[ggregoire]

I've been playing exclusively CRPGs for the last 12 months or so, which was kinda a niche genre before the success of BG3. There are tons of way to beat those games and optimizing how you build your party and characters (what players call "min-maxing") while following a highly narrative story is a lot of fun. Most of them are quite old and often on sales for like 5 bucks on Steam, for which you get hundreds of hours of gameplay. A few recommendations: Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2, Owlcat's Pathfinders & W40K Rogue Trader, Larian's Divinity 1, 2 & BG3, Bioware's BG1 & BG2, etc…

[g00z]

These are a blast. I went through a phase in highschool where I exclusively played 90's CRPGs. There are some real gems that find a unique playstyle with tons of freedom due to how low fidelity the games are, while still being visually engaging and beautiful. Definitely check out fallout 2 if you haven't tried it yet, it's one of my favorites!

[mkjs]

Nice to see people discovering these games. I wouldn't really say it was niche until BG3 though, there were plenty of highly acclaimed games long before that.

You might like this blog, the author plays through CRPGs in chronological order. Currently they're at the mid 90s. https://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/

[RajT88]

I always meant to go back to Wizardry 7 I think it is. (Or 5, I forget)

I was convinced that a party of all Ninjas and Samurai would be unstoppable, but I never could make it work. I recall leveling up to a point where a high enough character would get 3 attacks per turn, and then when hit counterattack twice. Multiply this by the whole party.

But realistically, at some point this flurry of attacks every round just fell over because you need better magic users for enemies with certain weaknesses. My memory is fuzzy, but it also may have related to the increasingly large hordes of enemies which would dilute the effects of so many attacks.

[trick-or-treat]

Fight Fight Fight, Parry Parry Parry.

[account42]

For BG1 I suggest giving the original non-EE version a try without mods that move it BG2 engine (which the EE also does) and have a character focus on summons. It's sad to see the version most new players will experience has spell casting rules significantly different from what the game was originally designed with.

Also some more worthwhile ones:

  Infinity engine games (i.e. Baldur's Gate engine):
   Planescape: Torment (if you like the story aspect, combat is less engaging in this one but not as bad as some die hards will claim; skip the newer Torment form inXile)
   Icewind Dale I and II
  
  Arcanum
  
  ATOM RPG
  
  Wasteland 2 and 3
  
  More that I liked but will be a matter of taste:
   Shadowrun Returns and sequels
   Neverwinter Nights (early 3D graphics that are nothing to write home about unfortunate design consequences from supporting multiplayer, but has many worthwhile fan modules)

Also the early Fallouts of course like a sibling comment already suggested.

[drchickensalad]

Check out the Epic Encounters 2 mod for D:OS2. Best tactics experience I've ever had. Runners up are LWOTC for XCOM3 and Homebrew for BG3.

[avisser]

Fallout 1 & 2! Formative titles for young me.