When it comes to many indie RPGs, they do their best to mimic classics of the genre. Heartbound is an upcoming title where the developers adore retro titles, but wish to improve upon parts which were imperfect.
For example, requiring characters to have stats means that at some point you’re very likely to be stuck grinding. Heartbound takes the approach of turning battles into minigames like you’d see in WarioWare instead.
An alpha demo for Heartbound is currently available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. There’s also a Steam Greenlight page up right now as they prepare to launch a crowdfunding campaign in the near future.