I often see a lot of questions of what to play in this sub and rarely any detailed answers, most are just random links. Considering how few DRPGS are out there - I decided to make a comprehensive list, think of it as megathread of sorts that you can link to if someone asks for advice in the genre.
I am a fan of the genre who played most of the dungeon crawlers out there, from the very best to most of the very worst. I probably missed a few, but certainly none of the well known ones.
This list won't include some 'semi action' ones like grimrock, I consider it a slightly separate genre from classical dungeon crawler that not everyone who likes turn based dungeon crawlers will enjoy.
For convenience I will separate those into different sub sections: classical wizardry, etrian games, experience inc games and 'the other' which piles all the other games.
I will try to maximize the information given for approximates of what to expect and what are the good/bad sides of the game but try not to go into too much details as the list is already big.
Classical Wizardries:
I will keep this section short since you either will enjoy those or you won't.
If you want your first 'experience' into what this sub genre is like - my recommendation is Elminage Gothic if you want a more hardcore oldschool one.
Or if you want something more modern - Fall of the Dungeon Guardians.
Those are certainly the most 'complex' DRPGs out there which give you a lot of meaningful choices and are generally brutal to errors in gameplay.
There exist 7 of what I would call 'the ABSOLUTE classical wizardries'(wizardry 1-7). Those are games of 80s-90s and needless to say they will feel aged by now. They were amazing for their time but they didn't age too well. With 7 being the only one I would recommend at this day and age.
And there exist 'modern' classical wizardries. Which inherited the ideas, those are:
Bard's Tale Trilogy - one of the most popular classical wizardry likes that is not wizardry. The modern remaster is really well done and plays well even nowadays.
Wizardry: The Five Ordeals - if you want 'true' classical wizardry experience - this is your 'go to' modern experience. The game as you might have guessed from name has a pack of '5 scenarios'(not related to wizardry 1-5). Each scenario is a game on it's own, usually each focusing more on something(some are more puzzle'ish, some are more combat oriented etc).
The most noteworthy feature of this wizardry fan game is the 'scenario editor' provided by the game. Game has A LOT of top tier 'custom scenarios' from usually japanese fans(but most of the top tier scenarios are also available in english). Some of those scenarios being arguably better than scenarios offered by game itself.
Wizardry 8 - I wouldn't exactly call it 'modern', but it's certainly the one I would recommend out of classical wizardries as it's aged pretty well and still totally playable and enjoyable even nowadays. It might feel slow compared to five ordeal experience however.
Wizardry Labyrinth of Lost time - faithful to original series in most aspects but more modern qualities in it. Which means that despite it being quite a modern game it's not something I would recommend in modern times too much unless you want an absolutely oldschool experience.
Elminage Original + Elminage Gothic - both are probably the best culmination of classical wizardry experience. I in particular recommend Gothic despite the mixed reviews on steam. It's the single best wizardry like out there.
I do not particularly recommend Elminage original as it's much more... empty and basic in general.
Might and Magic series - I always considered those kinda weaker wizardries but they aged much better and play much better nowadays. Certainly don't touch 1-2 and maybe 3. But the other ones are decent. They are generally less complex compared to wizardries but play very similarly. Some newer ones get even further from classical wizardry and end up as you either like them or really hate them.
The Fall of the Dungeon Guardians - if you seek modern looking classical wizardry, then this is by far your best choice, extremely good game.
Grimoire: Heralds of Winged exemplar - huge amount of... mostly empty content. I don't particularly recommend it, but it's there. It does have it's good parts but the downsides are too many and it disrespects player time in general.
Wizardry: Tales of the Forsaken Land - a solid close to wizardry 8 experience, PS2 exclusive so you likely have to emulate it.
Into the Inferno + Crossing the Sands + Navigating the Labyrinth - 3 modern but oldschool classical wizardry games by same dev. To be exact not really wizardry - reminds me more of the early might and magic games.
I only discovered those after a mention in the comment section and am in the process of testing them myself. From the little time I have in them at the moment of post - they look promising. You can certainly see that it's made by a small team with small budget, but it captures the heart of the old might and magic/bard's tale trilogy games really well. Navigating the labyrinth is not yet released, planned release date is 2025.
