Best S-RPGs of all time?

[Stabwound]

This thread has probably been done, but what are the best S-RPGs of all time? After the disgusting release of Banner Saga (not even going to get into it) it makes me want to play an actual GOOD S-RPG.

I've played and enjoyed Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre (didn't care for the portable versions of either), Shining Force 1 and 2 and CD), Vandal Hearts 1/2 (okay, nothing fancy). Arc the Lad (way too simple) Arc the Lad 2 (great game, poor SRPG). And probably others I've forgotten.

What are some other games I've missed? I've never touched the Fire Emblem series so I'm sure there's some gold there.

Final Fantasy Tactics is one of my favorite games of all time, but the fact that you need to grind do stupid exploits a lot of the time is a huge turnoff. Like, beating on your own party members for JP. Just dumb.

Disgaea and the other games by this developer are aspie grinder fests. No strategy to be seen; just grinding over and over and over until you wanna die. I want actual strategy.

 

[evdk]

No Nippon Ichi games?

 

[Deuce Traveler]

This thread has probably been done, but what are the best S-RPGs of all time? After the disgusting release of Banner Saga (not even going to get into it) it makes me want to play an actual GOOD S-RPG.

I've played and enjoyed Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre (didn't care for the portable versions of either), Shining Force 1 and 2 and CD), Vandal Hearts 1/2 (okay, nothing fancy). Arc the Lad (way too simple) Arc the Lad 2 (great game, poor SRPG). And probably others I've forgotten.

What are some other games I've missed? I've never touched the Fire Emblem series so I'm sure there's some gold there.

Final Fantasy Tactics is one of my favorite games of all time, but the fact that you need to grind do stupid exploits a lot of the time is a huge turnoff. Like, beating on your own party members for JP. Just dumb.

Disgaea and the other games by this developer are aspie grinder fests. No strategy to be seen; just grinding over and over and over until you wanna die. I want actual strategy.

Since you have already named Final Fantasy Tactics (I agree, best of genre), Tactics Ogre, and Shining Force 1+2, I'll name some others I've at least tried, in the order I enjoyed them:

1. Sengoku Rance=> Another of my favorite games. I played the hell out of this. It has a huge cast of characters with their own personalities, and a ton of replay value and multiple endings. It's a hentai game, however.

2. Romance of the Three Kingdoms X=> More strategy than roleplaying, but the roleplaying portions are very much a sandbox experience. Another game I played a hell of a lot of hours. Rot3K VIII is also good, but Rot3K improves on its formula.

3. Legend of Cao Cao=> I've played the neutral/evil campaign and good campaign of this. Oh, how I love this game. The good route is fun just to lead Cao Cao against the demon army.

4. Jagged Alliance 2=> Only got through the start, but loving it so far. Will return later to it. A breath of fresh air since the game is a modern campaign world, and your mercs get to be better riflemen and demolitionists with experience. Hope to finish this year

5. X-Com: UFO Defense => Really fun game, but hard. I really recommend a walkthrough unless you want to spend over a hundred hours trying to figure out how to survive through trial and error. I had to restart a bunch of times halfway through the game before I started reading hints. More strategy than RPG. Then again, I probably would have had an easier time if I saved more during the tactical battles instead of just accepting character deaths of my experienced troopers and recruiting brand new raw units so often

6. Sword of Aragon => I only played a bit of this. Again, more strategy than RPG, but I really like what I have seen so far. It's on my 2014 list of RPGs to play.

7. Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword=> Pretty unforgiving game, but pretty enjoyable. I pick it up on long car or plane trips, when I can't read smaller text of other RPGs easily. About 2/3 through after a year and a half. As easy as a casual game, with challenging AI and permanent character death amongst party members. Didn't figure that until a few battles in. I should finish this within the next couple times I go on a plane trip

Others of note:
Freedom Force 1+2 => Unlike the others above, it's a real-time with pause game. Not sure they meet your criteria, but was fun

Mech Commander => I'm a sucker for the Battletech game from FASA. Also not sure it meets criteria

Battle of Wesnoth=> A mediocre game, but it is turn based and has some interesting dynamics.

