There’s not enough 2D courses and no intermediate 2D ones from what I’ve seen. Would love to see one that started where the beginner 2D course left off in terms of Unity and C# concepts. Personally I’d really like to see a 2D RPG be the focus of the course going into how to make a scalable dialogue and choice system including showing pictures and names based on who is talking. A questing system. Also stats and skill checks like high speech makes a choice successful for instance. For the combat, a turn based system would be interesting, but if the course could show multiple battle system possibilities as options that would be even better.
Welcome to GameDev Community!
Have you looked into @sampattuzzi’s RPG course and @CodeMonkey’s Turn-based course?
You’re right, most of the material here is better suited to ‘spoon-feed’ the basics to a beginner without going too far off-the-rails.
The RPG courses are considered to be ‘Intermediate Level’ and cover many of the things that you mentioned.
It sounds like you’re more interested in learning techniques, and then experimenting with the techniques on your own to build something largely original. To do that, you really have to take off the training wheels and do a lot of experimenting with new ideas.
I understand that these courses are more 3D based and not 2D, per se, but you shouldn’t have any trouble using what you learn to create a 2D port if you’re an intermediate programmer. You should be able to take what these courses offer and use the techniques to craft your own unique 2D game, even though the courses are written for a 3D audience.
If you’ve done the 2D beginner’s course (like TileVania), then you can use that as a base and incorporate ideas from the RPG and turn-based courses into your TileVania game.
Who knows? You might end up creating the 2D RPG course.
I hope this helps!
The rpg one definitely caught my eyes, but being relatively old and being focused on 3D are just a little too much for me to justify purchasing personally.
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I dunno, there seem to be A LOT of recent 4 and 5 star reviews on both Udemy and GameDev.tv for the RPG courses. People are still finding the information relevant, apparently.
The bundle is on sale now on GameDev.tv for about $41.30 which includes all four courses, which is a steal if you ask me.
Udemy shows that the course has been updated as recently as last month (June 2022):
As for the preference of 2D, well, like I said, that would be your challenge as an intermediate programmer to modify the course content to suit your own needs.
I’ve personally taken part of this course and I really enjoyed it (I lost my progress due to a HDD crash). I’ll get back into it after I finish some of my other courses.
That said, it is a top-down view, it’s just got a little 3D perspective on it but that could be easily changed to 2D by changing the camera position. The assets use 3D models, but you could just as easily put the camera directly overhead and use Sprites instead. 
Anyway, it’s your choice, your time and money. But it is still a very popular and relevant course that covers most everything you’ve mentioned in your OP.
Well, if you’ve taken part of the course, maybe you’d be the right person to ask. How different are Unity, I believe 2018 from the course? and the most recent version? Is there a lot of finding where things are that used to be in a different place? Are there many features that have been added since that would be helpful for the systems covered? To be clear, my only experience with unity really so far is the beginner course, what I’m looking for it something that takes the things taught in that course and continues to more advanced concepts, so is the course good for that?
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Believe it or not, I don’t think I’ll have the best answers to your questions, but I’ll give it a shot.
I’m currently using Unity 2021.3.5f1 which is fairly recent. I’m using it for pretty much everything I’ve been working on lately. At the time I was taking this course I was using whatever the current version was, but I don’t recall any major differences between now and then.
There may be some things that are in different places, as you mentioned, but if you’ve already done the old 2D course you shouldn’t have any issues figuring out those changes. Plus, there is also this forum and the Discord if you have questions.
That said, I just recently redid the Number Wizard and Text101 courses with no issues at all, and those came out before the RPG course.
If by ‘features added’ you mean Unity features, I haven’t noticed a difference.
If you mean RPG game features, I wouldn’t know specifically.
I had just finished Argon Assault and I was working on both Realm Rush and the RPG course at the same time when my computer crashed. Then I found a job opportunity locally for a JavaScript/React Native developer so I took a year away from Unity to pursue JS and React. I’ve just recently gotten back into Unity and started all over again. I haven’t re-started the RPG course yet.
What I CAN say is that most of the games are designed for beginners, which is why they are very simplistic. You’ll need to take what you learn from one game and apply it to another to expand your capabilities.
For example: You can make a game ‘similar to’ “Kyle is Famous” using what you learn in Text101, but if you want to really replicate a game like “Kyle is Famous” you’ll need to move beyond Text101 and learn how to make buttons as in Number Wizard UI. Then you can put go back and put those buttons in your Text101 game so you won’t have to use the keyboard keys anymore.
Similarly, you can combine the skills you learn from TileVania and the RPG course to make a 2D overhead RPF with quests, shops, inventory, etc…like you described in the OP.
Like, your first few games don’t feature any music, but after you learn how to add music to your game, you can use the same techniques to put music into your older games, too.
If you consider the possibilities of ALL of the techniques taught in the courses, you’ll see that you can mix and match a lot of techniques from various student games to make something that is truly expressive and unique to you. It’s good practice for going off-the-rails.
It’s really no different than taking the 2D Sprite course so you can make your own game objects for your 2D game. You just gotta mix and match what you know. I hope this makes sense.
Well, thank you. I’m still not sure about the course, but I’ll give it some more consideration now. Even the bundle price is a little pricey for me, but I’ll be thinking about it.
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You’re welcome. I don’t make a dime off of anyone buying the course, but I think it is just as good as any of the other GameDev courses I’ve taken, for what it’s worth. Ultimately, you know what is right for you. 
That said, the sale price for the bundle currently being about $42 USD is like getting four courses for $10 each, but it also depends on your income.
I bought these courses when I had the extra money, but right now I’m looking for a job so I wouldn’t buy them at the moment either because I couldn’t afford them right now. 
Also, you may not be an adult with a job and extra income. For all I know, you might be 15 years old and not have the extra money like I was when I was 15 years old. How would I know?
It wouldn’t be fair for me to assume anything about you or your circumstances.
I actually finished those courses over the last year and i don’t think I’ve had any other tutorials come close to the amount of content.
Tons of awesome coding practices and i added the dialogue and quest system into a 2d game i was playing with, it worked beautifully and was very “choice focused”.
I’ll also add that the TA Brian, feels like he doubles the course content answering questions, adding on features and adding editor improvements.
For 2d specific there is a channel “game dev experiments” who is doing a pokemon clone on youtube, and while its excellent, i am very glad i did the RPG courses first.
Cheers.