Best JRPGs

[deuxhero]

It's a shame it's the only strategy game from a developer famous for them that was brought to the west.

 

[Hyperion]

Dark Souls is probably the least complex of any major action game in quite some time. It's a great series, but the combat is pretty easy to learn, with a few things being difficult to master. Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry, and Bayonetta are far, far more complex. Let's not even start with builds in DS3. Or worse, Bloodborne...
If you're calling Ys flashy, I really don't think you're very familiar with the series before they started remaking every entry in the late 2000's / early 2010's.

This art style is tolerable, and is 'flashy?' (Note: came out the same year as SoM). Hell, Ys III Wanderers from Ys was still a sidescroller.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2HQ7en65ZY

The OST is also up there as one of the best of the generation. I'd say it's remembered about as fondly as Chrono Trigger, or the SNES Final Fantasies. As much as the art may piss you off, it has one of the more bittersweet endings of a JRPG of that time, save for FF6. Seiken Densetsu 3 was also a top notch sequel with great replay value, allowing you to choose from 3 of 6 characters, each with 4 final classes. It had a differing storyline depending on who you chose as your main character, with 3 different final bosses, as well as the preceding bosses.

As for SoM's difficult, if you spent time grinding out the levels for the girl's and sprite's magic, then heavily exploited elemental weaknesses, yeah, it's a joke. If you relied solely upon weapons and their charge attacks, good luck. Certain portions of the game definitely didn't pull punches and could easily 1 or 2-shot party members if they were hit.

 

[Sigourn]

Dark Souls is probably the least complex of any major action game in quite some time.

It's a manner of speaking. I would say "hard", but it would be doing a disservice to Dark Souls' combat. You can make even the most basic of JRPGs hard, and they will be as basic and simple as ever. Dark Souls is hard while at the same time giving tools to the player, unlike Ys I & II's "ram straight into enemies".

If you're calling Ys flashy, I really don't think you're very familiar with the series before they started remaking every entry in the late 2000's / early 2010's.

I was referring to the PC games: Ark of Napishtim, Origins, and Oath in Felghana.

The OST is also up there as one of the best of the generation.

I never got this praise, to be honest. And it catches my eye since I've seen that praise pretty much everywhere, but I really don't like Ys' guitar soundtrack.

 

[Hyperion]

OST comment was in regard to Secret of Mana, not Ys.

 

[Cudgel]

Seiken Densetsu 3 might be my favourite snes game ever. I remember being shocked that it had so many starting campaigns. Years before Drag-on (for) Ages : Origins.


Beast Kindgom 4 lyfe !

 

[MRY]

The SoM series would've been a lot better if leveling were removed and itemization were more like Zelda. There's really no need for jRPG grindiness in that sort of game, and leveling almost inevitably ruins the possibility of player skill permitting rapid advancement through the game.

Also, the origins thing has lots of prior art examples among jRPGs. SD3 isn't the first or best example.

 

[Cudgel]

The SoM series would've been a lot better if leveling were removed and itemization were more like Zelda. There's really no need for jRPG grindiness in that sort of game, and leveling almost inevitably ruins the possibility of player skill permitting rapid advancement through the game.

Also, the origins thing has lots of prior art examples among jRPGs. SD3 isn't the first or best example.

Thats fair, I think if it had gone that route it would be in my top five of all time, rather then just snes games. As for the other examples, I am not aware of them (or don't remember in any case), please elucidate.



Also I will put some hespekt on your name because you are awesome.

 

[MRY]

Romancing Saga series had origin segments. 7th Saga did. There are some more, give me a minute and I'll think of them...

 

[Cudgel]

Romancing Saga series had origin segments. 7th Saga did. There are some more, give me a minute and I'll think of them...

Ahh yes my brother played those (the Romancing Saga), so I don't have personal memories of them but I did play Live a Live (or some such) which had you playing a caveman and ninja and so on, should have remembered that one at least. My snes years are far behind me.

