Hard and ballsy RPGs

undertale
not hard though

It's a joke once you understand that the game's difficulty doesn't revolve around monsters but around maximizing loot collection and shopping; which is done in order to combat the ridiculous stat inflation.

Anyways, there aren't any difficult RPG games post 2000 except for The Last Remnant. If you want difficulty you need to go with mods, but most mods are completely retarded with how they handle difficulty. Most of them do it by either completely changing the game's systems which alters the combat's flow OR they just cheat extra stats/resists on every enemy and call it a day.

Two decent mods that DONT fall into the aforementioned trap is Final Fantasy Tactics 1.3 (link in share thread, the insanedifficulty versions are retarded) and Swordcoast Stratagems for Baldur's Gate 1 and 2.

Grimoire, if you don't recruit NPCs

USA release is not hard if you get good

diablo ii

It kinda sucks that so much of the difficulty rests on your choice of character and sidekick. If you pick a lemon Kamil or pair up with someone who doesn't complement your strength… WEW. And of course it's all slot machine mechanics. The strategy is in noticing that things exist. Secret items, stat buffs.

That map music though…

I remember being freaked out by the chimeras in the first dungeon. I had different feelings toward the sexy snek

Some people mentioned The Last Remant but I want to ask you, does obscuring every mechanic in the game amount to it being a genuinely difficult game? The game itself isn't any more difficult than any random rpg when you know all the mechanics.

You mean like this bullet hell RPG?

DT2 fits your criteria minus deep character progression. It's only on Vita though. Don't let the cute girls fool you there are post game dungeons with 20+ floors that form interconnected puzzles with teleporters and holes all with the simple goal of breaking your sanity.

I've noticed that many games made by Sting have very tightly tuned difficulties. I played an srpg by them called Gungnir on the highest difficulty the game offered me. Managing to beat that game without looking anything up still fills me with pride, every single map felt like a this is a battle im supposed to lose but it wasn't. Sting is a good studio.

OP I think you'd enjoy embed related more.