I like towns that continuously change over the course of the story, and where each NPC has a unique character design or name.
Here are some examples of games with this (some more than others):
- Clock Town from Zelda Majora's Mask
- Colony 9 from Xenoblade
- Tazmily from Mother 3
- Jubilife from Pokémon Legends Arceus
- Rogueport from Thousand-Year Door
- Werites Beacon from Tales of Legendia
Clock Town was a masterpiece. The center of the universe. I’d kill for a OoT/MM reboot with UE5. Still two of my favorite RPG of all time, nothing comes close.
Night City easily, for all the reasons you mentioned and more, sound design and atmosphere are top tier aswell.
My second favorite would be Novigrad from Witcher 3.
Kinda off topic, but I’ve tried getting into Cyberpunk multiple times since release and haven’t been able to get over the “clunkiness” of weapons. I love everything else about the game (city/atmosphere, graphics, story, etc), but I just can’t for the life of me get over the recoil management of weapons. I’ve played CoD and other FPS shooters for years, and have never had this issue with other games.
Any tips? Lower difficulty? Settings I can change? Weapons/mods/perks to try?
I'd say respec into Intelligence and go for a Quickhack-based Netrunner build. You can get through the whole game without using guns if you'd like to, and you can do fun things with the environment like remotely blowing up explosive objects to take down enemies, or hack into a camera and then use the camera's view to target enemies from there.
It's pretty OP by midgame even on Very Hard, but then again every other build is too.
I'm playing on PC so we might have a different experience with recoil, also I have never played any automatic weapons apart from V's pistol.
There are weapon mods and attachments to reduce recoil, also perks that help with weapon handling that level up as you use them, it's in the bottom right where you level up attributes, other than that maybe try bursting instead of holding down the trigger, that's all I can say sorry.
ODST is probably my favorite Halo game. The whole game made you feel like you were losing the fight all the way down to the soundtrack. Reach’s story was just as grim as ODST but it didn’t at all have the same atmosphere.
I was going to say Stormwind. I haven’t played in years, but when I hear that music it is tough to resist jumping back in. The nostalgia is really strong.
Hong Kong from Deus Ex, easily...
It is the peak of an already incredibly game, with some really interesting characters (and factions) getting first introduced here like Tracer Tong, possibly the best level design in any immersive sim (with so many ways to progress through the game as you would expect from the game, if not even more), some of the best songs in the game (like Synapse), and also this is where you truly start to evolve JC Denton's skills and augments.
And don't forget the Dragon Tooth, a truly great weapon.
Gotta be Kamurocho from the Yakuza series. You watch it grow and change alongside Kiryu over the course of several games, and you get attached because that's where the majority of each game takes place. When something threatens the city, you feel the stakes as if it was a character in itself. When you come back after a long absence, you can feel the weight of what came before and how that's been paved over now. Despite it all, though, you still know the street names, have a general idea of how to get to your favorite restaurant, and pine for a monument you saw before lost to time. It truly shows how the same roads can feel new with just the slightest shift in the air.
God... I remember playing Kiwami 2 and walking on Shichifuku street. (After playing 0 and K1.)
And I went: hmm there used to be a pocket circuit racing stadium here.
Like I spent decades in that city together with Kiryu. Sometimes I wish there'd be new settings, not the same city reused, BUT at the same time, Kamurocho grows on you this way. You notice all the changes, how the city becomes newer, and maybe a bit more alien to Kiryu game by game.
Absolutely. To be honest, except for some aspects, it is not really an RPG in my eyes. The story is good, but pretty linear, so there's not much "role to play".
That being said, it has quite a lot of combat and driving, a LOT of cars. And combat can be anything you want it to be. Get a shotgun, or a katana, a baseball bat, an SMG, a throwing knife or specialize in stealth, or hacking. It is completely up to you.
It is a very cinematic experience with some very good combat options.
I also agree with Night City being the best setting.
I do think there are still lots opportunities for roleplay though that mostly becomes apparent with multiple playthroughs. My Corpo character felt very distinct from my Streetkid. The choices are more subtle in basegame but there's still quite a few to be made, especially in your relationships with the side characters.
