Role-playing games of every flavor are most well known for their often dense worlds, colorful stories, and lore that serves to pull players in for hours with no intention of letting them go. Plus, in the time between major story beats, there are often some deep combat mechanics, and a fair bit of level grinding, to keep players engaged.

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Sometimes, though, the balancing of a story's tone does the heavy lifting, playing a huge role in garnering fans and giving a franchise legs far into the future. In these instances, it's not uncommon for players to ignore a game's critical path to explore side quests that have them either busting a gut or shedding tears. What follows are some of the best RPGs that do an excellent job of balancing humor with their dramatic story elements.

5 Fallout Series

Hilarious Characters In A Dire World

• Features a lot of dark humor.
• Juxtaposes weighty moments with ridiculous ultra-violence.

Fallout's world is one that we all hope to never find ourselves in, but it's one that quickly shows itself to be full of absolutely hilarious characters despite its dire setting. This opens the games up to the dark humor that they're famous for.

It all starts with Vault Boy, who accompanies the player from within their Pip-Boy, and appears in all of VAULT-TEC's marketing throughout the game, essentially becoming the cute mascot for the apocalypse. Mix in a megaton of tragically hilarious NPCs, and a huge amount of pulpy hyper-violence, and players have a recipe for one of the funniest worlds in an RPG, both intentionally and unintentionally.

4 Like A Dragon Series

Dramatic Main Quests, Absurdist Side Quests

• Side activities often have nothing to do with any main plot points.
• When they need to, these games bring the drama.

The Like A Dragon games, the re-hashed title for the Yakuza series, continue the franchise's penchant for taking harrowing stories as well as ridiculous, unrelated side quests, and throwing them together in a blender. As unceremoniously as this is done, it never takes anything away from the game's entertainment factor. In fact, it adds to it tremendously.

Players will be tasked with uncovering dramatic conspiracies within their Yakuza clan in one moment, and then can go off to race go-carts, fight diaper-clad adult men, or even build an island home the next. These games truly figured out the formula for what makes a game both goofy and serious in equal measure.

3 Borderlands 2

Sharp, Witty Dialogue In A High-Stakes Story

• Includes many over-the-top encounters.
• The main villain is menacing, even while being funny.

There aren't many game series that are as over-the-top as the Borderlands games. The first entry's humor, for example, went as far as extending out to its ad campaign, touting the inclusion of "a bazillion guns" to play around with. When Borderlands 2 came out, though, things got a bit more serious.

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Instead of a simple treasure hunt, the game's ignoble villain, Handsome Jack, is out for blood and glory, and he's willing to do some messed-up things to get it. Things like murdering countess innocents, or even enslaving his own daughter. Yet, after all of his wicked behaviors, his hilarious diatribes on the player's intercom during gameplay are hard not to laugh at.

2 Undertale

Self-Referential Humor In Between Harrowing Player Decisions

• Filled with thought-provoking meta humor.
• It is unafraid to make the player feel terrible about their decisions.

One of the most popular features in many RPGs is the ability to choose what moral path to go down, good or evil. This, along with its hilarious meta nature and unmistakable eccentricities, are core to the Undertale experience.

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While just about every opponent in the game has their quirks, they also have a great deal of humanity that shines through when push comes to shove. In certain moments, like when a character is going to meet their maker, their silly persona melts away, as they tell the player how they really feel.

1 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Apocalyptic Stakes Mesh Seamlessly With Absurdist Characters

• Blends silly side quests alongside serious ones.
• NPCs run the gamot between dignified and humorous.

The Witcher 3 often distracts players by handing them a ridiculous amount of meaningful side quests. While never necessary for story completion, these quests typically add some welcome characterization to Geralt and the (at times) eccentric NPCs that dole them out, even when there isn't much more to them than a simple gag.

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Take the quest "A Frying Pan, Spick and Span" for instance, which tasks players with retrieving a pan from the person who borrowed it. Upon breaking into their house, it's revealed that the borrower has fled, leaving someone dead in their den. The player has nothing else to do besides walk through the scene, retrieve the cooking appliance, and glean what they can about the situation, before just walking away. The quest is hilarious in its simplicity, while also being a reminder of the realities of the world Geralt inhabits.

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