Turn-Based RPGs Aren’t Boring, You’re Just Playing the Wrong Games

Turn-based RPGs are one of gaming’s largest genres, yet they’re also one of the most divisive. Many players struggle to see the appeal of the genre’s strategic gameplay and stat-heavy systems. However, turn-based RPGs are more varied than most people realize, which is why at least one of these games will likely appeal to you.

Turn-Based RPGs Vary in Complexity

Whether you are new to the genre or have been playing turn-based RPGs for years, there are enough games to satisfy every type of player. Some turn-based series like Pokémon and Dragon Quest are designed for both beginners and longtime RPG fans, offering plenty of party-building freedom and a light challenge. These games place a focus on exploration, with worlds that are full of exciting discoveries and optional side content.

At the opposite end of the genre are tough-as-nails series like Shin Megami Tensei and Darkest Dungeon. These games are notoriously difficult, demanding you to master the full extent of their mechanics. Whereas other turn-based games allow you to overcome most battles with only a basic understanding of their combat, the genre’s toughest games will force you to adapt to their brutal design and learn to use all the mechanics at your disposal.

Then there are games like SaGa: Emerald Beyond and Resonance of Fate, wherein most of the challenge comes from trying to understand the game rather than the experience of actually playing it. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but these games are notable for their unorthodox mechanics and convoluted combat.

There’s an intimidating degree of depth to these games, with battles demanding that you learn to plan multiple turns ahead and spend time fine-tuning your party for advanced strategies. These games and similarly complex titles deliver some of the most entertaining and rewarding experiences in the turn-based RPG genre.

Most turn-based RPGs fall somewhere in the middle of all these extremes. Games like Metaphor: ReFantazio, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Sea of Stars are excellent starting points for newcomers to the genre. Each of these games provides enough challenge and depth to make battles feel complex and exciting, but they never resort to overwhelming you with a laundry list of confusing features and convoluted systems.

Apart from standard RPGs, there are plenty of fantastic games that feature their own creative twists on turn-based combat. Undertale and Deltarune feature conventional turn-based battles interspersed with challenging bullet hell sections. Slay the Spire similarly blends rogue-like RPGs with a deck-building card-based combat system. Even more traditional RPGs can deliver equally unconventional ideas, such as Resonance of Fate‘s turn-based gunplay and Parasite Eve‘s blend of turn-based combat and real-time survival horror.

Turn-Based RPGs Aren’t Always Slow

Turn-based RPGs are often assumed to have slow-paced combat and absurdly-long campaigns. Games like Persona 5 Royal and Metaphor ReFantazio are infamously long, taking over 100 hours to complete a single playthrough. Many older RPGs also suffer from severe pacing issues due to their prolonged attack animations and excessive grinding. However, these problems don’t apply to every turn-based RPG, and there are plenty of games in the genre that deliver tightly crafted experiences.

Numerous turn-based RPGs can be completed within 20 to 30 hours or even less, with some of the best examples being Undertale, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and Child of Light. That doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to see everything these games have to offer within a single sitting. With nearly any turn-based RPG, you can greatly extend your playtime by pursuing optional content or starting another playthrough to earn an alternate ending.

Turn-based combat can also feel fast and exciting when handled properly. Games like Persona 5 and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth allow you to take your time to strategize, but also provide the means to wrap up battles within a matter of seconds.

Persona 5 allows you to deliver attacks in quick succession with fast and fluid animations, while Infinite Wealth is balanced so that party members and enemy combatants can be knocked out in just a few hits. Both games reward fast and aggressive playstyles, making every turn feel meaningful while avoiding frustrating RPG tropes like damage sponges and drawn-out attack animations.

Even recent ports of older RPGs have addressed the genre’s pacing issues. The remastered Final Fantasy games and Chrono Cross: Radical Dreamers Edition include cheat toggles that allow you to enable stat boosts, disable random encounters, or increase the game’s speed.

Similarly, some ports of notoriously difficult games, like Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne HD and Etrian Odyssey HD, introduced new difficulty options and quality of life features that make them more accessible (and less grind-heavy) than their original releases.

The Best Turn-Based RPGs Have Compelling Stories

The real draw of the turn-based RPG genre has always been its storytelling. Role-playing games have delivered some of the best stories in video games, whether it’s through ambitious character-driven adventures or your own narrative-altering choices. Even if you’re not interested in the party building and strategizing of turn-based combat, the genre is full of memorable characters and unforgettable stories that are worth experiencing.

Many games claim to have immersive worlds that dynamically react to your choices, but few other genres deliver on this idea with as much depth as turn-based CRPGs.

