>>11946For you I say Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song for the PS2. You can select among the seven characters and have your own starting locations on the world map. You unlock more of the map when you talk to people in town to being in places adjacent to those areas. In various pubs in the towns you can find other characters, could be one of the seven main characters or different characters (like the lizardman Guella Ha).
The game is heavy on adventure though. The game rarely guides you on where you should go to get quests, how to complete quests, or where to go for the quests. A lot of the times it can be apparent that you may have to go to a mountain, but eventually you have to figure out how to get to the top.
The thing is almost all the quests are optional. You can go through the game and miss a bunch of quests or you can stumble around and find a ton of them.
Romancing SaGa is the only video game I've played that actually made it feel like I am going on an adventure. All other games just feel like an on rails adventure in which you are often pushed into the next area. In Romancing SaGa you have to find that adventure because you can easily miss out on it.