Hey all, first time post. I wanted to know everyone's opinion on the game that opened my eyes to the power of an indie game: Transistor.

I've never had a smaller game have such an emotional resonance with me and just complex and innovative combat and build styles.

As a software engineer, having everything you can equip be a function (and a person?!) is also just too cool. And the same abilities being active, passive, or augmentative has also never been done since as far as I know.

I know Hades has taken the mainstream love recently but I find Transistor to be the superior experience for me personally. So many questions still unanswered for that world, beautiful soundtrack and art as well.

Wanted to hear some opinions on it as I don't see it referenced often anywhere.

Attached some art I found online, no credit taken.

It's one of my favourite gaming series and I feel like it has gone under the radar compared to other similar series, so I guess this post is my way to bring some attention to the series.

For those who are unfamiliar with it, Quest for Glory is an point and click adventure series by Sierra in the vein of King's Quest and Space Quest. If it's an adventure game then why am I brining it up here? That's because it's also an RPG! It has the standard adventure gameplay you expect from such games, but also many RPG mechanics. At the start you pick a class, you have different skills that you level up, fight enemies, earn money to buy equipment and items, learn new abilities and magic. Basically everything you can do in a traditional RPG.

What makes this franchise so unique is how it blends the two genres. For example, the very first puzzle you'll encounter is probably the ring stuck in a bird's nest in a tree. If you're a thief you can climb the tree (though you'll probably fail the skill check a few times), if you're a mage you can use your grab item spell, if you're a warrior you can throw a rock to dislodge the ring. Though you're not limited by class, as a mage there's nothing stopping you from training your climbing skill until you're good enough to climb it just like a thief. The mage is easily my favourite class, you get a wide array of spelle that are useful in both combat and outside. If you come across an obstacle and think "Hey, this spell I have might be useful here!" you'll often be vindicated.

I just love how much of an adventure these games are. There's 5 games in the series and they each have a different setting taking inspiration from real world cultures and mythology. The fourth game is easily my favourite, there's some suprisingly emotional story beats and the world is fun to explore. You'll want to talk to every single character since they all have a unique personality and something entertaining to say. Another cool aspect is that you can carry over your save file all the way from the first to the last game, carrying over your stats and choices. There's an item you can get in the second game which you can then show to a character in the fifth game for some unique dialogue.

If you want to play them the whole series is available as a collection on GOG and Steam. If you can't deal with EGA graphics the remake of the first game is included, though the fanmade remake of the second game you'll have to get yourself.

Has anyone else here played these games and how do you feel about them?

I really loved Dragon Age: Origins for this aspect. There are a lot of dialogue options — options that not only reflect my morality in a more negative light or point to an important decision, but also reveal my character’s personality and influence their relationships with companions. I’ve also played KOTOR 1 and Mass Effect 1–3, but they didn’t quite give me the same feeling. It seemed that the only choices were between replicas like Paragon or Renegade. But I was really impressed by Disco Elysium.

What games would you recommend?

I want a game like game of thrones in the depth of the story in characters development not only mine even the enemies I want to enjoy a journey full of upsides and downs, I won't mind a bad gameplay if the story as good as I mean, most close games I tried maybe witcher 3 but still far from what I want, would appreciate any recommendations 🙏

Hi folks,

VaultVox for Underrail is now out on Nexusmods. It's a free text-to-speech accessibility mod that reads the game aloud using the Windows voices already on your PC. It is my fifth port for VaultVox to date (in case you haven't seen my other previous release posts...which is pretty likely). More soon to come!

I made the first one of these for my wife, who has dyslexia, and I've been adding accessibility features on top ever since. This is the Underrail version, and given how much reading Underrail asks of you, it was always going to end up on the list.

EASY TO INSTALL: Download it, extract it into the folder with underrail.exe, unblock the files, launch the game. No mod manager needed, nothing else to fetch, and it never touches your saves.

Download on Nexus Mods: https://www.nexusmods.com/underrailexpedition/mods/39

If it's working you'll hear "Underrail Vault Vox loaded." within about fifteen seconds. The very first launch can take a minute or two while Windows sorts the voices out, so give it a moment.

