dtgreene: One mechanic that is found in some JRPGs, with Chrono Trigger being the first major use (and the game to give it a name), is New Game +, which allows one to restart the game, but keep their characters, equipment, and stats. (There are a few cases of this that pre-date Chrono Trigger, like Zelda 2 and Dragon Wars, but they're not talked about, and the feature didn't have a special name back then.) (Also, what is kept can vary from game to game.)
So, my question is, are there any modern WRPGs that have this feature, or something like this? (The idea would be to keep the character or party, but reset the world; for example, if the player had to wipe out one guild to become leader of another, this would allow the player a chance to become leader of the other guild due to the resetting or NPC states and quest status.)
I know how you feel about ARPGs, but I haven't seen any turn-based WRPGs for a while (the west is definitely moving more towards action, which I think is a huge mistake, or rogue-likes), so i'll just lean towards things like Terraria where the angle appears to be cross world saving rather than new game, per se, especially with games going more towards procedural generation in the west. This concept sort of leads to the best of both worlds with replayability: newgame+ (through the creation of alternate worlds) while also offering postgame (by sticking to the same world).
The downside is, this is also particularly rare not to associate player characters with the world. On the other hand, everyone's more or less learning that people on the whole are far, far more interested in JRPGs, so alot of western developers are starting to try to copy this formula.
Though, we have to speak to the fundamental problem of your question, and why i'm not expecting many results: unless i'm drawing a blank for bad advertising, the west is largely moving away from turn-based RPGs (unless you're doing one of the obscure roguelikes), outside of mobile games like Raid: Shadow Legends. Your question is specifically asking about modern games. This question is pretty hard as it is without the requirement for "New Game+." I understand you do know some coding, so to this end I highly suggest that if you need money or want this void filled you take a shot at it yourself. I do find it interesting though that your game suggestion request topics continue to get more and more niche every time i see one pop up. I'm going to keep a close eye on this one.