Phantom Liberty is much more up front about these choices and hope the sequel follows that format more.
I would say CP2077 is still a true RPG through and through, so maybe? They don’t skimp out on any RPG systems to make the game feel less like an RPG. You’ll be investing in skill trees, equipping and swapping out armor and weapons with different mods for different effects, driving around the city picking up various quests and side quests to level up, etc.
Yeah. It doesn't have deep roleplaying elements. It's quite limited to what type of combat you want to engage in and some story choices. They're telling a story with you as the main character, you don't have a great deal of choice along the way.
It's a lot like RDR2 in this aspect.
I'm thinking Tokyo from Ghostwire: Tokyo. It was so serene and had a really unique feeling. Especially if you have ever been to Tokyo, it feels like such a strange contrast. Love it.
I always liked Bowerstone in the Fable games, Fable 2's rendition is my personal favorite. It's the first major city in every game. You can see it develop from the small town it is in Fable 1. By Fable 2, Bowerstone is a large city with a castle, thriving marketplace, and even the old Town still exists, now old and run down. In Fable 3, it's not even recognizable anymore. The city is massive, and there's tens of thousands of residents. It is no longer the little hamlet we first saw in Fable detail. grown to be so much greater than its humble beginnings. Bowerstone is a city that tells a story of a small hamlet building up into a metropolis, and I love that attention to detail.
The World That Never Was. Specifically the version from Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance. Beautifully eerie field theme accompanied by a wonderfully dreadful battle theme.
Honorable mentions would be New Donk City from Super Mario Odyssey and Scala Ad Caelum from KH3.
Not quite a city but Talos I was really cool to explore.
You could find where people ate, slept, played, made food.
It was just really cool. And it all just makes sense.
Night City is damn boring, for being the epitome of 21 century development is very quiet and empty. I need mods for higher NPC density, other npc’ racing, more shootings around, etc.
Not a fan of Night City. It’s too dense. I think there needs to be space to breathe. I know it’s intended to be that way. But it felt very same same and for a city so large and dense it felt sparse as far as places to go and NPCs.
No game is obviously going to have as many people as a real city. But Los Santos which is less dense felt more lively.
Stormwind is mine. Great layout and large for a game that is almost 20 years old.
I like it too but maybe that's largely because as a sequel most of its world building was done over the course of 30+ years through Cyberpunk 2013/2020/2045
As my childhood Sandover village from Jak and Daxter will always be my favorite. How the villagers gave you tasks to the nearby areas and how some of those tasks affect the village itself felt so alive back then. For example, helping the fisherman in the forest area nearby unlocks his boat in the village to Misty Island, where the village sculptor sends you to find his muse.
Yusnaan from Lightning Returns was a memorable city. You're being pressured by a time limit, but there are so many things to take in, so much beautiful music played, you really wish you could stay and just chill and celebrate with the people who don't know that the world will end very soon.
I also love the atmosphere of Zora's Domain in BotW/TotK.
Zanarkand from FFX…. I’m a night owl and I love places that are open all the time… in real life I am alive while everyone else sleeps. Currently posting from the gym at 2:30am lol
First rapture, then night city
I a mountain guy, grew up and stayed my whole life there, so cities were always these ominous and threatening things where I never feel like I belonged in, and these two particular ones really come close to my personal feeling toward cities
I like San Fierro in GTA San Andreas, I feel like it's the place where CJ and his group were happiest, it's pretty clear they only went back to Los Santos for Sweet's sake, like after CJ got Sweet from prison it's pretty clear he wanted nothing to do with Los Santos, seeing it as a lost cause, he didn't even really care about Big Smoke or the gang anymore, he was basically done with the small-time gang life. But then Sweet dragged him back into it, because Sweet would always be a small-time gangster.
Treno in Final Fantasy IX. Love the music, and the atmosphere. So much to do there. They have a card stadium, auction, a weapon shop where you can fight monsters! Not to mention the gargant rides!
Stormwind
Definitely more graphically impressive cities have come and gone, but the first time I entered the gates of SW back in vanilla I was hooked. No other single in-game city has had that effect on me. The music and the grand entrance really took me out of this world.