Many players were recently introduced to the genre with Larian Studios’s Baldur’s Gate 3, but CRPGs had already garnered a reputation for fantastic writing and immense player freedom from its renowned history. Fans of Baldur’s Gate 3 will find a lot to love in the stories and lore of classic CRPGs like Planescape: Torment, Fallout 2, and (obviously) Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2. The genre continues to thrive thanks to more recent series like Wasteland, Pillars of Eternity, and Larian’s own Divinity: Original Sin.

There are other notable turn-based RPGs with a heavy emphasis on player choices. The mainline Shin Megami Tensei games revolve around ideological conflicts waged between multiple factions, with players able to align themselves with one of these groups or reject all of them by pursuing a neutral path.

Your choices will determine your alliances and the ending you reach, with each branching path providing insight into the personalities and beliefs of the major characters. Although Shin Megami Tensei never provides the same degree of narrative freedom as some CRPGs, its imaginatively bleak worlds and multiple different routes make each game worth replaying at least once.

However, the best stories in turn-based RPGs are much more linear. While that may sound like a complaint, it’s actually one of the genre’s best traits. Linear stories are able to deliver ambitious narratives that follow numerous characters across massive worlds. The scope of these games can range from small-town mysteries to globe-spanning adventures, often interspersed with intricate plots and intimate moments between characters. Even without branching story paths or plot-altering decisions, watching major events unfold and characters develop throughout your adventure can be just as gripping as any CRPG.

Games like Final Fantasy VII and Persona 4 are still fondly remembered for their gripping, twist-filled narratives and iconic characters. Lesser-known gems like Xenogears, Lost Odyssey, and Mother 3 use complex characters and imaginative worlds to tackle heavy themes and dark subject matter. There are also plenty of amazing stories to be found in newer turn-based RPGs, such as Yakuza: Like A Dragon, Metaphor: ReFantazio, and The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak.

Don’t Just Stick to the Popular Games

Although recent hits like Metaphor: ReFantazio and Baldur’s Gate 3 have garnered massive critical and commercial success, turn-based RPGs are still a relatively niche genre. Turn-based RPGs that aren’t attached to recognizable franchises like Pokémon or Persona tend to fall by the wayside, only receiving attention from the most die-hard RPG fans. That’s not to say that every turn-based RPG is a masterpiece, but many of the genre’s most original games are also its most obscure.

Some of the longest-running turn-based series have somehow evaded the attention of mainstream audiences, yet they’ve maintained a dedicated fanbase over the course of multiple decades for good reasons. The SaGa and Legend of Heroes series have both been around since the late 80s, but never reached the same level of success as Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. Despite their niche popularity, both series are still receiving new entries and have only continued to improve over time.

SaGa is notable for its experimental approach to turn-based combat and storytelling. Most games in the series follow a diverse cast of characters, each of which stars in their own distinctive campaign. Along with the collection of loosely connected stories in each game, each SaGa game features a unique combat system that rewards experimentation and mastery over its mechanics. You can start the SaGa series with any entry, including the recent Romancing SaGa 2 remake.

The Legend of Heroes and its ongoing Trails subseries are similarly renowned for their complex stories that span multiple games. Much like the SaGa series, The Legend of Heroes has undergone numerous changes to its turn-based combat—including an option to use real-time combat in the latest entries—but it remains consistently challenging and enjoyable throughout each new installment.

However, the series’ greatest strength is its ever-growing political-fantasy narrative and expansively fleshed-out world. Unlike most other long-running RPG franchises, most games in the Trails series expect you to have played previous entries. The best places to start the series are The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak or Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter—an upcoming remake of the first Trails game.

Indie studios have also produced incredible experiences and brought one-of-a-kind concepts to the genre. The Thaumaturge blends Persona-inspired combat with a detective mystery set in early 20th-century Poland, and its creative premise is elevated by the game’s excellent writing and challenging gameplay.

The Shadowrun trilogy—based on the tabletop RPG of the same name—is a CRPG set in a world that blends the cyberpunk and fantasy genres, providing a unique basis for stories in which spell-casting and corporate espionage are equally common occurrences.

Finally, Shujinkou is a turn-based dungeon crawler designed to teach players how to speak Japanese through menus, minigames, and battles against mythological creatures.

Most importantly, the turn-based genre has an extensive history stretching back to the early days of PC gaming. Thanks to the abundance of modern ports, remasters, and emulations of older turn-based RPGs, it’s easy to revisit the classics. Additionally, if you have access to the original hardware, you can try finding copies of the many fantastic RPGs released for the PS1 and PS2—assuming you can afford them.

There’s no shortage of unique turn-based RPGs to enjoy. Although many games in the genre follow similar formulas, most of them offer their own unique innovations or forgo common tropes entirely in favor of their own experimental ideas. Even if you’ve already tried turn-based RPGs but didn’t enjoy them, it’s worth giving the genre a second chance with a completely different game.