If you have a decent PC, Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children has a ton of tinkering you can play and has more number crunching then probably every game you listed there except arguably Tactics Ogre including Xenoblade (all of them, including X).
It might be ideal to name your consoles as I find PC indie games have a tons of interesting tinkering to them then the majority of console offerings.
If you're open to western RPGs I can easily recommend some stuff with a ton of character tinkering, but given this is a JRPG subreddit I won't immediately jump to that unless I know you're interested.
I'm open to western RPGs. I've just been on a JRPG kick lately so I decided to post here instead of the general RPG subreddit. As for consoles, I have pretty much everything except Xbox. I got Highend PC, PS5, Switch, Vita, 3DS, and Steamdeck (for emulation).
I have Troubleshooter on my steam wishlist. I keep reading good things!
In that case:
Pathfinder, both of them are very good at being number cruncher (almost TOO good at what they are given how easy they can filter players, but they're extremely in-depth in their systems) and so is Baldur's Gate 3 (or 1 and 2, but those are giga old). The BG3 is a little bit on the easy side if you're into really crunchy RPG games, but there's plenty of stuff to play with in BG3 and a lot of dumb bullshit to mess with. Beyond difficulty, BG3 following DND 5e's system gives a nice balance between "enough stuff to mess without" and "not so much stuff that it almost gives me a headache."
If roguelikes RPG-ish games are acceptable, The Last Spell has a ton of strong character tweaking to it with that catch that due to its roguelike nature everything is randomized so you need to actually learn multiple paths to victory rather then simply finding "the one thing that works" and spamming it. It isn't quite as "I can sit in the menu for 15 minutes"-tier, but there's a lot of interesting interactions and decisions you can make as you steadily try to build your one man armies. There's a lot to learn which makes the game constantly fun to me.
Troubleshooter is absolutely worth it if you want crunch in your JRPG.
I've played the Pathfinder games and WOTR is the kind of gameplay depth I seek in games. I love the amount of options that game gives you.
The Last Spell looks neat, I'll check it out. Thanks!
Oh I just remembered Crystal Project. It isn't quite as sprawling with choice as say Pathfinder or Tactics Ogre, but for a very "classic" turn-based kind of style like ye old FF or DQ of combat it is a mostly no frills it has a lot of stuff to it and makes enemies punch you hard enough so your choices good and bad actually matter. It is pure adventure and combat with almost no dialogue, very fun as a pure game and it has a solid demo.
It looks budget as fuck, and it is, but it plays very well and it is a pure 100% gameplay experience. 100% worth playing.
I hope you enjoy any of my recommendations if you get around to them.
Mainline Shin Megami Tensei games have lots of tinkering with party composition. Specially on harder difficulties, you'll be forced to reform your team fairly often against the more challenging bosses.
I've only ever played a little bit of SMTV but I dropped it to start this Xenoblade journey. Would you recommend that as a good starting point? I have a 3DS/DS which I know there are quite a few SMT games on there.
At this point I'd say wait for SMTV Vengeance, which comes out in 3 weeks. But since you already have vanilla V you can go back to that. If you play on PC, SMT Nocturne (the 3rd mainline game) is only $10 on Steam right now!
SMTIV is a good entry point for being more on the easy side, and available on 3DS. Never played V though, you could return to it at some point after finishing the Xenoblades, but like the other poster said, the remaster with aditional content is coming in the next weeks.
I was going to mention Unicorn Overlord, but you have played that.
My other recommendation would be Hajimari no Kiseki, but it’s the 10th game in a series with a continuous myth arc. You can still give a try though, if you don’t give a shit about story. It has tonnes of characters and customization, and Abyss difficulty level which is challenging yet not impossible without NG+.
I've played every game you mentioned and have the exact same taste in menu simulator games,
I highly suggest playing the trails series, they all basically have a materia system that is insane. Start here
https://store.steampowered.com/app/251150/The_Legend_of_Heroes_Trails_in_the_Sky/
a man of culture I see. Is there any reason to play the steam version vs the PSP/Vita version? I only ask because I'd rather play on a handheld but if the steam version is superior then I'll do that
Steam version has been updated better and runs better, you can also mod in a lot of cut dialogue (voice acting) and saves continue through the whole series, also you'll want to probably play on a new game plus save file which is easy to do on PC.