 

[MRY]

Live A Live holds a particular charm for me (see http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/old-obscure-underrated-jrpgs.84254/#post-2731554), but it doesn't quite qualify as each story is stand alone.

 

[Nostaljaded]

Sigourn
RE: Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Always default to their PC versions if it's available in ENG. Console versions may have cutdown features.

I would recommend you to sample ROTK XI systems & replace 1 of them (maybe VIII?) as across the series, their strategic gameplay & starting scenarios are pretty similar.
For ROTK XI, its strategic & battle layers are more closely-linked while simulating battles on multiple frontlines better.

 

[Sigourn]

Sigourn
RE: Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Always default to their PC versions if it's available in ENG. Console versions may have cutdown features.

I would recommend you to sample ROTK XI systems & replace 1 of them (maybe VIII?) as across the series, their strategic gameplay & starting scenarios are pretty similar.
For ROTK XI, its strategic & battle layers are more closely-linked while simulating battles on multiple frontlines better.

I really wanted to play the "RPG" versions, as I'm not really interested in strategy games. Thing is, I don't know which ones are the best. X seems to be one of the best, but I couldn't get a consensus on which one is the best out of VII and VIII.

EDIT: Only X has an English patch for the PC.

 

[Nostaljaded]

It doesn't matter how you define "RPG". If you qualify 1 of the ROTK as "RPG", then besides the earliest series, all of them can be safely categorised as "RPG".

A good game at least deserved to be tried out, doesn't matter which game category it falls under.
Anyway XI has ENG for PC version.

 

[Sigourn]

It doesn't matter how you define "RPG". If you qualify 1 of the ROTK as "RPG", then besides the earliest series, all of them can be safely categorised as "RPG".

A good game at least deserved to be tried out, doesn't matter which game category it falls under.
Anyway XI has ENG for PC version.

Well, it seems to be popular consensus that VII, VIII and X are the "RPG versions", since you can apparently play as a single character, or something along those lines. But I'll keep that in mind, since I read a pretty cool story by some dude here.

EDIT: Found it.

I don't think they can do better than 11. The open world structure led to so many tactical possibilities and regressing back to fixed battles that don't take place on a larger world map ruin that. I did so much insane shit in 11.

The best game I ever had was as Liu Yu, the dark purple at the very top. You're surrounded on all sides by enemies who are allied against you and your guys aren't nearly as good. I managed to hold out against 2 attacks from Gongsun Zan, the orange, and Yuan Shao, the yellow but I knew there was nothing I could do in the long-term to win in the region; I would eventually get conquered. It was a desperate gamble, but I packed up all my supplies and sent 5 cavalry units south to capture a free city. My armies had to fight through Yuan Shao, Liu Bei, Liu Dai and Tao Qian's territories, along the way getting picked off and destroyed by much stronger armies. When I got to the river, I had to capture Liu Bei's port while Guan Yu and Zhang Fei crushed my weak officers. Then I had to capture Liu Dai's. The battle was non-stop along the way, everyone whose territory I entered attacked me, and my armies were decimated on the way. Officers were captured or killed, and while they made their journey south, Gongsun Zan and Yuan Shao simultaneously attacked my main base. After about a year, I finally made it to a free city and had to attack it. I only had one army left and it only had a few hundred soldiers. My main base had almost fallen and if it fell before I conquered a new one, I would lose. At the last moment, I was finally able to conquer a free city with less than 100 troops and the very next turn, my city in the north was captured. I was able to rebuild in the south and ultimately won the game.

This is something that isn't possible with fixed battles like in RTK 13. I wasn't fighting, I was fleeing. I was trying to get away so I could rebuild somewhere with weaker competition. With fixed battles like every other game in the series, there is one goal for every battle and that's crush the other guy. Open maps like 11 let you set the goals and strategies, though. I can't go back. 11's system is just so much better than any other RTK game's, and it's why I prefer Nobunaga's Ambition games more now.

 

[Sigourn]

Because I wasn't satisfied with my previous list, I decided to do the community a good favor and made a new one. See it here.