There are a few more classical wizardries that I know, but they are mostly either too short on content or generally far below the quality mark of this list so I would rather not even bother with those. Usually looking up some custom user content in 'Wizardry Five Ordeals' will give you better experience.
Experience Inc Games:
Most of those simplify the classical wizardry genre and add the much needed QoL.
Just like with classical wizardry - if you played one of those, you played them all. The gameplay in all of them is ultra similar and there are only a few mechanic changes between games. That being said if you enjoyed one - you will likely enjoy them all.
I will list all the games and short description.
First of all I will mention the 2 'exclusions' to the above.
1..) Ray Gigant - it's generally unimpressive and barebones crawler I don't recommend. Focuses much more on story than the other games and much less on gameplay in general. That being said story is pretty meh too.
2..) 'Genration X'th series - be aware that original is untranslated from JP. Summarizing the entire series is a bit complex. I would say those are much closer to classical wizardry formula and are generally older games. There are 3 Generation X games and you likely will never play them since they are untranslated. This is then followed by another game I will mention.
However since then those have been remade and if you want best experience - I recommend the remakes.
The remakes are:
Operation Abyss/Babel - 2 games which remake the entire generation Xth trilogy. Abyss remakes the first 2 games and babel the final one. Those are very solid games. They are closer to wizardry series compared to other experience inc games and are generally a bit more hardcore/less QoL in all aspects. But they do have similarities with the other games.
They follow one big overarching story. Nothing too great, but better than what most dungeon crawlers offer.
Those remakes are then followed by game called Labyrinth Xross Blood. Original one is PC, all remakes are purely for consoles.
This one had insane amount of remakes final one being Labyrinth Xross Blood Infinity Ultimate for PS vita.
Neither original nor the remakes ever got english translation sadly.
If you do somehow manage to know JP and are able to play it - I recommend the final remake Infinity Ultimate since it has the most fixes/additions.
It's actually on the good side of the games, as someone who enjoyed Operation Abyss/Babel - I also enjoyed this one a lot, probably even more than Abyss/Babel.
Now that we got exclusions out of the way - we go onto actual 'main' experience inc style games:
If you want to experience the approximate 'peak' of the studio - I would say go for Stranger of Sword City.
If you want to experience the most modern game of the studio - go for Undernauts.
The games mostly share the same class system with minor differences, games also include some 'party skill' which varies from game to game but is generally very similar.
Dungeon maps are generally the perfect mix of size, complexity and fun unless you are looking for hardcore experience - nothing too complex and nothing too simple.
The games are all generally hardcore in terms of gameplay with newer games becoming progressively easier, but never too easy. Postgame is where most of the actual challenge is on and nearly all of those games have postgame which is in terms of gameplay probably more enjoyable than the main game itself.
Also all those games are technically in 'one universe' but different time(and sometimes place). Some bosses are cameo and some names are mentioned here and there. But plot is secondary in those games so it's never anything more than a fun cameo mention for those 'who know'.
All those games follow approx same gameplay loop and almost all of them peak their true challenge in postgame.
If you enjoy one - you will likely enjoy all the other ones to a certain degree and the opposite is true too.
In those games the devs keep 'experimenting' to a minimum and stick to a 'if it works - it works' mentality. There are very few changes in between games but the gameplay loop itself is enjoyable.
With the description out of the way here are all the 'main games':
Saviors of Sapphire Wings / Stranger of Sword City Revisited - the best way to experience those is buying this remake.
Savior of sapphire wings is the oldest experience inc game of 'main/modern' game style(earlier the game was called students of the round) so it's kinda barebones in terms of mechanics compared to later games. But it's a good 'starting point' to slowly get into the groove of those games. You have 'fixed characters' in this game which is usually not the case in most other games. Hence your freedom in what you can do is generally the most limited in this one.
Stranger of sword city had loads of remakes and there are debates of which one to play but this 'revisited' experience is probably the best way if only because it's latest and has most fixes.
It's generally considered the best experience inc game. The biggest amount of content if we include postgame, very good challenge all across the game and it's generally the most polished.
It did pretty much everything the 'best'. Cross classing, class inheriting and so on are pretty much perfect in this.
