development in the future is part of the charm of character-writing. The only exception to this rule I can think of would be a game which actively aims for letting the player impact the development of a character who isn't them, maybe making a point about autonomy and our relation to fictional characters.
On the other hand, you also run into the issue that your own choices become less meaningful, because there will always be this barrier between you, the player, and your character that simply shouldn't exist in a game focused on role playing. And Vaush subconsciously knows this is correct because one of the best RPGs with a nameless protagonist is one he loves too - Dark Souls. These games simply wouldn't work as well if they had someone else inside the player character's had but the player, and the same is true for every other real RPG that actually tries to make proper use of its own strengths ... not just the "lore" as he says, but the narrative the player actively experiences by playing the game (which I think is VERY undersold by a lot of people, eventhough they would likely agree once it is explained to them).
If Vaush has ever done something worth cancelling him over it's this! lmao
The things Vaush mentioned about established characters is why Dragon Age: Origins shines with choice.
Seriously, I disagree with Vaush a lot but rarely he is so wrong and smug about being wrong that I want to shout at my monitor as in this video.
Those are not the same, no one is arguing that. Those are two totally different approaches with their strenghts and weaknesses and neither is objectively superior. It's like saying that Altered Carbon is better s-f series than Black Mirror because it has an evolving arc instead of episodic nature. It's silly and a clear sign that Vaush is talking out of his ass on this one.
I have played a little bit of the Witcher games but I'm reading through the books right now and the story is so so SO good! It's not just about Geralt all the time, it switches perspectives pretty often so you can see how the politics and events of that world play out. The tone of the series is dark and everyone is as progressive as you'd expect for a setting in the Middle Ages (which is to say not at all) and it's Geralt and the others in the thick of it all dealing with how fucked up their world is I love it so much
"it's not just about Geralt all the time"
You understand that the main character of the novels is literally Ciri, right? She's the focus of everything. It's LITERALLY not about Geralt AT ALL.
@@Tacklepig geralt is the main protagonist of the books even if he's not the most important one
Also if you have a mute character, have a goddamn mute character.
Mute people don't just communicate with nods and pantomiming while [mascot character] talks for them to save budget.
RPG games is like saying ATM machine.
Neverwinter Nights 2 Mask of the Betrayer has no voiced character, the character is completely custom, and all your choices are meaningful and the game is interesting and well written and SUPER memorable, I remember every character and the moral dilemma that didn't have an easy answer it presented me with.
Blank slate characters make me feel no attachment to my character, and by extension a lot less attachment to the world around them.
I am pretty much the opposite for most games. When I make a character I try to make decision that I would make, not some other person that i'm playing as. That is why FNV and the Mass Effect series are some of my favorite games of all time.
LUL, Vaush so mad. Wrong and mad. It's also telling that he compares a great RPG with a pre-written character (Witcher 3) against a bad RPG with a tabula rasa character approach (Fallout 3). Yes, Fallout 3 is a bad RPG but it's would not be made objectively better if the character was pre-made.
There was one character in Skyrim who I gave a single fuck about. It was Serena from the Dawn-guard DLC. She had the most depth out of any character actually gets you attached to her and she wasn’t fucking able to marry which is bullshit.
The story and immersion was good but the combat was very bare bones.
I’ll always prefer Skyrim to the Witcher. More replay value and more potential for different styles of play
I'm fairly certain there is a lot more content within the Witcher 3 and larger outcomes for the endings.... I agree completely about different styles of game play thou!
Fallout 4 added voice and personality to the main character and it sucked.
This is so incredibly based. Story heavy games should not have blank slate player insert characters in most cases.
Ugh Vaush always has an unpopular opinion on things people love. I almost don't care what he thinks...almost. I just wish he didn't have to be so condescending to his audience.
No he 100% right here
@@mikayelhakobyan1653 No.
Although I love games with a full character creation system, background and all; RPGs with a character that has a set personality & such almost always draw more emotional and substantial connections. Like, I have a far deeper connection to Commander Shepard and Aloy, than I do for The Dragonborne and The Lone Wander.
