No they don't. 3 yes, 4 no.
Again, people can't just be objective and rate NV for its good and bad parts. It always has to be a full on glazing session.
One of the most overrated games in history and almost solely responsible for turning the fallout scene into a faggot parade. I thoroughly enjoyed watching popular opinion turn on NV because of how spergy its fans were over the show.
Fallout 4 companions are garbage, both personality wise and how they function in game, their personal quests are garbage too. So, what's the big comeback to this statement?
"Durr, New Vegas overrated!"
Good to see that trademark IQ Bethesda fans are known for being put to good use.
Actually, I take it back, there is some fun companions in the game but they're all locked behind DLC. And you still have to engage with the awful Fallout 4 companion system.
NV had janky triggers for the quests but didnt 4 just add in shitty TellTale games "Niggerman liked that!" grinds to a kinda forgetable cast?
There is a rather in-depth system of what a companion likes and what they don't, but once again it's a false sense of choice as it only impacts two things: If a companion wants you to do their quest/engage in a shitty conversation where they say shit nobody cares about, or if it's negative if they will have a tizzy fit and scold you. It's done much better than in Starfield but it's essentially the same system. New Vegas is jankier, but it is much more organically done how you interact with companions there.
They were also romanceable which was laughable, especially since you can abuse the system and they can go from neutral to "I love you" in minutes while they stand still.
Preston and Danse going from neutral to "I literally want to fuck you(full homo)" just by standing around and watching you build shit in the settlement or craft weapon mods is a testament how useless this whole system is. Compare that to Boone, whom will not open up about his PTSD until you both know what to say(by interacting with the world and various NCR NPCs) and by exploring large chunk of the map. Same with Arcade, but then again the payoff is worth it. Companion quests in Fallout 4 are boring and don't give you anything interesting from the gameplay perspective aside from a new perk which is usually gimmicky garbage.
The command system was also way improved in 4. Each companion has different levels of various perks so some of them were able to hack terminals for you. In my recent play through I was able to allocate more points into important skills (I was trying to get my bases built quicker and scrapping was a must) solely because Nick Valentine was hacking terminals for me. In addition to this you can command them to attack specific targets mid combat or initiate a fight to draw fire (most of their sneaking skills are poor so they typically do this without you asking for it). Changing equipment is easy and you can just force equip things for them. I'm not sure if companions do this but settlers use infinite ammo as long as one quantity of the ammunition type is in their inventory. I've started to ramp up base construction and have been outfitting settlers with more advanced weapons now that I've been forming supply lines to transfer crafting materials.
In theory, that sounds useful. In practice, you will never utilize any of these features as the base gameplay itself is still just Skyrim with guns. This isn't Fallout Tactics, you never need to do anything more in-depth in combat than "Shoot the guy in the face and hope he dies before you do" and your companion will likely just stand there and do the same as well.
This is on top of the intimidation perk which allows you to essentially have a free additional follower who will help you out in fights. The notion that the other games have better companion mechanics is laughable.
Nobody ever used this perk or the other two that function the same way. What a waste of Charisma slots, they should have just brought back Animal Friend that works passively and added two brand new perks.
And for as simplistic as the characters are in 3 I find it odd that people in this thread appear to be unable to be attached to them. On one of my playthroughs Charon was my absolute rock that followed me through thick and thin as I toed the line between good and evil. The game has it's limitations of course, but that's where the imagination takes over. For me he was a protector but also a silent judge, constantly observing and noting my deeds throughout the game. The one time I used Butch it was the old enemy becoming a friend, and a foil to his own story: The Lone Wanderer helped him and his mother in their time of need, and when LW needed someone in the quest to find dad Butch was there to return the favor. Two big fish from a small pond realizing it's a big ocean out there.
None of these characters feel real and any impact their too kewl for skool backstory might have evaporates when they tell you to piss off when you ask them to go into the purifier, which as it was stated quite literally shouldn't be possible with most of these companions. Also, they are broken in Fallout 3, the code is literally unfinished. For example, most of the time after a gunfight, companions will glitch the weapon in their inventory and spawn a phantom copy of whatever they were holding, this means that they will be unable to attack but still hold the weapon in their hand, staring daggers into the eyes of the enemy as they are getting shot up like a moron. Charon is so cool, am I right? No, and even if he wasn't broken half the time, he would be useless as all companions aside from Fawkes, RL3 and Dogmeat do not scale properly to DLC threats and will die instantly to later gunfights, similarly to Fallout 1 companions. Again, like pretty much everything else in Fallout 3 the idea was solid, but the execution was poor.
Where Bethesda writing can fall short I'm more than capable of filling the gaps.
Well sorry to say, that's not a selling point as much as it is Stockholm Syndrome levels of cope. I can say I love Outer Worlds as much as I want, but that won't change that it is a mediocre game nobody remembers, in the same way Bethesda games will never be "good" no matter how wholesome chungerino unfinished, janky and buggy they might be.
