Hi /vrpg/, could you please help and recommend me RPGs? I've got some pretty specific preferences in what I'm looking for, tried searching the Steam catalog, but very few caught my eye. I already posted a thread on /wsr/ and got the Fantasy Life i game rec from there, which I'm having fun playing right now (I'll talk about it a bit later as an aside/addendum to my post) but thought I'd also ask here on the dedicated board since anons here probably know more about the genre.For preferences I mentioned, things I'd like to have:>Decent combat system w/ some measure of strategyIt doesn't have to be big brain chess strategy, but it'd be cool if it was more than just a power contest, be it through the combined use of skills to stack modifiers and kill the enemy, consumables, or picking combinations of weapons that work best. Action or turn-based doesn't matter. Transistor and Bastion have some top-notch systems in this regard, with a lot of weapons and combinations of effects most of which are very viable.>Skill / Build systemLike with combat, it doesn't need to be Path of Exile tier build-making, but some progression outside of equipment would be good, maybe with some branching picks.>Crafting and if possible levelling up these skillsA crafting system, best would be if it combined monster parts + gathered materials to make equipment. I remember Merchant the mobile idle game had a cool progression with this, with various types of equipment for different classes of adventurers, made from special materials from bosses and regular ones from ordinary monsters. Also Fantasy Life i leans into this and is pretty good.(1/4) (gif unrelated)
>Decent story w/ appealing charactersLike with things above, I'm not looking for deep stuff or deconstructions and especially not horrors, but it's got to be there and it's got to be ok. As an example of this, I have fond memories of Epic Battle Fantasy series, it was silly and sparse, but the banter and interactions made the main characters endearing. Transistor, which I mentioned already, also had a great style to its story, but I only vaguely remember it now, and naturally I don't expect for this tier of worldbuilding to be in the game. It doesn't matter if the story or linear or sandbox/open-world.What I've found while scrolling through Steam or searching otherwise that I'm not looking for:>Super-produced AAA titlesLike Fallout, Elder Scrolls and the like (I think I wanted to mention another series, but I forgot the name). I don't like first person and I'm not looking for a super pretty picture with top graphics, (my PC probably will only be able to run them on low-mid graphics anyway if they're recent) and in general the top tier RPGs are not too appealing to me. But it'd be nice if it still had some kind of style to it in terms of graphics, not 3d realism but some pleasant look.As an exception that caught by eye, Divinity Original Sin seems cool and I'd like to try it sometime later.>RPGMaker stuffOn the other hand, while I'm not opposed to pixel graphics by default, RPGmaker type chibis and game style is not appealing to me either. However I think they feature a lot of what I'm looking for except for that so idk? I tried Ara Fell in the past and it felt ok, but at some point I dropped it for some reason, don't remember why.>Survival RPG Co-op early access slopI mentioned crafting but this type of games is not what I'm looking for either, I don't want to make a cabin from shit and sticks with friends and spend hours designing the interior or whatever the fuck.(2/4)
>Cute/comfy Life Sims with building decoration, high social aspect etc.Farming as an activity is fine, as is a great deal of interaction with NPCs, but I honestly don't give a damn about crafting 1 billion trillion types of furniture to put into my house so it looks pretty, unlocking emotes and outfits, or stuff like that.>MMORPGsI know crafting systems like ones I mentioned are textbook MMORPGs but I'm not really interested in the social aspect, I want to complete the story of the game without having to go through raids or pvp.Basically I just want a good all-around RPG with a lot of stuff to do. Nothing revolutionary, but good at what it does, simple as.In the end, I should mention these are not strict 100% conditions, if you've got something that meets the general spirit, I would appreciate your recs, e.g. something that hits the mark on everything, but with simple combat. Please mention these, I'll see for myself if I like it.Now for the Fantasy Life i addendum, what I like and what I don't like so far (about 20 hrs in spent doing sidequests and levelling professions), both as a half-review for someone interested and to further understand what I like for anyone bothering with recommending me something:>+Crafting works together as a united system.It really feels like all professions (haven't unlocked farmer and painter yet) are linked together, so for example you want to make yourself a staff as a Magician - well you have to make lumber for it as a Carpenter, and you need logs from Woodcutting as materials. In addition to that, you also have to level up Carpentry to unlock higher tier items, so you have to craft furniture, but for that you need materials from Tailor... It all works together and that's really cool.(3/4)
>+Combat system seems interesting but I didn't dive too deep into it.It's got some kind of elemental resistance/weakness system for monsters and there's also different special abilities, power attacks etc. The strategy seems to be there.>=Story is there, simple but alright for my taste.>-Super-cartoony style.I can tolerate it since it's a fun game otherwise, but this cozy/comfy visual style is not really my cup of tea.>-It's a life sim w/ base building, decoration and stuff like that.I actually included the point about life sims above because I identified this aspect of the game. Though it's not really critical, as far as I'm aware you can ignore it and there's still plenty to do without it being the focus.That's all, sorry for the long post, but if you got through this, I'd appreciate any recs based on it. Thank you!
Star Ocean series
>>4150503Tales of Arise if you're fine with anime
just ask grok or something.
dragon quest 2 gbc use a guide if you get stuck
>>4150883This, learn to prompt >>4150503
>>4150608Ye, I'm fine with anime. Tales of Arise looks great. I'll definitely try it out.>>4150513Sounds interesting. I'll try these as well.>>4150884This seems very dated, but I may look into it, not sure. Thanks again for the recommendations to you three.>>4150883>>4150893I'd rather have some human input from people that played the games they recommend, even if it's a one-line mention of a game's name, than AI aggregation of game journalism (lmao) and steam page descriptions. This may be irrational idk.
>>4150931Looking forward to hearing your first impressions
>>4151386That's surprising lol. I may blogpost in the Tales series thread or make a separate review like I do on other boards sometimes. Either way, I'm still playing Fantasy Life i, so this will probably take a while.
>>4150503>Decent combat system w/ some measure of strategythis one disqualifies like 95% of rpgs