I can connect with both as long as they're good games and try to have focus. Skyrim let me wander around doing stuff, and get into random encounters. A bear suddenly attacks me while I'm running through the woods. I literally stumble into a cave. It's a sandbox, not unlike sandbox games like Minecraft, where similar encounters occur.
Witcher 3 to me is more similar to a JRPG than western RPGs. Take a game like Final Fantasy X. Linear as can be storywise, and the characters are what they are. But they're likable, and I enjoy playing as them, and I enjoy watching the ride. I feel the same way about Witcher's character and world. It's not a sandbox, it's a collection of stories, much like the novels it's based on. Hell, you could even think about it like a Visual Novel with some additional gameplay as flavor.
Interesting perspective. I remember Aloy better than my blank slate characters, but that might be because I played multiple playthroughs of the blank slate character games. I will never play HZD twice but idk if that's a win or not.
I do distinctly remember renegade and paragon Shepherd but I also played or watched them be beaten many times.
I'm not sure if connection correlates to game quality.
@@anthonynorman7545 Both archetypes have standout examples, even from games that aren't necessarily of a high quality. And both archetypes are equally valid.
The only notable difference between the two is creator intent. It's more likely for the players to feel a particular connection or fondness for a more established character, rather than a blank slate one of our own creation. Not to say blank slate characters are impossible to connect deeply with, it just takes more dedication and skill.
@@aceofsharks9837 I definently agree that both are valid. My life would be lesser not having experienced New Vegas nor Mass Effect.
Isn't Commander Shepard a blank slate character since you decide his/her history (both military and pre-military), personality (paragon, renegade or some combination of the two) and their skill set (the classes as well as some of the skills in the first game)?
Vaush would probably like Dragon Age 2 or Inquisition. More so 2 though.
If only CD Project Red could learn from Witcher 3 when they made cyberpunk 2077.
This is basically true. I've never been into "blank slate" protag RPGs. The main issue with trying to build this flimsy imitation of myself in a video game is....I already know who I am. I already know what I would do in X situation. I don't need to learn about ME. I want to learn about the characters. I want to learn about THEM in the world the author designed without trying to awkwardly accommodate this blank protag running around. I didn't come here to tell you a story, I came here for YOU to tell ME a story. I'm not narcissistic enough to want to self-insert myself into every fucking story I see. I don't want to tell you what I would do if I was superman, I want to see what superman would do.
You don't have to play as yourself in RPGs with an undefined protagonist. Part of the appeal of those games is that you can choose what kind of character you want to play as. If you want to play as Superman, then make Superman.
Well enjoyment of those kinds of games comes from watching how the world changes and develops according to your actions. In New Vegas for example, the main character isn't the Courier, the main character is the Mojave and it works so well because your choices all have consequences.
For example at the start of the game with Goodsprings, you can either side with Goodsprings in which you'll have the powder gangers hate you and prevent you from experiencing their faction. Or if you side with the Powder gangers the town will be wiped off the map and your character will be stuck with that reputation with the rest of the Mojave for the rest of the game.
You can't get that sort of world development in a game like the Witcher cause your characters choices are limited by their backstory.
Then once you've beaten the game for the first time, then comes the fun of creating various true role play characters with backstories and motives that fit within the world. The world of Fallout is extremely deep and interesting with tonnes of potential characters you can create to experience the story in a different way.
The call-out 11 minutes in about Diablo is hilarious.
I think a better idea is if you go blank slate, make your background and choices and design like race matter.
The problem isnt a blank character and choice, its that the game gives you blankness and no choice.
Baldurs gate 3 is the prime example. Make your choices impactful to make.
I like the Witcher 3 and like Skyrim. They are really different games though, saying Skyrim is not good because it doesn't have a main strong character and "you can be anything" is indeed missing the whole point of Skyrim. The great thing about Skyrim is that you can replay it a hundred times and feel your still having new adventures exactly because of this openness. The Witcher, however as much as I love it, I would never play it more then once.
Anyway It's all about taste, I love the Witcher, Zelda, Skyrim, Elden Ring and some good JRPG's equally for different reasons.