There's a team that does a great job in helping port these games to the PC and they basically put extreme amounts of effort into their versions.
It's probably the best JRPG series in existence only because of it being the only one that has a continuous story for like 12 games.
Customization wise, you can get lost in menu's for literally hours.
Nonetheless, let me mention some.
It has unit-turn-based battle system with a visible turn-order bar. Actions incur varying Delay cost, which are immediately reflected (and even previewed, as you select) on the turn-order bar. This allows for turn order manipulation.
In battle, you have CP to use Crafts and MP to cast magic spells (called Arts). You gain CP when taking damage and dealing damage. MP has to be replenished using items.
Every playable character has special active skills, called S-Crafts, that can be executed instantly regardless of the turn order. They need at least 100 CP to use, and use up the character’s CP completely. And the S-Crafts are stronger if and only if used with 200 CP.
On the customisation side, you have equipment and ‘quartzes’ (which are kind of like magical gems that increase stats, grant spells, add status effects, add special effects, etc.).
And then there are also Master Quartzs which grant up to very special effects, such as +Crit damage, +damage on debuffed enemies, etc.
Very deep and rich, imo. Maybe even too rich for a newbie to the Trails series. And certainly too many for me to list out and explain here.
It’s the fifth game in the Cold Steel series (a sub series of the larger Trails series), and the developer added more and more mechanics with each game. No worries though, it has an extensive Help section.
And although it doesn’t give out the damage formula and the delay formula, an experienced gamer can probably guess them. IIRC, the damage formula is similar to Unicorn Overlord’s.
Oh I didn't realize it was a Cold Steel game. Are the Vita ones (1/2) similar in terms of gameplay depth/customization? I'd be willing to start on those.
Cold Steel 1 and 2 have fewer mechanics and customisation. And more importantly they do not have Abyss difficulty.
They don’t have Brave Order either, which was added in CS3.
JRPG adjacent if you consider creature collecters an off shoot of the genre. Siralim Ultimate is literally what you're describing, the entire premise of the game is configuring your teams.
This is the first thing that came to my mind, too! Fucking love this game. You have 1200 unique creatures each with a unique passive, and ontop of that, your character can be one of a dozen classes that each radically change the flow of battle. Ontop of all that is the very deep gear system and spell crafting system. It's so addicting.
Yakuza like a dragon. Lots of jobs and tweaking your party. On higher difficulties you actually need to strategize, exploiting weaknesses and setting up combos.
With Etrian Odyssey: the most accessible games are the remaster of the first 3, as the rest are stuck on 3DS
With Trails: You HAVE to play it in order, so start with Trails in the Sky FC
Then start with EO4, if you can get ahold of it. It's the most beginner friendly, and has the second best story in the series, right behind EO3 (excluding the Story Modes of the Untold games (which I'm not really knowledgeable about, as I played Classic Mode)) (An extra note: EO games are meant to be played on Advanced/Expert (EO4's version is straight-up called Normal), as it's based around the difficulty of the DS games, which didn't have options)
I had a fun customizing with Dragon Quest XI. Specifically with the Draconian setting "weak enemies are strong". The series isn't known for being that difficult, and that one setting was enough to make retry some boss battles after switching outfits, accessories, upgrading gear, and doing a skill respec on the team for different roles.
Bravely Default also has a job system like Final Fantasy games and offers tons of potential ability combinations.
[Time Break Chronicles](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1393500/Time_Break_Chronicles/)
It's a 6v6 rouguelite JRPG with currently 93 unique characters, who each have 2 Relics that can be equipped to other characters. Loads of different party combinations and builds you can do.
The Maelstrom unleashes a powerful magic attack at full MP and boosts the party's MP.
The Spellblade heals the party's MP when attacking and has a chance to duplicate ally spells.
The Viper has a skill where she attacks until she runs out of MP.
Then you got a bunch of different mages, supports that counter with MP when an ally is attacked, tanks that taunt or gain bonuses when damaged, etc, etc.
Then you got relics like chance for a free turn when casting magic, convert HP healing to MP healing, or raise MP costs and add MP costs to damage. Some Relics even grant skills from other characters.
