If you enjoy what Tales has to offer, but it's just not pushing the envelope enough. I suggest Tales of Xillia. It's characters are written a bit more deeply, I feel there's more variety (like the most badass "old man" character ever in your party), it's fully voiced, so you can be lazy and just watch/listen during skits and cut scenes. The battle system is fast and insanely fun. Like a pretty good fighting game finally makes it into an RPG. And the story, while a little convoluted (typical of Tales games) tends to get a little darker and more intense in my opinion

It's not perfect, but it is one of the best experiences I've enjoyed in a Japanese style RPG in a long time

I'm currently digging back into Persona 4, which is a pretty amazing all-around game. If you still have a PS2 or a Vita, I'd highly suggest it. If not, then I believe they were saying its coming to PSN early next year for PS3 and 4

It has a lot of well developed characters that are really easy to like and invest in, there's a lot of world building and character development and plenty of interesting things to do between story events. I feel that it just has fantastic pacing, you never feel like you're just grinding for plot advancement. There's always something to see or do. Spending time with the characters is very endearing. And the music and visual style are fairly distinct from most other JRPGs. Persona 3 is probably most Megami Tensei fans favorite Persona game, but I think 4 is the best starting point

Also just recently enjoyed my first visual novel which I never thought possible. Its a DS game called 999 (9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors or something). Its very dark and gritty, people can or do actually die, the characters are all distinct, there's puzzle to solve to try to get out and save your own life, and the life of as many of the other members as you can. It never felt too hard or too easy, and the long areas of text and dialog were actually really interesting to read. So it too had pretty good pacing and balance

I also just recently super enjoyed Alien Isolation. I love survival horror games, but they tend to not really make me scared. Probably because most of them have went more towards action, or they tilt the bar too far in one direction or the other. Horrible item management, or cornering you with enemies you're not supposed to stand your ground against and stuff

I never felt that way with Alien. The Alien was invincible, and you had to find as many ways to avoid it as possible. It was so tense and nerve wracking. I was frequently legitimately scared, which is something I experience so rarely in games and movies, I loved it. And it's really well designed in my opinion. The ship is pretty, the tools you find and craft are interesting and useful, and the main character is really well done. One of my new top female video game protagonists now. It also helps that it reminded me a lot of Dead Space, and even though its probably a little old by now, I still really loved that game, and would highly suggest it if Alien interests you but is too pricey or something

Those are my most recent itch scratches. There were also Wasteland 2, Divinity: Original Sin, South Park: The Stick of Truth, Bravely Default, Fire Emblem: Awakening, and Xenoblade Chronicles I managed to super enjoy this past year. But it's been a little while since I picked those up so I can't gush about them with quite the same fervor, but they're definitely worth a look if you're into any of their styles of gameplay. Though for South Park you probably do have to be a fan of the show to enjoy the game

Also I'm not sure what systems you have available, so some of my suggestions may not be very helpful in that regard. But there's a few starting points for you. If you have similar tastes to me anyway