Well, there were supposed to be multiple paths, as evidenced in interviews and materials, but sadly it had to be cut for time and/or budget.

I can't exactly think of a game where a Genocide Run is done well. Except maybe SimEarth. ;p

Those runs aren't really genocide runs; they're just part of the normal course of the game's plot.

(By the way, the Etrian Odyssey 1 situation is bad enough that the game could use a trigger warning, particularly if the prospective player is a Native American or similar.)

For a genocide run, have you looked at Undertale? That game has an interesting genocide run that even has exclusive bosses! (Interestingly enough, the combat is comically easy with the exception of 2 boss fights which are the hardest in the game.)

Total War

I have, and I feel that given the nature of Undertale, it not only ruins the fun of it, but also beats people over the head with the points.

It's one of the points where Undertale messes up. As it stands, I was more speaking in terms of faceless genocide; the kind so often seen in 4X games.

Splinter cell blacklist: choose whether you kill of spare some of the people in a cut scene throughout some missions

So, I did both options multiple times and nothing about the story actually changes, except the cut scene of what happens to the target. If you spare, you might break an arm or just leave them, however if you shoot and kill them nothing really happens. It has no value or purpose in the game that much since what ever choice you choose does not change or affect your character. Sam Fisher just stands and move with the same face expression as nothing ever happened.

Hah. I recall how annoying the anti-mage faction was in Avernum 3. Except if you joined them, they'd actually voip your spells away with magic rings.Kind of amazing how a game made by basically one guy does this better than something churned up by EA.

Reminds me of parts in some other games where your abilities are limited, though often that's part of either the main quest or some side quest, and not the focus of a side quest. With that said, I do find that those parts can often be annoying, particularly when it's spells that are forbidden, or when the restriction makes characters completely useless. Some JRPG examples:
* Dragon Quest 3 has a couple optional areas where magic doesn't work. (Well, one isn't *technically* optional, but when you are requried to go there, there are no longer any enemies.)
* Final Fantasy 4 has one mandatory dungeon where anyone equipped with anything metal is perpetually paralyzed. (This is especially annoying in the DS version where one character is now completely useless; the original had a couple ways to make him useful, but the DS version took both of them away.)
* Final Fantasy 6 has one optional dungeon where you can only use spells.
* There's a mandatory part of Dragon Quest 7 where you lose access to all your spells and abilities.

(There are, of course, WRPG examples of this as well, and even some non-RPGs that do this sort of thing.)

I'm going to second this. The game is not without its merits, but I still wouldn't rate it particularly high. Come to think of it, it wasn't even particularly memorable to me, which is pretty disappointing for how many Game of the Year awards and the like it got.

those tell tale games were such a cash grab somehow they still went bankrupt

Spoilers for a recent game but Assassin's Creed Odyssey was pretty disappointing in the dlc specifically with certain beats proceeding seemingly regardless of choices you could make.

The examples from what I have played so far:

The Wolf Among Us
The Elder Scrolls IV - Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim
Grim Dawn

I can't remember any more right now, but I was thinking about this for a couple of recent days. These four are something I always think of when discussion about games with advertised in-game choices, but that have none in reality.

Risen was fundamentally designed around choosing between the "sword" faction and the "magic" faction and once you did you could only really use that combat style. Kind of annoying if you wanted to be a mix of styles, or a mage that didn't fit in with the mage faction, etc.

I like choice and consequence in RPGs a LOT but usually I don't think it should effect the core aspect of your character, i.e. all mages need to do X style playthrough.

Yeah the ending didn't make much sense to me. I did enjoy going to all the alternate timelines and seeing what the endings would be, but the actual ending seems like a victory only to suddenly implode without being explained very well, only that the goddess and lightning are out of the picture somehow.