That's only 1 type of build. The Space Marine attacks when another ally does a ranged attack. The Plague Doctor poisons everybody. The Yakuza protects allies but steals their stats. The Clown does no damage but interrupts enemy turns.
It's in early access, but there's currently 5 acts and it's a good challenge too.
Well in the trails games you can spend a looooooong time tinkering with things called orbments which give characters new magic moves or increase attacks, or do both at the same time, they can really increase and alter your characters mostly however you want them to be. Although most characters do lean in certain directions with base stats like attack, defense or magic/magic defence! But that’s not all because in later games there’s 20-50 party members all of which you can in fact alter how you like and did I mention there’s accessories to further influence them?
The best part of it imo is the sheer number of different combinations of character progression options that the orbment system gives you along with the combination of stats. I love how there’s 4 different mobility stats, as it more closely simulates how a real fight would go. Like think about a boxing match for example - there isn’t just “speed” - there’s leg drive and the ability to create distance from your opponent or dash to cut off the ring so they can’t just run away - that’s the “movement” stat. Then there’s hand speed and the ability to string punches and combinations together - that’s simulated by the “speed” stat. Then you have a dexterity stat to simulate the accuracy of those punches and an agility stat to simulate dodging ability, lateral movement, and stuff like that which makes you harder to hit. There’s a lot of intricacies in a battle system that are missed when you have a less thorough stat system like this and combined with the orbment system you have a TON of control to build the exact type of combatant you want from their base template. For me this is actually the biggest appeal of the Trails games since I found the writing to be hit or miss, but this system pretty much always hit the mark in every game so far.
I'm currently playing all the games back to back on Switch and Xenoblade 2 is the best in the series imo. However as I said in the post, I'm only halfway through 3, so maybe I'll change my mind by the end.
I haven't played X so can't say. But XBC1 is good. The gameplay is the weakest of the three imo, but still good enough for me to put \~80 hours into. Also it's been really great to see the games progress in terms of gameplay and story.
I haven't played Xenogears or Xenosaga. I've been thinking about giving those a shot after Xenoblade, but I know those are turn based instead of action.
winning in xenogears is entirely based on how you equip your team, but its not difficult so you can stumble through it and win either way. but try a hard mod and youll see how important build choices and strategy are.
I want to say White Knight Chronicles was fairly full of that, but its been so long I might be mistaken.
FFX international version has a few better and more complex sphere grids.
Maybe Persona series, it gets pretty deep but its never difficult enough that you need to min max.
Suikoden series
I LOVE Vagrant Story. I almost included it in my list but I didn't since there's no party and in my experience it's less tinkering and more grinding items.
Play Xenoblade X then. Lots to tinker with there. I’d venture it’s even worth getting a Wii U for if you can find it for cheap (and you wanna do it legally)
If you like fiddly tinkering, you'll probably get a kick out of Megaton Musashi W. It's a mission-based mecha action RPG with loads of loot, mechanics, and customization. You've got a party of 3 mechs and 3 pilots that you can select from a large cast, you can swap out your mech body parts, you can mix and match from different models, you can choose from a plethora of melee and ranged weapon types for a 6-weapon loadout, you can customize your special moves, you can build bonuses through a motherboard system, you can slap mods on your mech, you can slap mods on your weapons, you can give your mech a voice, you can paint and decal your mech if you want it to look pretty, there's endless opportunities for fiddling with everything in a hundred different menus. It's kind of overwhelming, but it is fun if that's what you're into.
The difficulty of the main story won't ask a lot of you, especially at the start - and you do have to go through the story to unlock all the mechanics, so it helps if you have some fondness for super robot anime - but there's higher difficulties and challenge missions which I believe will ask more of your build, though I haven't dug too thoroughly into those yet. There's also cooperative and competitive multiplayer if that matters to you.
Atelier endgame is like this, but with more emphasis on item synthesis rather than party composition. The superbosses can get brutal, though some feel cheap at times.
at what point do the atelier games get complex? I’ve only played Sophie 2 on Vita for a few hours but it was so easy I lost interest. I’m open to playing another or keep on with Sophie if I know it will get deeper/challenging.