 

[StaticSpine]

there is a game on PSP called Jeanne d'Arc, I believe it's not very popular, but it's really enjoyable

http://www.metacritic.com/game/psp/jeanne-darc

 

[Invictus]

Final Fantasy Tactics would be it for me, but I also enjoyed Front Mission 3 and 4 tremendously and the are more modern takes on the SRPG amnd with almost no grinding too IIRC
PS I love the Freedom Force series too bad it is almost forgotten nowadays it would be a great game to kickstart

 

[TigerKnee]

Sengoku Rance
Der Langrisser
Yggdra Union
Wild Arms XF
Super Robot Wars - the most challenging are OG2 for the GBA, Alpha Gaiden (these two are in English), Z1 for PS2 and A Portable for the PSP.

That's all I can think off the top of my head.

 

[SCO]

Gungnir is actually quite good (in spite of the terrible art). Its 'systems' are very unusual though, be sure to read the manual.
Devil Survivor 1 and 2 of course (they have simple terrain, but have the megami tensei character building + pokemon aspect)
Wild Arms XF is one of the hardest SRPGs that came out on consoles recently... and it depends on respec.
Nippon Ichi games are big on 'systems', and grinding. For instance, every single ability, which you can learn from pickupable up objects (can even use things like vases and shells like weapons) has 99 levels to learn, post game stuff with 666 levels stupid stuff like that. Games included on this are La Pucelle, Disgaea series, Phantom Brave etc.
Metal Gear Acid 1 and 2 are turn based strategy metal gear + a card system for abilities and weapons. It works better than it sounds.
Der Langrisser a snes rock-paper-scissor game that is very simple and easy, but it has a very ambitious branching storyline, which is amusing to replay.
Tactics Ogre of course, shouldn't be missed (another branching storyline).
Finally, and obviously, Valkyria Chronicles 1, 2 and 3. You might not like the PSP ones if you're exceptionally butthurt about either more grinding if you don't have a character building plan, slightly smaller maps or just being a PS2 fanboi/graphic whore but they're basically the same game.

On the scale of decreasing animu story retardation i would rank them like this:
Nippon Ichi stuff
Wild Arms XF
Der Langrisser
Gungnir
Valkyria Chronicles
Metal Gear Acid 1 and 2
Devil Survivor 1 and 2
Tactics Ogre


Gungnir doesn't have grinding except if you abuse a bug (because the story is a unbroken sequence). However, items have levels and 'affinities' (this is used to unlock abilities). It's not something you can grind indefinitely thou, rather stick to a plan. People like to 'collect' weapons in this game for newgame+. A kind of enemy can break weapons/armor! (other titles by this devhouse had durability so...)
Der Langrisser also is a unbroken sequence(s), but *has* something akin to grinding, by killing 'teams' from the army commanders before killing the commander (which removes the teams without XP if you do it before). Game is easy anyway so this is only for 'dominating' (there is even a item which resets all your levels/class upgrades and keep spells and stats so you can explore another build).
Devil survivor has a similar mechanic (if you kill the center on encounters the team is defeated but you get less XP) and also has grinding spots. Most character building is the demon fusion manipulation thou.
Metal Gear Acid progression is strictly card and time attack based (better time/not being seen gives better cards, and you can find cards on the levels, challenge is to do both). However you can 'grind' cards by repeating levels (it gives a 'non-story mission' with a different objective).
The rest are fairly normal SRPG with 'grinding' spots/levels if you want (nippon ichi games are horribad about grind, but you knew that; Tactics Ogre - all versions - is not so good about it either although the xp system was changed to be class based on the PSP, the problem is that you can 'earn' classes and they are not 'upgrades' but start with level1 since they were not used before; Valkyria Chronicles 2 is annoying since you need to grind certificates to upgrade characters, and for character stories. Wild Arms is respec based so no class grinding necessary).


There is also a phase based srpg called Hoshigami remix for the DS... but you shouldn't play that (systems that only appeal to aspies well into the autism spectrum, FFT type 'force-levelling' and slow animation). Has a neat ingame puzzle challenge though (70 levels of attacking the main enemy on a sequence of 8 characters - all characters knocking back the enemy into another character, in only 1 turn. This often appears impossible, but it's not.

 

[Ebonsword]

How about Dragon Force? It's definitely more about the "S" than the "RPG", though.




And, of course, I have to plug Operation: Darkness. There really needs to be more WWII games with werewolves and vampires.

