Originally Posted By: Lilith
Originally Posted By: Danny the Fool
Dragon Age O, A, 2, Mass Effect 1, 2, 3, the newer Fallouts were all strategic party-based RPGs by major companies.
The real-time combat in those games is a pretty big difference from what players of older RPGs grew up with, I think. It changes the strategic nature of combat dramatically.
I stumbled across a turn-based RPG implemented in flash. It's a parody of console-based games I haven't played, but I've enjoyed it anyway: Mardek: Chapter 1. (Chapter 3 is when the party construction choices really open up.)
It's surprisingly deep: the elemental rock/paper/scissors is, if anything, overly complex - probably for the sake of parody; battles play differently with different NPCs; the characters are endearing. I particularly like the fact that the NPCs don't auto-level, so that you need to make hard choices between using the ones that are immediately helpful (e.g., a fire-specialist blaster) vs. training up the ones that will be more versatile in the future.
The forum isn't necessarily easy to find, but very helpful, so here's a link.
Probably the worst thing about the game for me is that it encourages grinding to get rare drops, especially since completing a quest can cause monster spawning to stop in an area. The information in the forum and wiki is especially helpful for knowing what items are important to acquire and/or conserve for later crafting.
This promotional turn-based flash game based on the Dragon Age franchise is also fun, though short: Dragon Age: Journeys. (I haven't played the actual Dragon Age games.)