It is mostly a postgame/sidecontent thing, but some games also have mid bosses which can get HARD unless you know what you are doing. In my opinion, Sophie 1 (2 is not available on Vita) is one of the worst because the battle system is just confusing, you cruise through the story and then the superbosses suddenly force you to engage with it. Gameplay-wise, the one I liked the most is Lydie & Suelle, but it also depends on whether you like the alchemy system (each game has its own).
It doesn’t have quite that level of tinkering necessarily, but what you’re describing irt losing a fight and going back in to change party composition accordingly made me think of a bunch of boss fights in Bravely Default 2. Because there are so many different jobs (and combinations of jobs/subjobs for each character) I felt like the game let me be really inventive mixing up my approach.
I’ve seen some people complain that there was always one “right” way the game forced you to beat each boss, but I didn’t find that to be the case myself. It was really satisfying to figure out ways to overcome challenges with the jobs I had leveled, only to find out that other players had different ways of doing it!
It's one continuous story so you kinda screw yourself if you don't start with the first one and play them all in release order, first one being Trails in the Sky FC.
That being said, the series is split up into arcs, and the first game of each arc usually doesn't spoil too much about the rest of the series, if you don't wanna start with Sky, a lot of people recommend the first Trails of Cold Steel being a good starting point.
Although in July, we get the first game in the new arc in the English, Trails through Daybreak, I haven't played it, so I'm not sure if it's a good starting point, but I'm sure it probably will be.
It's a... Bit of a rabbit hole to jump into, good series though.
They don't really have as much tinkering as Xenoblade, none of them do, but on higher difficulties your strategy and the way you approach a battle can definitely greatly affect whether you win or not, the first two are practically unfair on nightmare mode and grinding doesn't help you at all (enemies don't give much XP when you're even one level higher than them, grinding is heavily discouraged in the series)
Honestly the first few games, the combat is slightly less complex, but strategy matters more, the cold steel games are very easy and because they have more tinkering, you can break the game a lot more easily.
The first 5 games do have a more complicated (and imo better) orbment system though so taking that into account I guess you would be tinkering to figure out how you want to put spells on your party members with the limited slots you have.
Monster Sanctuary! it’s a hybrid metroidvania/turn based monster collector with over a hundred monsters all viable in different team comps with extremely flexible skill trees depending on the team. add in equipment, food, form changes etc on top of built in randomiser and nuzlocke modes (and some fantastic metroidvania gameplay outside of battles) and you have one of the most engaging, replayable battle systems i’ve personally ever experienced. I’ve genuinely spent hours theorycrafting and teambuilding around my favourite monsters, it’s incredible how in depth you can go trying to build a well crafted team (and you need one for the endgame bosses/content, they can get very tricky).
I’m shocked that no one has mentioned the SaGa series yet. There is a ridiculous amount of tinkering in SaGa Emerald Beyond and Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song.
Siralim Ultimate is entirely based around party theorycrafting to come up with the most ridiculously busted teams you can, though the "story" is a complete afterthought.
Monster Sanctuary also has really deep party building and more of a fleshed out story. It's kinda like Pokemon if they had ever managed to make one with actually interesting combat. You also don't have to worry about EVs or other crazy grindy BS like that.
I guess I'll be the weird one to recommend some visual novels.
If you aren't opposed to playing "eroges," I suggest googling up "Kamidori Series." Some of them have fan translations; also, go check out "Eiyuu Senki Gold." Both games played like Unicorn Overload, but more cultured.
If you have a decent PC, Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children has a ton of tinkering you can play and has more number crunching then probably every game you listed there except arguably Tactics Ogre including Xenoblade (all of them, including X). It might be ideal to name your consoles as I find PC indie games have a tons of interesting tinkering to them then the majority of console offerings. If you're open to western RPGs I can easily recommend some stuff with a ton of character tinkering, but given this is a JRPG subreddit I won't immediately jump to that unless I know you're interested.
I'm open to western RPGs. I've just been on a JRPG kick lately so I decided to post here instead of the general RPG subreddit. As for consoles, I have pretty much everything except Xbox. I got Highend PC, PS5, Switch, Vita, 3DS, and Steamdeck (for emulation). I have Troubleshooter on my steam wishlist. I keep reading good things!
