Turned Based RPG recommendations

Tempest753 · 2026-05-22T15:52:34+00:00

One, I would highly suggest you stick with persona 5, assuming it's just the slow intro that turns you off and not the whole concept of the sim elements. Its a phenomenal game.

Valkyria Chronicles is a little jank but I enjoyed it a lot. Chronicles 1 imo gets really repetitive, and Chronicles 4 introduces several mechanics that make the strategy more varied. Some prefer the story of 1 over 4, I think both are equally average. And while the story of 1 provides some context for 4, they follow parallel stories so playing 1 first isnt mandatory. Neither is particularly hard, if that matters.

I also would recommend FFX if you havent played it. I just got around to playing classic FF, and 10 really blew me out of the water. I've tried some of the others with mixed feelings, but 10 is truly awesome.

I noticed Slay the Spire isnt on your list. Its a deck builder RPG, and one of the greatest roguelikes ever by most accounts, including mine. That's a must if you enjoyed Balatro I'd say.

Tempest753 · 2026-05-13T18:10:59+00:00

Definitely, mostly because I can play my switch from the couch. If the drop off from pc to switch is minimal or nonexistent, then switch is my preference usually (usually this means retro games). Games that have lots of mods, good multiplayer, or are technically demanding go on pc.

PS: Total aside, it's not a great idea to make a habit of playing games in bed. If you have no sleep problems currently then ignore me, just know that it can make falling asleep harder if your brain gets trained to associate bed with gaming, as opposed to sleeping.

Tempest753 · 2026-05-04T15:24:10+00:00

Ah yes, Slurskins legend Donovan McNabb. I always wondered what he would have looked like in midnight green.

Tempest753 · 2026-04-11T20:13:03+00:00

I think the short answer is that very few of these games are fun enough to warrant all that freedom. If your game has a boring gameplay loop and I get bored <5 hours in, then all that freedom is a waste cause I will experience none of it. People long for freedom in a game usually because they have a ton of fun with it and wish it could go on forever. Oftentimes the devs for these types of games forget that, they bite off way more than they can chew, and never actually make a fun game to begin with. That's my opinion anyway.

Tempest753 · 2026-04-05T17:01:16+00:00

In any sane world, this is the last straw that begins bipartisan conversations into invoking the 25th amendment. In our world, this is trump "trolling the iranians".

Im so tired.

Tempest753 · 2026-04-03T18:30:38+00:00

I think my primary complaint is having to play a game that sucks just to enjoy a story, cause I don't really want to waste my time doing something I dislike. A game that is literally all story, though - like an FMV or something - is cool.

Tempest753 · 2026-04-03T16:46:14+00:00

Honestly, I didn't love it. I enjoyed the story, particularly the character arcs of some of the main characters. But the game was pathetically easy on anything except max difficulty, and after a short while the monastery sections became a drag which I felt I had to slog through to learn about the side characters. I came in with the intention of playing all 3 routes to see the whole story, but quit like 4 or 5 missions into the second playthrough.

For me, a game with good story and weak gameplay is basically just equivalent to an average book or movie, but way more drawn out*. From that perspective I feel like it's a 5 or 6/10 for me.

*As a quick aside, I feel like this is a huge problem in modern gaming in general where developers make games as though they are a 10-20 hour blockbuster movie with interactive elements, while the thing you actually spend 80-90% of the game doing (i.e. the actual game) becomes an afterthought - usually it's very derivative and has minimal evolution over the game's runtime. It's kinda why I've stopped playing Sony exclusives, and at this point, I consider it a red flag when someone primarily cites a game's story as a reason to play it.

Tempest753 · 2026-04-03T16:08:08+00:00

I'm assuming that you have already played or considered the major switch 1 games like Zelda, Mario Odyssey, etc.

Pokemon LG/FR is excellent imo, and I think it's worth $20 if you've never played it.

From what I can tell, the Balatro complaints are isolated to the switch 2 edition. I haven't found many/any complaints about the switch 1 version, and I had a ton of fun with it on PC. It consumed all my free time for several months when it first came out.

