Chained Echoes is definitely an easy recommend for me. It’s very much a love letter to Chrono Trigger, FF6, and Suikoden. The story shines through with goofy moments, great character arcs, strong world buliding, and darker tones than you’d find in an old school JRPG. The combat is so interesting because it pushes the genre of turn based combat and adds some interesting mechanics to it.

For me I have found outlets/critics whose tastes reflect mine and default to their reviews, as opposed to the aggregate scores on OpenCritic or Metacritic. I have discovered many games (Chained Echoes to name one) through this so would recommend!