Action and ARPG gamers! I'd like your opinion <3

Trust me, and all of us, when we say that Borderlands is the one game on that list that's a MUST play. It's messed up sense of humor, the varied weapons.....

Edit- minor spoiler from Borderlands 2, but it's so brilliant I HAD to share. Claptrap moment

I almost LITERALLY died laughing the first time I saw that.

You should give Fallout tactics a go if you have't. It's not a great Fallout game but a great spinoff IMO.

If you are looking into Far Cry i would prefer Fallout 3-New vegas instead. Same shit different paint job.
Same with Just cause.

Far Cry 3 in my opinion is a MUST play game. I have tried Batman Arkham Origins, but for me it was kinda boring( I don't know about other Arkham series)

I would stay away from Far Cry in your case...some of them are pretty good but none are must plays. And if you dont really like the genre in the first place theres nothing to keep you going.
just my 2 cents on that

edit: the post right above me wasnt there when I wrote this xD...I disagree

If you enjoy games with good stories, you would like to be played like a damn fiddle ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Edit: you don't need to be stealthy, you can always blaze and run ;)

View attached image.

I have yet to start playing dark souls, but I don't think any of the ones you mentioned are ARPGs. Borderlands is an FPS with ARPG elements that has more in common with Diablo that D&D. I will say that Borderlands 2 is far better than Borderlands 1. If you like Skyrim, I'd say that Borderlands 2 would be your closest foray into FPS games.

Far Cry and Just Cause are open-world games kinda like Grand Theft Auto, where you muck around doing whatever you feel like. Seeing how you like Skyrim, if you don't like the setting for Borderlands, but don't really object to the gameplay, then maybe these would be more tolerable.

The Arkham games are really stealth games, with little to no RPG in them. I haven't played Metal Gear Solid, but that's also stealth. Stealth games are basically FPS games with an emphasis on hiding and sneaking. Any RPG elements you may find are minimal.

Now that that's all said,, time for a few suggestions:

Shadow of Mordor - it's an RPG/Stealth hybrid, somewhat like a cross between Skyrim and Batman Arkham. If you like the stealth parts, then branch out into Arkham Asylum / City

Fallout 3/4/New Vegas. Fallout is basically Skyrim in a nuclear wasteland, so you should enjoy it

I like your gaming taste, really good rpg stuff that you have played.
My advice: Get Baldur's Gate and Pillars of Eternity, and not an action game. Especially the Dark Souls games... great games, of course, but quite difficult.

I do not enjoy Action RPGs at all.

Then you probably won't enjoy Dark Souls much.

Given what you like, I would not recommend any of the games your friends are raving about.

Dark Souls is not like Skyrim. It's a grind. You fight the same enemy over and over , dying each time, and hopefully learning a bit each time, so that you can win the fight the umpteenth time.
Borderlands does not get any better. If you don't like it by now, you will not like it later.
Of all the rest on the list, Batman Arkham Asylum is the most accessible and the most manageable. The pacing and story are good. The game itself is not all that long. The game is cheap. I really like the Batman games. And my graph looks a lot like yours. Keep in mind, Batman is not like an RPG, or even like Skyrim at all. But I like it very much.

Cheers!

I don't have enough experience in the games you are listing but you should definitely give Borderlands some more time since you already own the game. It's a very good game although it been known to induce motion sickness due to its restricted FOV.

It's not related to your question but if you haven't already played the previous Elder Scrolls games you should definitely check them out.

Edit: Regarding Borderlands I got the feeling that you have not played it much at all but if you have given it a couple of hours and still don't care for it I'd say just move on. There are so many games out there :)

You have listed all my favourite games, so here's my opinion:
It sounds like you would enjoy the shadowrun series. If you've played PS:T, you must have played Baldur's gate and Icewind dale. Have you tried any avernum? Also check out Divinity original sin. Jagged alliance 2 is excellent, if a bit light on the story.
More to your question, Dragon's dogma is like a happy dark souls. Unless you really really really want to dig for the story, there's not much to be found on the DS series. Also the atmosphere is mostly claustrophobic and eerie, kinda like the draugr thing but ramped up to the max.
-New vegas is vastly superior to Fallout 3.
-Batman is action, no RPG. It's like the assassins creed series. Great if played sparingly, extremely repetitive if played back to back.
-MGS is 95% stealth, 5% insanity. It's fun if you have patience.
-The far cry series are awesome fun, just like just cause. Give them a try, You should find JC2 and FC3 on the cheap side. But they are action, almost no RPG involved.
-Borderlands 2 has a nice story, excellent gunplay and it's hilarious. BL3 is not good, and I didn't like BL1.