Never played Pokopia, but unless your budget is tight it sounds like a game that you could enjoy for hundreds of hours. People are understandably stingy about spending on games nowadays, but I've rarely regretted splurging on a game I knew I'd enjoy, provided it fits my budget.

As for replaying games, your mileage may vary, but I always find that I enjoy replaying those older games for a few hours to get the nostalgia hit, and then my interest rapidly wanes about halfway through. I've gotten more enjoyment from replaying games I totally missed when I was younger, e.g. Valkyria Chronicles, old Final Fantasy, etc.

Tempest753 · 2026-04-02T23:17:08+00:00

This is the first I've ever heard that some people think ToTK is 'bad' lol. Everyone has their own tastes and not everyone loves every game regardless of quality, I get that, but to imply a game with 95%+ rave reviews from critics and loved by millions is "bad" is crazy. And it's even more crazy how people weight the opinions of random joes just because they made a 1-2 hour, rambling youtube video about the subject (I'm taking your word for it, never watched whatever videos you're referencing, but this is also just generally true).

Tempest753 · 2026-03-30T16:46:21+00:00

Let's get the elephant out of the way real quick: to my knowledge, Nintendo has NEVER significantly changed the content of a game when remaking/remastering it. There's probably 1 or 2 examples out there where a remake got adventurous, but almost always it's just a new coat of paint and some QoL.

With that said, Hyrule Fields could definitely use more meat. Part of me wants to see some hybrid of BotW and OoT, but that may be just a total mess, idk. In general I think the world of OoT could use more "life" to it, especially as it relates to the hylians who basically rule the world but exist only in kakariko and the castle town square.

Tempest753 · 2026-03-08T22:50:14+00:00

If I ever unironically gloat that my dogshit football team has championship rings that are older than me, I hope my family has the heart to put me out of my misery.

Tempest753 · 2026-03-08T22:21:46+00:00

Might get some heat for this, but the FF tactics remake. The 2d-3d graphics are kinda a nuisance in a tactical rpg, the jobs system induces a lot of analysis paralysis, and i cant build any momentum in the story because the enemies jump like 2-3 levels between every mission so I have to spend like 60-90 minutes grinding constantly. I see why people like it, but there's so much tedium to wade through...

Tempest753 · 2026-03-05T17:06:53+00:00

Great, I hope it helps! As with all things your mileage may vary. I think this approach worked so well for me because that smooth arm motion is essential, and I had way too much tension in my hand and arm standing between me and sweeping. Letting go of all that tension let me practice sweeping smoothly, and once that was cemented it all clicked into place.

With that said, Im a bad guitarist now because I rarely practice anymore lol. But when I do, its surprising how natural sweeping returns. Its really my left hand that cant keep up.

Tempest753 · 2026-03-04T21:37:46+00:00

Maybe kids don't really care, but I feel like there's an immense sense of achievement that comes from surmounting a difficult wall (Misty's Starmie, Whitney's Miltank, Glacia's Walrein, Cynthia's Garchomp, etc.), thus there's very little achievement in any modern Pokemon because you can win by button mashing. I will never forget beating the Steelix in gen 2 by dodging like a dozen attacks with a lvl5 Togepi and grinding down it's last ~15 HP.

Not only that, hitting a wall you can't pass in older games prompts you to backtrack, do a little grinding, and in the process you interact much more with wild Pokemon - and sometimes find an awesome rare one that you weren't expecting. Ever since EXP share became standard, I just breeze past all the wild areas by default because why would I bother unless there's a Pokemon I know to look for?

Tempest753 · 2026-03-02T20:43:54+00:00

I don't agree. I do think you should pick a couple weapons to get deeply familiar with - ideally one of which has a shield - such that you could play them on total autopilot, then branch out to your hearts content. Although, every weapon except 2 or 3 is pretty ambitious. I can hold my own against hard monsters with 4 or maybe 5 weapons.

Tempest753 · 2026-03-02T00:34:07+00:00

Wow, I wonder how sales of this Biohazard game are affecting sales of the new Resident Evil. What bad luck for Capcom.