 

[SuicideBunny]

rance is the undisputed king of strategy rpgs even though the actual tactical side of it kinda sucks.
as far as tactical rpgs go, jeanne d'arc and gungnir are both enjoyable and somewhat comparable to fft, though not as good (or mebbe that's my nostalgia glasses).

Disgaea and the other games by this developer are aspie grinder fests. No strategy to be seen; just grinding over and over and over until you wanna die. I want actual strategy.

not really. grinding in disgaea is more like an alternative to when you failed to come up with a proper tactic or overall strategy. that's why all of them have the lvl99 xp feature or stages designed for incredibly easy xp gain. the onyl thing you need to actually grind for is if you want to 100% a game instead of the 20% or so when you just play the story and maybe do some stuff on the side that you like.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Master of Monsters (the genesis one, the PSX version is horribly bugged, the RNG is basically totally broken for hit chances.) you play as a wizard, summon monsters which evolve into new, more powerful monsters as they gain levels (like lizardman > two headed lizard > hydra) cast spells to aid your monsters. Deaths are permanent, terrain affects combat a lot, and you need to capture towers on each map to gain enough mana to summon all the minions you'll need to finish off the enemy, since you can have a certain amount of minions at one, one you get right next to the enemy, he can generally replace anything you kill instantly. Though there's also a mana/turn kind of thing so what he can summon will be limited. Anyways, I haven't played this in ages but I have very fond memories of it. It got a lot of sequels in japan but the only one they ported was the shitty, broken as fuck PSX one. Also, there is 0 plot and the game is very very long. And a lot of time gets wasted waiting for the enemy to move since you always start on opposite sides of a huge map with nothing summoned. Well, thank god for frameskip I guess.

Ogre Battle: MotBQ This is my favourite ogre battle game by far. It can get really easy if you cheese the game by sitting in a level to collect infinite gold, or even if you just get lucky and find some princess crowns randomly or something. But if you try to finish levels quickly after finding everything in them while maintaining a good reputation and promoting units certain ways, it can be rather difficult. I'm not sure which is better between the SNES and PSX versions. I like the graphics in the SNES version better (they redid some animations with lame 3D shit) but I think they rebalanced certain things, which might include drop rates on some of the more broken items. Anyways, what makes the game so cool is how many little secrets are in the game, and the in depth class promotion system. Units have alignment and charisma stats. Both tend to go up when fighting higher level enemies, and down when fighting weaklings. Alignment also works as you'd expect (fighting 0 alignment enemies will give you more than killing angels and clerics). This works based on killing mind you, and you can change tactics to only kill high level leaders and make enemies retreat or kill their low alignment members. But classes have various requirements to promote, not just in int/str/agi but alignment and such too. There are also events all over the game, to recruit unique characters, find rare items, or just reveal more of the story or earn some extra cash on the side. Very satisfying if you don't follow a walkthrough I think, as long as you're not a retard that skips all the dialogue. There's something like 13 different endings depending on choices you make during the game and your leader's alignment and reputation. I wish this got remade with a better UI though, it's built for a SNES controller and is often very awkward. And the mode 7 map is very weird.

Dark Wizard (saturn? Or sega CD, I forgot) Reminiscent of Master of Monsters. Lots of little secrets though, multiple main characters you can choose with different sets of spells and units they can summon, hidden towns and items and stuff, very cool game. I never got too far in this though, only played it on a friend's machine and I can't get fucking saturn emulators to work. If I could this and dragon force would be at the top of my list. (Wait, I just checked and this is a sega CD game and kega fusion runs that shit... I'm gonna go play this right now.)

Those 3 are all amazing games that nobody here mentioned. I will recommend Rance as well though, it's really quite good.

 

[SCO]

That retro post remined me of
Hiouden - Mamono-tachi to no Chikai, translated by Aeon genesis as 'HIOUDEN ~ LEGEND OF THE SCARLET KING ~ THE DEMONIC OATH', which is a enjoyable primitive SNES RTwP game (it's very slow, so it could almost be a strategy game). I couldn't find a gameplay video of it, but the interface is like this a simplified form of this japonese PC version (i believe you can change the viewscreen area in the snes version too, and visible interface parts as the video shows). The 3 maps are because you can (and should sometimes) separate 'teams'.

This complicated interface is 'enjoyable' because: Hiouden is one of the handful of games that can use the SNES Mouse

Click to hear the game music, which is nice.


