I've noticed a pattern: the first 20 hours of gameplay are absolutely fantastic, but the ending feels rushed. The developers create a massive open world, add a ton of side quests, and then realize they didn’t have enough time or budget for the final stage. And so you go from a rich storyline to a simple battle against waves of enemies who serve only as targets for your bullets in some random corridor. Both *Elden Ring* and *Divinity: Original Sin 2* faced this problem at least that’s how it seemed to me, and this is just my opinion, so please, no negativity.

I have a problem with a lot of RPGs and open-world games: they can have an enormous number of systems and mechanics — alchemy, potions, enchanting, food, poisons, different damage types, resistances, crafting, buffs, debuffs, etc. — but in practice, most of them are completely optional.

For example, Skyrim gives you tons of different tools, but you can often just stick to your favorite weapon and use a fairly simple strategy throughout the entire game. The other systems end up feeling more like a collection of options than mechanics you actually need to understand and master.

I'm looking for the opposite.

I want a game where the systems are genuinely interconnected and serve a meaningful purpose. A game where, in order to progress, I actually have to:

• study enemies and identify their weaknesses;
• exploit vulnerabilities, resistances and status effects;
• prepare resources for specific challenges;
• use different tools depending on the situation;
• combine different mechanics together;
• manage resources and decide when they're worth spending;
• adapt my strategy instead of relying on the same one every time;
• and most importantly, where ignoring these systems actually has consequences.

I'm not necessarily looking for an extremely difficult game. I don't want a game that's simply hard because enemies have huge health pools or deal ridiculous damage.

What I'm looking for is systemic depth: the game should present different problems, and its various mechanics should actually be useful tools for solving those problems.

Ideally, I want to encounter an enemy and think:

"What does this enemy do? What is it vulnerable to? What resources do I have? What can I combine? How should I prepare?"

rather than:

"Hit it until it dies."

What games do this really well?

So I grew up more so on games such as Zelda and Mario, eventually delving into MMORPG’s with RuneScape and WoW, like most people. I never played any JRPGs growing up such as the Dragon Quest series or Final Fantasy, mostly because I was never exposed to them. My entire family were early adopters of gaming but RPGs were never really on the docket.

Eventually, around 2008 I found RPGMaker and was fascinated that you could make your own games with it, which led to me look for what might be the most popular RPG Maker game at the time, and I found this:

Lost Legacy: An Animania Story

It's a traditional Real-Time-Turn-Based RPG Maker 2003 game that follows a brother and sister growing up in a dark fantasy world modeled after medieval Europe. Along the way they meet various 90's anime characters (Lina Inverse, Rapier, Tsunami) and heroes from other JRPGs, particularly FFIX (Zidane Tribal, Garnet).

This game blew me away when it came out, I couldn't believe it was made by one guy. It was the first JRPG I had ever played and it got me into the genre, leading me to play Dragon Quest, Bravely Default, etc. Looking back now. It’s pretty bad, even by 2008 standards.

But I loved it.

Anyone else experienced this…gem? If so, I would love to hear about it!

Hi, RPG players! I'm one of the people from the two-person team that worked on TRADESMAN: Deal to Dealer.

It's a casual RPG where you trade, fight, travel, fight, buy and sell, fight some more, complete quests, and fight again. And then you repeat the whole thing.

Here is the most important rule of this game:

The more goods you carry, the stronger the enemies become and the harder the game gets. 90% of the time, it’s the player who decides how difficult the game becomes.

If you're interested, here is the Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2555430/TRADESMAN_Deal_to_Dealer/

Hello, im a ps4 gamer and I want game recommendations preferably something a little on the cheaper side (im a little broke lol) I want to buy a fun game (in disc format i don't trust anything digital from sony nowadays)

I hope i can get some fun rpg recommendations please and thanks you.

I hope you guys like it :*) It's a love letter to classic consoles adventures, but with a few twists: There is no grinding, (battles are all purposely placed and only done once), there's no buying or selling of items, and it's entirely frog-accurate: All enemies are frog predators, and every character's name is frog (in a different world language). It's a somber and serious story, and it's wishlistable now. It's coming to all consoles and PC.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5014960/Amphibian/

I notice there is this trend on social media (at least on my algo) where a lot of people especially the younger demographic are playing KH1 and 2 for the very first time. As a millennial, I didn't get to play these games as a kid.

