Thank you everyone for your great recommendations. I am truly in awe at your knowledge. First on the list are Lufia II and Tales of Phantasia, which I hadn't heard of before this point.
I'm thinking I might also get myself a PS Vita for New Year's. The PSP was well-known for its emulation and homebrew capabilities, how does the Vita compare? I know that lots of great PSP titles are sold through its store
The PSP has a pretty tight kicking homebrew scene. I personally never got into it; I mostly stuck to the sides. As for the Vita, I don't know but in general just be careful with the Sony firmware updates. They have a tendency to brick your system or keep certain apps from playing.
Also I fudged up on my response earlier to you. The Playstation store has a lot of early PS1 classic JRPGS for sale; they're not too expensive but they do make themselves easy to download and play.
I've got $65 USD worth of steam credit, and I'm looking for some good zombie survival games in the vein of Day Z or Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. Any suggestions?
I already mentioned these two games before, they're both pretty good but single player. Also I got another Zombie Survival game so I don't look completely lazy,
Lone Survivor, it's got more elements of psychological horror in it with a 2D look.
There's also State of Decay a single player zombie survival game that uses an interchangeable permadeath character system to scavenge for supplies and manage various base group aspects. Finally there's Rouge Survivor (pick the download link from blogsite) another zombie game but more rougelike, it's currently an abandoned title but for what it's worth there's much fun to be had with its current state: randomly generated city districts, competent AI, city generation and game difficulty editor and various mob entities.
If you're looking for something trippy, try out Middens. There is some combat, but most of it is exploration in a psychedelic setting. It's totally open and quite easy to get lost, but it's fun just to wander and see what you can find in out-of-the-way corners.
There is a plot and story, though, and an ending.
It's looks like if Salvador Dali came back to life to design a video game! Downloading now
Try Space Funeral. It has little combat, is super surreal and it's free.
WTH? Apparently it's only about 30-60mins long... eh why not I'll give a try!
Know there was some flash game a while back I've since forgotten
You're talking about
Caravaneer right? It's a strategic grid tile TBRPG with a supply and demand trade simulator to it based in a post apocalyptic natural disaster world. The first time through it's actually quite fun, second time you already know how to break the game so it's actually even better the second time. Try playing through a second time with just a single Caravaneerer, tis much fun.
There was also a kickstarter earlier for a sequel so keep an eye out for that.