Depends entirely on the story being told. All can be impactful.
Games where the main character is a blank slate can allow you to build meaningful relationships and aspects to your character, but it takes a lot more work from the devs to flesh out those story branches. When done well, it’s excellent. Mass Effect did a good job with this. Skyrim is an example where it’s well done but with less of a rigid framework and therefore less specific handling by the story.
Games that have a specific character but still allow you to shape their path can be beautiful. The ending of Red Dead Redemption 2 has audio callbacks to important decisions you made during the game that shaped who your version of Arthur Morgan was, and it brought tears to my eyes.
And games where the decisions are set in stone and the character development is entirely in the hands of the writer, director, and actor, like a movie, can still be phenomenal. God of War (2018) and Ragnarok are excellent examples.
Depends entirely on the story being told. All can be impactful.
Games where the main character is a blank slate can allow you to build meaningful relationships and aspects to your character, but it takes a lot more work from the devs to flesh out those story branches. When done well, it’s excellent. Mass Effect did a good job with this. Skyrim is an example where it’s well done but with less of a rigid framework and therefore less specific handling by the story.
Games that have a specific character but still allow you to shape their path can be beautiful. The ending of Red Dead Redemption 2 has audio callbacks to important decisions you made during the game that shaped who your version of Arthur Morgan was, and it brought tears to my eyes.
And games where the decisions are set in stone and the character development is entirely in the hands of the writer, director, and actor, like a movie, can still be phenomenal. God of War (2018) and Ragnarok are excellent examples.