Kingdom Hearts 358/2 days. An epic game.

Couldn't agree more. I never played any game from Suikoden before, so it means nothing to me it's not a true continuation.
Amazing graphics, music and voice acting. I adored this game.

I second everyone who said Chrono Trigger!

I liked From the Abyss and Monster Lab. A lot of people have already mentioned The World Ends With You which I also highly recommend.

Contact, Shiren the Wanderer: Mystery Dungeon, Digimon World DS, Lunar Knights, and Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time. Chrono Trigger DS is also good, but the DS additions all suck, and bring down an otherwise great game.

Not really into RPGs much now but I do have Bowser's Inside Story and Pokemon Platinum which are both very good. Amongst my RPG enthusiast frineds I believe Chrono Trigger is pretty much regarded as the best DS RPG, closely followed by the two I've mentioned above as well as The World Ends With You. After that you're looking at the Puzzle RPG Might and Magic and the Final Fantasy Series on DS.

1. Chrono Trigger
2. M&L Bowser's Inside Story
3. Pokemon Platinum (soon to be superseeded by HeartGold and Soul Silver according to ONM who rated it 94%!)
4. The World Ends With You
5 = Might and Magic
5 = Final Fantasy IV,III and Reverent Wings

Don't forget the Dragon Quest series and the underrated Contact and Kingdom Hearts already mentioned on here. There are probably a fair few 8 or 9/10 RPGs on the DS

If I was into RPGs, I'd only choose to play them on the DS tbh.

Chrono Trigger and Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story are two of the best RPGs availalbe on the DS.

I forgot to mention Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings myself; I was REALLY into that game when I first bought it. I gave away both of my PS2s before FFXII came out, and though Revenant Wings can't compare to the console predecessor the gameplay, environments and music really brought the game together. The characters were also endearing.

Thanks To Legend Mariod for reminding me.

For me, the Dragon Quest remakes (IV and V), and the Final Fantasy remakes (III and IV), are great places to start for traditional RPGs.

I also rate Dragon Quest Monsters as a Pokemon-style game, Children of Mana as an action RPG (yes, I liked that one), and, if you can handle Japanese, definately import Chocobo Mystery Dungeon, which is epic cool.

For the more accessible RPGs, I quite liked Zubo, Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon.

And, if you're really hardcore, The Dark Spire is obscenely difficult and retro. Etrian Odessey is a little more accessible, but still for RPG-nutters only.

No problem Wolfcoyote.

This thread makes me wish I was still into RPGs! I myself forgot to mention Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon too which is very close to that "top 5" category along with DQ series (IX is meant to be awesome), Contact, Kingdom Hearts, and Zubo (which has a bit of a cult following I believe!). I've read the review of Suikoden Tierkreis in N-Gamer; they love it (gave it 85% "gold award standard"). Sonic Chronicles anyone? (93% revw by ONM!)

Furthermore, talking to a friend of mine recently, he imported Devil Survivor from the States recently and is enjoying that. Oh and there's FF Crstal Chronicles Ring of Fates?! