Don't get me wrong, I know there are some, I'm just wondering if there's anything worth checking out that doesn't usually fall into the usual Japanese design trappings that make me cringe. I know some people like the JRPG design but I don't and I want to know if gameplay wise there are any titles that buck the trend. Already know about some titles like Armoured Core etc. but they're heavily advertised.
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Their entire fighting, rhythm, puzzle, and shmup genres for one thing. Many sidescroller, rail shooter, and sim games also. VNs too (but a lot of those might not be considered games),
If you're talking more in the realm of RPGs and RPG-adjacent stuff:
The strategy and tactics games often have a lot less of those to none of those compared to the JRPGs because of the nature of how they often work (e.g. many of the Fire Emblem games (unless you play one of the ones that has infinite grinding allowed in them), Advance Wars, the Super Robot Wars series, Sengoku Rance, Valkyria Chronicles, etc.)
For things like ARPGs or Action/Adventure games, most have at least 1 of those things. Fromsoft games are a safe bet, yes, but other than that its kinda rare. The closer it gets to a boss rush type of game, the less likely it is to have those kinds of things though.
For JRPGs and dungeon crawlers its almost impossible to not have at least 1 of those things, since dungeons are practically a JRPG staple and all of those are pretty much a part of Wizardry (the series that inspired JRPGs).
I would like to add Disgaea to the Fire Emblem-esqe strategy style of games list.
The Disgaea 4 & 5 Complete games hit the sweet spot, where iteration has refined the core gameplay loop, but they haven't dumbed down. Speaking of, DIsgaea 6 kinda dropped the ball by adding auto-battling. (7's ratings seem better, but I haven't given it a chance. I reserve the right to pick up the complete edition, but shelling out for assloads of DLC when I can just grind prior games is a hard pass.)
EDIT: And, just for the record, the current steam sale has Disgaea 1 & 2 for sale at the 4 dollar price point. An absolute steal from a dollar per hour standpoint.
What is a VN?
From the context, I'm guessing visual novel. It's a format for interactive entertainment, but I wouldn't call most of them games.
Thanks. Sounds right