Any of the Dark Souls series - I heard Dragon's Dogma is a bit like this?

Somewhat. Dark Souls is essentially a typical hack & slash, but not the over-the-top anime-like flashy one, it almost feels like a Western game. But in the end it is one gigantic map with millions of enemies and a handful of friendly creatures at your quest hub, and its "story" is more like an endless sea of lore with some dialogue-based plot dumps (if you can call a bunch of cryptic raving that) at certain points. The writing is passable, but only for some codex.

Any of the Batman Arkham Asylum, whatever Arkham games (man Batsy sure does like being caged up or something, does he? Bet he likes leather bondage)

These are typical action-adventure games, not even close to ARPG territory. They are good brawlers, but as the series progressed and they were forced to make bigger maps, the side content gradually took over, and it is INCREDIBLY repetitive. Try Asylum, maybe City, and if you really love them, try Origins and Knight. The first two were written by Paul Dini (same guy who wrote most of the old animated series, the one who created Harley Quinn), so the story is quite good.

Any of the Metal Gear Solids - just so I can understand the memes... but I do not have the patience for stealth eyes the Thief games regrettably

Not ARPG either, but mostly stealth games, and quite good ones, even if some elements are rather non-serious, despite the generic tone. They also have the disadvantage that nobody on the planet managed to ever follow the plot, since it is supposed to be one interconnected, jumbled mess from the 80s (with many games never even released on the West), so you pretty much have to accept that you will never get the background threads.

Far Cry

First two games were techdemo FPSs, the rest are purely open-world fuckarounderies. Some call these ARPGs, but some people also like to lick lead-based paint. If you think you can enjoy a game where you get one giant jungle island and your goal is pretty much to go around and fuck things up to influence a civil war, then go ahead. Or just get Blood Dragon only; it is a lot shorter and full of deliberate stupid fun.

Just Cause

See Far Cry. Only the islands are bigger and there is even less of an attempt to make it anything more than a shooter where you have to develop a vehicle fetish or acknowledge that it takes half an eternity to get to the next giant flaring objective marker.

Borderlands - should I keep playing? The whole universe is so different and the mobs so unusual they scare the crap outta me XD

It is just a simple and fun looter game. A sci-fi western first-person Diablo. You should only play it if you enjoy endless MMO-like farming, because that is the point of the game.

If you really want to stay in cRPG territory, try things like Ember, Age of Decadence, Serpent in the Staglands, Divinity: Original Sin, Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, South Park: Stick of Truth, the Witcher games, the recent Shadowrun trilogy, , the new Prey (it is System Shock 2 remade), Underrail (get ready to get lost), Alpha Protocol, or some older ones like Arcanum, Vampires: Bloodlines, the Deus Ex series, Temple of Elemental Evil (although it is 99% dungeon crawling), Jade Empire.

if you like rpgs, give pillars of eternity a try.

i didn't like dark souls at all (just like lords of the fallen).
haven't played far cry 3-4 but i heard they are fun (open world).
borderlands is great, especially the 2nd, but it gets repetitive after a while.

Hi, I am a strictly RPG player too. I prefer turn-based RPG but I also played some good action ones that I enjoyed. For example, Kingdom Hearts 1 + 2, Divinity 2, Tales of series, and Star Ocean 3 + 4.

My most favorite "western" games are for example, Divinity: Original Sin, Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland 2, Dragon Age: Origins, Wizardry 8, Might and Magic 6 + 7 + 8 +10, Wizards and Warriors, and so on.

I would not buy the games your friend recommended you. I doubt you would like them as too, according to the fact which games you like the most. Invest to some great turn-based RPGs instead.

You don't need to have the money to buy ARPG's. You could just try 'Path of Exile', it's totally free, not pay 2 win and one of the best ARPG's out there, but I must admit, the skill system will be overwhelming for new players.
There is another free ARPG that is quite fun to play, I been beta testing it, but currently only available in Korean, they are working on a western release, but last i heard that's most likely going to happen somewhere in 2018. The game i am talking about is 'MU Legend'.

Don't really played the games you listed other than 2 Farcry games and some Borderlands. I love borderlands, the unique art style of the game and the morbid sense of humor.

Dark Souls is very good, but it requires a lot of patience to play it, you will die a lot learning the games and some bosses can be very difficult to beat. I recommend to start with Dark Souls 3, it´s the easiest one imo and you can easily find people to help you fight bosses or clean areas.

Far Cry 3 is the best one in the series, you run like a prick in the jungle killing everything that moves with bullets, arrows, fire, bombs, etc. The jungle feels alive and full of animals and plants to collect. It´s a very fun game to play and relax.

