You might enjoy the Dark Cloud games on PS2. You go through dungeons to gather pieces of towns. Outside the dungeons, you put those pieces together to rebuild the towns. You can then traverse the towns and talk to the townspeople in real time. Shop from them, do small sidequests, and fulfill their remodeling requests. Your towns grow larger and larger as you gather more pieces. It's definitely involving.Xangba said:Managing a keep, or town, or what have you, actually being able to see it grow, being able to interact with the people, and staff, and guards, and defend it, with that RPG aspect where I'm down there with my own character and growing with it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Cloud
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Chronicle
You also do much of what you describe in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActRaiser
Also, SoulBlazer to an extent:The overhead-view simulation mode involves protecting and guiding the Master's new civilization towards prosperity, beginning with two humans. This portion of the game requires the player to take actions that encourage the growth of the population, including road planning and using lightning, rain, sunlight, wind and earthquakes as miracles. The Angel can interact with the monsters in the area by shooting them with arrows as well as aid the Master by indicating where to build and use miracles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_BlazerThe player frees a series of towns by fighting monsters in traditional dungeon crawl battles. Destroying monster lairs in the dungeons causes a soul belonging to a former town occupant to be liberated and reincarnated. This is often a human, but it could be anything from a dolphin to a talking tulip. As souls are freed, the town is reconstructed around the people. The new town occupants give the player advice and items. When the player defeats the boss monster imprisoning the soul of the head of each town, the area is cleared and the player can continue. After the hero frees the first six villages, he is granted access to the "World of Evil", where the final villain awaits.
That's all that's coming to mind for me right now.