NURVUSS'S PROFILE

I'd like to say futuristic, but futuristic RPGs tend to go for Star Trek-style far future space operas. I'd love to see more cyberpunk RPGs.

author=Ralphrius
My favorite is a bit of a mix between Fantasy and Modern Day. I'm not talking Urban Fantasy, I think, but more on the Call of Ctulhu-y side of things, or maybe some of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure parts.
That probably didn't make much sense.

I get it! Basically, "not Shadowrun", right?

author=accha
Basically, this is about branching storylines that are purposefully hidden and to be uncovered by players who seek out other solutions, and the only hints to these branches are... subtle, at least so that a player breezing through the game wouldn't notice them at all.

There was a bit in Persona 1 (dummied out of the US-localized PS1 version, but restored in the PSP version) around the 5 hour mark where you may or may not hear a person at school talking about The Mask of the Snow Queen. You can totally ignore this tidbit as flavor text and go on to the next objective. OR you can run around the area and talk to everybody again, trying to find out if there's more to the story.

After doing so, you'll eventually find out that the mask is hidden somewhere in the school's theatre room. If you go to find it, the Snow Queen is revived and the plot's focus shifts away from stopping its original antagonists to stopping the Queen. The party goes through different dungeons with different music, fighting different monsters. It's almost an entirely different game.

It's a bit obtuse (as JRPGs are), but it's an interesting idea.

In Baten Kaitos for Gamecube, the protagonist betrays the party around the half-way mark, and the story shifts its focus to a different character.

It's not a particularly well-written game, and the first protagonist eventually comes back to be the hero again, but it's still an interesting idea that I can't recall having seen employed previously or since.

Also, seconding Gourd, Zero Escape does some really neat meta-fictional stuff that ties its game system into the plot in a very interesting and effective manner. It's unmissable for that.

Eternal Odyssey is the game that ripped its title screen from the box of Etrian Odyssey 3 (EO, EO, SAME THING!) and had a character with a Japanese name that translated to Fart City, wasn't it?

author=orochii
Use every RPG Maker you can. Try them for at least 4 minutes and 33 seconds each.

Finally, somebody else who remembers John Cage's RPG Maker games. I knew it wasn't just a fever dream!