-=CRPGs=-
Planescape: Torment 
Combat is a big mess, but the fascinating world, fun companions, and well-written story help make up for it. It deserves all the praise it gets.
Pillars of Eternity
The story is not particularly interesting, but the exploration, combat, and party building are all fun. I created my party (hiring adventurers at the inn) instead of using the companions, and I think the game was better for it. I became quite addicted toward the end, and I did basically everything, including the DLC or course.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 
The first planet is pretty dull, but I mostly enjoyed the game after that point. It suffers from absolutely terrible controls and interface, clearly designed for the XBOX first and foremost and then awkwardly converted to mouse and keyboard. It also suffers from being unbelievably easy. I did like the wide variety of quests, both required and optional, and it seems like the game would be interesting to replay as a completely different character.
Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos
This looks and sounds fantastic, but is just too simplistic. It has only one really good dungeon (Urbish Mines), with most of the rest being absolute cakewalks with little to no puzzles. The endgame was also clearly rushed, though the final dungeon is decent.
Diablo II
This was fun to play through (with expansion of course), but I found many of the maps to be really boring and filled with the same enemy groups over and over. It was also ridiculously easy on the default difficulty level. On the plus side, it looks and sounds great.
Neverwinter Nights: Diamond Edition 
I cleared the main campaign, and it was just not that great, though I found myself becoming somewhat addicted at some point. Sticking you with just a single (non-controllable) henchman was a huge mistake, in my opinion. It forces you to either take the rogue henchman, or take some rogue skills for your character, unless you want the early game to be even more tedious.
Diablo III: Eternal Collection (Switch)
I refuse to play the PC version due to its always-online requirement even for the single-player campaign, so I went with the console version. It's very simplified compared with
Diablo II, astoundingly easy even on Master difficulty, and it completely lacks any sense of mood or atmosphere. The dialogue is some of the worst I've ever read, more like a Saturday morning cartoon than anything. It's not broken but it is quite a disappointment.
-=JRPGs=-
Dragon Quest III: Soshite Densetsu He (Famicom)
Even better than the excellent
Dragon Quest II in every way. The game starts out quite linear, but shortly opens up and gives you access to basically the entire world, and the game doesn't even really gate you with increasingly difficult random encounters (outside of dungeons of course). The combat is fantastic, as your utility spells are very effective all the way to the very end of the game.
Live A Live (Super Famicom)
An excellent RPG, with some real depth to the combat. The game consists of several separate scenarios, each with its own characters, world, and gimmicks... after you clear all the scenarios, you unlock one more. Clear that, and you enter the final scenario, where you choose one of the characters as a hero and assemble a party out of any of the other characters. The scenarios range in quality, but even the worst of them has its charms.
Lenus: Kodai Kikai no Kioku (Super Famicom)
Released as
Paladin's Quest outside of Japan, this game takes place in a bizarre sci-fi world that reminded me somewhat of the 1973 animated sci-fi film,
Fantastic Planet. The game mostly plays like any other JRPG, but has some interesting mechanics. Linear to a fault, but a decent challenge, and the mercenary and spell systems are cool.
Phantasy Star II: Kaerazaru Toki no Owari Ni (Mega Drive)
Combat has some difficulty, but 99% of the enemies have no special abilities whatsoever, and differ only in their stats. Between the boring enemies and your lack of technique points to cast spells, most battles are fought and won by just trading blows back and forth. Still, it feels very satisfying indeed to complete the more difficult dungeons, and the game becomes somewhat nonlinear after the first 25% of the game.
Final Fantasy IV: Easy Type (Super Famicom)
I've already completed the JPN and US versions of
Final Fantasy IV, so I decided to play through this version to compare. It's pretty much the US version, with some minor changes (including a MUCH easier last boss). Nothing amazing, but it was enjoyable to blast through the game.
Shining and the Darkness (Mega Drive)
This is a decent first-person dungeon crawler with some charming graphics, but suffers from being too damned easy. Your three-person party consists of you (fighter), a priest, and a wizard... but even the priest and wizard are pretty lethal in melee, and you end up winning many random encounters before the monsters even get a chance to do anything. The dungeon itself though is very cool, and it's fun mapping it out and seeing how it all connects.
Lunar: The Silver Star (Mega CD)
This charming game is full of fun characters but suffers from being unbelievably linear and easy. Probably a good choice for someone new to JRPGs.
Dragon Slayer: Eiyu Densetsu (PC Engine)
This one has an awful first impression, with you being forced to grind; by this I don't mean that the game is hard, but that there are areas early on where you need to be at least a certain level or you are prevented from entering them. Luckily, the game stops doing that quickly, and the rest of the game is fine. Combat is mostly mindless, though you do need to watch your resources to get through some of the harder dungeons.
Cosmic Fantasy 2: Boken Shonen Van (PC Engine)
A pretty poor JRPG. It's linear to the extreme, and combat is completely mindless as enemies don't have any special attacks or abilities whatsoever... this is also true for boss enemies (even the final boss!!!). The characters are pretty likeable, and the game isn't broken. It's also mercifully short.
Final Fantasy USA: Mystic Quest (Super Famicom)
This devious scheme by executives to trick kids into playing a bad game starts out kind of fun, but shortly become tedious. There are no random encounters. Instead, enemies are visible on the map. However, they just stand in place and most of the dungeons consist of corridors that are just a single tile wide, which means you pretty much have to kill every single enemy in the game. Good music, though.
Tengai Makyo ZIRIA (PC Engine)
It's extremely linear and repetitive, and it spreads what little content it has VERY thin. You spend many hours with just one or two characters in your party, so combat is basically just trading blows back and forth. Imagine
Dragon Quest (1986) but without any exploration whatsoever, and spread across 40 hours of gameplay instead of 10. However, it's not broken or anything.
Cosmic Fantasy: Boken Shonen Yu (PC Engine)
It's an ugly game, from the garish tiles making up the backgrounds, to the poorly defined monsters in combat. Most enemies have no special attacks or abilities, but have tons of HP and attack for lots of damage, so unless you want to grind levels for hours, you have to cast the DEF+ spell every single battle. That's the strategy for every single fight in the game, including the last boss. Worst of all, the game is actually broken. Many of the spells and items do absolutely nothing, and I never got the RUN command to work even once.
-=Other=-
Adventures of Lolo (NES)
I started this up thinking I'd just try it out, got addicted, and completed the entire game in a single setting. Simply an amazing puzzle game, with a lot of stuff going on. The game starts out easy and becomes increasingly difficult, but is always fair. Some of the later levels are quite devious, and map designers like to throw you some red herrings. You really have to understand everything about the game and think a bit outside the box to solve some of the final puzzles. I'm looking forward to playing the sequel in 2024!