Vaush should play Hollow Knight, prime example that you can have an incredible story with no voice acting
As a game designer I usually enjoy Vaush's view on these, Ima listen to this and figure out if I agree.
I do.
Tbh, I don't really agree with this take.
The Witcher games weren't good because Geralt is a character, but because he's an incredibly well-written character.
While something like Fallout or Skyrim looks obviously bad compared to Witcher, now compare Fallout to your typical JRPG, like Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger or what have you.
Most JRPGs have pre-written characters too, but the story (typically) doesn't go nearly as deep. In these cases, the open world sandbox games often tend to be better because they let you make actual choices, whereas JRPGs typically only railroad you along a set story (which of course can be a good story, but that's not the point being made here).
The issue isn't whether or not there's a defined character, but how good the writing is. That's the case in 99% of these types of criticisms, btw. It all comes back to actual quality, not to this trait or that trait being better.
Stopped playing at the giant fetus monster
Just put Geralt in every game, then it will be awesome.
I'm really noticing this with Divinity Original Sin 2. I'm playing the Red Prince so some moments feel way more impactful than if I was a blank slate. I refer to the Red Prince as the Red Prince when playing or talking about the game, not me because he feels like a character. However, the game tries to have it's cake and eat it too. The moments where the Red Prince questions himself and his supreme arrogance are amazing! And then it'll be followed by me being presented with two dialogue options anyone could've picked that are Good(TM) and Bad(TM). Which doesn't work for the Red Prince. He's complicated, he has the ability for great good but is caught up in his loss and selfishness and arrogance. It makes a really good story feel kind of weak because I'm not dealing with a consistent character. There's the Red Prince and then there's me, the character jumping between each like they have bipolar.
the witcher also have way better moral qoustions like in crook bag bog where you can chose to save the kids but it comes at the cost of the barons wife and the village downtrodan
I'm gonna get so much shit. I absolutely hated the witcher 3, Geralt is such a boring character, the quests never grabbed me, I never cared who Ciri was. And it sucked because I really wanted to like it, I've started it like 5 times trying to give it a try and every time I'm so thoroughly bored that I just hate playing it.
It's fine to feel this way. And you shouldn't get hate for having an opinion. I absolutely love the Witcher 3, though it doesn't give me the right to attack you. Not everything is for everyone.
@@awsomeboy360 I think I wasn't very charitable to the game. I don't hate the Witcher 3, I hate that I didn't like it. I saw it and it looked so cool and I was excited to have a new RPG to play. It really bummed me out that I didn't see all the good everyone says about it.
The only way to play Witcher 3 is make Geralt a grumpy lovable doofus. Case in point - the con non-con roleplay he stumbles into in Oxenford.
There is only one way to make the voiceless one work---where you are living a life in a foreign world where you MEET interesting characters. FF14
You are...important to the plot, but it's not about you, not really. It's about the people around you and you are simply experiencing life and trying to help them.
Why would anyone hold the lonesome road up as something that puts new vegas in the same catagory as Witcher 2 or 3 when Lonesome Road is the worst part of it? All Uylesses does is yell at the mailman when he was Ceasers right hand man after Graham. Except unlike Graham he doesnt even try to redeem himself. Dude was a waste of a cool voice and charater design
Lonesome Road was one of the worst ones but were at least better then mothership snooze fest and operation brainwash from fallout 3
Uylesses was too high on copium to try and redeem himself
@@chaserseven2886 well yea all of New Vegas is better than 3 except for maybe the intro in the vault.
@@TheKnizzine the three dlc Pitt point lookout and to a letter degree broken steel were fun, I prefer operation brainwash over zeta because it was shorter
Bro, Lonesome Road was fucking great when compared to something like Honest Hearts. Uylesses was looking to the path of redemption, that was the point. The Courier showed him a vision of hope for tomorrow, one that is not merely tracing the Old World ideologies. A world built of and for the Wasteland and its realities. Uylesses found in that place future and he looked up to the Courier as the one who brought it about. Which is why, when, unknowingly, the Courier was the one to destroy the Divide and dash all of Uylesses hopes away, it impacted Uylesses so.
