Other Games To Play Now That FFXI Is Dead

I think it depends on what you're looking for. If you're looking for something more modern or are not opposed to retro-gaming.

If retro-gaming is what you're after, I can give you examples in every genre.

Why is there a distinction? To me, I don't know enough about it, but I feel like those categories could be the same. What do you recommend in either case?

I am using a pixel 7, but also did the same thing on a pixel 3. The phone's lack of a d-pad is obviously the biggest impediment, but turn based games can be played 1H while baby wrangling.

For SNES turn-based RPGs, try FFVI, Chrono Trigger, Bahamut Lagoon, FFV, Star Ocean 1, Secret of Mana probably in that order imo.

Because retro-gaming can be an acquired taste (and I say this as an avid retro-gamer/collector) for anyone who either never got into those games back in the day or weren't around when they were a thing. Considering the age of this game, it's safe to assume that the average XI players would have been around but not everyone may have been a gamer. My dad didn't become a gamer until he hit 60.

I could ask what kind of genre one likes to help narrow down the scope. I like platform and open world. Those are not to the liking of several I know.

Another poster mentioned Ghost of Tsushima, which is such a great game. Easy to get into, not complicated, full of things to do while being aesthetically appealing. Horizon Forbidden West is another one.

If Xbox is your thing, Ori and the Blind Forest/Will of the Wisps were amazing platformers that look surreal on OLED displays.

As far as retro-gaming goes, I saw someone post Castlevania SOTN, which is always a great one. I play through that game once every couple years. Going older than that, Secret of Evermore is a very underrated SNES RPG. Breath of Fire games are more underrated RPGs, showing Capcom can do RPGs too. Two other underrated titles are Illusion of Gaia and Robotrek; Enix games were very good. If you like more action, Pocky and Rocky and it's sequel are solid scrolling shooters. They remastered the first game but the original is still classic.

Going even older than that, I play a variety of NES titles on my NT Mini Noir. I've played FF1 doing the solo challenge as White Mage and Black Belt. Little Samson is a fun platformer along with Gimmick. Both are expensive collector titles. Shatterhand, Vice Project Doom, Legacy of the Wizard, Astyanax are all great titles with stellar soundtracks.

Interesting :O
You're right on the game-level environments of RoLW - at least where I played up to, they were definitely made with the mechanic to demonstrate in mind, kinda waiting for you to get a good grip on what you know first before slowly feeding you the new stuff. SotN just teaches you the basics from the get-go and then sends you off on an adventure.
Didn't notice this difference until you pointed it out! The joys of the internet :D

Woah will definitely follow that, and give it a shot once I'm done with the og on the emulator!

Other recommendations I'd like to toss in are Grandia 2 (you don't need to play Grandia 1 but that's still a great game of its own nonetheless and is recommended too), and Golden Sun (GBA). Grandia's got turn-based combat with an active element to it that makes it kinda addictive lol.
Golden Sun's not an SNES RPG but it's a fun turn-based RPG with a great story, and a few puzzles in it from time to time.

Dragon's Dogma is a great game if u want to play a 1 player mmorpg until 2 is out

Grandia are good games. If we're talking late 90s retro-gaming, I start to think more PSX and Saturn. When I hear the term by default, I think NES, SNES, Genesis, etc. SNES RPGs were mentioned, so my mind gravitated towards that era. Lots of underrated gems out there.

omg i cant play from early access and onwards on BG3 i have to start anew *** man i played for over 50 hrs

I feel weird that nobody mentioned Skies of Arcadia yet.

Likely because those were released in the 00s, which when most talk about retro-gaming think before that time. That's not to say Skies wasn't a good game.

Crimson Gem Saga for PSP

Ogre Battle 64

Knights of The Old Republic 2

Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn, Three Houses etc.

Star Ocean The Divine Force

Triangle Strategy

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Bloodborne

Mystic Ark

The 7th Saga

Terranigma

Xenosagas 1-3

Xenogears

Elder Scrolls Online

Minecraft

Metal Gear Solid 3

Perfect Dark

FF Pixel Remasters 1 through 5 (6 is a demaster yet again, don't bother with it, idk why they won't remaster 6 properly)

Super Mario RPG

Mother 1 through 3

Skies of Arcadia

Wild Arms

Knights of The Round

Megaman Battle Network

Dragon Age: Origins

Mass Effect 1-3

Elden Ring

Runescape

Uhhh... board games and other table tops Betrayal, Call of Cthulu, uhm... Dungeons and Dragons?

am playing era classic wow 60 on fire maw its been a blast so far and it got so populated that there is layers now lol. also my guild has been shitty with loot they gave prio BWL Trinket to a mage because he would prog with us on his priest ,,, bro i have a tier 3 warlock and am missing that trinket 2 >.< COME ON now its a warlock priority!

Crusader Kings II Sword of Islam .. with new mod
And Crusader Kings III and mod game of thrones
Epic strategy gaming

I have already abandoned my first campaign in Baldur's Gate 3 because my War Cleric wasn't Fighter enough for me. My Eldritch Knight Fighter on 2nd roll has all the shoving and greatsword throwing I desire.

I will probably play this game a ton.

Was going to go through some old FF games myself recently as I have them all on steam. Was having issues with steam detecting my PS5 controller even though I connected via bluetooth + USB, either way Steam wasn't detecting it and I'm not sure why. Steam use to use my PS5 controller no problem. Also every guide I find it just seems like they need to connect their controller to the PC and steam should auto find it.

