Last Days of Summer Sale: More Picks from My Personal Wishlist
I promised I’d be back with a second round of recommendations for the Steam Summer Sale. Last week, I highlighted 12 picks under ten bucks, including a few hidden gems you might have missed.
This time, the list is a little wider: I’m covering both heavily discounted AAA blockbusters and standout indies, weighing each choice for both price and quality. The following are 15 RPGs and JRPGs you should not miss, but hurry, as the discounts end on July 10, 2025.
In the last article, I recommended Final Fantasy X; this time, we’re kicking things off with another timeless gem from the franchise. Final Fantasy IX, freshly discounted by 70 percent to about six dollars, remains one of the most approachable entries in the series, its four‑character Active Time Battles and gear‑based skill system as charming today as when the game debuted in 2000.
The Windows build from 2016 adds HD character portraits and autosave, but keeps every emotional beat of Zidane and Garnet’s adventure intact.
From distant nostalgia, we step into hard sci‑fi with Colony Ship, half off for the sale. Iron Tower’s 2023 full launch strands you on a generation ship where faction politics, low‑resource combat, and brutal skill checks create a grounded, choice‑driven CRPG in the spirit of Age of Decadence, only now with tactical turn‑based shoot‑outs down dim cargo corridors. Just18 dollars.
For anime spectacle, One Piece Odyssey slices its price in half ($9), letting you guide the Straw Hat crew through an all‑new story that revisits Alabasta, Water Seven, Marineford, and Dressrosa, sprinkling brand‑new villains and puzzles into familiar arcs so longtime fans and series newcomers alike can sail in worry‑free.
Its Scramble Area battle system mixes positioning and cinematic team attacks, making every fight feel like a mini‑episode of the show.
If you prefer dread to joy, Fear & Hunger (and its sequel Termina, 30 percent off) blends survival‑horror tension with merciless limb‑targeting combat and roguelite runs that rarely end happily. Solo developer Miro Haverinen’s oppressive pixel art and occult lore reward the brave, or the foolhardy, prepared for genuine horror. Only 4 dollars for the first chapter.
Another great franchise from the past is Langrisser I & II, which carries classic Mega Drive tactics into the modern era with a 70 percent cut ($14). The 2020 remake sharpens visuals, streamlines menus, and preserves the series’ signature commander‑aura mechanics that encourage large‑scale flanking over small‑unit skirmishes.
Multiple branching routes let you ally with or overthrow imperial forces, and the built‑in rewind feature makes experimenting with large‑scale flanks painless, ideal for newcomers curious about the series’ Fire‑Emblem‑adjacent DNA.
One game that regularly sees a steep discount, and always deserves a shout-out, is The Last Spell. With half the price ($9), Ishtar Games’ worthy strategy drops you into a pixel‑art bastion besieged nightly by thousands of demons.
Between waves, you draft perks, craft gear, and redesign walls in a desperate roguelite rhythm that sits neatly between tower defense and X‑COM.
Speaking of X‑COM lineage, The Lamplighters League channels pulp‑era heists and turn‑based tactics at 50 percent off ($24). Real‑time infiltration flows seamlessly into grid combat, and each 1930s rogue sports personality‑driven abilities that deepen as you juggle stress and injuries across a globe‑trotting campaign.
This game didn’t have the smoothest launch; bugs and rough edges held it back, but today, Harebrained Schemes’ title delivers a solid and engaging experience.
Back on JRPGs, there’s Bravely Default II, which is down 60 percent ($23), making its risk‑and‑reward Brave/Default system easier than ever to sample. Job‑mixing depth, a sweeping Revo soundtrack, and a chunky art style recall the comfort food of SNES‑era RPGs with plenty of modern spice.
Sticking with JRPG-style battles, there’s an intriguing monster-catching RPG that deserves a spotlight.
I’m talking about Cassette Beasts, now 50 percent off ($9), which lets you roam a pastel archipelago recording monsters to old‑school tapes. The fusion mechanic, combining any two captured forms into unpredictable hybrids, turns team‑building into a creative playground, whether you’re chasing competitive builds or just goofy combinations.
Plenty of games these days borrow mechanics from Atlus’s masterpiece Persona, but the team behind Bloomtown: A Different Story stirs in several extra ingredients.
It marries monster‑taming JRPG battles with 1960s Americana. By day, you befriend townsfolk; by night, you dive into their subconscious realm, the Gloom, to fight inner demons. Persona‑flavored dungeon‑crawling pairs with Stardew‑style social links and EarthBound humor, while decisions during conversations shape both powers in combat and the overall town vibe. 50 % off ($12)
Down the timeline we go to Tactics Ogre: Reborn, sitting at a 60 percent markdown ($19). This definitive edition of Matsuno’s 1995 masterpiece upgrades AI, adds extensive voice acting, and abolishes level capping so you can experiment with every class while wading through Yasumi Matsuno’s famously branching, morally gray war epic.
You can probably tell I’m a huge JRPG fan, so my next pick has to be Dragon Quest XI S, which keeps the classic JRPG heartbeat strong at 50 percent off ($19).
Whether you stick with its lush cel‑shaded 3D or flip to the built‑in 16‑bit mode, the game balances pure turn‑based pacing with quality‑of‑life touches like speed‑up and visible encounters, all wrapped in Koichi Sugiyama’s orchestral score. The Definitive Edition epilogue adds fifteen hours of new quests and party epilogues, an unmatched value for newcomers. One of the best JRPGs ever, you should not miss.
The next game on the list might not be on everyone’s radar, so it definitely deserves a mention. Fae Tactics, a tactical RPG, that dives into elemental combos and pet summoning for under six dollars, thanks to a 70 percent reduction.
Endlessfluff’s vibrant pixel art hides a deceptively deep tile‑based ruleset where manipulating turn order and terrain is more important than raw stats. It’s relatively short, around 20 hours, but New Game Plus increases level caps and enemy variants, delivering a compact tactics fix without the bloat.
And we’re heading back to the West for the final two recommendations in this article—expeditions: Rome at 67 percent off ($14). Logic Artists blends CRPG conversation trees with hex‑grid skirmishes and a broader meta‑layer where you manage an entire legion. Choices ripple from the Senate floor to the sands of North Africa, inviting multiple playthroughs.
Closing the list, Wasteland 3 drops up to 60 percent ($16) on its Digital and Colorado Collection. InXile’s post‑apocalyptic epic RPG tests tactical chops with environmental hazards, precision targeting, and branching storylines that remember whether you solved problems with bullets, bartering, or bare‑knuckle charisma.
Three DLCs add cult showdowns, custom vehicles, and an entire Cheyenne Mountain end‑game bunker, making the discounted collection the best jumping‑in point for Ranger recruits.
With these discounts live until July 10, you’ve still got time to pick a favorite RPG and make this summer even better. Wishing you a great day. Ciao
