Nier automata, just played it, one of the best games humanity ever created, philosophical, deep, enough space to interpret yourself, more than 1 playthrough to get all endings and understand the story. Imo a Masterpiece with it's design, music, story, philosophy.

I feel like Death Stranding is in the vein of what OP is looking for but can't recommend it just from how god awful the story was written.

If you just wanna catch up with the story and have a bit of analyzing the philosophy behind i recommend "a comprehensive reading of nier automata" on YouTube, it's an hour and explains the whole story, and a lot of the important questions and themes of the game. I really enjoyed watching it even after I played myself since there are a lot of things you don't really think about or come to your mind. For example that the huge Factory Goliath machines are named after THE Marx and Engels when you play as 9S which understand that Machine language and so stuff like that

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition

Witcher 3: Wild hunt + Hearts of Stone + Blood and Wine

Dragon Quest V. A huge shame more people haven't played it

It's a great story and the story pacing is unmatched, but there are many JRPGs that have a better story. And, Chrono Trigger is my favorite JRPG.

FFX. It's not my favorite game, not even my favorite FF game - but I do think it had the best story. The fact I can just put on "To Zanarkand" and the tears flow immediately is how I know that.

Chrono Trigger's pacing is really what makes it. You can beat the game in 20-30 hours, but you feel like you went on a grand adventure that would take most JRPGs 80+ hours.

I also came here to say Xenogears. I think it's really something special. I don't know if a videogame has ever attempted to thematically or narratively come close... And I mean, it's obvious why, seeing how Xenogears turned out.

Amazing story though!

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I genuinely don't get the hate of Triangle Strategy..

So many *RPG* fans are complaining that there's too much dialogue and story beats... in an RPG... huh?!?!

I would understand that complaint if like... Shooter or ARPG fans were playing it, but the criticism from actualized tactics/JRPG players of this very genre blew me away, and doesn't make sense.

I agree it was great, loved the story and very grey-grim dark ethical choices.

There's more if you're willing to go 2D and poke around more into Metroidvania. Ender Lillies, its sequel, Death's Gambit and Grime immediately come to mind.

Also, everyone who is into Sekiro/Lies of P (so, basically this entire sub) should look at Kannaga Usagi. It's a free straight up boss rush Sekiro clone.

Wait for Mortal shell 2 and Nioh 3

Rise of the Ronin, by devs who made Nioh and Wo Long

That is impressive. I would suggest trying God of War. On high difficulty it has some souls vibe.

Watch a random Iron Pineapple video and what goofy stuff he suggests

Some souls-adjacent stuff you might like that has kinda Soulsy combat:

No Rest For The Wicked

Drova

Conan Exiles

These are all actually RPGs though so might be too deep on the mechanics or story for what you're looking for but they're all good games in their own ways

Edit: formatting

I can't recommend Skyrim enough. There is easily thousands of hours of gameplay to get through, you can explore every nook and cranny of Tamriel, and the lore is some of the deepest lore of any game I've ever played. I've put hundreds of hours into Skyrim and I still find new things to do every day.

Would you honestly describe that to have "really deep lore"? He'll probably like exploring it though, but personally I find this to be perhaps the most overrated game of the decade with an empty world with nothing worthwhile to discover.

Mass Effect. It isn’t the most open world but it certainly felt like it. I’ve never cared about characters in any movie/game/series as much as I have the ones in the Mass Effect Trilogy.

Fallout 3 and new Vegas are obvious ones, but also the classic fallout 1 and 2 games have an incredible story. It’s obviously a little dated because the games were released in like 1993 but it actually holds up, the strategy, turn based combat is still fun. I know you said you only have an Xbox but if you have even the shittiest computer it will still run it.

Morrowind would really scratch that itch. It's a bit janky now by modern standards, but it might even be backwards-compatible with your X-box!

Yeah, I hear ya, but I think that was a huge part of the vibe you got from it. Just like Dark Souls, the game didn't really tell you what to do so much as let you know about things that might exist, and let you decide what to do about it. Even their direct quests, they gave directions more like my dad would. "Uh, find a tree and turn right, then uh, go by the tower you'll see."

It’s been a year and I’ve beat it 3 times and I’m still playing it and discovering more every day. I love this game.

Nothing comes close to Xenogears. That game does romance, politics, religion and science fiction all in one cohesive story. And did it well. That's an unbelievable achievement that's never been matched ever again to my knowledge.

Final Fantasy Tactics is where I would place at 2nd place. It has stellar character work on-par with Xenogears. Delita is so fascinating, and it really is his story. The story of a "fallen hero" who found the best way to enact revenge on a corrupt system, >!only to be consumed by that very system by end. It's incredibly deep and powerful, with a shocking ending that truly elevates the story into something truly special!<. And how, despite the protagonist's efforts at saving the world, he became barely a footnote in history, lost to time and myth, only to be recently discovered by a researcher who narrated the story. There is a level of grit and realism in FFT that's rarely seen in other games, where the politics is as personal as it is vast and tangled.

Triangle Strategy is in many ways a spiritual successor to FFT, and it actually lives up to the original's legacy by having a deep and nuanced story. However, Triangle Strategy took out the "mysticism" of FFT, and instead chose to ground the story in very mundane issues. It's really brave and rare for a JRPG to "stick to the basics" and avoid using the trope of "crystals that seal ancient evil" of any sort. This grounding gives Triangle Strategy a much stronger realistic feel to the conflict, and being able to immerse yourself directly in the "political game" and experience the consequences of your choices is something you rarely, if ever, feel in a JRPG.