At this rate I'm just going to play them on my steamdeck lol. Was hoping to play on PC though to stream to friends. First up was going to be FF9 as it's one of my favourites.

im going old school.
free server ultima online and starwarsgalaxies
Great fun and no monthly fees

Try the Big Picture mode.

Just noticed a decent resident evil bundle is available for PC.
Includes pretty much all of the more recent entries:
RE revelations 1+2
RE HD remaster
RE 0
RE 4 (2005 version)
RE 5 Gold edition
RE 6
RE 7 Biohazard
RE 2 (2019 version)
RE 3 (2020 version)
RE Village

Only the most recent RE 4 remake is missing and of course most of them come without DLCs, but that's how they always try to get you. However I think most RE DLC are just costumes, at least I'm not aware of any must have DLCs in that series.

They also added 4 tiers so if you're only interested in for example the co-op parts you could just go for the lower tier and save 2/3 of the full bundle which is pretty neat imho.

Dark and darker

It’s so good. I’m already on my second play through!

I LOVE the game too but I am so bad at it xD

So fun it's so worth it.

It's been a learning experience for me too and my first run through was really bad near the end, but I was under-leveled, didn't fully understand mechanics, and missed a lot on the way. The second time around is going a lot smoother. There's a lot more depth and complexity that I'm finding now that I've finished the main storyline and can focus more on other elements.

The characters will leave your party in the game if you don't give them enough attention. This isn't really made clear, but the same thing has happened in other D&D titles like Dragon Age. You can do things to piss them off or drive them off in the story, you can also just flat out ignore they are there and once you reach a certain threshold, never have them join again. Going into Act III, I didn't do one of the characters quests in Act II and he rage quit without a word. I similarly had another one have a storyline death. IMO this is something they need to resolve, IIRC in Dragon Age and some others, they warn you before this happens or before you reach a point where you are going to just cancel a bunch of quest lines, BG3 only warns you between acts and by that point, it's too late. They obviously can't handhold you given the web of quests, but there are points where you can no longer backtrack or large groups of NPCs disappear, IMO they should forewarn you when those quest lines aren't tied up at those points. If they die, though, Withers should be able to revive them and they show up in camp next to you.

My first playthrough was pretty rough, I had a few real frustrating fights, but going through again now a lot slower, I find it's gotten a lot easier. I'm probably 3 levels ahead of where I was in the same place now (lvl6 and about to do Mountain Pass into Act II) and the fights are still challenging, but much more manageable. This time around, I explored EVERYTHING on the map and did as many quests as possible. The levels make a big difference, especially as you gain buffs like Bless and various defensive buffs, and the combat is a lot more manageable. There are a few things you can do in the story, like and , for harder fights, but some of them are straight up difficult no matter how you spin it and you might just get unlucky with rolls or the game targeting one character.

I'm also doing a mage heavy setup this time with Gale, me as a wizard, Karlach, and Shadowheart. It helps when you have one that can focus on debuffs and another doing damage, especially when you have a number of targets. Magic Missile also just wrecks, it's a 100% hit, has a huge range, doesn't need line of sight, and when you get higher levels the damage goes up a fair bit. It's almost like cheating, but once you start getting lvl3 spells, some of the spells you can get are really potent and interesting, add a lot of variety to the combat (to the point of almost being overwhelming), and give you some really cool ways to navigate the environment.

It's weird going into a D&D title from a game like 11 or other RPGs, though, because the gearing and stats are managed so differently. There's a lot of depth there that isn't incredibly obvious if you aren't familiar with the rules. It's been ages for me so I'm trying to remember how it all works. I had to go back and look at how armor class works, for instance, and you really have to swap pieces around based on the situation or what you are trying to do. I think the gearing depth is on par with something like 11 below the surface, but it works completely differently, so you have to approach it differently. The abilities, spells, classes, etc are all pretty wild as well, especially when you start talking about multiclassing.

The combat gets overwhelming when you are facing a lot of enemies too, which becomes a more common theme later in the game. There is one fight at the end of one companion mission that has you facing off with probably 20+ mobs, if they all gang up on one of you and you get unlucky then you just have to accept starting over, they also just coat the area with one really annoying debuff (but you can counter it using non-obvious counters). I'm steadily finding that if you think beyond just dealing damage and debuffing, using more off the wall mechanics, the better you do, but it's hard when you have limited slots and so many spells. I always feel pressured to finish the story, which I did on an easier difficulty, I'm doing a harder one now and am able to explore the mechanics a little more.

I didn't expect to get sucked into it the way that I did, but playing it a second time even making mostly similar decisions, I'm finding a lot of differences (some minor, some major) in the dialogue, storyline, and content. The rules and the way the game plays is vastly different though and coming from a game like 11, you have to basically forget everything you know and approach it differently or you'll have a bad time.

Tried that, Still didn't want to detect it at all. Even though it's connected as it works with FFXI, It use to work when I last played a game via controller on steam like a year ago or something. Also they changed steam big picture mode to be more like the steamdeck system and I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

Just wait until they let my Angel FvS unleash a level 9 Celestial Bombardment...

I loved playing that game but it used to always give me headaches, no idea why

Started Black Desert Online, having a blast

Armored Core, BG3, Street Fighter 6 in 2023. Helluva year!