So I was reading all those webnovels lately and they have a very strong RPG feel to them. This (especially Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (Novel)) made me want to play some RPGs.

Requirements are as follows:
- 3rd person view
- character who can grow (level) in a lot of ways
- party (you recruit NPCs to fight alongside you)
- real time combat (or semi real time combat)
- plot\story\etc.
- not an MMO (can be a bit MMORPG-like, but not a multiplayer game)

Extra point for nice 3D graphics. A free roaming aspect would also be nice (you can go to most places at all time, though enemies might might it impossible to reach them).

Things that I think fit:
Final Fantasy XII - the gameplay was mostly spot on;fits in most aspects actually
Seiken Densetsu series on SNES - fits most aspects, though it was 2D

While I prefer PC games, any console up to PS2 and WII will be ok (I expect there should be some games like this on PS2).

P.S. If you read Tate no Yuusha and it made you think of some particular game be sure to mention it.

You should try the Gothic series.

Finished 1 and 2, but I don't remember there being much of a party system/companions of any sort.

There are some quests where you can form a party with some NPCs in order to complete the quest,but you can't maintain a party the whole game.Story wise the games are addictive (at least they were for me).

Dragon Age and sequel (Don't really know much about the third, so I cant say anything about that one)

Tales of...whatever... Guess they all kind of fit, and some of them are definately availiable on the older consoles.

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~4400 manga completed
~1700 ongoing...

Have you played the other Final Fantasys? VII and VIII are the best, IMO. The character and monster graphics are a little... clunky in VII (read: old - it was the first 3D FF made) but the backgrounds are as good as anything you would find in modern animation. Also in the early FFs you can explore the world map, not to the extent of going everywhere but you have a lot more freedom than in the later FFs, and there's way more interaction available with the random non-party member people. Available on PC and PS1/2.

I played all FFs upt to 12. I barely started the first one, couldn't get into the second, I got far in 3, 4, 8, but never finished them and Yuna's smile in X-2 was so creepy that I dropped it shortly after.

I mentioned FF12 because it had the right gameplay. Instead of Random battles, you fought enemies directly on the map. The party participated in the combat all at once (semi real time battles). It had the right camera\perspective too.

Edit: I think I actually have a copy of one of the games from Dragon Age series on my steam account. Gotta check it out.

For real time combat, I would go with chrono trigger, tales of games, and star ocean games. They still have random combat, but the combat itself is interesting. I'll specifically highlight tales of phantasia, tales of symphonia, and tales of the abyss. The tales of series is also pretty keen on character growth story wise.

For rpgs without random encounters, I'll go western and recommend fallout and baldur's gate. Although if you are going to play dragon age origins (the first one), play dragon age before baldur's gate.