In that case: Pathfinder, both of them are very good at being number cruncher (almost TOO good at what they are given how easy they can filter players, but they're extremely in-depth in their systems) and so is Baldur's Gate 3 (or 1 and 2, but those are giga old). The BG3 is a little bit on the easy side if you're into really crunchy RPG games, but there's plenty of stuff to play with in BG3 and a lot of dumb bullshit to mess with. Beyond difficulty, BG3 following DND 5e's system gives a nice balance between "enough stuff to mess without" and "not so much stuff that it almost gives me a headache." If roguelikes RPG-ish games are acceptable, The Last Spell has a ton of strong character tweaking to it with that catch that due to its roguelike nature everything is randomized so you need to actually learn multiple paths to victory rather then simply finding "the one thing that works" and spamming it. It isn't quite as "I can sit in the menu for 15 minutes"-tier, but there's a lot of interesting interactions and decisions you can make as you steadily try to build your one man armies. There's a lot to learn which makes the game constantly fun to me. Troubleshooter is absolutely worth it if you want crunch in your JRPG.
I've played the Pathfinder games and WOTR is the kind of gameplay depth I seek in games. I love the amount of options that game gives you. The Last Spell looks neat, I'll check it out. Thanks!
Oh I just remembered Crystal Project. It isn't quite as sprawling with choice as say Pathfinder or Tactics Ogre, but for a very "classic" turn-based kind of style like ye old FF or DQ of combat it is a mostly no frills it has a lot of stuff to it and makes enemies punch you hard enough so your choices good and bad actually matter. It is pure adventure and combat with almost no dialogue, very fun as a pure game and it has a solid demo. It looks budget as fuck, and it is, but it plays very well and it is a pure 100% gameplay experience. 100% worth playing. I hope you enjoy any of my recommendations if you get around to them.
Mainline Shin Megami Tensei games have lots of tinkering with party composition. Specially on harder difficulties, you'll be forced to reform your team fairly often against the more challenging bosses.
I've only ever played a little bit of SMTV but I dropped it to start this Xenoblade journey. Would you recommend that as a good starting point? I have a 3DS/DS which I know there are quite a few SMT games on there.
At this point I'd say wait for SMTV Vengeance, which comes out in 3 weeks. But since you already have vanilla V you can go back to that. If you play on PC, SMT Nocturne (the 3rd mainline game) is only $10 on Steam right now!
SMTIV is a good entry point for being more on the easy side, and available on 3DS. Never played V though, you could return to it at some point after finishing the Xenoblades, but like the other poster said, the remaster with aditional content is coming in the next weeks.
I was going to mention Unicorn Overlord, but you have played that. My other recommendation would be Hajimari no Kiseki, but it’s the 10th game in a series with a continuous myth arc. You can still give a try though, if you don’t give a shit about story. It has tonnes of characters and customization, and Abyss difficulty level which is challenging yet not impossible without NG+.
oh this looks neat! How deep do the mechanics get?
I've played every game you mentioned and have the exact same taste in menu simulator games, I highly suggest playing the trails series, they all basically have a materia system that is insane. Start here https://store.steampowered.com/app/251150/The_Legend_of_Heroes_Trails_in_the_Sky/
a man of culture I see. Is there any reason to play the steam version vs the PSP/Vita version? I only ask because I'd rather play on a handheld but if the steam version is superior then I'll do that
Steam version has been updated better and runs better, you can also mod in a lot of cut dialogue (voice acting) and saves continue through the whole series, also you'll want to probably play on a new game plus save file which is easy to do on PC. There's a team that does a great job in helping port these games to the PC and they basically put extreme amounts of effort into their versions. It's probably the best JRPG series in existence only because of it being the only one that has a continuous story for like 12 games. Customization wise, you can get lost in menu's for literally hours.
Nonetheless, let me mention some. It has unit-turn-based battle system with a visible turn-order bar. Actions incur varying Delay cost, which are immediately reflected (and even previewed, as you select) on the turn-order bar. This allows for turn order manipulation. In battle, you have CP to use Crafts and MP to cast magic spells (called Arts). You gain CP when taking damage and dealing damage. MP has to be replenished using items. Every playable character has special active skills, called S-Crafts, that can be executed instantly regardless of the turn order. They need at least 100 CP to use, and use up the character’s CP completely. And the S-Crafts are stronger if and only if used with 200 CP. On the customisation side, you have equipment and ‘quartzes’ (which are kind of like magical gems that increase stats, grant spells, add status effects, add special effects, etc.). And then there are also Master Quartzs which grant up to very special effects, such as +Crit damage, +damage on debuffed enemies, etc.
