Gaming

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is probably one of the best games I played, it has RPG elements and the turn-based combat system is unique and satisfying. But this is not a game that will bring you joy, the atmosphere is bleak and it is a dark story.

In fact it kind of ruined RPGs for the moment at least, I played Metaphor:ReFantazio right after and the stakes just did not feel serious enough even 10 hours in.

For a Stardew Valley type RPG, check out Little-Known Galaxy. I haven't gotten far in its story but it's been pretty fun.

For more traditional RPGs, I enjoyed Cross Code, though it is a bit grindy if you want to 100%.

Sea of Stars also has a great story.

For games with voice acting check out Kingdom Come Deliverance and its sequel.

The Forgotten City. More of an adventure game but has good story.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was amazing and made me want to play the first two but that damn Nintendo tax has prevented me from finding it at a decent price on the secondhand market.

Since you mentioned FF series, don't sleep on FF12. It is up there on my top games as it was the first one I played where I could automate my group.

Idk if you can get these to work on the deck; they are not all sold on Steam and I don't know how well they play with Linux, but here's some to at least look into:

Planescape: Torment

Icewind Dale 1 & 2

Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 (and 3 for that matter, which does for sure work on the deck)

Fallout 1 & 2

Neverwinter Nights (particularly its two big expansions)

feels too much like D&D

Well... Fuck. If you didn't even like Disco Elysium there is no hope... 😩 All of these are literally D&D games except Fallout, which was based on GURPS.

Have you ever tried the shadowrun games at all? They've had a decent track record overall, and several versions exist on steam and play at least okay on the deck (can't remember exactly which, but protonDB exists for a reason lol).

Might be too similar to d&d for you, but I've never seen them be that similar in execution.

one of my all-time favs is an ancient one.. phantasy star II. you'll need the sega thing on steam to run it...

the story is good, graphics are very stardew valley.

the only negative aspect from your list is some minor grinding and the randomness of bumping into creatures.

The big recent release that's missing from your list is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. For me, it really evokes that FF8/FF10 era of Final Fantasy.

I hear the developers are still working on the Steam Deck build so it might be a bit rough at the moment, but since streaming from your Linux desktop is an option, I'd highly recommend it. Yes, it's as good as people say.

Ni no Kuni

Star Ocean series

Caves of Qud

Chrono Tigger is a crowd favorite

Pokemon, if you somehow never played it

Not a ttrpg, but Cavestory is one of my favorite classics of all time

Also not a ttrpg, but Dust: An Elysian Tail has a great story.

How do you feel about Skyrim? I kinda want to recommend Morrowind via OpenMW, which should run fine on the Deck, but I guess both games would feel too much like DnD for you.

Undertale, if you haven't played, might be fun.

You can also check out Trials of Mana, which is a remake of the SNES game and, unlike the remake of Secret of Mana, doesn't seem to have any unpatched game breaking bugs. Other JRPGs that might be work checking out are the "Ys" and "Legend of Heroes" series, both should have plenty of games that play fine on the deck.

Lastly, Rune Factory, which is fantasy harvest moon (the farming sim that started it all, so to speak) with some light dungeon delving and leveling up.

Games that I really enjoyed:

• Final Fantasy 7 through 10
• Final Fantasy 5

So... did you skip FF VI or did you specifically not like it?

Caves of Qud just did an entire revamp of the control scheme specifically for steam deck. If ur looking for sandbox old-school dwarf fortress stle RPG it's great.

Don't know if by dnd mechanics you mean any games inspired by tabletop rpgs or not and most of the gamesin your list being jrpgs. Age of Decadence is one of my favorite with interesting setting, Serpent in the Staglands is another one. Not exactly a rpg but interesting ~~no truce with the furries~~ Disco Elysium.

Try out INK INSIDE

It's an action RPG made by some of the team that made Cartoon Network games like Steven Universe Unleash the Light.

• Works great on steam deck.
• Unique combat that's a combination of puzzle games and beat-em-up.
• Full voice acting with Brian David Gilbert and Deneen Melody (Evangelion)
• Fun story and character development (that's basically the first season of a cartoon show)
• Local 2 player co-op

Only $15

A bit of each sale goes to the whole dev team too :)

I don't see how you can enjoy Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest when you don't like grinding. Both of those series are like, peak grinding JRPG.

Maybe try The Legend of Dragoon or Breath of Fire?

Witcher series, cyberpunk, mass effect, horizon:zero dawn, gothic 1+2 (they're super old so not ideal for the deck, but you can make them work. Found This guide for it. There's also hades 1+2, but those are rogue-like RPGs, so not quite the same thing.

Edit: Drova: Forsaken kin is also really good.

I just picked up Beyond Galaxyland in a Fanatical bundle. I have not played it yet, so tentative recommendation, but reviews are indicating it may be a hidden gem.

For an older one I really liked: Cosmic Star Heroine. Pixel art, great soundtrack especially for bosses, and fantastic combat mechanics. It's all very uniquely designed to encourage high-risk gameplay and variety on every turn, pushing moments where you buff yourself up for one or two supremely powerful strikes in a fight, or even sacrifice a character to KO the last enemy (all characters heal to full after every fight)

For even older: As someone who had that same kind of music-swelling nostalgia around FF7, I managed to win back that feeling when I played "The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky". It's a two-part game (sold as two units), that begins a giant series of games, but I only played it out of curiosity. Even though I didn't fully enjoy later games, Trails had both a lot of enjoyable and unique elements to its combat, and a very emotionally written story that occasionally throws in silliness to retain charm. Though the game itself is old, it got a series of patches by a "master porting engineer" at Falcom that adds features like an experimental fast-forward mode to help with long battle animations.

On grinding, one great thing about the games is their XP system. They grant a lot more XP anytime you're underleveled for enemies, and much less when you're overleveled - helping to equalize the experience after just a few fights, many of which can be short thanks to fast forwarding. But, the story is still long overall.

You'll see a Trails 3, which is very optional in my view. Weirdly, it's a bit more of a "lore dump" for future games than closing off any major plot threads. To me it was a little bit of a signal of them taking their "Marvel universe" style of world a bit too far.

I think you might enjoy the Atelier series. There are a lot of games in the series (~26 entries); Barrel Wisdom gives a good breakdown, but, generally, Atelier Ryza is a good starting point