Any jrpgs i should play?

[laclongquan]

jrpg huh?

Parasite Eve 2 (not 1). It has good visual, good story, and good gameplay. Tryhard around here like to promote 1 but its graphic is at FF7 level, ie blocky as fuck. PE2 is kinda like Resident Evil but with stronger rpg factors like level system, skill, xp, loot, etc... Its horror element is pretty weak, but then, PE is never about horror. It's somewhat of a niche game, but very good.

Kessen 3. It's a weird quirky game the way Japanese like to make. Strategy layer, combat layer the like of King Arthur or Shogun, but with many rpg factor like xp, skill, equipment, named commander. Storywise, it's a heroic look at Nobunaga Oda, the devil king of Japanese fame, so in a way it's a new look.

 

[Jacob]

I don't follow the game, but how's Persona 5 compare to the mainline SMT games? I heard it has demon negotiations...

Sounds like an but not sure

 

[Night Goat]

ARPG:

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams
Parasite Eve 2
Dark Souls
Dark Souls 2
Dark Souls 3
FF7: Dirge of Cerberus

Turn-based:

FF5
FF6
FF7
FF9
FF10
Golden Sun 1+2
Koudelka

RTw/P:

Vagrant Story
FF12

sRPG:

Final Fantasy Tactics
Tactics Ogre

All have decent to great gameplay and no/minimal anime art style as a personal rule. Additionally, only a couple will be of no interest to a storyfag. These are primarily the Castlevania games, Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams and FF7: Dirge of Cerberus. Maybe the Dark Souls games too. Basically everything under ARPG except Parasite Eve 2...which doesn't exactly have a great story either, but it's still certainly interesting.

If you call Dark Souls a JRPG you're dumb enough to be a Codex mod.

 

[Reinhardt]

How do they compare?

First Mana Khemia is best GUST game.

 

[Ash]

If you call Dark Souls a JRPG you're dumb enough to be a Codex mod.

The dumb motherfucker here is you. Dark Souls is a Japanese RPG. Literally. The design is also very Japanese through and through. It's a logical evolution of Kings Field (a JRPG from 1994) and tons of other old school JP games. Whoever it was that originally asserted that JRPGs are exclusively top-down turn based simple linear cutesy games was also retarded. That's like saying all WRPGs are Wizardry and Ultima and didn't evolve and branch out. You can't have these dumb pants on head double standards just because it suits your narrative.

 

[Delterius]

Don't play any Tales of game for God's sake.

 

[Jack Dandy]

I recommend the Souls games, of course. Each one is a fantastic dark-fantasy romp with satisfying combat, exploration, and multiple viable character builds.

And beyond that- Do yourself a favor and check out any Falcom game that comes to the west.
They've been around for ages (Basically since the beginning of the Japanese videogame market), but only really became a major force in the west since Xseed's started localizing more of their catalogue.
Specifically, check these out on Steam:

The entire Ys series- fun action ARPGs with great music and simple, but very fun combat.
Xanadu Next - Basically a combination of Diablo and a Metroidvania (No random dungeons, but a big, intertwined and tightly crafted game world). Through dark Japanese magicks, they've managed to make Diablo-style combat into an enjoyable affair.
Trails series- A more classic, turn-based affair. Interesting game world, loveable characters, and pretty good combat system. Check out Trails in the Sky series, and Trails of Cold Steel. (Zero and Ao will probably arrive via fan translations sometime in the future).

 

[Reinhardt]

Don't play any FF game for God's sake.

fixed

 

[Delterius]

Don't play any FF game for God's sake.

fixed

Final Fantasy: Tactics is the best Final Fantasy though and that's worth a playthrough.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

v1rus
Recommendations from http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/good-jrpgs-on-the-ps2.115467/ for the PS2:

Spoiler

I don't like much Jap wierdshit myself; for the PS2 here is my recommendations:

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne - Excellent setting, atmosphere, music and challenge with very fun mechanics (monster fusion for party members; skill progression for MC). A bit grindy game-play, but otherwise superb.

Digital Devl Saga 1 and 2 - Finished Nocturne? Want something similar? Almost as good as nocturne with more forgiving game-play mechanics.

Jade Coccon 2- Think Pokemon; but darker with its own hooks.

Breath of Fire IV Dragon Quarter - good setting and fun gameplay.

Shadow hearts 1 and 2: 1 and 2 are very solid; with 1 having the best setting and atmosphere in the series and 2 having a bit more interesting mechanics. Play 1 and 2; then ignore the existence of 3.