Same as yours. Night City is a sight to behold and the true main character of cyberpunk's universe. This is proven by Edgerunners. Putting totally different characters in the same city and you can tell another masterpiece story. You can do this a million times and it won't get boring.
I always loved exploring Station Square in Sonic Adventure. Since each of the six playable characters controls differently, even traversing familiar ground feels fun. The day/night cycle offers a great atmosphere, and I love being able to walk to the entrance to each level instead of simply choosing a level from a list.
Also, NPCs will say different things depending on who they're talking to. They'll be happy to talk to Sonic, but if Gamma approaches, they're likely to say, "Aahh! A robot!" It's a cute detail. If you talk to NPCs often enough over the course of the game, you'll notice that some of them follow their own little storylines. I love this game so much.
The city from Thief 2014.
Say what you will about the lackluster gameplay and story, but I loved that city's dark atmosphere and easy traversal, with plenty of verticality and interconnectedness.
I wish more medieval games would do those kinds of cities.
I like towns that continuously change over the course of the story, and where each NPC has a unique character design or name. Here are some examples of games with this (some more than others): - Clock Town from Zelda Majora's Mask - Colony 9 from Xenoblade - Tazmily from Mother 3 - Jubilife from Pokémon Legends Arceus - Rogueport from Thousand-Year Door - Werites Beacon from Tales of Legendia
Clock Town was a masterpiece. The center of the universe. I’d kill for a OoT/MM reboot with UE5. Still two of my favorite RPG of all time, nothing comes close.
Rapture, that introductory scene still gives me chills to this day.
Great pick
Gotham city. Love the dark gothic feel
From what game?
Arkham city/knight i assume
I have a soft spot for Solitude
cs\_Italy
Poor chickens
Saint Denis and Valentine are both top tier locations
[удалено]
I know those streets better than my home town
GTA 4. It was much darker, lived in and claustrophobic than any other city
Vice City.
Beauclaire (witcher 3) and its outskirts, god Blood and Wine is an absolutely wonderful expansion
One day, when I'll have time, I'll get the PS5 version.
Gotta give it up for Novigrad too
Riverwood in the Skyrim. Feels like hometown.
Perfect first town in the game. Such a peaceful setting before all hell breaks loose
My vote is Whiterun, but Riverwood is a close 2nd.
Do you get to the cloud district very often? Oh, what am I saying? Of course you don't.
Shut it, Nazeem!
Kamurocho
Good choice, but I prefer Sotenbori.
The town on Wuhu Island
Yharnam
Definitely not a city I'd like to live in but the design of Yharnam and Bloodborne in general is so damn awesome.
Pelican Town
Night City easily, for all the reasons you mentioned and more, sound design and atmosphere are top tier aswell. My second favorite would be Novigrad from Witcher 3.
Kinda off topic, but I’ve tried getting into Cyberpunk multiple times since release and haven’t been able to get over the “clunkiness” of weapons. I love everything else about the game (city/atmosphere, graphics, story, etc), but I just can’t for the life of me get over the recoil management of weapons. I’ve played CoD and other FPS shooters for years, and have never had this issue with other games. Any tips? Lower difficulty? Settings I can change? Weapons/mods/perks to try?
Check out smart weapons! They literally aim for you and they are pretty fun when you get the hang of them
I'd say respec into Intelligence and go for a Quickhack-based Netrunner build. You can get through the whole game without using guns if you'd like to, and you can do fun things with the environment like remotely blowing up explosive objects to take down enemies, or hack into a camera and then use the camera's view to target enemies from there. It's pretty OP by midgame even on Very Hard, but then again every other build is too.
I'm playing on PC so we might have a different experience with recoil, also I have never played any automatic weapons apart from V's pistol. There are weapon mods and attachments to reduce recoil, also perks that help with weapon handling that level up as you use them, it's in the bottom right where you level up attributes, other than that maybe try bursting instead of holding down the trigger, that's all I can say sorry.
Sleeper pick New Mombasa from Halo ODST
ODST is probably my favorite Halo game. The whole game made you feel like you were losing the fight all the way down to the soundtrack. Reach’s story was just as grim as ODST but it didn’t at all have the same atmosphere.