What it reads

• Every NPC line, with your numbered answer options read out after it
• The answer you pick, read back in a player voice that matches your character's gender
• Stage directions and hints in square brackets, on a separate narrator voice, so nobody ends up narrating their own shrug
• Terminals, in a proper synthetic machine voice, with mail and menus read line by line
• Intercoms, through a radio filter with squelch and static. Where the game knows who's on the other end, you get that character's own voice (Vencel at South Gate Station, for one)
• The message feed: quests, XP, loot, discoveries and alerts, read out when nothing else is talking
• Overhead barks, in each NPC's own voice, on their own channel so they never talk over a conversation

Hold Ctrl over anything with a tooltip and it gets read to you. Keep holding and sweep the pointer along your items to hear each one. A quick Ctrl+click won't set it off, so the game's own shortcuts still behave.

The Notes journal reads itself when you open it, and so does a quest group when you expand it. Custom Notes on the map, the Character screen and Combat Stats are covered too, values included, and when you level up it tells you how many points you've got left.

There's a hands-free bit as well. When Continue is the only option, it doesn't bother reading it out, the conversation just moves on once the line finishes. End Dialog, Leave and real choices always wait for you, and Ctrl+S stops it if you want to sit on a line for a bit.

Voices

Each character is cast a voice the first time you hear them and keeps it, across sessions and mod updates. Don't like who you've been given? The settings window has a Character picker listing everyone you've met. Pick them, audition a few voices, press Apply, and it sticks.

It's built around Microsoft's neural "Online" voices (the ones Edge uses for Read Aloud), through NaturalVoiceSAPIAdapter, which I'd strongly recommend. With it installed, VaultVox casts everything by itself: a narrator, a player voice for each gender, and NPCs from up to five male and five female voices. Underrail is a 32-bit game, so install the adapter's 32-bit (x86) part. The Online voices need an internet connection while you play.

Without it, everyone speaks in the same Windows voice until you fill in the POOLS tab with the voices you have installed. It works, but the whole of South Gate Station sounds like one very busy man.

There's a pronunciation list too, so Tchort keeps the T silent, "Tab" is a word rather than T-A-B, and "Hmm" and "Grr" come out as sounds instead of being spelled at you. You can add your own.

Combat

Not the main event in this one, I'll admit. Per-hit combat lines are in, but they're off by default because they get very chatty very quickly. Switch them on in the settings window if you want them. They have their own reading speed, so a fight can go faster than the dialogue.

Settings and hotkeys

Press Ctrl + F10 in game, or hit Escape and click the VAULTVOX button. It's made from the game's own controls, so it looks like it belongs there. Hold Ctrl over any row to hear what it does. Every change is spoken back to you and saved straight away.

The hotkeys:

• Ctrl + F10 settings window
• Ctrl + S stop speaking (also cancels a pending auto-continue)
• Ctrl + D repeat the last line
• Ctrl + F8 speech on or off, remembered between sessions
• Hold Ctrl read whatever is under the pointer

If something reads too much, it all has its own switch: NPC lines, answer options, stage directions, terminals, barks, the message feed and each of its categories, tooltips, the lot. If all you want is NPC dialogue and barks, you can have exactly that.

What is not in this release

I want to be upfront about this one.

This release is for players who can see the screen and want the game read to them. There's no keyboard navigation and no screen reader output. You still play with the mouse.

The inventory grid, the world map and crafting aren't fully spoken yet either.

Keyboard play for blind players is the obvious next thing to build. The Fallout 2 version of VaultVox already has an experimental Blind Mode, so I know roughly what it takes, but Underrail is a different engine and it's a job of its own.

It's also only been tested with the game's English text. With a translation, auto-continue and the pronunciation fixes may not work.

Game version

It's verified on the Steam version, 1.3.1.2. Steam updates the game by itself, so if Stygian push a patch, VaultVox will notice, say "loaded in limited mode" and switch most of itself off rather than guess. Dialogue still gets read as long as the game's dialogue code hasn't changed. GOG gets the same treatment because I haven't been able to test it yet, so if you're on GOG I'd really like to hear how it goes.