There are times when Triangle Strategy feels like it surpasses FFT, but unfortunately, the game "flinches" and doesn't go "all the way" when you choose to play as certain way. That means there will be a large number of people who won't experience the truly tragic consequences of making tough choices. As good as Triangle Strategy is, it cannot compete with FFT and Xenogears simply because not all of its story paths are masterfully told. Some are downright mediocre, if not boring.

Persona 2 duology, Koudelka and Shadow Hearts 1-2, Digital Devil Saga duology, Vagrant Story, Omori, Harvestella, Lost Odyssey, FF6-12, Suikoden 2, 3, 5, Mother 3

I have to mention Final Fantasy IX. I met a lot of people who considered this game as "childish" because of the high fantasy artdirection and characterdesigns. Never giving it a Chance. But the themes in this game and character development are very mature and deep. Imo.

So far i will put Astlibra revision in the first place even if the writing was not done professionally this game truly impressed me. (followed by Xenogears and shadowbringers+endwalker)

Tbh I was quite disappointed when I finished that game considered how much praise it was getting. >!Yeah the story has a lot of twists and you learn more about the characters' pasts.!< But I never felt the characters were that deep. Even after finishing, i personally felt like i didn't learn much that was new or deeper about their personalities since the beginning.

Dota 2. Theres players with thousands of hours still the lowest rank. Insane learning curve.

Planescape: Torment. Huge story with countless NPCs to interact with. Amazing depth of story and world building, takes several play throughs to find most of the content.

Subnautica

Pretty damn deep if you ask me.

Definitely agree with the Dwarf Fortress votes.

Cataclysma: DDA is a turn based zombie survival game and maybe not quite up to DF complexity is absolutely one of the deeper games available for complexity and ruthless realistic consequences for in-game actions.

Paradox Grand Strategy games. You can still learn something new even after 1000 hours.

I started in 2012 and I can't imagine picking it up now. Back then I was starting college and had time to learn the game, now that would be impossible. I still go back like a battered housewife hoping it's gonna be different. One of those games I will never really leave behind, it's just too well designed.

Dota took years from my gaming life but gave some of my fondest game memories. The lowest lows and highest highs no question about that.

Dota is a beast like no other.

Torment: Tides of Numenera is a good game, but I'd say Disco Elysium captured the feeling of Planescape: Torment more than T:ToN did.

For me a lot of the elements in T:ToN were good but they just didn't pull together quite enough. For example Rhin's storyline was great but PS:T was full of things like that which actually tied in to The Nameless One and his history.

The outer worlds is pretty good, I’m playing it now. It’s buy obsidian which is the same company which made new vegas so if you enjoyed that you’ll probably enjoy this.

Mass effect and dragon age, they might be too combat focused, but there is some good character customization and great character development

Saints row 4 good customization, superpowers, combat is pretty easy, lots to do, not great for exploration as the world is one city basically

Dragon Quest Builders 2 : the world is huge, you can build things, collect things, talk to people, there's a cool story and plenty of toons. Think line Minecraft and Stardew Valley had a 3D baby (JRPG-lite style).

Divinity Original Sin 2 on Explorer Mode was exactly this for me.

Immortals fenyx rising sounds right up your alley. Very breath of the wild inspired.

It’s by no means an indie RPG, but it’s not necessarily a well-known RPG. The story of Arcanum: Of Magick & Steamworks Obscura, was really gripping, the opening cutscene is one of my favorites of all time. There were also a handful of side quests that, while self contained, made for really memorable moments. I’d definitely recommend if you can get past the age.

Crosscode is so unbelievably good.

Try Lisa the Painful & Lisa the Joyful (but play "Lisa the First" first for some context before going into Lisa the Painful , it's among the best stories I've ever experienced.

SKALD: Against the Black Priory

I thought Pillars of Eternity and Shadowrun: Dragonfall had cool stories. I haven’t played these four titles you posted. I think the only indie JRPG I have played is Undertale. That one has a cool story too.

try Disco Elysium

Definitely NieR Replicant and Automata. They are beautiful, weird and crazy games with disturbing premises and lots of emotional punches, lots of sad and heartwarming scenes. Even if you prefer turn-based you should play them just for the story, music and atmosphere.

Surprised to not see Omori mentioned here as it's the darkest JRPG I can think of in recent memory

just want to emphasise nier automata is an absolute masterpiece of writing, theme and characterisation. It is tragically beautiful and one of my top 5 favourite games because of just how good the story is.

PLAY IT YOU WONT REGRET IT I SWEAR

Tactics Ogre(PSP) has an incredibly grim story of betrayal, suicide, torture, ptsd, slaughter, etcetera.

It's also good. Really good.

The story (at least in Automata, haven’t played Replicant yet) is PHENOMENAL. If you don’t cry after playing it, I’m not sure you qualify as human :P

The game has a system called the chariot system that let's you redo your turn(s) and do alternate paths in battle and even go between the branches. Makes game WAY easier.

I've played literally 1-2 thousand hours of the game since 2011 so I'd be happy to give you any tips to help get through game.

I'd say at minimum see if you can get through chapter 1. The finale to chapter 1 is fantastic.

https://youtu.be/n0yijU_ZWG8

3/DS Radiant Historia is decent with character investments and darker tones. Dual timelines, see your party change as you progress and unlock branching events, for the better and for the worse.