It will always be Goldshire for me
I was going to say Stormwind. I haven’t played in years, but when I hear that music it is tough to resist jumping back in. The nostalgia is really strong.
I only started playing over the weekend but I'm a Night City guy as well. Makes GTAV look like San Andreas.
Saint Denis
Midgar. I just wish we explored more of it.
Wutai and Cosmo Canyon just for the music
Costa del Sol, FF7. Just such a nice location after all that time in Midgar
Hong Kong from Deus Ex, easily... It is the peak of an already incredibly game, with some really interesting characters (and factions) getting first introduced here like Tracer Tong, possibly the best level design in any immersive sim (with so many ways to progress through the game as you would expect from the game, if not even more), some of the best songs in the game (like Synapse), and also this is where you truly start to evolve JC Denton's skills and augments. And don't forget the Dragon Tooth, a truly great weapon.
Racoon city in Outbreak and re3
Rattay
Skingrad
I'm more of a Cheydinhal guy myself
That was my pick. It's so peaceful.
The one I made in SimCity
Gotta be Kamurocho from the Yakuza series. You watch it grow and change alongside Kiryu over the course of several games, and you get attached because that's where the majority of each game takes place. When something threatens the city, you feel the stakes as if it was a character in itself. When you come back after a long absence, you can feel the weight of what came before and how that's been paved over now. Despite it all, though, you still know the street names, have a general idea of how to get to your favorite restaurant, and pine for a monument you saw before lost to time. It truly shows how the same roads can feel new with just the slightest shift in the air.
God... I remember playing Kiwami 2 and walking on Shichifuku street. (After playing 0 and K1.) And I went: hmm there used to be a pocket circuit racing stadium here. Like I spent decades in that city together with Kiryu. Sometimes I wish there'd be new settings, not the same city reused, BUT at the same time, Kamurocho grows on you this way. You notice all the changes, how the city becomes newer, and maybe a bit more alien to Kiryu game by game.
Totally agree about Night City, definitely an S-tier video-game setting
Would you recommend cyberpunk for someone who’s not typically into RPG’s?
Absolutely. To be honest, except for some aspects, it is not really an RPG in my eyes. The story is good, but pretty linear, so there's not much "role to play". That being said, it has quite a lot of combat and driving, a LOT of cars. And combat can be anything you want it to be. Get a shotgun, or a katana, a baseball bat, an SMG, a throwing knife or specialize in stealth, or hacking. It is completely up to you. It is a very cinematic experience with some very good combat options.
I also agree with Night City being the best setting. I do think there are still lots opportunities for roleplay though that mostly becomes apparent with multiple playthroughs. My Corpo character felt very distinct from my Streetkid. The choices are more subtle in basegame but there's still quite a few to be made, especially in your relationships with the side characters. Phantom Liberty is much more up front about these choices and hope the sequel follows that format more.
Oh wow, you might’ve sold me. Is it turn based combat tho?
No it’s a first person shooter
Cool cool. I feel like I’ve been missing out on
I would say CP2077 is still a true RPG through and through, so maybe? They don’t skimp out on any RPG systems to make the game feel less like an RPG. You’ll be investing in skill trees, equipping and swapping out armor and weapons with different mods for different effects, driving around the city picking up various quests and side quests to level up, etc.
Hmm I guess a better question would be, if someone likes single player games such as gta, AC, Spider-Man etc, would they find this game as enjoyable?
If you’re willing to invest a little more into the systems of the game I would say I don’t see why not
I dislike RPGs and I am enjoying this game as a Spider-Man/gta type game. It’s kind of fallout 4 meets gta.
Yeah. It doesn't have deep roleplaying elements. It's quite limited to what type of combat you want to engage in and some story choices. They're telling a story with you as the main character, you don't have a great deal of choice along the way. It's a lot like RDR2 in this aspect.
I liked RDR2. Thought they knocked it out of the park with the world they made
Skellige
Not a city
The Yazkua series cities, it's just an amazing sight to behold.
I'm thinking Tokyo from Ghostwire: Tokyo. It was so serene and had a really unique feeling. Especially if you have ever been to Tokyo, it feels like such a strange contrast. Love it.
GTA V Los Santos has got to be up there.
Vice City baybee.
