Point and click adventures are gay and I don't wanna see RPGs try and become them.
Except Fallout specifically proven the feature worked much better in RPGs. What better way to make your character use their skills other than giving players the freedom to choose what skills to use on whatever shown on screen? I've asked if there's any RPGs that had this feature, now I'm gonna ask: is there a better way for RPGs to give players freedom to choose what kind of interaction they want their character to do with anything shown on screen, compared to how Fallout does it with its right-click -> choose command ?
Check out this screen from Simon the Sorcerer's UI:
This is an early 90s point and click adventure game, and there were loads like this, it was a trait of that genre.
Fallout is a hybrid, which is why it got so popular among PC gaming enthusiasts, combining two very popular genres at a time when the whole scene was at a downturn of inspiration with both Wizardry and Ultima on the wain and Myst redefining the point and click adventure game into interactive screensavers.
People who had been starved of an old fashioned Adventure Game or RPG could look at Fallout and find some salvation.
It also had a post-apocalyptic vibe which combined turn-based tactics with gunplay, thereby appealing to fans of both the very popular X-Com and the cult favourite Wasteland.
The developers themselves were creative and determined with the concept of C&C coming from their heritage of playing D&D with creative and determined dungeon masters.
A perfect storm situation. Though sales were slight upon release, because when you appeal to everyone you don't necessarily appeal to everyone, over time everyone gradually 'got around to playing it' and it's now considered a classic, particularly since the name has now been mass-popularised on the console market.
Me personally, I don't like gunplay, I don't like Post-Apoc settings, I'm predominantly a combatfag & I'm not fussed about plot or story based C&C, and I was never into all those old adventure games anyway, things like Myth or Civ were more my thing before RPGs went isometric, so I'm not fussed by it. But not because of any quality specifically, just that it does everything I don't like. Even if someone did a full convert of it to a fantasy setting I'm still not sure I'd like it. I did try it a good few years back & kept falling asleep before it 'got good' and just gave up for the sake of my sleep patterns.