Eternal poison: Best strategy RPG ever. To get the full story you need to play from multiple protagonists. Each protag has his own team of recruit able uniques; every protag can recruit generic party members. There is no grinding; so can be very challenging if you fuck up your team.

Play these and then move on to the other recommendations as they have more weaboo.

Oh and stay away from Star ocean 3. I loved Star Ocean 1 on SNES and Star ocean 2 on PS1, but Star Ocean 3 on the PS2 is like Fallout 3 and Oblivion; perhaps worse.

Recommendations from http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/any-good-challenging-jrpgs.113469/ :

Spoiler

Dark law Meaning of Death
for Super Nintendo (its jap but eng patch out there) Super difficult jRPG. TB.

Eternal Poison
for PS2. Its sRPG with no grinding, so you can fuck yourself up pretty bad if you ignore leveling a well rounded party. TB.

Fire Emblem Series on the GBA.
Two titles out in english (another two in jap with eng patches). Quite Difficult srpg with TB combat. Similar deal with Eternal poison. Haven't played the alter ones on DS/3DS and heard some of them are shit; but the GBA ones are stellar.

7th Saga for SNES
Very tough jrpg.

SMT III Nocturne for PS2
Insanely tough if you go for one of the endings. Reasonably tough otherwise.

SMT Digital Devil Saga I and II for PS2
Decent Challenge jrpg similar to Nocturne.

Phantasy Star II (in Phantasy Star Collection for GBA. You get PS2 and PSP versions as Sega Genesis collections too IIRC)
Very Tough.

Breath of Fire I - III
Decently Challenging jrpgs.

Baten Kaitos
Card based battle system. Very Though sometimes.

ALL TB. Most are quite tough.

From this thread http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/jrpg-recommendations.113242/

Spoiler

Golden Sun and Golden Sun 2 on the GBA. Traditional JRPG combat. But you can catch djinns! Equipping different Djinns to your character gives them different stats/spells. Quite Good. There is Golden Sun Dark Dawn on the NDS, but never played that.

Fire Emblem and Fire Emblem the Sacred Stones on GBA. Fire Emblem:Radiant Dawn on Wii. IT is a strategy RPG where you can recruit tons of characters. TB battles and all weapons / spell books have limited durability. Very fun. Note that I haven't played Radiant Dawn yet.

Atelier Series. Titles can be found on NDS and PS2 among others. Fun time management/slice of life jRPG with TB combat.

Disgaea DS on NDS and Disgaea 2 on PS2 or PSP. Strategy RPG with very fun mechancis like lfiting/throwing, master/disciple, reincarnation and senate. Lots of recruitable unique characters or creatable human/monster characters. MC is fixed though.

Grandia on PSX and Grandia II/III on PS2. This is another fun jrpg. Combat is TB with time units kind of thing. Weapon skills/ spells level up by use. and combination of different weapon / spell levelups give special skills. Very fun combat. Haven't played Grandia 3. Highly recommend Grandia though.

Jeanne D Arc on PSP. Strategy RPG in medieval European setting. Quite Good.

Star Ocean on SNES (and its remake on PSP) also quite good. You can spend skill points to customize your characters. Recruitable party. The SNES version plays like a TB game but has a clock running and game pauses when your turn comes.

Star Ocean 2 on PSX/PSP. has real time combat on a 2d battle screen. And Star ocean 3 is a piece of shit so stay far far away from it.

The Legend of Heroes Series on PSP. The Legend of Heroes : Trails in the sky out for PC too. I found the characters in trails in the sky a bit annoying. but trails in the sky has a good gem/magic system along with TB tactical battles.

Eternal poison for PS2. This is one of my favorite strategy RPGs. There is no grinding/repeatable battles so it is difficult. To get the real story you have to play through multiple player characters. Each player character has his own unique party members and gets a different view of the plot. All MCs have with generic class based recruitables.

Final Fantasy Tactics (on PSX / PSP) / Tactics Ogre (SNES / PSP) / phantom brave (PS2/PSP) are strategy rpgs. Out of these 3 storyfags should definitely play the PSX version of Final Fantasy Tactics. Tactics Ogre is more strategy side but very good none the less. Phantom Brave is inferior to disgaea but still fun me thinks.

Elminage Original and Elminage Gothic on the PSP. Wizardry like Dungeon Crawler. Fucking Awesome. TB Menu driven combat. Gothic on PC too.