I went through many, many threads, looking at what the most common mentioned games were. For the record, those threads are the following:

- Console RPGs that don't suck?
- Non-linear JRPGs
- JRPGs more appealing to the western eyez...
- jRPGs that might appeal to wRPG fans
- Jrpgs with western rpg elements
- JRPG Recommendations?
- JRPGS, where to start? should I even
- JRPGs to begin/explore/understand the genre

And, of course, this thread, as well as the last console RPG voting of the Codex. There are a few threads that I didn't bother taking into account, namely: the one about obscure/interesting/underrated JRPGs, the one about the best S-RPGs, and the one about JRPGs with interesting systems. Why? Because it's digging deep into "who the fuck knows these games" territory, and most of the games that appears in those threads are mentioned by only one or two users. Otherwise, this list would have jumped from 130 to the 200s easily. Instead of that, you have a list of games that are recommended throughout the Codex. So stuff like The 7th Saga is here, but Metal Max Returns isn't. In regards to S-RPGs, the best ones have pretty much been mentioned in this thread: FFT, Tactics Ogre, Shining Force, Langrisser, you know the drill.

Hopefully it will be useful to you guys. Notable games missing from this list:

- Games released on PC that have "great" ports: Valkyria Chronicles, Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen, Souls series, mostly Wizardry-related games and Labyrinth of Touhou, Chinese Paladin, Trails in the Sky series, among others.
- Games that as of this date can't be emulated properly on a computer (PS3, PS4, Xbox, 3DS, PS Vita, among other consoles).

 

[mushaden]

Tempted to download ePSXe like when I was in high school and try Chrono Cross or Saga Frontier. I'll probably just wait till Trails in The Sky 3 is released for PC and try that series while hoping that this impure urge to play a jrpg goes away

 

[Sigourn]

For anyone that emulates: I have my PS2 hooked up right next to me as I type this. I can confirm that Easymode Halation (RetroArch) is the shader that comes closest to my TV. The screen may be curved, but the image certainly isn't. Moreover, there's no weird "glow" effect on it, so it is safe to say RetroArch shaders overdo that "glow" effect that doesn't come anywhere close to the real thing.

Easymode Halation is the best because it keeps the colors of the games mostly intact. That is, BRIGHT. Every other shader darkens the whole image, but right now I'm comparing Vagrant Story and the difference is ridiculous. The game looks much brighter and crisp on my TV than on my PC. By crisp I don't mean "high resolution" or anything, but rather "non-muddy". Most shaders muddy the whole picture.

Since posting comparison pics is pointless (due to how cameras capture light), here are some pics of my brother's 20-year old TV running the best game ever made.

 

[Falksi]

Crikey Sigourn, must have taken some time & effort that list. Cheers for doing so tho, a very handy guide for what I'm after

 

[Makabb]

I think it's safe to say now that Persona 5 is the best jrpg evaaaaaaaaaaaa

 

[Sigourn]

I'm well aware you have to play through hours of a game before making a completely informed decision.

But god damn, Xenogears is such a shit game after 3 hours.

- The combat is boring.
- The random encounters are tedious.
- The music is nothing to write home about.
- The plot is absurdly complicated, judging from Wikipedia.

Having played King's Field, I now have an up-to-date measure of what a good game consists of: a game that draws you in, that you can't stop playing. Xenogears was nothing like that. It's a game that was boring from the start, but I wanted to keep playing since the Codex said it was a good JRPG. Maybe if I replay Final Fantasy games I will notice the games are shit too. But I'm not 15 anymore, and I'm not going to endure horrible gameplay just because there's a good story hiding there.

Especially if that story is as convoluted as it gets, holy fucking shit. Plus judging from the themes the game handles, I can't see it being anything other than a huge disappointment.

Thoughts?

 

[Cudgel]

I think your going to be disappointed by quite a few games on your list then. I am really interested however about what your going to think about the RTK games. They seem like they have some depth on a strategic level. The Ogre and Tactics games I am hoping hold up as well, if they do this might be worth a look; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saiyuki:_Journey_West.

