While RPGs remain a popular genre, generally the most popular of them have been action RPGs. Far too often, people look down on turn-based RPGs, believing them to be outdated relics meant for older eras of gaming. However, that perception couldn’t be further from reality.
At least since the 2020s began, turn-based RPGs have made up some of the best video games around. These games offer stories just as engaging and characters just as charming as any action RPG, sometimes more. Meanwhile, they feature enough improvement on classic turn-based combat to bring in even skeptical fans.
Metaphor: ReFantazio had a lot riding on it when it was first announced. For starters, it was the first new IP that Atlus had created in almost thirty years. However, it was also their first time experimenting with high fantasy, creating a world that wasn’t based in reality. Yet much like they have with Persona for decades now, Atlus exceeded everyone’s expectations and created one of the best turn-based games on the market.
Metaphor takes players to the United Kingdom of Euchronia, where they take on the role of an orphan from the hated Elda tribe. After Euchronia’s King is slain, the boy chooses to enter the country’s Royal Tournament to get chosen as the next King. The term “tournament” is a misnomer, though. To win, the boy must travel across the country, campaigning to gain enough support to be voted for as the country’s new King.
Metaphor offers the sort of unique vision of a fantasy universe that only Atlus could provide, from the twisted monster designs to the fascinating yet weird lore. Of course, the game also features a new battle system that optimizes the tedium out of turn-based combat to create an experience anyone can enjoy. In the end, it’s hard not to view Metaphor as helping to set a new standard for JRPGs in the 2020s.
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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Blends Classic JRPG Ideas With Western Aesthetics
Sandfall Interactive came out of nowhere in 2024 with their first game, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The game immediately grabbed both newcomers and hardcore fans alike with its distinctive aesthetic and incredible, high-concept storyline. In Expedition 33, a godlike being known only as the Paintress awakens once every year to paint a single number, and everyone that age or older is erased from existence. Though every Expedition to the Paintress’ home has failed, Expedition 33 still sets out in the hopes they can finally be the ones to stop her.
Part of what makes Expedition 33 feel like such a special game is Sandfall Interactive’s love for JRPGs as a genre. Repeatedly, they’ve stated their love for classic JRPG series, and it shows in every aspect of the game, from the style of turn-based combat to their ability to create an actually memorable cast of heroes and villains. Some might even say Expedition 33‘s popularity is down to how well they managed to ape Japanese game design and merge it with Western visual aesthetics.
People who find turn-based RPGs boring will find the perfect challenge within Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Each enemy requires players to master the timing of their attacks to dodge or parry, as its almost impossible to survive being hit by everything. Mastering both the timing and creating the right character builds will create an experience that can’t be replicated anywhere else.
Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter Is The First Step In One Of Gaming’s Oldest Stories
The original Trails in the Sky game was a fantastic game that went woefully ignored in the West because of a late localization and being trapped on the PSP. Fortunately, Falcom made sure that didn’t happen a second time when they remade the game for its 20th anniversary. While remakes can always be a bit shaky with the fans given everything that gets changed, Falcom made sure that wasn’t a problem here, delivering a beautifully faithful version of the original game, only updated with modern graphics.
And update really is the right word, as Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter shows Falcom taking a step forward with their visual design. The game looks miles better than their previous games, and proves that even small studios are capable of creating magic with the right amount of time and art direction. It’s exactly the makeover that Sky 1st Chapter and its setting of Liberl deserve, too, as the original game’s success is the reason this franchise has lasted twenty years.
Beyond that, the game’s turn-based combat is sharper than ever, taking advantage of everything Falcom’s learned over the years to create a battle system that’s easy to learn yet never so simple that it becomes boring. Thanks to the game’s Orbment system, it’s possible to endlessly customize characters to fit one’s own playstyle, or just shatter the game’s difficulty entirely. Meanwhile, 1st Chapter‘s timeless story is still just as great as ever, with one of the best casts in JRPGs.
Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth Lets Players Participate In Yakuza’s Weirdness On Two Continents
When RGG Studios put out an April Fool’s video showing their popular Yakuza series as an RPG, no one took it seriously. Yet now they’re two games into their RPG experiment, and they’ve created two of the most memorable JRPGs of the last decade. Not only that, but they managed to introduce an entirely new protagonist and supporting cast, and still sell both Yakuza and JRPG fans on it.
With Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Ichiban Kasuga’s journey continues, this time taking him overseas in search of his birth mother. Yet he’s barely there any time at all before he’s immersed in more problems than ever, and learns his mother needs rescuing from Hawaiian versions of the Yakuza. As ever, it’s a fantastically over-the-top story that fits perfectly into the Yakuza universe, while still offering some intriguing social commentary about how society treats people looking for a second chance.
The combat improves on the original game, expanding on the job system and even finding a way to include Kazuma Kiryu’s own unique style of battle. It’s turn-based combat at its most polished, which is still a shock considering it’s coming from basically the best beat ’em up developers still in gaming. And, whenever players don’t feel like battling it out with randoms on the street, they can lose themselves in Infinite Wealth‘s stunning number of incredible minigames.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Revives A Classic Franchise With A Battle System That Rewards Creativity
Baldur’s Gate 3 feels like a hit that was a long time coming for Larian Studios. They spent the majority of the previous generation creating fantastic games in the Divinity: Original Sin series, but they went ignored for being too niche. With Baldur’s Gate 3, they kept the isometric camera and high levels of interactivity known for a cRPG, but the production values saw a significant increase, demanding everyone’s attention.
Baldur’s Gate 3 offers players a beautiful world to explore, as Larian takes them to one of the most popular settings with the Forgotten Realms. There, they get to meet an eclectic cast of well-written characters, each one with their own goals they hope to achieve while working with the player. Plus, the nature of cRPGs means players can solve every side quest in their own way, allowing for roleplaying the average AAA game couldn’t hope to manage.
Larian also did an excellent job with its turn-based combat system. Their unique system makes it possible for endless creativity, as players can set up their own advantageous positions to help them win battles. With well over a dozen different classes and the ability to multi-class, Baldur’s Gate 3 offers nearly unlimited freedom. Considering it’s also one of the few co-op RPGs out there, it also deserves points for being an experience friends can share together.
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