Great little game by Wolfteam; later known as Namco (Valkyrie Profile, Star Ocean, Tales of series). Also, obviously a tremendous programming achievement for the SNES to make a windowing system.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Son of a bitch. Dark Wizard just froze after the first battle. And I didn't save before hand either.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

I always loved the Shining Force Series - particularly SHF3 is absolutely amazing.

I also liked Vandal Hearts for PSX. Dragon Force was really good too and Warsong (Langrisser) has already been mentioned a few times.

A downside all of these old games have in common is that they were all somewhat lacking in difficulty, mostly due to AI limitations. I am by no means an expert when it comes to s-jrpgs, but as long as you didn't play like a total retard I found they were almost impossible to lose at.

edit: OP why did you play SHF1&2 and CD but not 3? You will absolutely love this game - or those three games, because SHF3 is divided into three parts. It improves on the earlier games in every way - it has more weapons with different strengths and weaknesses that introduce more tactical possibilities, cool special attacks, better graphics, a friendship system that again allows for more tactical depth and it has a really cool storyline. You should definitely check it out.

 

[Stabwound]

Thanks for suggestions.

Shining Force 3 always looked like a clunky pile of shit to me compared to the other games, so I never bothered with it. The 2D games were great looking, ran smoothly, etc, but the 3D transitiion looked like a mess. Also, I remember the fact that only the first of the 3 games made it here, so that put me off completely. I realize that they're all translated now, so maybe I should give it a second chance. Especially since you guys are telling me it's so good compared to the others, which are 2 of my favorite games of all time.

I can't quite say why I like Shining Force. The games are by no means difficult or deep or even require much strategy. I always liked the promotion mechanic, but it ends up boiling down to asperging over when is best to promote (something I never did and completely unnecessary: 20 works fine). I read a SF2 forum the other day and people talk about levelling to 40 before promoting. I mean, how the fuck do you have so much free time on your hands that you can grind to level 40 to promote your characters? Not long after level 20 you're probablt getting 1exp per kill no matter what.

I can see some of the solo games being kind of fun for a challenge, though.

FFT will probably remain my favorite game because of the job system, but it's unfortunate that it requires some aspie-grinding and beating up your own teammates and the like if you want to build diverse characters. That, and the level up/down/brave/whatever trick (I forget the details now) that lets you min-max through exploits. I know of the FFT 1.3 patch, but it absolutely requires you to have aspie-level knowledge of the game's mechanics and plan your party from start to finish, and that's a bit too much for me. I mean, the game has a 778kb plaintext battle mechanics guide. This game has been taken to absurd levels in terms of ripping it apart, and I believe the 1.3 patch requires you to have this expert knowledge. Great game even wtihout going nuts with the meta-knowledge, though. I don't think anything will top it in terms of sheer fun. It's a shame there has neve rbeen a true sequel to FFT: the gameboy games don't really count. They're fun, but they're not really FFT. And they're way too easy.

I liked Tactics Ogre, but the PSP version I played seemed to make archer characters broken in many cases as they were very overpowered. IE: all archers target the boss enemy at once, take it down, battle over.

Wild Arms XF is a surprising and overlooked gem. What I like best is that many of the battles aren't just "kill all enemies" but you had to take advantage of the different classes to achieve goals. I didn't particularly like the "fatigue" system (whatever it was called) but from what I played of it, it was a good game.

Can anyone tell me if Fire Emblem is worth looking into and if so, what to start with? I'm willing to go back to the Famicom games, since I like to play chronologically, but something tells me the early games aren't that great. And what are they like; do they have a job system of sorts? I was surprirised only one person here mentioned a single game of the series. Are these complex games? Seeing as they're on handhelds and children's consoles primarily, I wasn't sure what to think.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

children's consoles

...well, the ones on the GBA at least are good. Never played the other ones long enough to give a worthwhile opinion. But if the series persists to this day, it must be doing something right.

There's not a free job system like in FFT, but characters can change classes eventually, usually branching into different roles. The knight can become a quick horseman or a heavily armored knight, etc. There's permadeath too, but you're usually given enough characters that you don't feel forced to reload everytime someone falls. There's a bit of a rock-paper-scissors element where certain character types do well against others, but it's not incredibly important. Just don't send the frail flying unit against archers, or the slow-ass brute against the blademaster that moves at the speed of light.