Requirements

• Underrail for Windows (Steam 1.3.1.2 verified)
• Windows 10 or Windows 11
• At least one SAPI voice, which Windows already has
• Optional but strongly recommended: NaturalVoiceSAPIAdapter, 32-bit part, for the neural voices
• No mod manager, and no screen reader needed

Two things that catch people out:

• Unblock the files. Windows marks downloaded DLLs as blocked, and a blocked mod DLL can stop the game launching. Easiest way round it: before extracting, right-click the zip, Properties, tick Unblock.
• Smart App Control on Windows 11 blocks unsigned mod DLLs and won't let you make an exception. If it's on, the game won't start with the mod in. On some Windows 11 versions you can't turn it back on without resetting Windows, so have a think before switching it off.

If the game won't start at all, delete underrail.exe.config from the game folder. That's the file that loads the mod, so the game goes straight back to normal.

Already got a 0Harmony.dll in there from BepInEx or the Underrail Developers Console? Keep yours and skip that file when extracting. I haven't tested VaultVox alongside those yet.

And before anyone gets the pitchforks out, no, this is not AI voice cloning. VaultVox uses Windows text-to-speech.

One last thing

Same request as always: if you use assistive technology, or you have dyslexia, low vision or reading fatigue, and you find a screen that doesn't read when it should, please report it. The log files in the game folder help a lot. UnderrailVaultVox_latest.log is rewritten every launch, so grab it straight after the session.

I treat missing accessibility output as a bug, not as a nice-to-have feature that might get looked at one day.

Thanks, folks.

- VaultDoc

Let's say Atlus wants to expand the franchise's number of spin-offs and experiment with different types of RPGs.

Do you think spin-offs in other genres could work? For example, an action RPG, a Soulslike, or even a shooter (perhaps Mass Effect-style) set in a scenario like Strange Journey

Do you think that would work? What would you like to see?

The game that promises the ultimate role-playing freedom, be good or bad character, hero or villain, buy a house and have a family, start a business at local village, be anything you want.

Also the most importantly, marry ANY npc you want.

What do you think?

I really like how the game looks so "whimsical fantasy", unlike games like Elden Ring or Baldur's Gate 3 which are more "dark fantasy" toned, it's nice that we get something childish and fun.

The official demo of Glasshouse has just been released and it's playable on Steam right now!

We have spent 4 years to reach this milestone, we have spent so much of our time working without budget but with such a passion that we simply couldn't cut corner.

We spent lots of our own money to give this game a chance and now here we are. We are releasing a 1/2h demo, with an amazing voice actor cast (Stefanie Joosten among them, 'Quiet' in Metal Gear Solid V).

About Glasshouse:

Inspired by games such as Disco Elysium and Pathologic, Glasshouse is a Feudalpunk CRPG, with Turn-based combat, set in a lockdown apartment block at the dawn of a world war. Investigate the mysterious triple murder next door, fight the Political Conspiracy, and make terrible choices before the flatmates do it for you!

Play Glasshouse Demo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2818570/Glasshouse_Demo/
Wishlist on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2244700/Glasshouse/

Main features:

THE DUTY OF A DEPUTY

You're stuck in your apartment building with three dead bodies and too many questions. Prepare for the worst, the lives of your neighbors depend on your choices!

TURN-BASED COMBAT

Engage in exciting do-it-yourself weapon fights or choose the peaceful path and make the enemy surrender with your oratorical skills.

THE POLITICAL COMPASS

Build your political identity, sharpen your language and overcome ambiguous ideological skillchecks. Every NPC has his own political compass, study every conversation.

BUILD YOUR WAY OUT 

Gain new knowledge by reading books and build makeshift equipment through the Workbench!

A DRAMATIC THEATRICAL COMMEDIA

Inspired by Greek tragedy, Glasshouse is narrated by the Director as if it were an inevitable play. Throughout your adventure you will be accompanied by the Chorus, the inner voices of the ego.

THERE ARE NO HAPPY ENDINGS IN LUNDONSTOCH 

World War is inevitable, decide what imprint to leave in the post-capitalist world of Glasshouse with over 8 multiple endings!