I find these stats from steam/sg very strange. Im a diehard rpg player, a tabletop gm for years, i grab any and all titles worthwhile on steam, played all the classics (off steam) and pretty much 70% of the games i play, at least, have the rpg tag even when they're more action.
Still rpg comes in third for me.
Idn if its because of ASF farming cards or whatever, or steams failing to recognize some titles as rpg or rpg inclined. Go figure.

Borderlands is fun. I was addicted with the first one.
But borderlands 2 didn't clicked with me- perhaps because it already got old in the first one and...
...it ain't rpg. At all.
Levels, varied loot like diablo, 'quests' (of the style kill me x whatever). Those don't make an rpg.
Theres close to no plot. No choice. No character development. Npcs are as shallow as a pond and are on the level of exclamation marks npcs from mmos.
It really really under deliver on anything rpg. Why its called one is beyond me.
You can stop playing it.
It won't get better.
It can be fun once you level up enougth so the gunplay isn't nerfed by your stats- the point where it become an actual fps with fun guns and habilities. Play it if you like arcade fps (i do).

Now Dragon's Dogma is action rpg done right.
And Dark Souls... i wouldn't call then rpgs - for me rpg isn't a spreadsheet of stats with levels - but they're definetly rpg inspired all the way to dungeons with traps and human eating chests.
But you haven't played any?
All the raving is justified.
Its one of the best things in gaming in decades.

And despite not being an rpg it touches all the right buttons that most rpg fans enjoy. It is immersive. The setting oozes with character and gloom. The ruleset within its stats, weapons and such is veeery deep (overkill even- something japan loves to do like, its more complicated then needed but at least it pays off with actual impact)- and thankfully, while mastering the character build can be a game changer, it doesn't really matter if you made an optmized character or not - you can theorically beat the game as a low lvl naked character since at the core skill and learning the enemies and weapons is what matters. Of course naked low lvl is the equivalent of insane but you get the gist. Don't hear diehard fans that are all over the pvp in dark souls, play your first time figuring things yourself and you won't go wrong, even more so someone with such a baggage in rpgs. Then the next playthrough (That is very likely you will do) you can try something different and optmize, becoming more badass faster with less levels.

If you want some actual rpg go with Dragons Dogma first.
Don't expect fallout levels of plot and choice but its serviceable, the world kinda interesting but many of its designs are awesome, the action is amazing and its the best monster fighting ive seen with classical beasts on top (wich is a huge plus for me. Fgs i can mount on top of a griphon fighting it mid-air, take that witcher 3!).

Also because playing Dark Souls causes an after effect that can take months to shrugg off- a feeling that every similar game isn't worth it. It does wear off, but the way it engages players, the detication involved and how well designed it is with its challenges do raise the bar. Some people exagerates that way more (deep down its all a game of pattern memorization and learning patterns) but it can trully stick for longer even after beating it.
So if you will get both go with DD first then Dark Souls.

Also Dark Souls 2 could be better before DS1. Its a bit more acessible and very fun - its only that DS1 and 3 are more challenging and tightly designed so it can hinder appreciating DS 2 for its own qualities. You know, fans- 'its different so its bad!'. Don't ever play DS2 soon after DS1.

Just Cause and Far cry are both pretty good series of games I'd just mess about in. Good if that's what you'd want.
Borderlands I like, but only really with other people.
Dark Souls are good if you like a challenge. I'd probably not say Dragon's Dogma is like it, that's more of a Monster Hunter game.
The arkham games are good, but kinda repetitive.
MGS is great, but yeah a bit of stealth is needed in most of them. I'd recommend just playing Metal Gear Rising: Revengence instead.

That being said, only Dark Souls and Borderlands offer any real rpg gameplay, with Borderlands only really having character customization and a skill tree.

I'd recommend Pillers of Eternity, and South Park the stick of truth cause its by the same people

Try Grim Dawn. You could try XCOM Enemy Unknown/Enemy Within, and I'm currently with Hard West, which if you like XCOM and Desperados (that old Commandos-like western game), you'll like Hard West.

Far Cry 3 it's a favorite of mine. Love Metal Gear series, being Snake Eater the best one.

I have tried all of them except Metal Gear and I can assure you those are really good games.

Dragon's Dogma isn't like dark souls.
Dragon's Dogma has a much more flowing and less restrictive combat system. I loved it, while DS felt too slow and sluggish and you get tired hilariously fast. I like most of the games you like, and I wouldn't recommend that series as much. It's more frustrating than fair in my opinion.
(I completed Demon and Dark Souls on PS3, out of spite, the games often punish you unfairly in my opinion). If you want to try one, you can get Dark Souls 2 cheaply right now since it was in the HB monthly.

