Hey everyone! I’ve been diving into RPGs lately and wanted to share my thoughts and seek recommendations from fellow gamers. I’ve found myself resonating with Scott the Woz’s viewpoint on random encounters and grinding, but I do make an exception when the combat system is truly exceptional, like in the case of Undertale.Personally, I’m not particularly fond of random encounters and the need to grind excessively. I find it difficult to immerse myself in games that heavily rely on these mechanics. However, I’m open to exploring RPGs that strike a balance between engaging combat and a captivating narrative. While the combat system doesn’t necessarily have to be mind-blowing, it does need to offer some strategic depth.I’ve tried Pokémon games in the past, but they didn’t quite grab my attention. I’d prefer for the game to be available on steam or the switch. In terms of graphics I prefer pixel-art.That being said, I’m eager to hear your recommendations for RPGs that you think might suit my preferences. Whether it’s a lesser-known gem or a popular title, I’m open to any suggestions. Thanks in advance for your input, and I can’t wait to delve into some new RPG adventures!
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Why not try out Western CRPGs?
I gather from what you’re writing, that you’re trying to get into JRPGs.
If you want action-laden fights without random encounters, I suggest the “old” BioWare RPGs:
- Mass Effect Trilogy
- Knights of the old Republic 1 + 2
- Dragon Age Origins (never played the sequels)
They’re old but gold and still one of the best.
And there are still:
- The Witcher 3 and
- Cyberpunk 2077
I will say that I hate to call something like Cyberpunk an RPG at all. It feels almost entirely like a shooter, with the RPG parts somewhat tacked-on. This is more evident even with the missing 6th spec tree and how, even after massive rebalancing, the whole level-up and spec-system are entirely irrelevant without a lot of mods.
Don’t get me wrong, modded the system works well.
But as installed, it’s just all rubbish and feels almost forgotten by the devs.
OP asked for “RPGs for people who don’t like RPGs”.
And yes Cyberpunk has all of that:
- Story, Conversations and Decisions
- Quests
- Skill and Leveling system
It’s a proper RPG but with a huge focus on the shooter/action part and yes, in my opinion it lacked on the Quest and interaction part.
But I wouldn’t say that the battle system alone defines a RPG, see Mass effect 2 + 3 and the Witcher.
Yeah true, you’re right. Nevermind my comment. 😅 Especially on the background of wanting an RPG for non-RPG players.
Isn’t Cyberpunk 2077 also based on the RPG system with the same name?
I couldn’t see anyone mentioning so I would add Disco Elysium
Not your typical RPG by any measure, but one of my top favorite games of all time, more focused on exploration and talking/decisions rather than fighting. Also has a unique mechanic where “stats” are connected to mental attributes that talk with the character by offering advice, insight, or just poor suggestions depending on your level :D
I love Disco Elysium with all my heart, but suggesting it to a person who talks with emphasis about combat systems and strategic depth is sort of dangerous.
Disco Elysium is a novel masquerading as a game. If you like that and approach it as such, it can be extremely rewarding, but there isn’t much gameplay to be had.
I explain Disco Elysium as the best book I ever played.
It is basically a visual novel where you’re able to walk around the world and interact with things. The only gameplay is making choices, but there are an incredible amount of choices to make.
Golden Sun is probably one of my favorite RPGs, very deep combat system where in the lategame you will be modifying your character class in the middle of battles to change your movesets and other cool mechanics. Fairly interesting story as well. It has great GBA pixel art and it does have random encounters.
Persona 5 is a turn-based RPG that lots of people who aren’t usually into turn-based RPGs tend to like. Simple but satisfying battles, and a story that would have seemed mediocre if it wasn’t for great music and some cool moments which make it really stand out. No pixel art and also no random encounters.
OMORI is pretty good and has a really good art style. The story is also very good with some very memorable characters and moments, and pretty good music. The combat is simple and probably best described as “not bad”. The biggest downside of the game imo is that despite not being very long (<20 hours) it felt like it dragged on close to the end. It might have random encounters? I don’t really remember.
Overall I recommend Golden Sun if you are able to emulate it or something (not on steam or switch)
For clarification, Golden Sun was mostly 3d rendered models. They purposely made them to have a resemblance to pixel art since they needed it to both fit in a GBA cartridge and screen, and not look ugly while doing all that. Also I believe it is on Switch now if you pay for online and have the GBA emulator (which I personally don’t pay for and never will).
I still replay the series once every couple years, though. Fantastic series.
It’s not on the GBA app yet. At least the first game was announced for the service when they announced GB/GBA for Switch Online, but neither game is available at the moment on that. Hopefully soon.
CrossCode
I didn’t hear about it when it released, only got it on sale earlier this year. Apparently all this time the perfect game for me had already been out there just existing slightly outside the range of my awareness.
It is a high quality pixel art narrative RPG with a single character class that can branch any way they like, in a pseudo-MMO(single player game where the game is lore-wise an MMO that you are one character in, rest of the characters in the game are “other players” but are of course just narrative to us the real world player, but to our in-game player they are their real life friends and you know them separate from their characters). The pseudo-MMO has 5 classes, but your character is the jack of all trades class. So your various party members will be better than you at their one specialty, but if you are extremely selective, you can nearly match them at the same level if you pick only stuff for that one path. The trade off is that this class is supposed to be much harder to play.