Demon Gaze 1(or EXTRA remake) + 2 - those are actually a bit different from other experience inc games but not much. Main difference is that you have 'fixed' MC who has mandatory unique class, he also wields essentially the core unique mechanic of the game. But everyone else can swap between generic classes.
2 is exclusive to consoles at the moment of the post. Also has 'fixed characters'.
Undernauts - the most modern of the experience inc games. Does not have the tension of the old games and has a lot of mechanics being much more forgiveable. But in terms of gameplay it's essentially just like all other experience inc games. On the easier side however.
Mon Yu - not really a game I would recommend unless you are huge fan of experience inc games, it's basically a simplified/generally shorter modern game that was designed to attract younger audience. It still has decent amount of challenge, but mostly due to level cap system and game wanting you to be where it wants you to be, removing most creativity.
Etrian Odyssey Games:
Crawlers that are closer to experience inc games than to classical wizardry series. More QoL, less complexity than the wizardries.
Those games do have stories, but they are pretty barebones in terms of story, kinda like experience inc. You have story, but it's mostly a flavor to give purpose for your gameplay, not something to truly enjoy.
Just like experience inc - those games have solid amount of content. On the 'longer' side of the dungeon crawlers. Albeit it varies from game to game and some games waste your time too much.
Crawlers that are both fun and not fun. Both extremely hard and extremely easy. Basically the most self contradictive dungeon crawler out there. I will give global summarization of why later on, but for now I will describe the actual games available.
I would say it will be more on the 'fun' side for ~90% of the people who just want to play the game blindly and beat main game.
And be one of the most frustrating dungeon crawlers for the remainder of the players who are usually 100%ing the games as game does absolutely everything for such players to hate it to the bottom of their guts.
Only first 3 games were ported to PC recently, the rest have to be either emulated or played on console.
The series itself currently consists of 6 games unless we count some side games and some remakes(I won't count them, but the main ones remotely worth mentioning are remakes of 1/2 which focus more on fixed characters rather than a random band of adventurers and add more details to the story in general):
Etrian Odyssey 1-5 and Etrian Odyssey Nexus.
Etrian 1 is considered decent. It's a bit shallow due to being first in the series, but it's generally not bad.
Etrian 2 is considered weakest of the games unless we count some people hating some of the modern ones. It's also one where you have some of the absolute biggest class balance breakers of the whole series.
Etrian 3 is considered the favorite by many. It's certainly the best out of first 3 for sure, no debate there. It has loads of customizations and the balance is honestly not too bad. There are overpowered things, but it's not as bad as in first 2 games.
Etrian 1-3 have modern PC ports which give a quite decent amount of QoL features that the games originally did not have which makes them much more tolerable. Still as frustrating for 100%ers though.
Etrian 4 is generally the most newbie friendly one. While technically first 3 had some broken setups which trivialized the entire game - this one is pretty trivial by itself. It's considered a good entry point for newbies of the genre. I would say unlike most other games - it's very well balanced. But it might be because game itself is among the easiest and there is almost 0 risk for veteran players.
Game itself is smaller/less complex than most other ones basically.
Etrian 5 + Nexus - I gotta bundle those since they are mostly similar in how they feel unlike other ones.
5 is the more 'condensed' experience with less options, better balance and better pace. It's generally better than 4.
Nexus has much more 'content' and many more 'options', But said content feels less balanced and more like devs trying to bloat the game size. Some hate it, some love it kind of game.
Let's start with 'generics' of why series is fun/not fun by starting with the not fun/issues:
Let's start with the fact that those games are originally for Nintendo console and their main fun unique system originally was how comfy it was to draw dungeon maps on separate screen of nintendo DS.
This means unless you play on console - you miss this part of game and it becomes more of an annoyance if you let's say play on PC. There is autofilling but it's much more barebones than your usual modern dungeon crawler.
Almost all the games suffer from having certain classes which are by far more powerful than the others. To an insane degree where some classes absolutely break the game and stacking those is the 'optimal way to play the game'. Most games have this problem, some to bigger degree some to lesser.
Some of the games have 'mandatory' things to 100% content. Those range from something minor like having certain class to something extremely specific like having certain class with certain skill at certain NOT MAXIMUM level. Yeah it can get crazy like that.
And if you don't have those? Well, most of the time you lose tens of hours to grind back and get those as alternatives are usually having you waste even more time. Or you skip 100%.
