Dark Cloud (ps2) - split between action segments and city building segments. First game has a cool, creepy atmosphere, second game is more polished. By Level 5 if that intrigues you!

Kingdom Hearts 2 (ps2) - Yeah the story is dumb but it’s unintentionally funny. Combat is sooooo good.

Dissidia Final Fantasy (psp) (duodecium, not the first one) - It’s basically the cutscenes from Final Fantasy but you get to play them! Got a fun fanfiction level story too.

Parasite Eve (ps1) - Cool action horror game. Got a combat system I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone replicate before, except for the one coming out from the Valhalla devs soon.

All these should run perfect on the Retroid! Only other one I can think of is The World Ends With You Final Remix and its sequel on switch. The first is way better on ds in my opinion, but only if you have an actual ds.

What does the J in JRPG mean here in terms of genre? Obviously I know it stands for "Japanese," but usually I associate JRPGs with being turn-based like Dragon Quest, FF, etc. and I assume you aren't saying you want it to specifically be from Japan.

Anyway, you might want to check out Kingdom Hearts, depending on how you feel about Disney.

Try Ys 7 or Crisis Core, both on the PSP!

steambot chronicles maybe?

grim dawn but i don't know if it's on the switch

Pokemon mystery dungeon if you want something also pretty cute.

I’d recommend persona 4, but poor Kanji gets some homophobic teasing throughout the game and his shadow self is his own closet queerness…which is a little…too close to home.

Play Ys I & II for turbografix. I tried it out not too long ago and was surprised by how chill it can be. It’s not very deep or very wide but it’s neat and worth checking out on an emulation device.

Star ocean 1 or 2

Not sure if you've already tried, but I can recommend Dragon's Dogma 2. Finished it very recently myself and the combat is very hands-on and involved, but you can also easily grind levels!

if it's grinding action to watch number go up, Dynasty Warriors (or Hyrule Warriors on switch) might suit your needs perfectly

Terranigma

I've played Symphonia a few times, might be able to help you out with the combat, im guessing theres gotta be something you're missing cause it's not meant to be particularly hard. They dont tell you a lot of stuff, especially without the instruction booklet but that's generally more advanced stuff that only matter later on in the game. How far did you get and what are you having issues with? Off the top of my head, are you going into the menu and telling your casters what spells to use manually or letting them do whatever? Have you set the AI? I usually kept Raine at heal below 25% and sometimes 50% for big damage dealers and Kratos to heal people at 10. You can also go through their list of techs and select which ones the AI can use, that way when say Genus gets better spells yku can make him stop using wussy ones. There is a lot of pausing and doing micro stuff in menu during more major combat. Characters also get different skill trees based on their exspehere setup but you can switch branches whenever, so you can level up and unlock an ability in S setting and then if you want the A path for a different move you can grind with a set of exspheres to do so. Usually getting tech upgrades is fone by using the same move over and over. Doing this strategically for Lloyd can give you some sick combos, Lloyd is a combo guy. So midway with a thought out build you should be able to do your 4 hit standard, do a sword rain into tiger blade and then beast, huge combo and knocks down the opponent.

Im general, I recommend playing with a guide, there is stuff you can miss that then gets locked behind story progession all the damn time

The remake of FF7 has action combat and while I wanted to like the art and play the story again, I can't stand that kind of combat.

Tales of Destiny 2 on PSX has always been super fun and has more actiony battles.

Granblue Fantasy: Relink

I think pretty much exactly what you’re looking for?

I would also say to try and stick with Symphonia it’s so good, but I forget if there are difficulty levels you could switch on it or not. But man what a good game.

More generic suggestions: any souls like (souls, enotria, lies of P, etc.) any monster hunter (rise probably playable), any ARPG (Diablo, Titan Quest, Path of Exile II, Lost Epoch, Grim Dawn), any Tales of games (Symphonia is the best but any are similar)

Hell even stuff like Final Fantasy XV (with DLC so you can play as other characters is solid tbh), dragons dogma I/II, Witcher Series, Bastion, Devil May Cry series, etc.

Edit to add more options:

Something like Kingdom Hearts, Dungeons of Hinterberg, Onimusha series, and I’m sure one of the too many Warhammer games might fit as well. Vermintide 2 I think is free now?

Dark Souls 1 and 2?

Eternal sonata. That is all.

I love the Ys series, and VIII is my pick for the GOAT Japanese action RPG. It's on Switch and the original version was on Vita, although it's missing a significant chunk of content that was added for the PS4 version and included in all later ports.

Have you played Brave Fencer Musashi on the OG PSX? I don't often hear it talked about, but it was lit and might be up your alley