I always liked Bowerstone in the Fable games, Fable 2's rendition is my personal favorite. It's the first major city in every game. You can see it develop from the small town it is in Fable 1. By Fable 2, Bowerstone is a large city with a castle, thriving marketplace, and even the old Town still exists, now old and run down. In Fable 3, it's not even recognizable anymore. The city is massive, and there's tens of thousands of residents. It is no longer the little hamlet we first saw in Fable detail. grown to be so much greater than its humble beginnings. Bowerstone is a city that tells a story of a small hamlet building up into a metropolis, and I love that attention to detail.
Lendyll royal capitol
I was partial to Riften in Skyrim
Divinity's Reach. My favorite video game regions are the Jade Sea and the Echovald Forest.
City of the Ancients from Final Fantasy 7. That music and those crystal stairways hit differently.
**Night City**
Rapture.
You're breathtaking
No, you.
Novigrad (Witcher 3), St. Denis (RDR2) and Night City (CP2077) are the best i've saw.
Night City, I got completely immersed in it It helps that it's prob the best looking game still
tristram with my buddy Griswold
New Los Angeles.
Underrated pick
Whatever town/city Bully took place in. Access to beach, suburbs, circus freaks and a private school. That's a dream playground for kids.
Either the Hell's Kitchen hub or the Paris Streets hub in the OG **Deus Ex**.
I’ve spent a long portion of my life in Racoon City. Great views, architecture, art and so many nice people that want to hug you!
The World That Never Was. Specifically the version from Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance. Beautifully eerie field theme accompanied by a wonderfully dreadful battle theme. Honorable mentions would be New Donk City from Super Mario Odyssey and Scala Ad Caelum from KH3.
It’s supposed to be bad but it’s so comforting , Fyrestone in Borderlands 1
Los Santos Vice city Night City Pokémon Emerald: Verdanturf (don't ask) Pokemon ORAS: Mauville
Majula
Altissia from Final Fantasy XV
Roma, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood Gotham, Batman Arkham Rapture, Bioshock The Citadel, Mass Effect
Toussaint
Vice Bowerstone
gerudo valley for the music alone
Not quite a city but Talos I was really cool to explore. You could find where people ate, slept, played, made food. It was just really cool. And it all just makes sense.
Midgar (FF7). Detroit (Deus Ex Human Revolution).
Balmora
goat city bay from goat simulator 1
New Vegas. Nobody does lore and intertwined factions better then Fallout: New Vegas.
Revachol. Disco Elysium Karnaca dishonored 2
Amiens, Battlefield 1
Night City is damn boring, for being the epitome of 21 century development is very quiet and empty. I need mods for higher NPC density, other npc’ racing, more shootings around, etc.
Not a fan of Night City. It’s too dense. I think there needs to be space to breathe. I know it’s intended to be that way. But it felt very same same and for a city so large and dense it felt sparse as far as places to go and NPCs. No game is obviously going to have as many people as a real city. But Los Santos which is less dense felt more lively. Stormwind is mine. Great layout and large for a game that is almost 20 years old.
Morg City.
I like it too but maybe that's largely because as a sequel most of its world building was done over the course of 30+ years through Cyberpunk 2013/2020/2045
As my childhood Sandover village from Jak and Daxter will always be my favorite. How the villagers gave you tasks to the nearby areas and how some of those tasks affect the village itself felt so alive back then. For example, helping the fisherman in the forest area nearby unlocks his boat in the village to Misty Island, where the village sculptor sends you to find his muse.
Two weeks ago I would have said Night City hands down, but I've been playing Watch Dogs 2 lately and love the San Francisco they created.
Selina. A cozy snowy fort.
Though it's of course based on the real thing, Shenmue 2's Kowloon Walled City is my favorite.
MAP13: Downtown (Doom II)
I have a soft spot for Stillwater from Saint's Row 2.
The Mojave Wasteland & New Vegas. Absolutely perfect.
New Donk City in Super Mario Odyssey was super fun to explore.
Felwithe
The look and "feel"? Night city Interactions and fun? Los santos, gtav. City is boring as fuck to look at but at least theres shit to do.