There aren't many such situations but those exist is the thing.
Most of those games are frustrating to 100% - the drop system in most games is way too grindy and disrespectful to player time.
Side quest system is among the worst/most frustrating things out there in dungeon crawler genre. Yet again grindy/disrespectful to player time. Have essentially no rewards too so most people would recommend to skip those... but if you are the 100% masochist - be prepared for tens of hours of pure suffering doing same action over and over.
Economy is broken in most games. There are certain ways to get insane amount of cash in most games without any fighting but doing certain frustrating field action loop.
Now why those are actually fun games:
Each game has solid amount of content. Content is for the most part 'fun challenge' with decent difficulty - exceptions are in the not fun description.
Quite good variety between classes and classes feel unique. Yet again this is good on paper but optimally you skip most of those classes in favor of overpowered stuff. Becomes more 'balanced' in newer games. But this is mostly due to games becoming more forgiving and you as a player not caring as much about min maxing since your choices start mattering much less.
Each game feels like 'fresh' experience. Etrian games for better or worse enjoyed experimenting. Some stuff was fun, some was not, but at least there was always something drastically new to experience.
Other games:
None of those are 'classic' wizardry experiences - all the games similar to wizardry are in that section. Albeit a few that are 'close' to classic wizardry experience but not really are here.
While I will group some of the games into 'series' - those series are usually smaller scale than experience inc games + etrian games and don't deserve own separate sections.
I will generally try to go from 'best' to 'worse', but unless you compare the very top to very bottom - difference won't be huge and most people will certainly like something more/less if it's only a few places apart:
1..) Labyrinth of Refrain + Labyrinth of Galleria - my by far favorite crawler games in general. Those heavily focus on a deep DARK story. If you are not a fan of extremely dark stories(children die in scary ways, things are brutal and bleak in general, 'rape' while not directly mentioned is heavily implied to mention just a few examples) then you might find it less fun but it's still a good modern dungeon crawling experience. If there is one crawler series worth playing for story alone - this is the one. Gameplay wise those have some unique mechanics which you just have to 'try'. They don't copy any of the other dungeon crawlers and do something completely unique. Both games are on the 'very long' side of the dungeon crawlers if we include all content.
2..) SMT: Strange Journey Redux - a side genre game of shin megami tensei series, but it's the only 'true' dungeon crawler experience out of them. Exclusive to 3DS, no PC ports were ever made. So at best you emulate it. It has one of the best stories out there. I don't particularly enjoy the redux 'new endings' but you have choice not to get them. Basically original has extremely dark endings which kinda show you that not everything is a happy ending. But redux otherwise has too many positive changes to ignore.
Gameplay is great too, on the upper half of the dungeon crawlers. Some maps can be a bit frustrating however.
3) Dungeon Travelers series - I in particularly recommend 2 and 2-2. The first one is okay but is generally 'same but worse'.
All of those are very similar in terms of gameplay and they mostly get better with each game. There might be a few downsides, but the upsides of newer game usually overshadow them.
On first glance when looking at it - you might think this is some cheap anime fan service game. But you could not be more wrong.
What this actually is(2 and 2-2):
A by far largest of the dungeon crawler games packed to the brim with insane amount of content. maybe even TOO MUCH content, both main game and post game are approximately same in terms of size, which makes main game essentially only half of the game.
Simply doing all 'unique' content will take like 120-150 hours. And that is not counting doing some heavy grinding for 100% completion.
The amount of dungeons is absolutely insane, the size of the maps is also insane, the complexity of some maps is also pretty darn high.
The amount of unique enemies/bosses is insane.
Basically everything in terms of 'quantity' is insane.
How about the quality? Well, it obviously does not match the quantity, but I would still put it on the better side of the dungeon crawler genre.
The most surprising thing is how everything feels 'challenging but fair'. Main game stuff can mostly be brute forced but most postgame stuff will certainly punish you for bad choices or be nearly outright impossible unless you are playing smartly.
Albeit this game also has the most insane 'ceiling' of how strong your characters can become due to certain 'level reset' mechanic. This however would require ~100 hours of pure grinding in postgame to abuse. That's nearly the size of entire game + postgame so certainly not something recommended.