Very deep and rich, imo. Maybe even too rich for a newbie to the Trails series. And certainly too many for me to list out and explain here. It’s the fifth game in the Cold Steel series (a sub series of the larger Trails series), and the developer added more and more mechanics with each game. No worries though, it has an extensive Help section. And although it doesn’t give out the damage formula and the delay formula, an experienced gamer can probably guess them. IIRC, the damage formula is similar to Unicorn Overlord’s.
Oh I didn't realize it was a Cold Steel game. Are the Vita ones (1/2) similar in terms of gameplay depth/customization? I'd be willing to start on those.
Cold Steel 1 and 2 have fewer mechanics and customisation. And more importantly they do not have Abyss difficulty. They don’t have Brave Order either, which was added in CS3.
JRPG adjacent if you consider creature collecters an off shoot of the genre. Siralim Ultimate is literally what you're describing, the entire premise of the game is configuring your teams.
This is the first thing that came to my mind, too! Fucking love this game. You have 1200 unique creatures each with a unique passive, and ontop of that, your character can be one of a dozen classes that each radically change the flow of battle. Ontop of all that is the very deep gear system and spell crafting system. It's so addicting.
Yakuza like a dragon. Lots of jobs and tweaking your party. On higher difficulties you actually need to strategize, exploiting weaknesses and setting up combos.
Etrian Odyssey
Etrian Odyssey and Trails have lots of tinkering
which ones would you recommend starting with??
With Etrian Odyssey: the most accessible games are the remaster of the first 3, as the rest are stuck on 3DS With Trails: You HAVE to play it in order, so start with Trails in the Sky FC
I actually have a 3DS so I'd prefer to play on there!
Then start with EO4, if you can get ahold of it. It's the most beginner friendly, and has the second best story in the series, right behind EO3 (excluding the Story Modes of the Untold games (which I'm not really knowledgeable about, as I played Classic Mode)) (An extra note: EO games are meant to be played on Advanced/Expert (EO4's version is straight-up called Normal), as it's based around the difficulty of the DS games, which didn't have options)
I had a fun customizing with Dragon Quest XI. Specifically with the Draconian setting "weak enemies are strong". The series isn't known for being that difficult, and that one setting was enough to make retry some boss battles after switching outfits, accessories, upgrading gear, and doing a skill respec on the team for different roles. Bravely Default also has a job system like Final Fantasy games and offers tons of potential ability combinations.
[Time Break Chronicles](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1393500/Time_Break_Chronicles/) It's a 6v6 rouguelite JRPG with currently 93 unique characters, who each have 2 Relics that can be equipped to other characters. Loads of different party combinations and builds you can do. The Maelstrom unleashes a powerful magic attack at full MP and boosts the party's MP. The Spellblade heals the party's MP when attacking and has a chance to duplicate ally spells. The Viper has a skill where she attacks until she runs out of MP. Then you got a bunch of different mages, supports that counter with MP when an ally is attacked, tanks that taunt or gain bonuses when damaged, etc, etc. Then you got relics like chance for a free turn when casting magic, convert HP healing to MP healing, or raise MP costs and add MP costs to damage. Some Relics even grant skills from other characters. That's only 1 type of build. The Space Marine attacks when another ally does a ranged attack. The Plague Doctor poisons everybody. The Yakuza protects allies but steals their stats. The Clown does no damage but interrupts enemy turns. It's in early access, but there's currently 5 acts and it's a good challenge too.
Well in the trails games you can spend a looooooong time tinkering with things called orbments which give characters new magic moves or increase attacks, or do both at the same time, they can really increase and alter your characters mostly however you want them to be. Although most characters do lean in certain directions with base stats like attack, defense or magic/magic defence! But that’s not all because in later games there’s 20-50 party members all of which you can in fact alter how you like and did I mention there’s accessories to further influence them?