But anyway, enough about that, the actual story of the game is awesome and I don’t want to spoil anything specific. Your character starts out unable to talk due to a malfunction of the “game”, but slowly gains more words, it’s not a gameplay mechanic, just a narrative mechanic, but it’s crazy endearing. Kind of like a “little mermaid” type scenario. She still has full control of her facial expressions and body language, and speaking of, there must be thousands of facial expressions. They did not skip out on any work in the pixel art department.
The exploration parts of the game are kind of zelda style platforming puzzles with more of an agility focus. Combat is real-time but somewhat easy, with more of a focus on stringing fights together and trying to survive as many back to back in quick succession as possible. The longer you stay in combat and string fights together, the less overall monsters you have to kill to get all the loot from a zone. Though the max monsters you need to kill at the worst is pretty low. Like 50-100 per zone. And even then it’s optional, but better. Killing more is good if you need money, like if you want to buy extra gear to be able to swap to different playstyles on the fly.
They also have dungeons, these are also pretty similar to old school zelda, but quicker and tighter. Speaking of, character movement/control is very agile for a pixel art game. I’m not generally great at it in other games, but I love it in this game.
Ok, well I should probably stop now. I could probably go on for hours, it’s an amazing game that I’m sad I didn’t hear about til recently, but at least I did eventually hear of it. Now I feel I have to make sure other people don’t miss out on it like I almost did.
Okay, it’s time for me to finally play this game. I got it in the summer sale because I thought it looked a little interesting but now I need it.
Good writeup, I picked it up on sale myself and have been like “mehhhh…” and not actually played it. Now I might.
Its only a week old, but I would strongly recommend Baldur’s Gate 3. I would warn you, it might spoil a lot of future games for you, by setting the bar so high.
And if you want an equally emersive but MUCH older game,look up ADOM.
I love BG3 but the D&D battle system is not for beginners and though BG3 is absolutely fantastic it doesn’t do a great job tutorial wise.
I’ve never played dnd and it was pretty easy to pick up
I second baldurs hate very fun and large game
Super Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger, I think strike a good balance regarding random encounters.
On the other end of the spectrum would be something like the Front Mission or Final Fantasy Tactics series - where the narrative is all handled through set battles.
It might not tick all your boxes but Chained Echos might be worth a try.
Thirded. No grind. Very strategic.
As someone who has never fully clicked with turn based JRPGs, Chained Echoes would be my answer as well, I’ve been enjoying it a lot. The combat system is one of my favorite executions of turn based combat I’ve ever played.
Earthbound
Also known as Mother 2. Up to you if you want to try English fan translations of Mother 1 and 3 as well. 2 is the only one with an official English translation. It does a good job as a stand alone game, I played it long before I knew any of that. Back when renting a snes game from a physical store was a thing.
But I have since played part of Mother 1/earthbound 0, and all of Mother 3/earthbound 2. Mother 3 is worth it in my opinion, the fan translation is very good and fits the style of the Mother 2 official translation. I should try Mother 1 again, but after playing Mother 2, it felt like an earlier lower quality version of the same thing. I didn’t get more than an hour in, so it might be worth it further in.
If you haven’t heard of earthbound, well that sucks. Everyone should hear about it. Definitely a must play at least once in any gamers life. It is the very definition of a traditional non-traditional RPG. It uses as well as breaks every convention. It’s exactly what you expect, except totally not what you expected.
Basically, it’s a type of parody of the genre, while also being one of the best games of the genre.
Mother 1 is also available officially as Earthbound Beginnings.
Ah, I didn’t know that. Suppose I probably would have found out when I went to play it again, but thanks for letting me know.
Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2, Mass Effect, Guardians of the Galaxy (not a real RPG, but has RPG elements).
Kotor, absolutely, and me:le if that takes.
No love for Guardians? I was pleasantly surprised by that game.
Never played, might give it a shot.
If you’re looking for a good JRPG, I can’t recommend the Persona series enough. I hate traditional JRPG’s but I love Persona and have dumped literally hundreds of hours into P5/ P5 Royal. I know it’s not pixel art, but the art style is very unique and fun to look at.
Totally agree. The last JRPG (if you don’t count the Zelda saga) I played was Final Fantasy VII on Ps1. Persona 5 Royal was awesome.
RPGs are such a board term nowadays that anything can be an rpg if you market it as such. But that’s not the time for it.
If you like Undertale, you might enjoy its deranged post apocalyptic cousin released near the same time, Lisa the Painful. A turn base rpg with plenty of tangible choices.
If you like more narrative stuff, play Disco Elysium or Planescape Torment.
Mass Effect trilogy. It has amazing characters, get stories, and the gameplay gets better with each game. Though the first in the series is still my favorite, and one of my favorite games of all time, 2 is considered to be one of the best character driven RPGs in recent memory. Bonus, you can get all three remastered via the Legendary Edition.
pixel-art
- Chrono Trigger
- Octopath Traveller
- Final Fantasy VI
Random encounters are a staple of Japanese rpgs, not rpgs in general (and also not all jrpgs have them). There are a plethora of rpgs without them! You will more likely see enemies on screen, and good rpgs allow you options to resolve things without combat (with some exceptions, like certain monsters).
Do people not like Octopath Travler (1 & 2)??? I rarely see it mentioned but it’s one of my absolute favorites. Fantastic pixel art and music. I love the combat and job system too. Being able to bridge level deficits with items/gear and strategy meant it wasn’t grindy either.
