I play mostly sci-fi games but I enjoy a good ol’ swordfighting once in a while.
What could you suggest as a good single player action game with melee and maybe a dash of spellcasting/“powers” ? It can be TPS or FPS
Although it should (here comes the nitpicking) :
- not be a stealth game or stealth-adjacenr like Assassin’s Creed or Shadow Of Mordor
- not be a souls-like (I play for fun, not to puke blood)
- have health regen (at least out of combat) or any mean to heal without having to look after potions or food while out of combat
If possible a good story would be a major plus, but it doesn’t need to be The Witcher level of good. And I’m more than fine with AA games, or older games as long as the art direction is nice.
EDIT: thanks for the suggestions, I realize I should have mentionned the “similar” games I’ve already played :
- The Witcher trilogy
- Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim
- Dragon’s Dogma
- God Of War (liked the combat, not the difficulty)
- Darksiders
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003 video game)
- Hunted: The Demon’s Forge
- Vermintide (even though it’s not single player, but great game)
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I want to suggest Daggerfall but it’s very old and has probably aged badly at that.
I can confirm both of those things lol.
I recently tried playing Daggerfall Unity, which is basically a ground up remake of Daggerfall in a modern engine. So it’s not quite as clunky and hard to get running as the original.
I still bounced, even as a major Morrowind fan.
I know you said no souls-like, but what about metroidvania type ones?
Nine sols was extremely fun, does have a story mode that has configurable difficulty. The developers describe it as taopunk, mix of Taoism and cyberpunk, they’re a Taiwanese studio, incorporates a lot of mythological elements and ends up in a sort of scifantasy setting. It’s got a lot of hand drawn assets, art style is fantastic. I’d call it more of a sekiro-like as it’s centred around deflections.
Give grim dawn a go too if you’re game for isometric RPGs like diablo, definitely scratched that itch for a diablo2 like game for me. Build system is super intricate and I’ve definitely barely scratched the surface.
I bought Grim Dawn a few weeks ago, but I see it more as a Torchlight/Diablo-like and not a third or first person melee action game (like The Witcher, Dragon’s Dogma, …) and I was looking for something fun / light / even button smashing with good action :)
I’ll check Nine Sols, thanks, but the Sekiro mention scares me a bit ^^’
Oh I didn’t dig sekiro but loved nine sols if that helps any, timings matter but they’re pretty generous and gives you lots of tools.
You’ve already hit most of the ones I’d recommend, dragon age is up there for me, 1st one being more crpg, I came to like veilguard’s combat and enjoyed it, the series probably fits your bill.
Edit: cyberpunk with a katana maybe? Not fantasy at all, but the game is really solid, especially since phantom liberty. I’ve started a run trying to roleplay as Geralt using the witcher gear cdpr gives you, it’s worth playing regardless if you’ve not already.
I really enjoyed Ys VIII (“Lacromosa of Dana”), if you can tolerate the kind of anime-ish story. It’s an action RPG. It’s not especially immersive (very game-y), but it’s got pretty good level design, and the combat is pretty fun, if not particularly challenging (a little button-mashy).
Thanks, I’m not a big fan of anime and this one looks like “over the top” anime ^^’
I remember seeing a ton of Ys games on GOG, the combat looks like fun though, it’s just too much “cliche” for me
I like DBZ games though, I grew up with Dragon Ball
Fair enough. I know that style can be polarizing, it’s why I put that caveat in there.
I found God of War 2018 and Ragnarok have some similarities with the combat controls of Final Fantasy 16 except 16 is bit faster and easier. FF16 is a dark medieval fantasy. Great story super fun, grand adventure, with ok side quests. Rated M.
Sword fighting and magic a-plenty.
2 hour free demo on PS5 and PC
Thanks, I think I’ll try the demo (a good thing it still exists, even if it’s too rare)
I’ve never understood the deal with the Final Fantasy world : is it medieval fantasy ? Is it sci-fi ? Is it real-time or turn-based ? Is it dark themed or light humor ? It’s kinda all the over the place from an external point of view, but this one could do the trick
The games have different settings so the amount of sci-fi differs, but a ton of fantasy JRPGs have “surprise” sci-fi element reveals at some point. Although the same goes for western RPGs too I guess; Ultima, Wizardry and Might & Magic all have their sci-fi moments.
As for suggestions, I was going to say the Gothic or Risen games, but there’s a fair amount of struggling involved in the beginning if you’re not into that, and the combat isn’t exactly incredible, so I’ll just second Avowed which is way more fun than I expected.
