So I've been playing the remastered Bard's Tale and I realize the game is popamole on steroids. Dungeons are Skinner rat mazes for me to hack apart all manner of life until I get my pellet of food/level up.
Are there any top tier blobbers that have more focus on exploration and meaningful combat? I'm not a huge storyfag, but some story isn't a bad thing. I've played Grimcock and Wizardry.
Bard's Tale is like the Might & Magic series to me. It's just kill, kill, kill. It's like they're made to appeal to lobotomized dope fiends. I lack the requisite autism to properly appreciate those games.
Top tier real crpg blobbers with content for people with discerning and impeccable taste and their lesser brethren worth mentioning (not for you since most are kill, kill, kill, but for others that read the thread looking for recommendations)-
Might & Magic 10 (MMX) is an absolutely excellent crpg blobber with content - far different than any before it, if you haven't played it you are missing out. Same with Wizardry 8 (Wiz7 is a bridge between the old style and new with better chargen and dev and a decent amount of content). RoA 1, 2, and 3, as well as both Buck Rogers. Wizards & Warriors has weird combat and hitting a bat is based on a timing, but belongs in the same category and is a great game with some issues.
Starcrawler is like a mission based blobber with arpg style itemization. It doesn't give me exactly what I look for in a crpg blobber, but is worth looking into. What it does - it does well.
I would say MM - World of Xeen is comparable to Wiz7 in goodness and content. MM6-8 have even odder combat than Wizards and Warriors, but if you like bad combat that can be gamed (like being able to kill a high level dragon with a level 1 party by circle straffing), and don't mind rpg-lite chardev, these are good games. MM9 I see as being no different than MM6-8, but the people that loved 6-8 hate 9. They'll have to tell you why. Sword & Sorcery - Underworld was good, but lite everything (chargen, dev, story, content).
For oriental blobbers most of them have the same type of gameplay as Bard's Tale 1, and the same extremely rpg-lite systems and chardev. Elminage Gothic is like BT1 squared. It offers nothing but convoluted dungeons and far less story than BT1. Elminage Original at least attempted to give you somewhat of a reason to be where you are and do what you do, but has the same derth of chardev and meaningful rpg systems. I've heard people say these games don't get good until you are in new game +. By this, they mean combat does not require thinking until you put 100 hours plus into it. To each their own I guess.
Strangers in Sword City gave me more hours than most oriental blobbers do. Its a decent game with rpg-lite chardev that has an interesting twist in allowing you to open up skill slots for skills of past classes with extreme grinding.
Most of Etrian Odyssey have good chardev, and lite questing/story, but at their core they really are "dungeon, and more dungeon, and then more dungeon games." Definitely worth at least checking out, but are not near top crpg blobbers like MMX/Wiz8.
Operation Babel games - decent blobbers. Rpg lite chargen and dev, as good as Strangers story/content-wise, but instead of "ambush" areas to get gear upgrades, it has a mats system where you upgrade items like in Elminage games.
I would say also comparable would be the Class of Heroes games. 2 being better than 1. Rpg lite, but blobbers with content. One throws some puzzle dungeons at you right away, where 2 had decent dungeons with lite puzzles for a good while.
(Alice in Wonderland game that came out recently was decentish for me, but like most oriental blobbers it gets very formulaic after a while. I got at least 15 hours out of it, which is really good for me. There are others like Ray Gigant that was too lite to hold my interest).
- Could be really great IF - There are these Shin Migazi Tensue (not spelled right at all) games for handholds and one of them is a blobber that I know of (for the DS, and I think I saw an "enhanced" version of it for 3ds). You enter some sort of demon bubble. This game would have been great for me besides instead of having a real party you recruit demons and merge them to upgrade them. If that type of little kid trite appeals to you, that game should be a blobber you definitely should check out. I didn't get far into it due to the pet recruitment nonsense, but everything else about was really great, and if I could make my whole party like in a real crpg blobber it would probably be listed in the top tier with MMX, Wiz8, RoA 1-3, both Buck Rogers, W&W.
EDIT - I left out Grimoire, which is like a better Wiz7. Too kill, kill, kill focused for the OP, but 100% required for blobber fans.