Breath of Fire 1-3. Standard jrpg but you can turn into a dragon! (3 on PS2 others on SNES) 3 has fun little touch of masters. your player can accept an npc master to elarn new skills and influence player stats.

Breath of Fire 4 on PS2 is different from other breath of Fire series games. your dragon powah is a curse. You get OP if use dragon powah, but it eats your life. Use dragon powah too much and its game over. Oh and mindlessly walking around too much also minutely fills your curse meter (but can be mostly ignored if u use dragon powah only in boss battles)

Bahamut's Lagoon on SNES. it is a strategy rpg. where you move small parties around a map. final combat is jrpg TB. Think of SMT Devil Survivor types combat. you have pet dragons and feed your dragons anything to influence their stats and evolutions. Oh the female lead is a total bitch, and PC's mentor tries to show homo love. Lots of different classes and really fun gameplay otherwise.

Earthbound for SNES. JRPG with a lighthearted story.

Lufia / Lufia 2 on SNES. Fun JRPGs.

Tales of Phantasia on SNES. Battle screen is realtime 2D and actually works decent with controllers. You can give it a try.

Also among the titles recommended, I would second SMT: Nocturne, SMT: Strange Journey, Legend of Mana, Final Fantasy, 7th Saga (but use one of the 7th Saga+ hack in that case or its very annoying), Etrian odyssey II (and II and I), Seiken Densetsu 3, Dragon Quest 9, Suikoden Series, Infinite Space. haven't played rogue galaxy, vandal hearts, brigadine or Arcana but looks fun.

Thats all i can recommend form the top of my head. Not all of the recommendations satisfy all your requirements but they are good jrpg titles anyway.

One Exception is Elminage Gothic / original which have character creation and fully customizable party and very good exploration but they are wizardry style dungeon crawlers.

Also there is a obscure little jrpg on SNES called Robotrek.

You start as a boy genius and can build and customize upto 3 robots to fight for you. good fun.

That should tide you for a while.

 

[Delterius]

^Only game I'd add in the PS2 section is Soul Nomad, which is often overlooked. Any animu you can replay and thoroughly torture all the animu characters who accompanied you is legendary in my book.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I don't follow the game, but how's Persona 5 compare to the mainline SMT games? I heard it has demon negotiations...

Sounds like an but not sure

It's got a helluva lot more story and the dungeons feel more... structured? Scripted? Hard to describe. It takes awhile before the game takes the leash off and actually lets you play it. Combat is pretty fun though and demon negotiation is actually strategic, because you have to exploit the press turn system before you can negotiate with them.

Basically it comes down to whether or not you can stand Japanese Kids in Fucking School. I loved Persona 3 and 4 but Persona 5 brought me to my limit. It's got more yammering in the prologue than the entire game of SMT Nocturne AND Digital Devil Saga put together.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Nobody mention SaGa Frontier yet? Very cool game, most of the characters have a pretty open world to go through, awesome combat/leveling mechanics that vary totally by race (as an example, mech's stats are based entirely on equipment and never increase with experience, while humans can learn new skills in the middle of combat as an inspirational moment.)

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Nobody mention SaGa Frontier yet? Very cool game, most of the characters have a pretty open world to go through, awesome combat/leveling mechanics that vary totally by race (as an example, mech's stats are based entirely on equipment and never increase with experience, while humans can learn new skills in the middle of combat as an inspirational moment.)

I like the PS2 Romancing SaGa remake, it's more hardcore than 99% of the RPGs you'll ever play, for any platform. But it's hard to recommend to someone who's been away from the genre for years.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

It's got more yammering in the prologue than the entire game of SMT Nocturne AND Digital Devil Saga put together.

Different series.
Personas since 3 are all about yammering and sucking the next kid's dick to establish a social link. SMT and DDS are more about murdering demons.

Speaking of which, I'd recommend SMT1.

 

[Delterius]

It's got more yammering in the prologue than the entire game of SMT Nocturne AND Digital Devil Saga put together.

Different series.
Personas since 3 are all about yammering and sucking the next kid's dick to establish a social link. SMT and DDS are more about murdering demons.

Speaking of which, I'd recomment SMT1.

Speaking of which, Persona 2.1 is crazy enough that it warrants a playthrough.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Persona series is dumbed down stuff with an extra large dosage of weaboo.

