dtgreene: The news about the Wizardry spin-off coming here, as it is definitely a game I am interested in playing.
(Of course, now I am thinking about Bard's Tale 2 and what the best approach to developing casters for the short term is, and how the best long-term strategy is *different* between different versions of the game.)
GameRager: As I like and have played similar games(anime style) over the years(Orphan-Ps2, Some of the "Tales Series"-Ps2, many SNES games, Rogue Galaxy-PS2, Xenosaga-Ps2, etc) I will probably like this.
Of course, gotta wait for a sale sadly(am on a very tight budget), but I will be getting it eventually. :)
(I also loved this one game[PS] that was about two women teaming up with this man to save his land from destruction....the only thing I remember about it is it might have started with a G or H[title] and
*Spoiler* you have to sacrifice one of the women to save the world at the end, and it changed the ending scene a bit depending on who you pick.
*End Spoiler*)
Actually, I would argue that the games you mentioned aren't the same style as what I mentioned.
Games of the style I mentioned involve forming a party in town (with the town typically not being an explorable area), and then going into a first-person grid-based dungeon. There isn't much story, and instead the gameplay is the primary focus, with the occasional dungeon navigation challenge (anyone remember spinners and anti-magic zones?). Bard's Tale has explorable towns (though only 1 in the first game), but it otherwise still follows the same gameplay style, and you still have the grid-based first person view even in towns.
On the other hand, the games you mention sond like they're pretty standard JRPGs, with overhead view (or close to it), premade characters (instead of a custom party), and a bigger focus on story.
(Then there's (modern) WRPGs, which are an entirely different thing altogether, with their own conventions which differ from those of JRPGs or Wizardry-likes.)