Underhero is a RPG. There is (bad) 2D platforming and an interesting blend between turn based and real time battles with decent amount of player expression, but I find most interesting the writing and scenarios you will find yourself in during the game. You play as an Underling after the Hero has an unfortunate accident after all, and while technically a silent protagonist, all entries in the journal/hint system/to-do list are just brimming with personality.
I swear I first saw this game in list of “Paper Mario-likes”, but I can’t find a single video with that topic that mentions it, and now I realize that it only has like 600 reviews on steam.
Im pretty sure the actual, physical Trading card games like MtG and Pokemon gave us all these games with card mechanics in the late 90s/early 2000s.
Culdcept (1997), Baiten Kaitos (2003), Kingdom Hearts - Chain of Memories (2004). Then the card games weren’t as popular for a bit, then the digital ones died out.
And then Blizzard released Hearthstone in 2014. I haven’t played the other ones to know for sure, but I believe Yu-Gi-Oh Master duels crafting system can directly trace it’s roots to it. Trade cards for dust of a specific rarity, dust from 3 can form a new card, Shiny cards give enough dust on their own for any card, etc. .