I’m looking for RPGs to play with friends where each player has different roles and you need to cooperate to progress.
We tried playing MMOs but my friends won’t play on their own so they don’t work (especially with ffxiv as the msq is not at all “coopable”); the subscription would also be a dealbreaker. Do you know of anything with similar gameplay that is playable entirely in coop?
We enjoyed Monster Hunter World (but not Rise), although there’s not much actual cooperation as there are few interactions in combat.
The only game I found that seems it might be what I’m looking for is the original Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, but we can’t get it to work online (dolphin randomly freezes with netplay).
Tales of Vesperia was always a favorite couch co-op RPG of mine. With the Steam release, you can even play the game remotely with everyone via Steam Remote Play Together. It’s not an MMO, and the exploration is single player, but up to 4 players can control the party members in battle. The only major gripe I have with the Steam version (applies to all versions of the remaster) is that if playing in English, some of the voice work that was added in to the remaster is noticably inconsistent with the original dub, since there was about a 10 year gap between recordings. But if that’s not a deal breaker (can always opt for Japanese audio), I’d definitely suggest it.
I was actually playing it and had no idea it was playable in coop. Depending on how well remote play works it could be a good choice. Thanks.
The player with the highest upload speed and most stable connection should be the one running the game on their machine. You could use Steam’s family feature to create a “family” and share the game with the friend with the best Internet connection so that they don’t have to purchase it.
Note that some games explicitly block family sharing (usually titles that have their own launcher). I haven’t checked if this applies here.