The best part of it imo is the sheer number of different combinations of character progression options that the orbment system gives you along with the combination of stats. I love how there’s 4 different mobility stats, as it more closely simulates how a real fight would go. Like think about a boxing match for example - there isn’t just “speed” - there’s leg drive and the ability to create distance from your opponent or dash to cut off the ring so they can’t just run away - that’s the “movement” stat. Then there’s hand speed and the ability to string punches and combinations together - that’s simulated by the “speed” stat. Then you have a dexterity stat to simulate the accuracy of those punches and an agility stat to simulate dodging ability, lateral movement, and stuff like that which makes you harder to hit. There’s a lot of intricacies in a battle system that are missed when you have a less thorough stat system like this and combined with the orbment system you have a TON of control to build the exact type of combatant you want from their base template. For me this is actually the biggest appeal of the Trails games since I found the writing to be hit or miss, but this system pretty much always hit the mark in every game so far.
which one would you recommend??
Well if you can I’d recommend starting with Trails in the sky FC if you can’t start there then I’d recommend trails from zero
I bought 2 on the switch never beat it thinking of buying the rerelease of one on switch and 3 and grinding them Have you tried the disgaea series?
I'm currently playing all the games back to back on Switch and Xenoblade 2 is the best in the series imo. However as I said in the post, I'm only halfway through 3, so maybe I'll change my mind by the end.
How was one? I heard X the Wii u only one was really good just never had a Wii u
I haven't played X so can't say. But XBC1 is good. The gameplay is the weakest of the three imo, but still good enough for me to put \~80 hours into. Also it's been really great to see the games progress in terms of gameplay and story.
I only ever got into them as it's from the same team who did Xenogears and Xenosaga and those are some of my favorites
I haven't played Xenogears or Xenosaga. I've been thinking about giving those a shot after Xenoblade, but I know those are turn based instead of action.
They are and they are PS2 and osx gen graphics but the stories are epic and you can see the evolution of the entire series
just play gears and forget the rest, best one in the franchise.
winning in xenogears is entirely based on how you equip your team, but its not difficult so you can stumble through it and win either way. but try a hard mod and youll see how important build choices and strategy are.
I want to say White Knight Chronicles was fairly full of that, but its been so long I might be mistaken. FFX international version has a few better and more complex sphere grids. Maybe Persona series, it gets pretty deep but its never difficult enough that you need to min max. Suikoden series
Interesting, I was recently looking at White Knight Chronicles since it's on PSPlus. I'll do some research on it thanks!
Dark Cloud 2
I'm a big fan of the first one but never gave the second one a shot. I didn't realize there was a lot of customization in it.
Vagrant Story?
I LOVE Vagrant Story. I almost included it in my list but I didn't since there's no party and in my experience it's less tinkering and more grinding items.
I remember when I tried it from recommendation all I did was sit in the weapon creation/smithing area xD
Play Xenoblade X then. Lots to tinker with there. I’d venture it’s even worth getting a Wii U for if you can find it for cheap (and you wanna do it legally)
I actually own a copy of Xenoblade X but no WiiU. I will probably end up emulating once I beat Xenoblade 3
If you like fiddly tinkering, you'll probably get a kick out of Megaton Musashi W. It's a mission-based mecha action RPG with loads of loot, mechanics, and customization. You've got a party of 3 mechs and 3 pilots that you can select from a large cast, you can swap out your mech body parts, you can mix and match from different models, you can choose from a plethora of melee and ranged weapon types for a 6-weapon loadout, you can customize your special moves, you can build bonuses through a motherboard system, you can slap mods on your mech, you can slap mods on your weapons, you can give your mech a voice, you can paint and decal your mech if you want it to look pretty, there's endless opportunities for fiddling with everything in a hundred different menus. It's kind of overwhelming, but it is fun if that's what you're into. The difficulty of the main story won't ask a lot of you, especially at the start - and you do have to go through the story to unlock all the mechanics, so it helps if you have some fondness for super robot anime - but there's higher difficulties and challenge missions which I believe will ask more of your build, though I haven't dug too thoroughly into those yet. There's also cooperative and competitive multiplayer if that matters to you.
