@flux_the_cat @C_J_S >i absolutely love old school turn based JRPGs (think old final fantasy, breath of fire, old phantasy star, etc.)

GOOD NEWS MY GAME ON STEAM "GOD'S DISDAIN" IS EXACTLY LIKE THAT

it's free so give it a shot if you haven't already :) it's definitely not gonna be a game for everyone though, i knew that very well. it's non-linear, and after the first quest the game just spits you out into the open world and asks you to explore it yourself. there are a few NPC lines that help guide you to where you're supposed to go, but for the most part the journey is in figuring it out for yourself. it's got elements of the elder scrolls too, since every NPC is named and has their own lives and there is quite a lot of lore to find between talking to them and finding journals and such scattered around.

you don't have to play it haha but i thought i'd shill it a little bit. it took me 9 years to make, may as well xD all of these other games below are definitely going to be better. cream of the crop kind of stuff.

other than that though, Ara Fell is an EXCEPTIONAL JRPG. it's on the shorter side which is perfect for me, and it has a lot of modern QOL stuff. it's at #30 on my top 100 games of all time list. if it had released on the SNES back in the day it would have been seen in the same light as Chrono Trigger and FF6, I have no doubt about that.

if you like Saint's Row, i think i could recommend Sleeping Dogs if you haven't played that one. it's kind of like a more grounded Yakuza game set in China. you're an undercover cop getting involved with the triad. open world, lots of stuff to do (including karaoke lol), awesome story, great combat with contextual environment kills. rank #39 on my list.

as far as something like DOOM goes, you might like Ghostrunner (and, subsequently, Ghostrunner 2). extremely fast and hard gameplay that mostly revolves around movement and attacking with a sword. dying sends you to the last checkpoint immediately, no load screen, so even though it is a brutally hard game it never feels too punishing. i'm a huge fan of both of those games, but if you're not into melee combat as much in an FPS you might not enjoy it as much as you would DOOM. still worth checking out some gameplay videos at least, though. the second game is at #17 and the first is at #20.

@ZRDR_DelRio @C_J_S @flux_the_cat Sleeping Dogs = PS3/360/PS4/One/PC
Ara Fell = PS4/Switch/Xbox One/PC
Ghostrunner 1 = PS4/Xbox One/PC/Switch
Ghostrunner 2 = PS5/Xbox Series/PC
God's Disdain (my game lol) = PC

Sleeping Dogs, Ara Fell, and Ghostrunner don't have current gen versions but they'll run under backwards compatibility.