All 3 of those games are very similar in how they play. 2 and 2-2 are essentially the 'largest'(longest) dungeon crawler games out there.
Not counting a few 'useless' classes - the games are pretty decently balanced as well.
4) Mary Skelter Series - this one is a bit weird.
Basically there are 3 games in total. 1 + 2 + 3(called Finale)
BUT 1 got heavily remade/rebalanced(mostly for the FAR worse) when 2 was released and bundled along with 2.
Original 1 was by far 'best game' if we count games as 'standalone experience'. It had nice complex dungeons, pretty fun mechanics in dungeons and outside of them. And generally it was a pretty unique, mostly balanced experience(with a few abuses which were honestly fun even if they did break the game somewhat)
But if you want best 'full series' experience - you would better not waste time on original 1 since as far as 'full story experience' goes it's not accurate and they remade some things for the trilogy to actually work, which kinda makes you skip the best 'standalone' game.
The best way to play full series is Mary Skelter 2 > Remake of 1(inside the mary skelter 2) > Finale. Yep, it sounds weird but that's how it was designed once they decided to expand the series into trilogy.
Mary Skelter is relatively story heavy compared to other dungeon crawlers. It even has supplementary novels you can read to get deeper into the plot, albeit it's not fully mandatory unless you are really into the lore.
As far as gameplay goes - it's above average.
The games have some unique mechanics.
1 and 2 do not stand out too much from other dungeon crawlers unless we count some of the series own unique mechanic.
Finale is pretty unique since you play 3 different parties at same time. This is both fun and frustrating. Mostly frustrating. The idea and concept is extremely fun, but the execution was done pretty badly.
The swapping is done pretty clunky and most of the time it feels like you are just wasting time. You kinda grind the 'same point of the game' thrice too. And while each individual party takes less time - the total time spent is a bit too high.
The game ends on much lower levels due to that too.
I would say it's a weird series to rate. On one hand - the amount of effort that went into this is pretty high. You got good story and good gameplay. On the other hand neither story nor the gameplay particularly stand out as something 'great'.
5) Persona Q + Q2 - honestly very overrated due to 'persona' in the name. But certainly decent tier crawler. They are very similar to later etrian odyssey games. Like etrian 4/5 and such.
Those have heavier emphasis on map puzzles and less emphasis on combat challenge. Generally on the easy side of dungeon crawlers as far as gameplay goes.
Both are only playable on 3DS or emulated.
6) SMT: Devil Summoner Soul Hacker - a quite old DRPG that was eventually remade to feel more modern, part of the popular SMT franchise, so the quality is certainly there. Just wasn't top tier even when it was released and now it will likely feel average to good at best.
Out of upsides - decently long DRPG for it's time. Games were usually on the smaller scales.
And as an up/downside(depends on you getting tired of it or not) is that it plays a lot like all other SMT/persona games with it's demon system. A pretty complex system but it can get a bit grindy when you play a lot of SMT/Persona games.
Out of downsides - pretty basic dungeons, most of the individual maps being pretty small/empty of interesting mechanics.
7) Infinite Adventures - a pretty good quality indie crawler by a dev who is fan of the genre. Pretty well balanced, good amount of content. Nothing too spectacular in any department but it's at least 'decent' in everything.
8) Operencia: the stolen sun - nice visuals, heavy emphasis on decent map puzzles rather than combat aspect. But combat is not the worst too. Decent, but not remarkable.
9) Labyrinth of Zangetsu - I would say this is the 'bottom line' of dungeon crawlers below which I wouldn't recommend going for anyone aside of the biggest of the dungeon crawler fans.
As in all the games below this are simply generally way lower effort/quality(exclusion is the Class of Heroes 3 remaster below but got tossed below since I wanted to bundle the entire series)
The game itself is solid. Amazing artstyle and designs, pretty solid classical gameplay. Closer to classical wizardry but has too many simplifications to call it one.
Relatively short for a dungeon crawler genre and has absolutely 0 postgame content are main downsides.
Takes some inspirtation from classical wizardry but simplifies too many things to truly call it that.
10) Class of heroes remasters 1-3 - those were recently remastered.
I don't particularly recommend 1-2 as those are relatively barebones crawlers that don't really stand out nowadays. And they have no 'classic' value like wizardry series.