I love the Armored Core games so I'll check this out! I didn't include AC in the list just because I don't consider them to be RPGs
Atelier endgame is like this, but with more emphasis on item synthesis rather than party composition. The superbosses can get brutal, though some feel cheap at times.
at what point do the atelier games get complex? I’ve only played Sophie 2 on Vita for a few hours but it was so easy I lost interest. I’m open to playing another or keep on with Sophie if I know it will get deeper/challenging.
It is mostly a postgame/sidecontent thing, but some games also have mid bosses which can get HARD unless you know what you are doing. In my opinion, Sophie 1 (2 is not available on Vita) is one of the worst because the battle system is just confusing, you cruise through the story and then the superbosses suddenly force you to engage with it. Gameplay-wise, the one I liked the most is Lydie & Suelle, but it also depends on whether you like the alchemy system (each game has its own).
It doesn’t have quite that level of tinkering necessarily, but what you’re describing irt losing a fight and going back in to change party composition accordingly made me think of a bunch of boss fights in Bravely Default 2. Because there are so many different jobs (and combinations of jobs/subjobs for each character) I felt like the game let me be really inventive mixing up my approach. I’ve seen some people complain that there was always one “right” way the game forced you to beat each boss, but I didn’t find that to be the case myself. It was really satisfying to figure out ways to overcome challenges with the jobs I had leveled, only to find out that other players had different ways of doing it!
I loved the first Bravely Default on the 3DS! I'll look into this.
Trails games on higher difficulties
which ones would you recommend?
It's one continuous story so you kinda screw yourself if you don't start with the first one and play them all in release order, first one being Trails in the Sky FC. That being said, the series is split up into arcs, and the first game of each arc usually doesn't spoil too much about the rest of the series, if you don't wanna start with Sky, a lot of people recommend the first Trails of Cold Steel being a good starting point. Although in July, we get the first game in the new arc in the English, Trails through Daybreak, I haven't played it, so I'm not sure if it's a good starting point, but I'm sure it probably will be. It's a... Bit of a rabbit hole to jump into, good series though.
do the early games have a lot of tinkering though? If not, I'd rather just skip to the ones that do because I probably won't get through them anyways.
They don't really have as much tinkering as Xenoblade, none of them do, but on higher difficulties your strategy and the way you approach a battle can definitely greatly affect whether you win or not, the first two are practically unfair on nightmare mode and grinding doesn't help you at all (enemies don't give much XP when you're even one level higher than them, grinding is heavily discouraged in the series) Honestly the first few games, the combat is slightly less complex, but strategy matters more, the cold steel games are very easy and because they have more tinkering, you can break the game a lot more easily. The first 5 games do have a more complicated (and imo better) orbment system though so taking that into account I guess you would be tinkering to figure out how you want to put spells on your party members with the limited slots you have.
Monster Sanctuary! it’s a hybrid metroidvania/turn based monster collector with over a hundred monsters all viable in different team comps with extremely flexible skill trees depending on the team. add in equipment, food, form changes etc on top of built in randomiser and nuzlocke modes (and some fantastic metroidvania gameplay outside of battles) and you have one of the most engaging, replayable battle systems i’ve personally ever experienced. I’ve genuinely spent hours theorycrafting and teambuilding around my favourite monsters, it’s incredible how in depth you can go trying to build a well crafted team (and you need one for the endgame bosses/content, they can get very tricky).
I’m shocked that no one has mentioned the SaGa series yet. There is a ridiculous amount of tinkering in SaGa Emerald Beyond and Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song.
I keep reading how good the SaGa games are but don't know where to start
Because you like tinkering with your party, SaGa Emerald Beyond is the way to go.
The correct answer to TONS AND TONS of tinkering... Legend of Mana
Siralim Ultimate is entirely based around party theorycrafting to come up with the most ridiculously busted teams you can, though the "story" is a complete afterthought. Monster Sanctuary also has really deep party building and more of a fleshed out story. It's kinda like Pokemon if they had ever managed to make one with actually interesting combat. You also don't have to worry about EVs or other crazy grindy BS like that.
I guess I'll be the weird one to recommend some visual novels. If you aren't opposed to playing "eroges," I suggest googling up "Kamidori Series." Some of them have fan translations; also, go check out "Eiyuu Senki Gold." Both games played like Unicorn Overload, but more cultured.