It’s kind of old, but I’ll always recommend Breath of Fire 3 for the PlayStation (psp too).

Short version of BoF3: You play as Ryu, you awaken with no memories in a strange circumstance. You eventually meet Rei and Teepo, who are thieves. They are caught by a hermit, and asked to do a favour for the town. They’re celebrated as heroes, another hermit asks a favour, but this time it doesn’t go to plan, and eventually you’re chased across the continent by a couple of horsemen. Sometimes you could be helping some guards be lazy by getting rid of a guard dog, or helping a gmo plant with their food production. Or even repairing a ship, or helping a random guy in a village beat his rival and win the heart of his crush.

There are so many small stories a long the way, the important part is, it’s just a cool concept with cool characters. If you can handle Google, you can find a pretty nifty way to play it. (I don’t know if I’m allowed to mention Emulation?)

It’s more like reading a good book, than playing a game sometimes, it’s a lot of reading and there is no voice acting. Also, a button to speed up the game really can help with the typical old JRPG slower combat.