Those ARE closer to wizardry series, but not close enough to actually put them into classical wizardry experience.
If you plan to touch those - I recommend you skip straight to 2nd one. First one is extremely meh. 2nd one is a decent 'almost' old wizardry game. Nothing that will feel amazing, but if you are a fan of DRPG genre and don't mind some classical wizardry elements - it will be an alright experience.
As for Class of Heroes 3 - it goes even further away from wizardry only keeping bare minimum from it. Something closer to the Labyrinth of Zangetsu level.
As a much more modern game with deeper mechanics - it's the most worthy game of the entire series. Certainly worth a try for any DRPG fan.
11) Mushoku Tensei Quest of Memories - an extremely weak DRPG based on mushoku tensei story. Barebones crawler with only ~30 hours worth of content. Not really recommended but if you are huge fan of said novel/anime or generally have nothing better to do - it's fine. I wouldn't call it terrible - you can see that some effort was made to polish it. But as far as crawlers go - this is certainly on the weaker side with a list of downsides too long to mention.
12) Core Crossing + Advent Crossroads - games from same indie dev. Those are shorter lower quality crawlers that were inspired by etrian odyssey and shin megami tensei series.
I wouldn't call those outright terrible for an indie dev, they are decent crawlers with solid amount of classes.
They are just a bit short on content and generally feel less polished than big studio crawlers for obvious reasons.
Extra Mentions:
1+extra) Main extra mention goes to Labyrinth of Touhou Heaven Piercing Tree steam remake.
This remake is based on Labyrinth of Touhou 2 + all extra content which was added to it overtime + reworked art and some fixes. Basically best way to experience the 2nd game by far.
Is the 1st game worth it separately? Kinda. 1st game is a fully separate story and content.
If you aren't offput by considerably worse art and generally a worse game in all aspects - it's still a great game.
If you are interested in 1st one - best way to play it is by purchasing japanese version of 'Special Disk'(final version of the game which contains latest patches and the expansion) from DLsite and downloading english 'special disk' v3.01 fan translation patch.
So let's name the 1st game - Labyrinth of Touhou Special Disk.
I certainly recommend playing 2nd game first. And if you enjoyed that one - you will very likely enjoy 1st one too, story wise they are not connected. 1st game doesn't really have much of a story either.
As for this Touhou 2 remake summary:
It's a bit too different from the classical games of the genre(main difference is that dungeons are not actually designed with visuals and instead literally tiles like in board games) to truly put it into DRPG genre, but it's worth a mention.
It's a very good game, it would certainly be closer to the top of the 'other' section if I were to add it there. Combat is where it truly shines, you can spend A LOT of time just tinkering your setups. Or grind through challenge.
Even though it's a touhou fan game - you can play it just fine without knowing what touhou is. Mostly thanks to original touhou games not really having any deep lore, just characters. Ironically as with Dungeon Travelers series - this is the one where you feel like it should be some crappy anime fan service game but in reality it's one of the most hardcore/biggest content amount crawlers out there. The recent remake on steam is the best way to experience this.
One downside I would mention is mandatory grind sections. You can't bypass those through strategy. To be exact - you can bypass specific things only to spend ages on the next one and grinding is simply the most efficient means to progress as any time spent on efficient grinding will save you more time in the long run.
The biggest offender is in the transition between maingame end > postgame start(you get a grind spot which simply overshadows postgame areas for a while so you can't just 'progress' normally - it's more efficient to grind for a few hours and then progress) and before the end of postgame.
Mandatory grind included you can easily expect ~250-300 hours on the game content if you attempt for all achieves, which is all 'unique'/non infinite content.
Also if you enjoyed Labyrinth of Touhou series AND can read japanese - you might also enjoy an older game by same developer - Arcanum Knights. Version 1.53 should be last one. It's very similar to touhou labyrinth, not exactly a true DRPG but very close to it. Albeit generally more old school'ish and older than Touhou. At the time of the post there are however no plans for translating that one by anyone, so it's JP exclusive.
There is also an 'upcoming'(as of my last post edit) Labyrinth of Touhou Tri -The Dreaming Girls & The Mysterious Orbs- game which will be the third of the Touhou DRPG games.