The health Regen requirement doesn’t discount Skyrim if you use Health Regeneration potions/enchantments ;)
Un-modded Skyrim has health regen (even during combat) unless you turn on “survival mode” but overall it’s a much better game if you spend the first 30 hours installing mods. In particular the melee combat can be much improved with MCO and related things. Or just pick a wabbajack, I hear Tempus Maledictum is one that people like.
The Witcher wild hunt?
I should have mentionned I already spent 500 hours on it, but anything similar would be great in terms of gameplay (I don’t need/want ultra complex/hardcore game mechanics)
Kingdom Come Deliverance Might fill most of those criteria.Its medevil with a good story, no magic. not sure about health but i remember it not being too hard
KCD had me interested at first but it seems to be really “simulation” oriented, even more so than RDR2 (need to manage health/food/sleep, craft potions just to save, …)
You can install a mod that removes the need for saviour’s schnapps. I considered it but I only learned about it when I was basically done lol
You can ignore/mitigate most of the survival mechanics in KCD. For food, I highly suggest grabbing the human dustbin perk, which lets you eat spoiled food without any downsides. Once you have that keeping fed is so easy it’s basically an afterthought. For health, there’s a healing potion that is incredibly plentiful. It doesn’t have proper health regen aside from sleeping, but I had ~30 of the healing potions by the end of the game having crafted none of them. Keep a bunch of bandages on hand as well in case you get a bleed. I only had a handful across my entire playthrough but bleeds can be annoying if you can’t just fix them with bandages. As for sleep, I encountered a need to sleep a total of like three times across a 60hr playthrough.
The combat can be difficult, but it’s far from being a soulslike.
You might like it. You also might not idk.
Mount and blade bannerlord
I see Skyrim mentioned, which is an obvious choice, but how about Oblivion? Many people forget about Skyrim’s older brother!
And honestly, I think I liked Oblivion better.
Morrowind best game imo. OpenMW is a great experience.
I respect it, but I wasn’t prepared to take notes, so I didn’t get real far.
I didn’t personally take any notes, but I did use a map with all the places already marked. Because without one finding things is absolutely awful lol
Yeah, I had no map.
Journal got pretty good once they had topics and searchability, I recall playing on og Xbox as a kid, don’t think it was nearly that useful.
I love the game but yeah, I’d kill for some placeable map markers personally, I like the journal but don’t love flipping back to make sure I’m going in the right direction constantly because I got distracted by something on the way.
Diablo, dragon age, dynasty warriors/Hyrule warriors, monster hunter, the older lord of the rings games, vermintide 2.
The Mass Effect Trilogy. And choose the melee class, don’t remember it’s name right now.
Hades is another one but rogue like game (don’t meets the health regen though).
The only Star Wars i can suggest is KOTOR, if you are ok playing old games.
If you can play Nintendo games, Zelda BoTW, TOTK or link’s awakening (2019).
And choose the melee class, don’t remember it’s name right now.
…there’s a melee class?
Do you mean Vanguard? Because it’s not so much a melee class as a shotgun class lol
I think is sentinel for Mass Effect 3. I don’t know if it works for the other two though. The idea is to spam skills to combo them and make them kaboom only to go aftee and finish the remaining in melee. Doesn’t work on insanity well ofc.
You could probably play a vanguard somewhat that way, they get a lot of stuff that procs after shotgun or power usage that boosts melee, I’ve always gone the shotgun route but by 3 the vanguard had an ability to use their shields to aoe slam, which boosts melee I think, so you could maybe do a loop of charge -> melee -> slam ->charge? Charge giving you full shields and kinda critical to surviving, but that’s just general vanguard on insanity.
Me1 you could probably do with a soldier or vanguard, they’re both tanky as all, soldier with immunity, vanguard with barrier. Some fights would be irritating, final one coming to mind, but idk could work. Me2, less certain, you’re made of tissue paper and I don’t think I really ever used melee in it (also my least favourite of the trilogy gameplay wise)
I think in ME3 i did Charge -> Nova, but i was mostly depended from my Squad to take down shields or trigger a detonation with the Charge. So probably is a no for new players.
Lunacid! It’s a short first person dungeon-crawler in which you talk to a skeleton and fight giant snails, medieval manuscript style.
Re: healing specifically, there’s checkpoint based healing and healing spells, but no passive health regen. There’s no downside to just running back to the crystals after each fight, though.
Thanks, never heard of it, I’m gonna check that