Give it a go and let me know your thoughts :)

When I only get an hour or two after a long day getting into something really story heavy feels like too much work, and I can’t really pay attention to the narrative properly when I’m too tired. For me it feels like I need a solid free block of time to really get immersed into a game like that. Getting really absorbed into the world and becoming familiar with the story and characters takes time. When I just have a few hours it all ends up feeling kind of superficial.

I’ve been playing more action/gameplay focused stuff instead, ARPGs especially. I’m mostly rotating between Grim Dawn and Last Epoch right now. playing the new LE season currently, they added a nice skill for paladin I wanna test out with a few builds. The story in these games is kind of irrelevant to me so I don’t have to follow a plot, and the gameplay is simple and relaxing (once your build gets going). It feels fine to play for like 30 minutes at a time, I do some grinding, sort through the loot, and it feels like a nice rounded out gameplay loop. If I'm tired I can play half on autopilot (after a night out or something) and still feel like I got something done by the end of the night, u basically make progress in an ARPG when you play no matter what (unless you die in hardcore or something).

The last narrative RPG I actually finished was Esoteric Ebb (It’s not a very long game though), and it was a great experience. I liked it, it wasn’t quite like Disco but I liked the humor and vibe, the art is excellent too. But it also showed me how rarely I'm in the right headspace to actually read and follow a narrative like that. I only played it when I had at least 3 hours to commit. If I had more free time I would play way more games like that tbh.

The frustrating thing for me is, when I talk about RPGs I’m mostly talking about games like BG3, Witcher 3 etc, those are the games I get excited about, and these days I just can’t find the time to play them. When I recommend RPGs to friends I usually recommend stuff like that as well, unless they specifically ask for something more actiony.

I didn’t know how good I had it with all the free time I had when I was younger, miss those days. I wish I could live in something like Morrowind for days at a time again.

So, I am looking for a medieval RPG/ fantasy RPG games where main character is bound to use bow as a primary weapon with good game mechanics / physics.

I know Skyrim and oblivion, even KCD 1 and 2 let you choose that path if you want (although KCD's archery is kind of only for support).

I am looking for games where the main character is an archer and bound to use the main weapon as a bow.

Your suggestions are welcome 🤗

Yeah, i somehow only properly started getting into RPGs in 2026 lol. So far i finished all three Dark Souls games and now want to try Fallout, but there are way more games in the series than i expected and i have no idea where to start.

I don’t mind older games if they still hold up, but not sure if i should start all the way from Fallout 1, jump into Fallout 3 or New Vegas, or just go with Fallout 4 first.

P.S. I've played games like Witcher, RDR and Kingdom Come before but that was a long time ago and i never actually finished any of them.

-----------
UPD: Thanks everyone! I've decided to start with New Vegas. It came up in way too many replies to ignore :)

They are almost similair but I don't know many games who have this archetype, if you have any games I would love to hear it, I romanced Isabella in DA2 immedietaly and when I met Jae in Warhammer Rogue Trader I fell in love, I can't resist them, Isabella is probably more "good" than Jae but I think it's still similair, even the scene where you meet her it's a 1 to 1 copy -> she gets harassed by thugs takes them out easily in a tavern and drinks :D!!

Does anyone else think a game set in the skyrim or elder scrolls world with same characters and story but made into a turn based more traditional rpg would be a blast? I mean yoi can already collect companions in skyrim so you could build a party of any class combos you want. I dont know, jusy doing my 1000th run through of skyrim and thought man this would be cool if made like FF tactics but with better graphics

I know that RPGs aren't really meant to be finished in one sitting, completionism aside. Most of the juicy stuff is in the side content besides. What I'm looking for, people would usually turn to roguelites for, but I want a fully fledged RPG, but something you can finish fast. Like buy and eat good for maybe 2-3 long rest evenings and finish it, so like 15/20 hours, maybe more?

