The RPG genre is expansive and varied, offering several sub-genres ranging from turn-based combat to real-time action battle systems and much more, having something for just about any player and playstyle. While most titles are outstanding in the genre, the vast majority center around your p🐻arty rising up against all odds to save the world or defeat a literal God.

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While t🙈here aཧre some RPGs where you aren't fighting God, you will still be 🌞fighting to save the world over some entity or corrupt leader, making the stakes feel a bit too grand at times. Fortunately, there are many fantastic RPG titles that have a more focused and contained plot, where you aren𝕴't expected to save all of humanity.

10 Mario & Luigiꦇ: Partners In Time ไ

A collage of characters from Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time, featuring Mario and Luigi carrying Baby Mario and Baby Luigi on their backs, along with Yoshi, Bowser Jr., Toadsworth, and more appearing in the background.

Mario & Luigi: Partners 🦹in Time 🍎is, perhaps, the darkest Mario game in existence, and has Mario and Luigi time travel in attempts to save the Mushroom Kingdom from being o🐼vertaken by invading alien forces known as "Shroobs."

Even wit🍃h the time travel aspect and other-worldly beings invading their homeland, the game centers around Mario and Luigi trying to drive the Shroobs out of the Mushroom Kingdom to save it. While they are still saving an entire kingdom's worth of people, the world as a whole isn't at stake, which makes the story much more focused as a result.

9 Tactics Ogre 🐭

Tactics Ogre Reborn - via Square Enix

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Tactics Ogre is a tactical JRPG that centers around various factions going to war with one another, leaving critical choices up to you throughout the story, leading to three possible endings. The beauty of Tactics Ogre is how each path gives you a different perspective on the battle♔s being fought and the suffering that comes with it.

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All routes in Tactics Ogre are dark, harrowing, a🌞nd downright depressing, but that's what makes it such an excellent and oddly refreshing take on a game focused are war. Furthermore, the fact there isn't a looming threat that can wipe out humanity makes it a more grounded and believable tale that is worth checking out, especialܫly now that it has been remade for modern platforms.

8 🌊 ༺ Dragon Age 2

Dragon Age 2 promo art

Like Tactics Ogre, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dragon Age 2 features a more focused story that deals heavily with the politics of the game's world and its conflicts. However, unlike Tactics Ogre, Dragon Age 2's primary focus is on local areas instead 🤪of several factions heading to war with one another.

Nonetheless, the laser focus of Dragon 🐟Age 2's narrative and overall themes allow it to shine bright when big twists and turns pop up and enable you to sink your teeth into the areas you explore without feeling like the weight of the 🍒world is on your shoulders.

7 ☂ 🃏 Yakuza: Like A Dragon

Ichiban Kasuga holding a bat in front of his friends

Regarding JRPGs, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Yakuza: Like a Dragon may be one of the best ones ever created, and Ichiban, the game's main p🌳rotagonist, is a significant reason for that. Like every Yakuza installment, Like a Dragon's plot is hard set in the drama and action that follows the life of members of various Yakuza Families.

There's no worldwide threat, no celestial entities looking to exterminate everyone in the city, just Ichiban trying to piece together everything that has happened during his 18-year prison sentence for taking the fall for a murder to protect the Arakawa Family. There's no better drama or storytelling than the Yakuza series, ✃and this checks all the boxes and the൲n some.

6 ꦍ Disco Elysium 📖

Harrier and Kim stand in front of Revachol

Speaking of fantastic writing, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Disco Elysium follows a Lieutenant RCM Detective recovering from a three-day bender due to an event🐻 that caused him to spin out of control and kickstart his mid-life crisis. This man is named Harry, and, depending on your actions, he can continue spiraling out of control or redeem hi꧋mself.

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Disco Elysium is an extraordinarily unique and charming RPG with superb writing and characters, making it a must-p🍒lay for fans of𝐆 the genre. Trying to solve cases as a detective that checked out mentally days🤪 ago can, and likely will, lead you down a whacky path you will not exp💟ect.

5 🅺 Fallout: New Vegas

Fallout New Vegas Promo Image of character with silver helmet and red eyes. He's holding up a revolver.

Instead of waking up from a three-day, self-inflicted bender, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fallout: New Vegas begins with your character regaining consciousness after being ambushed by Benny. Benny is a mobster who runs "The Tops" casino on the Las Vegas Strip and possesses tremendous power🌸 and influence because of it.

When you fully recover, your goal is to track Benny down, which has you travel across the Mojave Wasteland, where yꦐou will encounter various factions, characters, and𝓰 threats that will push and pull you in several directions. Ultimately, you will make New Vegas a slightly better place or will make it much, much worse by the actions you choose and the people you choose to align yourself with.

4 Pokéꦿ;mon Red & Blue 🅷

An with a Blue into Red gradient, with Blastoise on the left (blue) side, and Charizard on the right (red) side. This represents the two cover arts for the Pokemon Red and Blue games.

Pokémon is a series that, for the most part, has never been about your character overcoming impossible odds and taking down a God or saving the world from a rogue, ultra-power Pokémon or a trainer abusing their powers. However, Pokémon Red and Blue (as well as most installments in the firs🌠t two generations of the series) sidestep this completely, which is why we chose them.

In Pokémon Red and Blue, you're simply just a kid trying to fill out your Pokédex, beat gym leaders to earn badges and defeat the Elite Four. That's it. The world won't end if you can't achieve that goal, and no one's life is in d📖anger. It's a simpler time and one we might actually prefer for something like Pokémon.

3 🌳 ꦬ Nier: Automata

Close-up of 2B with two swords floating behind her back

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Nier: Automata is an excellent example of꧑ a game that subverts your expectations every step of the way. On the surface, you can see the battle with God coming and see 2B and 9S save the world by rising to the challenge and defeating i🃏t.

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However, that's not the case. In fact, that's not even remotely close to what the central theme or plot of the game is. The emotional rollercoaster that is Ni�✃�er: Automata deserves your time and undivided attention, especially now that it is finally on every modern platform and runs wel🐼l on them too!

2 Valkyria Chroni💮cles (Series)

Valkyria Chronicles Alicia holding a shotgun while Gunther yells out orders in front of a war

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Valkyria Chronicles is a strategy JRPG series that takes place on an alternate version of earth and centers around conflicts of war in the 20th cenꦰtury, with each installment of the series following a different unit while taking place during the same timeline in roughly the same period.

Though it never quite reached the heights it maybe should have, Valkyria Chronicles has a dedicated audience that will, rightfully, fight for the game's narrative and unique𝐆 "BLiTZ" and real-time battle systems. Everything from its setting to the overarching storyline makes it a perfect fit for this list.

1 The World Ends With You 🧸

Neku with his hand on CAT wall art in The World Ends With You.

Despite what its name may suggest, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The World Ends With You is not an action JRP♎G about saving the world from a God or other ultra-powerful being. Instead, you play as Neku, a teenage boy forced to partake in the Reapers' Games event.

This is a week-long event in the Underground, an alternate plain of existence, where creatures known as the Noise reside. The overall goal and plot of Theꦜ World Ends With You is to compete in the Reapers' Games to either get revived in the "real world" or transcend your spirit to another plain of existence and become a Reaper. This game has everything you'd expect a game to have that has you defeat God and save the world, but it pleasantly subverts your expectations every step of the way while delivering an unforgettable and emotional story.

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