A Look At The Most Popular RPGs For Consoles

Posted on May 24 2017 - 7:21pm by Editorial Staff

RPGs have always been the bread and butter of the gaming industry. What sets them apart from other genres is their richness in lore and history. It’s like reading an adventure novel series, but you get to play the role of lead characters with newer RPGs even having a complex story progression that lets you change the flow of the game based on your choices. Spanning beautiful landscapes or creepy dungeons, it’s up to you whether you want to be a 19th century bounty hunter, or play co-op with your friends as a wizard. They are so diverse that you can find one for every taste. Let’s take a look at the most popular RPGs for consoles today.

Mass Effect: Andromeda

As far as space RPGs go, Mass Effect: Andromeda is easily one of the best out there. Andromeda takes you to breathtaking worlds set in far away galaxies. Boasting a rich equipment system, combined with crafting, modding and research, the game offers a complex RPG progression. With plenty of powers and abilities to choose from, you’ll have tons of fun with the combat system.

However, the game is far from perfect. It suffers from constant bugs, poor engine performance, and sometimes tenuous quests. But what Andromeda lacks in polish, it makes up for it with its stellar combat. Bioware continues to support the game, releasing timely balance patches and bug fixes. Andromeda is still worth checking if you’re a fan of the Mass Effect series.

Destiny

Destiny has been one of the most popular RPGs since its inception in 2014. The game combines addictive FPS action with the benefits of MMO and breathtaking visuals.

It’s hard to get the combat system feel right in a shooter RPG, but Destiny sticks to its excellent fundamentals. The landscapes depicting both earthly and alien worlds are so beautiful, that you will find yourself constantly moving around just to appreciate them.

But it’s the action that makes players addicted to it, featuring strike missions in which three-player teams combine for boss fights and wave fighting. The levelling and looting system gives you endless possibilities to customize your character. Regular patches keep adding powerful, upgradable weapons and new game modes like Crucible, which allows you to fight other players.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Everything about the Legend of Zelda – the puzzles, the combat, the exploration, the music, the aesthetic – comes together in a way that elevates the latest Zelda game above pretty much every other RPG out there.

Set across a beautiful open world and packed with a wealth of puzzles and side quests, the game gives you a lot of content apart from the main story. Packed with goofy NPCs, and featuring a soothing soundtrack, it doesn’t fall short on combat and offers innovative survival mechanics. Yes, the sound acting is not so impressive and the frame rate stutters, but the brilliance of the game largely makes up for it.

Final Fantasy XV

Final Fantasy XV is probably the best single-player Final Fantasy game in a decade. It follows the story of Prince Noctis as he reclaims his kingdom from a high-tech empire. The 15th edition still revolves around the franchise lore, which will be a throwback for old fans.

Unlike earlier installments, the combat system is real time action oriented, but still surprisingly tactical. You can play reactively, dodging enemy attacks and parrying. Taking notes from criticisms of earlier installments, Square has implemented a huge open world with tons of dungeons, castles, puzzles and new characters.

The Elder Scrolls Online

The Elder Scrolls is one of the most loved RPG series ever and the latest installment in the series is a safe haven for fans waiting impatiently for the followup to Skyrim.

Gameplay is not much different from Skyrim. You can travel on your horse, join guilds, complete quests, or go dungeon raiding with your friends. The Elder Scrolls Online just adds the online element to the gameplay and allow you to interact with other characters or go trading items that you don’t need.

And, as always, the Skyrim vs Witcher debate sparks up whenever either of these games is mentioned. While not delving deeper into the debate, let’s just state that both games have carved out their own niches. Skyrim offers a huge world that is regularly bolstered by the unending variety of mods you can install. From gameplay mechanics, to new quests and new NPCs, there is really no limit when it comes to mods in Skyrim. On the other hand, The Witcher is the perfect game for gamers who just want to install a game and have a laidback experience with Witcher’s stunning visuals and engrossing storyline.

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Inquisition is the jack of all trades when it comes to RPGs. You start your journey as the ‘inquisitor’ who survives a blast at the Conclave that was supposed to resolve the conflict between the mages and the council. As the inquisitor, you have also been marked by a sigil that gives you the ability to close rifts that spawn monsters. The story follows on the heels of earlier installments, and fans of the series will readily identify themselves with it.

Set across a huge open world, there are tons of areas to explore and mysteries to solve. The combat is party based, with a maximum party size of 4, and you can freely switch between the different characters upon combat. You can recruit new characters to your party and choose which ones to take with you when venturing into new areas. The dialogue choices are one of the best features of the game, and you have to be wise as they can make or break relationships with your party members.

Conclusion

We can never get tired of sinking ourselves into RPG games. They let us momentarily escape from the stresses of our own lives, and slip into another life, making different life choices, choosing alternative relationships, carrying different burdens or just letting us have a fun time experimenting with our friends. Whatever it may be, with such a large variety of games to choose from, there is something for every gamer out there and you are sure to have fun with whatever RPG you decide to play.

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Editorial Staff at I2Mag is a team of subject experts.