I'm back to an old favorite of mine: Labyrinth of Touhou 2.
Simply put, this is one of the best turn-based "DRPGs" of all time.
This is not because of its story. I feel like this is an important caveat to throw out there from the start. Video games are a form of entertainment and people ultimately seek them out for different reasons. For some people, story matters the most and determines whether an RPG is good or shit. Labyrinth of Touhou 2 does not have a good story (ironically, though, the first Labyrinth of Touhou had a much better story despite crappier gameplay and art). Fortunately, Labyrinth of Touhou 2 does everything right outside of the story. Here are some examples:
-Labyrinth of Touhou 2 features a party that is both fully customizable and fully unique. This is an almost impossible balance to reach, but Labyrinth of Touhou 2 somehow does it. In most RPGs, the party members sometimes are fully customizable, but in such cases they end up feeling kind of "samey" since you can upgrade them the same ways. Alternatively, in some RPGs the party members are fully unique but there is not much customization. Labyrinth of Touhou 2 does a few brilliant things to make every character idiosyncratic while giving them "options." Most importantly, the game allows you to reassign stat and skill points at any time. Here's an example of the UI on the skills screen:
https://i.imgur.com/iBtizKp.png
Commander Naz here has points in two abilities which are her bread and butter
most of the time. Dowsing increases the item drop rate for the party, especially when Nazrin is in the frontline instead of the reserve party. Extra Steps allows Nazrin to gain an extra move if she kills an enemy with an attack. This turns Nazrin into an ideal character for racking up tons of treasure, which is reinforced by her role in battles: Nazrin's core battle skills are Gold Rush, Rare Metal Detector and Nazrin Pendulum. Each of these has a different element and serves a different purpose for the Commander. Gold Rush increases the gold yield of a defeated enemy and does stronger damage against enemies with high defense. Rare Metal Detector has a low delay in battle (the game uses an ATB system) and increases item drop rate. Nazrin Pendulum deals good damage against enemies with low mind and who are weak to the "cold" element, but it also simultaneously improves a battle's exp yield. Nazrin can learn other skills through subclasses, but these three skills are her default kit in battle.
Dowsing and Extra Steps give Nazrin a high priority for inclusion while I explore the dungeon. Against boss battles, however, Extra Steps is almost always useless. This does not make Nazrin herself useless, however. In the last boss battle, she was quite effective for me. I simply reassigned points from Extra Attack and dumped them into "Eyes that Perceive Reality" instead. Eyes that Perceive Reality is a skill which ignores enemy buffs when calculating damage to or from Nazrin. The last enemy boss I fought loved to debuff everybody on screen and then use a skill which reversed debuffs on herself, turning them into buffs. Commander Naz saw through her bullshit and proceeded to give her a tactical pounding. Nazrin's other skills have some specific usage. Bishamonten Blessing increases the entire party's damage against "Divine" enemies. Myouren Temple Personnel is useless at this time, but it apparently allows Naz to copy any buffs from another character who I might obtain later named Byakuren Hijiri. Many characters have skills of this sort which increases their synergy with other characters. I could also eschew all of these options and simply funnel points into Nazrin's speed, mind (magic defense) or evasion. I could even give Nazrin a subclass and teach her skills related to that class. Lastly, Nazrin gets some bonus points on level up as well as four equipment slots; I can change out all of this at any time depending on if I want better resistances, more speed or more power. Nazrin is mostly a quick little powerhouse, but sometimes some added resistance can allow her to do a lot more in a boss fight or against faster enemies that spam aoe attacks.
Despite this high degree of customization, Nazrin differs from other characters because of her overall purpose. Nazrin is never going to be a first party slot "tank" as her skills are geared toward high damage against weak enemies and increasing your party's treasure. She differs from other mages because she lacks skills that completely penetrate a portion of an enemy's mind or defense. She also lacks any kind of utility outside of her passive skill which increases damage against divine foes. Nazrin serves a very specific role in a party, but can still be tailored for certain battles so she can do her job better. Nazrin is also a character who you might choose to bring with you on dungeon explorations then bench against bosses, but she can do well against boss battles too if her skills are readjusted.
-Labyrinth of Touhou 2 is a brutally hard game, but gives you some leeway. Every boss has a recommended level for your party. This is always deliberately lower than the boss' actual level. Defeating a boss at the recommended level, however, results in better reward yields. You can choose to follow the recommended level or ignore it. If you follow it, you will often have to figure out the boss' strengths and weaknesses, adjust your party and come up with a strategy and team composition that is effective.
-Labyrinth of Touhou 2 has a lot of mechanical depth. Labyrinth of Touhou 2 bills itself as an Etrian Odyssey style of game, but this is way too humble of a designation. Labyrinth of Touhou 2 is actually significantly better as an RPG than Etrian Odyssey despite its niche appeal. Etrian Odyssey's battle system was rather simple, featuring a few buffs and debuffs, a few elements and a few classes with growth trees. Labyrinth of Touhou 2 forces you to pay attention to a lot of different stats, elemental resistances, individual ailment resistances and in-game battle skills. Elemental resistances matter a lot and can be bolstered through equipment; unlike in most rpgs, many enemies like to use attacks that ignore defenses (defense and mind) and target your elemental resistance directly. These enemies almost always require you to equip some kind of elemental resistance boosting gear or you will get rekt. Ailment resistance can help a lot too. Some bosses may inflict a certain status ailment such as silence, and some gear or characters with naturally high silence resistance may help mitigate that. Many RPGs also have bosses which can be beaten with a similar strategy, which tends to boil down to a combination of buffs and debuffs. Labyrinth of Touhou 2 can be similar in this regard, but does not allow the player to get comfortable with a single strategy like this. Buffing up your defense and mind is useless when the enemy uses an attack which ignores those attacks. Debuffing an enemy's stats can be useless if they have high "debuff" resistance or if they have skills which turn the tables on you for using debuffs in the first place (Hina for example can turn all of her debuffs into buffs and will do so every time she gets a turn). Labyrinth of Touhou 2 is a game which constantly keeps you on your toes and forces you to recustomize your party loadout to fit the situation. It is not a game in which you can throw together a random party and breeze through everything.
-Labyrinth of Touhou 2 is a fun game to explore. You don't have to explore an entire floor to progress, but doing so can be beneficial to your overall party. Some recruitable characters also require specific conditions for recruitment, or might be recruited later on in the game after meeting certain conditions.