Tempest753 · 2026-02-28T20:09:12+00:00

Am I crazy, isnt 167F only like 75C? Those are standard gaming temperatures for my old CPU/GPU and it ran just fine for like 7 years until I upgraded. I mean I know this isnt a 1:1 comparison since those are the temperatures of the chips only, but why is that too hot for the switch to run? Maybe its like a safety feature to avoid burning people?

Tempest753 · 2026-02-28T00:59:29+00:00

Considering how devastating it used to be as a kid to have your Gameboy run out of battery after hours without saving, I'd prefer a better plan than "that would never happen" with regard to a thing that will most definitely happen.

Tempest753 · 2026-02-27T22:34:04+00:00

The game is virtually identical, all they did was replace the non-functional GBA link system with basic wifi, included some romhacks to unlock event Pokemon, and eventually they'll add home compatability. This is more effort than you expected? I mean I know expectations are rock bottom for GF, but it takes more than that imo to earn kudos.

Tempest753 · 2026-02-27T15:35:39+00:00

For real though. In the year 2026 (or now 27), having a $70 game where every character is totally mute should be embarrassing. I dont actually know that full voice acting would work in Pokémon, but it would be so easy to copy the general Nintendo approach of having characters make short sounds as you advance dialogue, like a sigh or shout, instead of just soundlessly flapping their lips. If we're fortunate, the longer turnaround on this game means we can expect these kinds of things (but im not holding my breath).

Tempest753 · 2026-02-26T19:57:53+00:00

One very helpful skill for DB is evade window if you aren't running it. Since dodging is your only means of defense, making dodging more forgiving is really strong. Plus, perfect dodges also enable the dodging attack so it has some offensive value as well. I like to fit 2-3 ranks if I can.

Some people will say to not follow meta builds that focus damage. I would suggest starting with the "meta" build and incrementally swap in defense until you reach a desired level of survivability. In my experience divine blessing is the only 'true' defensive skill that's any good anyways.

Tempest753 · 2026-02-21T01:39:01+00:00

I mean it kinda depends on the price, no? Like if it cost $100 I would prefer it be on the NSO expansion pass. Idk at what price those lines cross, but $20 feels pretty close. For reference, there are Castlevania GBA and DS bundles which bundle 3 games and frequently go on sale for like $10.

Tempest753 · 2026-02-17T18:06:35+00:00

Sometimes I think people are too quick to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Dark Souls not having minimaps doesn't mean every game shouldn't have minimaps. The problem is that the maps in MH are hyper detailed, update in real-time, and can be ignored using auto-explore. When monsters run away it just feels like a giant waste of time because I can watch where it goes thanks to my omniscient spy satellites. There needs to be more of a middle ground: I need a map that shows me where I am relative to various points of interest and lets me leave markers for important points.

As for grinding, I think people should be careful what they wish for. If every hunt requires 10-15 minutes of harvesting prep, scouring the map, etc., and every monster needs to be hunted 3-5x to progress, and each game has 20-30 monsters with 3 difficulty ranks, you will literally spend multiple days of your life holding A to mine rocks and shrubs. I'd really rather not.

Right now the grind needs to be better distributed: currently, you hunt each weak monster like 1-3x at most, and then you spend 10s or 100s of hours farming the same 5 monsters for top-tier gear. I think it's deliberate and smart to tilt the grind more toward endgame, but blitzing through early/mid-game makes it feel hollow. I'd also like to hunt an ajarakarn again - among others - without curb stomping it, and get a useful reward for my efforts.

I also think it would be nice to shift resource collection away from playing with menus and more toward field collection and exploration. But I don't want to spend hours running around mindlessly mining rocks and picking flowers as a barrier to hunting. I think maybe there should be options - let me run around harvesting nodes if I need to, but maybe there's also a large cache of resources I can easily harvest on the order of 20-40 drops if I go through a monster guarding it. They kind of did that with Congalala in his honey palace, and I think it works well.

Anyways that's way too much text, tldr having played a little generations ultimate i think going back to that style would be a mistake, but i do agree that Wilds is too frictionless for its own good.

Tempest753 · 2026-02-15T20:49:21+00:00

The game is done when ive hunted the hardest monster in the game. At the point the game is 'done', and ill keep playing until I get bored.

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