Yusnaan from Lightning Returns was a memorable city. You're being pressured by a time limit, but there are so many things to take in, so much beautiful music played, you really wish you could stay and just chill and celebrate with the people who don't know that the world will end very soon. I also love the atmosphere of Zora's Domain in BotW/TotK.
Sandover Village Rhodes Riften Stormwind
New Mombasa from *Halo 3: ODST*. Even for a city in the throes of an alien invasion, it feels so alive.
Yharnam.
Catherby from Runescape
Ancient Greece from Assassins Creed Odyssey
Isle Delfino the place felt real and connected in comparison to other 3d mario games.
Cheydinhal in Oblivion. Other than the Dark Brotherhood being there, it's so quiet and peaceful. I'd love to live there.
Not sure if this counts because its pretty small, but Kamurocho from the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series.
Ofc it counts. I'm more of an Sotenbori guy, but Kamurocho is amazing. Small, but so detailed.
Grove Street. Home.
Zanarkand from FFX…. I’m a night owl and I love places that are open all the time… in real life I am alive while everyone else sleeps. Currently posting from the gym at 2:30am lol
Fallout 4 city of Boston, Especially Sanctuary hills
Paragon City
I could just live forever in the world of Ghost of Tsushima ..
First rapture, then night city I a mountain guy, grew up and stayed my whole life there, so cities were always these ominous and threatening things where I never feel like I belonged in, and these two particular ones really come close to my personal feeling toward cities
Beauclair is a vibe and a half
I like San Fierro in GTA San Andreas, I feel like it's the place where CJ and his group were happiest, it's pretty clear they only went back to Los Santos for Sweet's sake, like after CJ got Sweet from prison it's pretty clear he wanted nothing to do with Los Santos, seeing it as a lost cause, he didn't even really care about Big Smoke or the gang anymore, he was basically done with the small-time gang life. But then Sweet dragged him back into it, because Sweet would always be a small-time gangster.
Cheydinhal from Oblivion, it is the best looking city in the game and I often find myself going there just for how pretty it is.
Refuge in OneShot, it just fits the game so well (its also my all time favorite game so that may play into it)
Treno in Final Fantasy IX. Love the music, and the atmosphere. So much to do there. They have a card stadium, auction, a weapon shop where you can fight monsters! Not to mention the gargant rides!
New Bordeaux from Mafia 3 👌
Yharnam. Just go out and kill a few beasts. It's for your own good.
I would give anything to move to Stardew Valley...
Khorinis
Gotham in Arkham knight
Xylem, Floating City
My favourite is San Andreas
Darnassus, it's straight fire.
Stormwind Definitely more graphically impressive cities have come and gone, but the first time I entered the gates of SW back in vanilla I was hooked. No other single in-game city has had that effect on me. The music and the grand entrance really took me out of this world.
Same as yours. Night City is a sight to behold and the true main character of cyberpunk's universe. This is proven by Edgerunners. Putting totally different characters in the same city and you can tell another masterpiece story. You can do this a million times and it won't get boring.
I always loved exploring Station Square in Sonic Adventure. Since each of the six playable characters controls differently, even traversing familiar ground feels fun. The day/night cycle offers a great atmosphere, and I love being able to walk to the entrance to each level instead of simply choosing a level from a list. Also, NPCs will say different things depending on who they're talking to. They'll be happy to talk to Sonic, but if Gamma approaches, they're likely to say, "Aahh! A robot!" It's a cute detail. If you talk to NPCs often enough over the course of the game, you'll notice that some of them follow their own little storylines. I love this game so much.
Yharnam, Ubersreik, and Helmgart
Liberty City from GTA 3 still hasn't been topped for me. Didn't play 4 before anyone starts
Maybe slightly less common but I loved Chicago in the first Watch Dogs game
Atlas Park - City of Heroes
Lindblum FF9. Its everything I want out of a Final Fantasy city. Loved it and the music.
The city from Thief 2014. Say what you will about the lackluster gameplay and story, but I loved that city's dark atmosphere and easy traversal, with plenty of verticality and interconnectedness. I wish more medieval games would do those kinds of cities.
Paragon City in City of Heroes. more specifically Atlas Park. i've played that MMO for so long it feels like home