Many great RPGs are renowned for their complex characters and the grand journeys they embark on. But sometimes you may want something with a more personal touch, a game that lets you put together your own group of characters and bring them on an adventure with you.
Just about every sub-genre of RPG now has some great games that let you build a party from the ground up, and shape them how you see fit. These are the best games to look into if you want to tailor the perfect party for your next RPG adventure.
10 Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark
Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark is an indie tactical RPG that combines its classic turn-based combat with a great story and gorgeous pixel art backdrops. While Fell Seal has a cast of core story characters, it also allows you to customize the party with non-story adventurers, too.
Non-story characters are fully customizable. You can customize your party of story characters too, giving them new classes and subclasses, as well as the abilities to go along with them.
9 Final Fantasy Tactics
Final Fantasy Tactics is perhaps the most iconic game on this list, thanks to its huge contribution to the modern-day popularity of the tactical RPG. While it's a little bare bones when compared to its modern counterparts, the original Final Fantasy Tactics is still a great experience for any turn-based RPG fan.
The RPG has a significant amount of party creation options, with every character being free to fit into any combat class and have their skills sculpted as you see fit. Non-main characters can also have their appearances changed through leveling, giving you some extra influence on the cast you take through the story with you.
8 Wasteland 3
Wasteland 3 is an isometric turn-based RPG set in a frozen wasteland that once was Colorado. The brutal difficult of its combat is matched by its difficult dialogue choices that force you to constantly pick between what you perceive as the lesser of two evils.
The team you bring out into Wasteland's post-apocalyptic world is fully customizable, should you choose to go that route, with a wide range of skills, bonuses, and drawbacks to each character you create. There's also the option to use pre-generated characters if you get sick of seeing your lovingly created survivors be brutally killed in combat.
7 Dragon Quest 9
Dragon Quest 9 is one of the most beloved entries in the seminal JRPG series. One of the many reasons for its overwhelmingly warm reception is the suite of new features it brought to the series, one of which is full party customization.
For the first time ever in a Dragon Quest game, you can create and customize every member of the party, allowing you to take your perfect cast of characters along for Dragon Quest 9's excellent 50-hour campaign.
6 Etrian Odyssey Nexus
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Etrian Odyssey Nexus is a complex dungeon crawler that rewards you for creating a good party composition for the task ahead, then piloting your characters effectively. The game takes influence from classic dungeon crawlers by forcing you to create your own maps on the bottom screen of the 3DS to navigate the dungeon.
Etrian Odyssey Nexus' brutal, methodical dungeon crawling may not be for everyone, but those who want to have their party creation skills tested shouldn't miss out on this underrated gem.
5 Dragon's Dogma
Dragon's Dogma is a criminally underrated action RPG that was lost amidst the Skyrim hype that consumed the years following its release. Now a cult classic, Dragon's Dogma is home to a fleshed out world that you can experience alongside a fully customizable party of companions.
The way parties work in Dragon's Dogma is unconventional – your player character holds all the power, and will lead the party, while three other companions will back you up. Each of these three pawns are customized by players, though only the first can be customized by you. You'll have to recruit the final members of your team out of custom characters made by other players.
4 Baldur's Gate 3
Baldur's Gate 3 is the long-awaited latest entry in the classic Baldur's Gate series, a set of wonderfully realized Dungeons and Dragons-inspired RPGs. While it's still in early access as of fall 2022, it's still absolutely worth playing if you want some D&D style role playing. Much like real-life DnD campaigns, Baldur's Gate 3 allows and encourages you to create your own party of characters.
Even if you're not an avid D&D fan, Baldur's Gate 3 will still suck you in with its incredibly detailed character creation system, which includes a wide range of fantasy races to choose from. Even if you're not a fan of playing games in early access, be sure to consider Baldur's Gate 3.
3 Pokemon Black & White
There's no doubt that Pokemon is the most successful RPG franchise of all time. Perhaps the main reason for this is its huge cast of catchable party members that range from cute household pets to world-ending forces of nature.
Black & White stand out as particularly great entries in the series, thanks to its introduction of 156 new Pokemon with which to build your team. This brings the grand total to an incredible 649 potential party members. Pokemon's fifth generation also has a ton of replay value, thanks to how well it suits the classic Nuzlocke challenge run.
2 Darkest Dungeon
Darkest Dungeon is brutal in a way that only stats-heavy dungeon crawlers can be. Set in a derelict town being corrupted by an eldritch influence, Darkest Dungeon tasks you with bringing together a group of undesirables to delve into the tunnels beneath the hamlet and snuff out the evil within.
That's easier said than done, as party member deaths are permanent, leaving you to pick up the pieces and recruit another unfortunate soul to take their place. Darkest Dungeon's party system is incredibly complex, and demands mastery from anyone who hopes to overcome Darkest Dungeon's greatest threats.
1 Divinity: Original Sin 2
Divinity: Original Sin 2 is the closest a video game has ever gotten to recreating the whimsy and chaos of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign that has gone awry. While the game's campaign is certainly serious, the overwhelming amount of choice you and up to three friends have gives you the reins to steer your campaign into any chaotic territory you wish.
The way you build and play your characters impacts the way you interact with the events of your campaign. This can happen from killing an innocent civilian with a hastily thrown spell, or accidentally scaring an NPC with your ugly undead face, for example. The true freedom your party has to affect the course of the game makes Divinity: Original Sin 2 one of the best co-op RPGs ever.