Kinda vague title, but I was trying out some of the Atelier games recently and while I do find the crafting interesting, I can’t stand the “slice of life”/CGDCT style they have. Yumia seems to be a bit more interesting but the gameplay is too simple and balancing seems to not take into account the crafting system, which makes it really unsatisfying to play.
Are there any alternatives? SMT/Persona too I feel has similar systems with fusions, but I think I’ve already played enough of the ones I’m interested in. They also lack the crafting of items, which is the main thing I find interesting in the older Atelier.
+1 for the monster hunter games, everything is crafted from monsters you hunt and there are tons of ways to customize your gameplay based on your play style and what you craft.
The Etrian Odyssey series also bases what you can craft on what you can find, but crafting is less in-depth than MH. That said, you also make all the maps which is a huge bonus in my book
I’m a bit burnt out on Monster Hunter, but yea the newer ones in particular have interesting customization options with how skills work from World. Xenoblade 1 and X too have a similar system (although only focused on raw stats) which I find fun.
I’m not sure EO is what I’m looking for. I’ve played most of EO1 (I’m currently stuck on the 4th stratum) and the crafting seems to be more a way to progress the shop than an actual crafting system.
I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier, but what about Astroneer? It’s closer to an adventure sim with rpg elements to it, but it’s entirely about exploration and crafting all of your adventuring gear and your home base(s).
I’m not really into survival (or otherwise “sandboxy”) games, although I was looking a bit into Astroneer recently because of the coop, but I was worried about there being too much procgen. Is there enough handcrafted stuff?
I’ve been playing the coop online with a buddy and having a blast; from what I can tell the procgen is pretty much for raw material placement and the layout of some of the ‘naturally’ occurring tunnels and caverns.
Everything else feels stylized and I happen to like the art style, so it all feels handcrafted to me. If you’re referring to the pool of craftable items, there’s a slew of things to make but they’re all very similarly themed which makes sense given that they’re all 3d printed planetary exploration tools.