You must Weaboo for our sins, Sigourn !

 

[MRY]

Xenogears is horrible -- the worst parts of jRPGs are hypertrophied in it: the endlessly long cutscenes; the ponderous misuse of Christian and Western imagery (not saying that the same doesn't happen in the other direction with Buddhist and Eastern imagery); the tedious and pointless battles; the lack of any gameplay outside of said battles; the loading times; the nonsensical mix of technology and fantasy. To be honest, there aren't many jRPGs where I would say the gameplay is "good" in the sense of being an interesting series of meaningful tactical and strategic choices, but there are lots of jRPGs where the gameplay has a mindless satisfaction with sufficient low friction as to be a good diversion. Or, at least, it was a good diversion when I was in middle and high school. But Xenogears is the exact opposite. The only possible rewards come from scrupulous engagement with a dumb and arcane plot conveyed mostly essentially uninteractive cutscenes. Bah, humbug.

 

[mushaden]

I thought Xenogears was cool in high school... granted this was around the same time I didn't speak to my family and watched Rah Xephon every night before going to sleep.

 

[Lostpleb]

This is as good a thread as any, I'm coming out of the closet.

3.... 2.... 1..

Spoiler

I didn't think Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure was all that bad

 

[Sigourn]

I think your going to be disappointed by quite a few games on your list then. I am really interested however about what your going to think about the RTK games. They seem like they have some depth on a strategic level. The Ogre and Tactics games I am hoping hold up as well, if they do this might be worth a look; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saiyuki:_Journey_West.

You must Weaboo for our sins, Sigourn !

Which list, though? This one? Or the one with only JRPGs? If it's the latter, I was never going to play through all of those JRPGs anyway. For reference, this is what my backlog console "JRPG" list consists of:

Spoiler

- Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei
- Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II
- Shin Megami Tensei
- Shin Megami Tensei II
- Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne Maniax
- Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey
- Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor
- Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2
- Persona
- Persona 2: Eternal Punishment
- Persona 2: Innocent Sin
- Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3

- Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4

- Final Fantasy (kind of a wish of mine to beat the first game, though I would be playing the Origins release that keeps the magic system intact)
- Final Fantasy V (job system)
- Final Fantasy XII International Zodiac Job System
- Vagrant Story

- Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen
- Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber
- Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together
- Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis
- Final Fantasy Tactics

- King's Field IV (if I muster strength, I will probably return to King's Field II)
- Shadow Tower
- Shadow Tower Abyss
- Eternal Ring
- Dark Souls games are on PC, so...

- Dungeons & Dragons: Order of the Griffon
- Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun
- Elminage Original
- Etrian Odyssey
- Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard
- Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City
- Shadowrun
- Shadowrun
- The Dark Spire
- Wizardry Gaiden 4: Throb Of The Demon's Heart
- Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land

- Way of the Samurai
- Way of the Samurai 2

As you can see, it is a very un-JRPG list. Probably the Final Fantasy games (except Tactics) are the only ones that fit the bill. I liked Chrono Trigger, I liked Final Fantasy VI, VII, IX, X, but I'm nostalgiaing hard and at this point I would wager that the ONLY reason I'm attached to those games anymore isn't because they were part of my youth, but rather, because they have very memorable soundtracks that instantly spring to mind and evoke nostalgia. It's probably why I heavily disliked the minutes I played of Final Fantasy IV: it isn't one of my childhood games, and as such I see it for what it is: anothe run-of-the-mill shitty JRPG with bad pacing, storyline, combat, but that people everywhere praise as one of the greats because they don't know better.

THERE IS NO JRPG THAT WOULDN'T BE A BETTER GAME BY FOLLOWING WESTERN CONVENTIONS AND STYLE.

Unsurprisingly Vagrant Story (best game ever) is a very western title. Just cover Ashley's buttcheeks and cut the bangs from his hair, and it's an instant western classic.

I could go on and on about why I think the JRPG genre is complete shit from head to toe, and I lament the fact I spend so much time forcing myself to like a genre I have simply outgrown.