 

[ZoddGuts]

Front Mission 5. Which wasn't localized but it has a fan translation.

 

[80Maxwell08]

You might just want to read let's plays of the early fire emblems seeing how rough and unpolished some of them are. Or if you have the money and a DS get Shadow Dragon since it's a remake of the first one.

 

[cvv]

That's just too easy.

UFO, Jagged Alliance 2 and King's Bounty, without any particular order, are the holy trinity and who says otherwise is a filthy heretic.

 

[jaybirdy]

Can anyone tell me if Fire Emblem is worth looking into and if so, what to start with?

As far as I'm concerned, Fire Emblem is the best SRPG series with Shining Force a close second. FFT, Tactics Ogre, and games like this are great for character growth, but they're light on actual tactics. You mostly use standard JRPG tactics in those games, but with the added caveat of "don't get surrounded." Fire Emblem is different from this. It has less of a focus on character growth and is mainly about map control, unit placement, and playing very defensively.

I wouldn't bother with the NES games. There's a remake of the first game plus a new sequel to it on one cart for the SNES called Mystery of the Emblem, and it's a good place to start if you really want to start at the beginning. The peak of the series happened on the SNES, so you can go right to FE4 and FE5 after MotE and play the best of the series. FE4 is interesting because it is completely unlike the rest of the franchise--with its huge maps, tons of units, and tight enemy formations, you start to think like you're controlling an army. FE5 demands some serious tactics from the player, so you can go straight to this if you want some real strategy. It can get so hard that it's almost like a puzzle game, especially if you try to beat it without anyone dying. All of these have fan translations of varying degrees of quality so you won't need to learn moon.

 

[spekkio]

Thanks, BRO. I plan to check this series starting from FE3 (1+2 remake for Snes).

 

[jaybirdy]

Thanks, BRO. I plan to check this series starting from FE3 (1+2 remake for Snes).

You're welcome. But I gotta say, the series drops in quality significantly on the GBA and onwards. Like most people, my first FE was FE7 and I liked it okay, but I was skating through it too easily, and the hard mode only asked you to exploit it, not to think tactically. On a whim, I decided to try out FE4 on an emulator and it really blew me away, and it's still one of my favorite games. I guess Shouzou Kaga (the original creator of FE) wasn't just a rock star taking credit for the series like an Inafune or Ken Levine, but a vital part of FE.

 

[Xeon]

Fire Emblem series is probably a must play.

Brigandine: You pick a kingdom and control monsters and soldiers to invade. The world map is similar to Sengoku Rance I guess... Can't remember anything else (PS)

Spoiler

Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth: Similar to FFT but not as good I guess. (PS)

Spoiler

Also I am with TigerKnee, the SUPER ROBOT series is fucking great. Just look at these glorious attacks.

Spoiler

 

[TigerKnee]

If you want to play an FFT mod, look for "LFT" instead. Reduces the grinding by giving everyone inherent JP Up and reducing a lot of JP costs while simultaneously making the game harder through better enemy setups (instead of 1.3's outright cheating setups), and also rebalancing a lot of the weaker classes/abilities

FE's class system is like Shining Force, so if you're familiar with SF then you'll get how it works. There are actually 2 FE games with FFT style "free reclass", FE11/FE12 (Shadow Dragon/Mystery of the Emblem), but it doesn't work as well as you think it does because a lot of characters just don't have the proper stats to survive as a different class. That's just the class system though, I think FE12 is pretty good/fun. (FE11 can go die in a fire)

FE7 is the most commonly accepted "starter game" for the FE series.

 

[deuxhero]

there is a game on PSP called Jeanne d'Arc, I believe it's not very popular, but it's really enjoyable

http://www.metacritic.com/game/psp/jeanne-darc

I'm told this game never got a UK release, despite getting a general European release with English as an option. Anyone know if this is true? If it is I find it hilarious.

You might just want to read let's plays of the early fire emblems seeing how rough and unpolished some of them are. Or if you have the money and a DS get Shadow Dragon since it's a remake of the first one.

The problem is Shadow Dragon touches pretty much nothing of worth that the condensed remake included as an extra in the third game didn't touch (despite 8 games between the releases) and is pretty medicore as a result.

 

[Gregz]

#1 Strategy RPG ever = JA 2 1.13