Dark Chronicle is fantastic, playing it right now again on PS4 and I'm having as much fun as when I played it the first time.
It's a relatively slow Action RPG with mostly one on one fights in randomly generated dungeons. Each enemy does a different couple of moves and has different weaknesses. They're relatively easy to beat, but there are some difficulty spikes where you have to be careful (defend some more). You can fight as one of the two main characters or as their 'special forms' which is either a mech or as a monster. Each has their pros and cons and a different fighting style. Both main characters have two weapons, ranged / close.
You don't walk around on an open world map, but there are like 8 or so very different regions that consist of a town, a dungeon, a 'town building area' and / or a 'future town area' In a region the parts are interconnected. You move from region to region by selecting them on the world map.
By building the town or buildings of the town building area (present time), you change the future. Building blocks are found in the dungeons. There's weapon crafting (upgrading weapons, elements of weapons, crafting new weapons), optional golf minigame, optional fishing.
Until this game back then, I mostly played turn based RPG's and this one introduced me to action RPG's.
