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What are some RPGs for someone who doesnt like most RPGs

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 pixelated 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!

stsp ,

Give the Nier series a try. Starting with Automata is probably the best way in. The Replicant remake is great too but it might take more time to grow on you because Replicant's opening is slow and not as captivating compared to Automata. Both are great RPGs once you get into the thick of them. Both games have several chapters (aka playthroughs but that term is misleading) which can make them quite long but enjoyable all the way. I have sunk more than 100 hours into each of them.

mmorschel ,

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
Carighan ,
@Carighan@lemmy.world avatar

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.

mmorschel ,

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.

Carighan ,
@Carighan@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah true, you’re right. Nevermind my comment. 😅 Especially on the background of wanting an RPG for non-RPG players.

cottonmon ,
@cottonmon@lemmy.world avatar

Isn’t Cyberpunk 2077 also based on the RPG system with the same name?

Hazdaz ,

Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2, Mass Effect, Guardians of the Galaxy (not a real RPG, but has RPG elements).

InverseParallax ,

Kotor, absolutely, and me:le if that takes.

Hazdaz ,

No love for Guardians? I was pleasantly surprised by that game.

InverseParallax ,

Never played, might give it a shot.

shundi82 ,

Prey’s currently on sale and one of the most memorable gaming experiences I’ve had in recent years.

You’ll be hooked within the first 10 minutes of playing, I guarantee it:

store.steampowered.com/app/480490/Prey/

Blackmist ,

I found Prey to be a little rough at the start, but once you pick up some upgrades the combat improves.

Took me a few hours at least to decide I liked it.

Schtefanz ,

Prey is not a RPG

Serisin ,

Illusion of Time is one of my all time favourite pixel art rpgs, don’t know if it’s available to you on your chosen systems though, should be easily emulated if on Pc.

Tarquinn2049 , (edited )

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.

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.

Edit: bah one more thing, character development is pretty robust. I built my entire character around thorns damage and blocking. It’s entirely possible to go through the game this way, in fact it makes some fights kind of silly. But it’s also entirely possible to never have any thorns and even to never block a single hit. But the thorns mechanic alone is pretty deep. There are several components that affect how much damage you will reflect when blocking a hit, how much the hit would have been, how much you lowered it by blocking it, how much baseline “pin body”(thorns) you have and how much defense the monster has. So a boss hitting you for 100 that you reduce down to 50 is gonna hit them back pretty hard, but so is a monster hitting you for what would have been a string of 10 hits of 3 damage, but you reduced them all to 0. Since there is a baseline, those 10 hits trigger pretty close to your minimum amount, but it’s probably alot more than 3, and certainly more than the 0 they actually did to you. There is also perfect guarding, completely unnecessary, but since my character is all about blocking, I decided to practice perfect guarding, and I got pretty good at it. Also when I perfect block a melee hit, it stuns them for 2 seconds. And perfect blocks inherently double thorns damage, like as if it was a crit.

All the mechanics seem as deep and well planned out as that too. And there are alot of mechanics. The 4 main disciplines are tank, ranged damage, melee damage and caster. Though caster is mostly just using more skills instead of auto attacks while still being either melee or ranged. Just get way more mana regen. And of course the idea is to blend and not just specialize in one, but you can also specialize. Ranged damage is done by way of shooting “spheres”, it’s also a pretty important aspect of alot of puzzle solving, but you don’t need any points in ranged damage to solve puzzles with it. I have no points in any type of damage other than thorns. My character has more than double defense versus attack. Hehe.

There is a relatively limited selection of gear, but you will likely always find something you want. Kind of similar to a final fantasy game, no unnecessary gear, just a bunch of stuff that “isn’t for you this play through”, but your party members might like what you don’t. They of course have their own money and choose when and what new gear they buy. Though bringing them to a shop that has what they want will prompt it, otherwise they’ll go shopping on their own time when not in your party.

iRyu ,

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.

Tarquinn2049 ,

Correct, at least in my opinion, hehe.

amio ,

Good writeup, I picked it up on sale myself and have been like "mehhhh..." and not actually played it. Now I might.

Oshka ,
@Oshka@kbin.social avatar

@wtry

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.

SatyrSack ,

Does Stardew Valley count?

SEND_BUTTPLUG_PICS ,
@SEND_BUTTPLUG_PICS@lemmy.world avatar

I came here to make the same suggestion. Excellent pixel art, though until you get the machines to automate farm tasks it can feel a tiny bit grindy.

Personally I like a bit of grind. Stardew Valley and Classic World of Warcraft hit the spot for me.

MysticKetchup ,

The World Ends With You (or the sequel, Neo: The World Ends With You) is an action RPG that does away with random encounters. Battles are initiated by you scanning for enemies and picking fights in your own, you can even lower your level or string multiple fights together for more rewards. The original is 2D (and best played in a DS/2DS/3DS but if you don’t have one there’s also a single-screen version on Switch) and the sequel is 3D on Switch and Steam.

AverageCakeSlice ,

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.

lorez ,

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.

hornedfiend ,

Not sure if this fits in what you’re looking for but I like Book ofTravels. It’s a very original morpg (they call it tmorpg I think which stands for tiny multiplayer online RPG ).

Also has some very interesting story telling coupled with a no hand holding way of handling quests.

squirrelwithnut ,

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.

Kaijobu ,

It might not tick all your boxes but Chained Echos might be worth a try.

BudgieMania ,

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.

secondaccountlemmy ,

Thirded. No grind. Very strategic.

DaCrazyJamez ,

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.

mmorschel ,

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.

Cheems ,
@Cheems@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve never played dnd and it was pretty easy to pick up

Cheems ,
@Cheems@lemmy.world avatar

I second baldurs hate very fun and large game

abysmalpoptart ,

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).

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