I mean persona 1, persona innocent sin and persona 2 were alright. I cannot into 3 and 4. never bothered with 5.

original SMTs OTOH is ; Nocturne is my favorite among the three pure SMTs.

Only SMT spinoffs I actually enjoyed are the Strange Journey for DS and Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2 for PS2.

Should be able to play SMT 4 in a couple of years if Citra development keeps up.

 

[DragoFireheart]

I don't consider any rpg a real cRPG or jRPG unless the combat is turn-based.

If it's not turn based it's a hybrid action/adventure rpg.

 

[Vincentdeboule]

If your favorites are TRPGs go play Der Langrisser or Langrisser IV. Cools games with great C&C.

 

[Jacob]

Don't play any Tales of game for God's sake.

Tales is gay, and I used to be a regular anime watcher.

It's got a helluva lot more story and the dungeons feel more... structured? Scripted? Hard to describe. It takes awhile before the game takes the leash off and actually lets you play it. Combat is pretty fun though and demon negotiation is actually strategic, because you have to exploit the press turn system before you can negotiate with them.

Basically it comes down to whether or not you can stand Japanese Kids in Fucking School. I loved Persona 3 and 4 but Persona 5 brought me to my limit. It's got more yammering in the prologue than the entire game of SMT Nocturne AND Digital Devil Saga put together.

I don't really expect much about dungeons from a Persona game, but it's nice to know the negotiation part is actually good.

I don't really mind Japanese High School setting. In fact, I consider them more mature than the typical western high school stories. But I do agree that the dialogue goes on for far too long in Persona 4.

 

[Rahdulan]

It's got a helluva lot more story and the dungeons feel more... structured? Scripted? Hard to describe. It takes awhile before the game takes the leash off and actually lets you play it. Combat is pretty fun though and demon negotiation is actually strategic, because you have to exploit the press turn system before you can negotiate with them.

Basically it comes down to whether or not you can stand Japanese Kids in Fucking School. I loved Persona 3 and 4 but Persona 5 brought me to my limit. It's got more yammering in the prologue than the entire game of SMT Nocturne AND Digital Devil Saga put together.

All this SMT dungeon talk reminds me of an image that needs updating.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

It's got a helluva lot more story and the dungeons feel more... structured? Scripted? Hard to describe. It takes awhile before the game takes the leash off and actually lets you play it. Combat is pretty fun though and demon negotiation is actually strategic, because you have to exploit the press turn system before you can negotiate with them.

Basically it comes down to whether or not you can stand Japanese Kids in Fucking School. I loved Persona 3 and 4 but Persona 5 brought me to my limit. It's got more yammering in the prologue than the entire game of SMT Nocturne AND Digital Devil Saga put together.

All this SMT dungeon talk reminds me of an image that needs updating.

 

[tet666]

If you call Dark Souls a JRPG you're dumb enough to be a Codex mod.

The dumb motherfucker here is you. Dark Souls is a Japanese RPG. Literally. The design is also very Japanese through and through. It's a logical evolution of Kings Field (a JRPG from 1994) and tons of other old school JP games. Whoever it was that originally asserted that JRPGs are exclusively top-down turn based simple linear cutesy games was also retarded. That's like saying all WRPGs are Wizardry and Ultima and didn't evolve and branch out. You can't have these dumb pants on head double standards just because it suits your narrative.

It's a Action RPG made in Japan, it's not a JRPG (Japanese style rpg) which is it's own RPG sub genre, we have those genre definitions for a reason after all, you allrdy described how the genre evolved and branched out in to sub genres over the time but you don't think it trough to the end because JRPG is also one of those sub genres.

Because there are significant differences in the games defined as (W)RPG vs. JRPG as classicly defined by the subgenre moniker with the gaming community. The JRPG moniker was dubbed in the west to define the characteristics of the RPGs coming out of Japan that were distinctly different from the RPGs made back then (primarily) in the US. The name has always been meant to define the characteristics of the game just like in every other genre in existence and not its country of origin.

There are JRPGs that weren't made in Japan, and there are RPGs that were made in Japan.
Despite being made in Japan, Dark Souls (and a lot of other From titles sharing the same design philosophy) is closer to being a (western style) Action RPG than a JRPG.

 

[Jack Dandy]

Show me one fucking western ARPG even nearing the combat design of the Souls series.

Fucking braindead Diablo and it's derivatives are is all the west has for it's portfolio.

 

[Reinhardt]

New Vegas.:D