He thought he could do better, he thought that he could find hope in the vision the Courier brought but it was that same person who also destroyed it all.
It baffles me how people either miss it or choose to overlook it because "Bear, Bull, Bear, Bull, Divide, Courier, Divide, Bear, Bull".
The things he does as a result of it is motivated partly by revenge, he just refuses to accept that fact, it's what makes him interesting, that's his flaw. But still, partly he wanted to do the same thing the Courier did, almost. He watched as a new ideology was growing in the Divide, one that did not rely on the Old World ideas to build itself. And so, he wanted to do the same thing in a much more radical way. By destroying a nest of the Old World he would both take revenge on the Courier and give the Wasteland more room to create its own identity and purpose.
Yeah, it's not perfect and something to soy-face about but it is better than people give it credit for. At most I can see how the linearity can get on your nerves but that is present, if in lesser degrees, in Honest Hearts and Dead Money. I'd still argue Dead Money and Lonesome Road were some of the better DLCs for New Vegas.
The witcher games could learn a lot from the witcher books
For clarity, for as progressive as the third game is, it doesn't come close to the books. The book series reads as an allegory for reproductive rights, from the different ways Geralt and Yennefer had their ability to have children taken from them, to literal nations trying to force Ciri to have a baby, as well as a prominent characters abortion.
AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THE LOVE TRIANGLE WITH TRISS! Good lord they butchered my Triss! She's so out of character in the games. She's an awkward little dork in the books with a crush on Geralt, but doesn't want to get between him and Yennefer, because they are both her friends. It's a bit more complicated than that, but you get the gist.
Praise Geraldo
I like the arpg gameplay of dark souls more but the story (and side missions) of the witcher is woaaah. A mashup of soulsborne gameplay and witcher mission structure and storytelling would be game of the century
Thanks you Vaush, I can't stand Skyrim, and I really couldn't articulate why, but this is it.
Vaush doesn't understand RPGs
Role-playing in video games never made much sense to me
As in like the idea that you're tryna replicate the level of player expression in tabletop game within the confines of a video game
There it makes sense cuz the only limits to player expression is the human imagination
In a game like Fallout 1 I can draft up a player backstory and in depth personality but it's never gonna satisfyingly come into the plot
Actually, I found it really frustrating in games like Skyrim where I'm sometimes expected to be super mercenary to resolve a quest for some daedric artifact and not give me the ability to adequately resolve it in line with my character's motivations even if it requires personal sacrifice like missing out on some epic loot. That Abandoned House in Markarth was particular egregious to me regarding this. I always felt in the Witcher series that I had options that could fit my alignment to the character I wanted to play, even it proved costly and could play without fear of it coming across vastly different than my intention. I felt more immersed and complete with the character I wanted to play as as Geralt than any of the Bethesda games except maybe Morrowind and that could just be 20 year old nostalgia. The game that felt closest to me before Witcher 3, regarding that, was Baldur's Gate 2.
Witcher 3 also was always kind of transparent with regards to the possible stakes of most all choices (with 5 or so specific ones not withstanding) that I never felt baited into a choice, Often it was just a matter of being a good detective. Where as often times in FO or ES it felt like a dumb narrow good/bad choice or just stupid HAHA you need prescience to actually know enough to make the right choice for replay-ability.
Yeah, Skyrim and many RPGs in general are lacking when it comes to having sufficient choice variety.
I wish I liked the Witcher 3. I can't stand the combat, unfortunately.
But Geralt's cool
Bethesda not letting you change the world.
*looks at the crater where Megaton once was*
Hmmm
‘But nothing happens after you decide to do it’
> karma down to lowest option
> mercenaries get sent after you
> dad hates you
> quest giver become a ghoul
Bethesda bad
You don't have to agree with Vaush to love the way he makes his statements. But in this case I totally do agree with him.
Geralt is a compelling character period.
True. What a true statement. I love characters in the Witcher and Bioware games.
I 100% feel what Vaush is saying about blank characters...