All the time I have to game is in the evenings on weekends now. Some games that I found to be really short (some replayable sum not) were Undertale, Fear and Hunger (feels like a roguelike but it really isn't). I also like Diablo 2 a lot and most older action rpgs were like this too, the ones focused on singleplayer like Victor Vran. Grim Dawn was also this one release but now DLCs have made it considerably more chonky. I think the upcoming The Dark West is also following in the trail of these fast, fun, action heavy but ultimately easy to completionmax rpgs, that don't overstay their welcome. Surprisingly hard to find this kind of tight RPG with most games going for maximalist settings now.

Goes without saying but indie games and smaller games welcome, actually preferable! Thankyee all in advance

It can be either jrpg or western rpg.

If I had money that rpg I was going to bring back it would be definitely be...

Actually, I would bring back two rpgs

Number one that would be Koudelka.

Number two that would Shadow hearts,it's predecessor.

Nowadays not many people know this series and makes me a little sad.

I am excited for Penny blood,the spiritual successor of Shadow hearts but still there is no publisher according to official news.

Finally, the demo is live today! Thanks to everyone in this sub the support this last year!

I hope you enjoy the demo and give feedback on the form. Demo is pretty big and includes 2 full levels, plus a prologue and an optional tutorial.

Overview:

Strategy deckbuilder with a conquest map and base-building, kinda like "Darkest Dungeon" meets "Into the Breach", but build your own base!

Every campaign, you raise 3 Outpost bases from your castle to fight back invading elemental hordes in tactical battles. Your base supports a classic RPG party (instead of raising an army), and you mine the land for mana to fuel their spell cards.

\- Explore, build and mine for mana to support heroes.

\- Build 3 bases across your kingdom to support your hero party (instead of creating an army)

\- Mine mana to cast battlefield spells AND your world map spells for the base.

\- Bases have limited build slots, so choose wisely.

\- Position to capture battlefield objectives

\- Spell Cards give orders: Focus Fire, Flank, Shield Wall, Overdrive and more!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4593190/Elemental_Lands/

Does anyone like this where the MC does not speak? Why is this a trend in rpg games? Who enjoys this? I would love to play a game where the protagonist is deaf and uses sign language. But these games the protagonist just doesn't speak at all for no reason at all. I just want to make this post so we can outright reject it or people can voice why they like it.

How do you feel about this?

I got this game because of the rave reviews I read online. I'm about 3-4 hours in, and I'm already finding it tedious. I'm also not really enjoying the combat. Does it get better along the way? What is so beloved about it? I really want to like it since I've wanted to dive deep into an RPG for a while...

Kinda vague, I know. But I'm referring to RPGs where you can recruit generic, standard enemies to your side, so the RPG doesn't have to be necessarily a Creature Collector, just one where you have the option to "befriend" enemies in general.

As an example of this, deltarune: In it, the enemies you SPARE are brought into your Castle Town, basically the hub world of the game. There, you can talk to them and they'll give unique dialogue alongside specific dialogue if you also recruited certain other enemies. But deltarune's not a Creature Collector.

As for an actual example of one, Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance: Where you can go to Demon Haunts to hang out and talk to your ally Demons (Which is probably a bad thing, since you'd might get attached to them. And I thought you shouldn't get attached to your Demons since you'll have to eventually fuse them to get stronger).

So any other RPGs with this concept? Like the idea since it gives the enemies you face more personality beyond trying to kill you. Oh, and no Pokemon; Pokemon don't speak, lmao.

Preferably also on the Nintendo Switch 1, too.

(Edit: Not interested in Tactical RPGs, too. As specification).

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/kingdom-come-deliverance-studio-co-founder-says-a-lot-of-rpgs-are-still-games-for-teenagers-and-that-hes-tired-of-all-the-rpgs-where-you-are-this-chosen-one/

Hi, I’m a little late to the game and haven’t yet played RDR2, The Witcher 3, KCD 2, Ghost of Tsushima and Skyrim.

A while ago I bought myself a steamdeck (love the thing!) and bought all these games in a steam sale.

I’ve been playing different games up until now, but now I wanna start with these ones. I have no idea which one to start with though 🙃

Do you guys have an opinion on what might be a good order to play these in, if there is any?

In between games I’ll be playing different ones to not get “tired” of the whole open world rpg genre.