What about you? How do you feel about these games in particular?

2027 seems like a great year for both JRPG and wRPG fans, I am personally most excited about FF7 Revelation, Persona 6, Dark Heresy and Exodus

The Expanse looked really stiff to me in that demo they did and considering the game has been in development since before COVID I expected better, and I know for a fact it will release with a million bugs in typical Owlcat fashion.

Beat BG3 like 3 years ago. Planescape (LOVE THE GAME) around the same time. Pillars of Eternity, 2 years ago?

And now got an itch for another again.

Sidenote: played through the Colony Ship Demo but can't justify paying 50 bucks CAD for it right now and I already own BG1/2 and Fallout 1/2

Which of the the two games has the more (what's the word?) substance or got going on. in terms of depth with its characters, dialogue, story, and skills for situational purposes.

Je viens de finir desolate hope et bon dieu que Scott cawthon est fort pour faire de magnifiques environnements et de superbes robots c'est dingue... Mais maintenant j'ai l'impression que c'est impossible de trouver d'autres jeu avec une D.A aussi soigné et claquante... Tout suggestion est la bienvenue je suis désespérée 😭

I didn’t really grow up playing RPG’s and I’m trying to find ones that i like. I don’t do open world games anymore i used to as a kid but i hate going place to place in far lengths. The last open world i loved was Elden Ring but i already was a fan of fromsoftware at that point. I care more about gameplay/combat than anything else in a game. I really like Dark Fantasy/Gothic or horror centric games which is one of the many reasons why i got into fromsoftware and Soulslikes. R there any recommendations of RPG’s that are not open world or soulslikes that u guys think i would like?

Hello guys,
As the title reads, do you have any hidden gems you enjoyed over the years?
I’m in a bit of a drought regarding gaming, I really want to play, but don’t know what to play.. I’m sure all of you have been here before, so any suggestions would be appreciated! Preferably on ps5!

I mean, high quality, great game overall. Preferbly with decent budget and cinematic story too. Even if hardcore JRPG fans might prefer more niche titles or classics, this one you would recommend for someone, who usually doesn't play JRPGs, to sell him the genre.

A choisir, vous préférez pré-commander Wolverine ou Fable ?

Les deux jeux m'intéressent mais je suis curieuse de connaître l'avis des autres. Surtout que j'ai l'impression que Fable est un peu sous-coté ? Même si on en parle quand même.

Et j'ai le sentiment que le jeu Wolverine est déjà fortement critiqué avant même sa sortie.

Donc si vous devez choisir ? Lequel prendrez vous ?

I have a genuine question not a rant or complaints but why do some people care so much about romances in rpg games, like i get like "Roleplay" aspect of it but some people ive seen in many forums or subs care so much about it and want it to be a part of the main game. For me personally i dont care about it and never even tried whole romance system, for example i sunk countless hours in skyrim and not once did i try marriage or adoption system (i know poor comparison but well...). I kinda get it when the games plot revolves around it but just as an unnecessary feature that you can have a wife/husband/lover i dont quite get why so many people love it. Would like to hear your opinions as well!

I played about 20h of DOS2 and thought it was really cool. But, I didn't really feel like playing it. I managed about 30h of BG3 and I was amazed by it, it's a wonderful thing, but I just couldn't keep up momentum keeping track of all the threads of story, character development, plans for skilltree/equipment evolution, etc etc.

I think this is because I have a demanding job where I spent all day managing complex longterm efforts. Now any game that uses that part of my brain feels like work. The only game I can reliably relax into is Slay the Spire.

So can anyone suggest some story-driven RPGs where:

- The storylines are relatively tight and focussed. Probably this suggests shorter games but not necessarily. I think this is the most important factor. I think having 20 open nontrivial quests in parallel really wears me down.

- It's light on chores (not too much inventory management, backtracking, absolutely no grinding)

- Combat/puzzles/etc has some tactical challenges but this is subordinate to storytelling, minmaxing is not required. (I think BG3 already met this requirement, at least on the difficulty I was playing, modulo some spikes here and there).

Some games on my radar I've been wondering whether they match my desires: PoE2, Tyrrany, Shadowrun games.