I remember wanting to do a badass Vampire Lord playthrough in Skyrim, and halfway through I thought "well, when I achieve that, then what? this mf will still just be a silent blank space with Vampire powers"
Did Vaush forget Sekiro? For a Dark Souls with a main charcter?
Did you guys get that, that one guy in chat had played Fallout: New Vegas?
His points are valid and correct but one thing I get from this is that Vaush despises Bethesda games, or at least just Skyrim.
Bethesda games typically are fucking shit though. The only good games I can think of Bethesda made are their Wolfenstein reboots.
@@Tacklepig FNV is literally one the best titles Bethesda has ever released. Also Bethesda did really good with the creation engine moddability.
@@Tacklepig Morrowind.
@@albar428 NV wasn't made by Bethesda, they published it but they didn't develop it.
@@Tacklepig Bethesda didn't even make Wolfenstein reboots, they were made by MachineGames and PUBLISHED by Bethesda.
Vaush has good gaming takes surprisingly. I never could get into Bethesda games cause the story and characters felt as hollow as the gameplay.
And alot of people truely enjoy the actual "hollow" aspects of Bethesda games. They just don't know it 😉
Which is fine, enjoy what you like.
Interesting perspective.
Hahahaha, oh my gnomes, can't believe that Vaush has used: game has more words is better as an argument. Low definition thinking if I seen one.
Really!? Is that all you've got out of this?
The Witcher 3 is very very good and what they did with garalt was great but most rpgs are meant to simulate ttrpgs so being able to choose your character is pretty important to that.
(No spoilers in this comment) The Witcher 3’s story’s was so fucking good that when I got to the Bloody Baron part and I made the choice with the weird character that gave you a bad ending, I felt so sad about it all that I cried. Like, a lot. I couldn’t play the game anymore because I was so torn up about it.
That thing that happens (if you’ve played this part then yo probably know what I mean) just hits too close to home, but it was still a very moving and involving story. I know that this isn’t a special or unique opinion but Witcher 3 is in my top 3 favorite games of all time
Vaush goes a little "I'M A GOLDEN GOD" sometimes.
I will play lots I can't help it even if it negatively affects me that's why I like Bethesda games so much
Vaush, everything you are saying and kind of want to see, you might like Cyberpunk 2077.
Didnt that game totaly flop? I remember people talking about it being delivered in a broken state.
Mass Effect series, anybody?!
What about Ciri and yennefer? And that formula can be found in breath of the wild I believe
@@LimeyLassen he talks sometimes
I love Geralt but I don’t think every main character has to be super set in stone, I just think the choices you get in a lot of games are underdeveloped and meaningless, but if you look at a game like Divinity 2, they are actually able to make your character feel meaningful despite that you get a lot of freedom to do a lot of shit because the writers actually know how to write good choices. I also feel like it’s weird Vaush is only talking about the protagonist because I feel like having a blank slate character is usually less of a problem than you feeling like the characters your characters interact with are just rando quest givers. For me, this is what makes me feel like a game’s choices are meaningless, because if I don’t feel like the other characters don’t care about what I do, I feel like there is no consequences to choices I make. Also, I think Vaush should give FFXIV a shot, even though that game starts slow and your main character is pretty much a blank slate, some of the dialogue choices you get are very meaningful despite not changing the story much, in comparison to almost any other game I’ve played, simply because the other characters are so well developed and seeing their reactions to some of the dialogue you get feel very emotional.
On one hand Vaush understands how amazing TW3 is and why it is. Then takes 0 issue with how Nintendo treats *all* of their 1st party I.P.'s
Cyberpunk 2077 could have certainly learned from The Witcher III
What is the point of RPG if you're forced to play a pre-defined character who you may not even like? Its a roleplaying game. Some theater of the mind is supposed to be part of it.
Why is he soy jaking in the thumbnail 😭
Morrowind or death
Disco Elysium doesn't have a voiced protagonist
I don’t know what it is but I just could never get into the Witcher, the gameplay is good but honestly nothing special IMO and honestly I found a lot of the characters pretty one dimensional and boring, also i found the story kind of convoluted , feel free do dunk on me I probably deserve it lol