If you are interested in the Arkham series. I'd get Shadow of Mordor which is crazy cheap and if you like it, give the Batman series a shot

I love Skyrim too and I lean toward the slower RPGs. I do not like Diablo-style clickfests. So with that in mind:

• Dark Souls is an exercise in frustration. Which may be a good thing, the game does a lot of things right, but be prepared to try parts of it over and over and over and over again. I ended up liking Dark Souls but it took several attempts to get over the initial learning cliff. Eventually I abandoned it for the (IMO) similar but better Bloodborne on the PS4. Note that the atmosphere of Dark Souls can be very oppressive. These are dark, foreboding fantasy.

• The Arkham games are button-mashing action games, there's very little RPG about them. They're okay, a bit overrated IMO because it's Batman. But Asylum and City are fun and they age well. Skip the newer ones.

• I have no experience with or interest in the Metal Gear games. They look ridiculous to me.

• Far Cry is a shooter. I like them because they do something nobody else in the AAA world is really doing (open-world stealth-focused shooter). But they are shooters, nothing RPG about them and the stories are nonsense. And they're pretty light-hearted and zany.

• Just Cause is crazy over-the-top open-world action. Nothing resembling an RPG. Lots of flying helicopters.

• Borderlands... you've tried it so you know what it's like. All Borderlands games are like that. If you're having fun then keep at it, if you're not then drop it, because it won't change. I played them for a while but got bored.

Most of the games listed, I wouldn't call action RPGs.

For other take on action RPG, try the YS series.
Well actually: Try the Ys Origin demo that's on Steam. If you like how that plays, check the full game, Oath in Felghana & Ark of Naphistim. They share the same playstyle, but all have their own stories and unique mechanics.

Any of the Dark Souls series

I don't like hard games. Dark Souls is hard. I don't like Dark Souls because I can't progress.

Any of the Batman Arkham Asylum

Great and fun games, but I don't see how they are related to any form of ARPG. They are great games, but think along the lines of "Assassin's Creed with fists".

Any of the Metal Gear Solids

Never played.

Far Cry

Again, not ARPG? I mean, FC3 it has some form of "level up and earn skills" feature, but hardly makes the game a RPG.
Regardless, FC3 is one of my favorite FPS ever, so I really recommend it. On the other hand, I don't suggest you play the original Far Cry - if you get scared the crap out of Borderlands mobs... you probably wouldn't like some of the enemies in this game. :P
Haven't played Far Cry 2.

Just Cause

Not RPG but yes, yes, and yes. Because it was once my favorite game ever - to be fair, these days huge open world games are common and really neat, so Just Cause 2 did not age well. I still consider it one of the best games ever in terms of true freedom, guns, open world sandbox and EXPLOSIONSSS. (Sounds like USA).

As for Just Cause 3, decent game but lacks in optimization, and somehow didn't really work too well for me. I think I played so much of Just Cause 2 that I'm "stuck" with the mindset that Just Cause 2 truly defines the franchise. Getting used to the New, Shiny, and Remade™ Just Cause isn't easy for me.

Haven't played the first one.

Borderlands

Yes, I'd give it another try. A long time ago, I bought Borderlands 2 because it looked fun. I played a bit and was bored of it, and I just couldn't get "into" the game at all. Then, a while later, I decided to give it another go - best decision I could have made at the time. 153 hours, and all in solo play over 2 (3, kinda) characters. I know people say Borderlands is better with friends, but personally I never had such a good experience trying to get a game going. To be fair, it was with almost-random SG people, and let's be honest - that never fucking works. :P

But yeah, I prefer to solo most games anyway. Borderlands 2 allowed me to do that, and enjoy it too.

I believe I share fairly similar taste in games so hears my two cents:

• Dark Souls is the most rpg-like of the listed games you probably won't enjoy it unless you read up a lot on tips and tricks to get started.
• Borderlands is not an rpg, but it's still fun, more so in co-op.
• Metal Gear Solid is great, but it takes time to get used to the gameplay mechanics. Shout to to my personal favorite, MGS- Peace Walker.
• Far Cry is well polished open world, Just Cause is kinda crappy imho.

Finally a quick recommendation. If you want something similar to Dark Souls but perhaps a bit more accessible, try Salt and Sanctuary. It a 2D Dark Souls-esque game. I'm really enjoying it so far and I find it far less frustrating that Dark Souls.