Thatguy62

 I guess this is as good a first post as any.

I notice that there's a sort of game aesthetic that I like to call "Adventurer-Core" or something else. The two primary games that I'm most familiar with that fulfill this sort of itch are Evolution: The World of Sacred Device, and Mega Man Legends. Both have very different gameplay styles, yet have a somewhat similar tone to them.

Evolution is a Roguelite of sorts, split into two elements: The hub town where Mag can talk to people and prepare, and the dungeons, filled with monsters, traps and potential treasure. The game is nowhere near as punishing as traditional roguelites and the item economy is kinda borked (Status items are only occasionally useful due to how the statuses in Evolution work, and Appraisal Items don't require any bag space by the second game (thankfully)). Once can even argue that part of what carried Evolution was it being one of the earliest Dreamcast games that was an RPG (along with the novelty of being full 3D).

But Evolution has a comfortable atmosphere. The story is pretty low stakes for the most part; While the threat of the 8th Empire builds in the background, Mag is mostly concerned with making money and rebuilding his family name. Pannam Town is a charming little town, with the various NPCs that Mag and Linear know personally. Linear has little animations for when Mag is shopping at the item store or doing business at the Cyframe Upgrade shop. And the flavor text. The different NPC dialogue for each chapter. The Dungeon music, the changing aesthetics of the dungeons, the character expressions-

I can go on.

Though playing the original does make me question why Sting removed the stair paths/indicators on the map in later games.

On the other end, Mega Man Legends. Mega Man Legends is an action dungeon-crawler. Jump n Shoot Man jumps and shoots his way throughout an island known as Kattelox Island, exploring ruins, finding refractors (crystals that act as power sources) to exchange for money and battling both ancient robots and a gang of pirates known as the Bonne Family.

Mega Man Legends has a lot more to it. Kattelox's town areas are usually big and full of places to go or things to do. It could be minor stuff like using vending machines or listening to CDs at a store, and it be more significant stuff, like rebuilding parts of the town that get destroyed due to the shenanigans of the Bonnes.

The Dungeon-crawling also takes on a different flavor: While Evolution was a Mystery Dungeon-style take, Mega Man Legends takes a more Legend of Zelda/Tomb Raider style approach in the form of dungeons that Rock will have puzzle his way through while fighting off Reaverbots. Even getting to the dungeons in and of themselves can be an adventure... which is probably why there aren't two many of them: There's the sub-city, which runs under Kattelox and connects to numerous other places, including other dungeons, the sub-gates (of which, I believe there are 3) and the main gate as the final dungeon.

Of course, Evolution only had 5 dungeons (not counting the final dungeon). I guess the exploration between them and just how long it can take to get to the sub-gates trips me up.

And need I say anything about Meg Leg/Rock Dash's artstyle? If Low-Poly graphics didn't peak there, then they came pretty close.

Anyway, those two are, in my eyes, Adventurer-Core: RPGs (usually JRPGs for me, but certainly not limited to those) where the main threat of the game isn't immediate and the main characters are adventurers in some sort of way. A game that would probably fit this dynamic as well that I should probably play soon would be Skies of Arcadia, and that has the reputation of being one of the greatest Dreamcast games

My apologies if I come off as a bootleg ThorHighHeels