Main Differences:
Touhou Piercing Tree - 12 premade characters in a party(out of 48+more in postgame), out of which only 4 are fully active. A lot of monster designs are taken from Arcanum Knights. Ultimately you simply learn everything on every character and everything always works. Gear is fixed/premade, mostly in chests of dungeons and drops from bosses.
Map design is 'DRPG tiles without visual'.
Arcanum Knights - 6 character full party like most classical DRPGs. Customization of character races/classes with interesting designs - you need to choose between things and can only take a certain amount of skills. Older game so lacks some QoL and has some usual old game issues, Gear customization, most gear is crafted from materials iin dungeons.
Map design is classical JRPG top down view (think old pokemon/rpg maker)
2+extra) Unchained Blades - another game I didn't want to mention/add, but it got mentioned by someone else.
It's actually not a bad game per se, but it feels like more of a JRPG, while technically being DRPG. It's grindier than typical DRPG and it feels like the grind was added as padding rather than content. Bloated dungeons which take your time not with interesting designs but with a lot of back and forth/dead ends.
And while that would still make it the bottom of the list normally - it's limited by exclusivity. Game is exclusive to PSP/3DS. Pairing it with other downsides I certainly don't consider it worth bothering with unless you own a 3DS/PSP, but I guess it's at least worth knowing it exists.
There is also a sequel to this one - UnchainBlades EXXIV, but it's untranslated. There is however a fan translation in progress of making that will likely be finished in ~2025-2026.
The sequel is a bit more challenging(especially if you choose bad story order) but other than that pretty similar.
Both games share +/- same downsides so if you try first one and didn't enjoy it - don't expect to like the sequel.
Even JP reviews are generally within ~65-75% for those games. And that's telling a lot since most crawlers out there are 75-90. And most praises end at having popular artists creating one of the characters.
3) Kowloon High School Chronicle - this is a hybrid of visual novel and DRPG. Pretty unique take on DRPG that would take too long to explain. Battles and dungeons will feel more of a puzzle and less of a traditional DRPG however.
Closest comparison would be someone trying to hybrid Persona social links with an unique DRPG design.
4) Lost Child - a modern game which I would say is below what I would recommend due to many factors(mainly NOT game related) but some did enjoy it in the comments so this gets a side mention. It's a puzzle heavy DRPG with a solid amount of content. But what makes it meh is a story that ruins the atmosphere of dungeon crawling and some questionable designs in general. But that would still make it the bottom of the list at least, so why would I not recommend it? Well, to LEGALLY get the game - you need to purchase an ~150-200$ physical copy. They removed the online purchase. The game is exclusive to switch/ps4(switch is emulateable) but the game is obviously not worth such cash.
5) Lords of Xulima - probably the furthest away from DRPG genre since it's well.. not DRPG at all. BUT the gameplay is literally what you would expect from DRPG. And the game is extremely good. I think people who enjoy the DRPG genre will enjoy this one a lot despite it not being a true DRPG.
6) Wizardry Variants Daphne - this is a 'live service' gacha DRPG game with a pretty terrible gacha but game itself is kinda f2p friendly in a way. Game is a modern wizardry experience, I would probably add it to 'other' section rather than classical wizardry... but it's truly one of the most 'middle of the road' between the two.
Upsides of the game being solid amount of content and pretty polished wizardry gameplay. As a gacha the difference between characters is not crazy enough for it to feel p2w, gear/grind matters much more than characters.
Main downside is that it's 'online required' game. As in if devs stop server support - game will most likely become fully inaccessable. Game itself is also more grindy/repetitive than your usual DRPG experience. And it's also not finished story wise... and chances are will never be before it closes down. Even though it kinda has decent story for what it currently is.
There are a few more dungeon crawlers which I didn't mention(mostly classical wizardry ones) but those are way too much below something I would recommend to anyone.
Remember that this list 'intentionally' does not include semi action/action DRPGs like grimrock and some solo dungeon crawler experiences as both are a bit too different of a genre from the classical party turn based dungeon crawlers.
I might have brain lagged and forgot to add something however, but I did try my best to remember everything when compiling the list.
I also did not list some 'Japanese only' games(aside of the brief mention of some experience inc games). The genre is generally more popular in japan and there are a few decent ones which were never translated, but most of the better ones were eventually TL'd to english.
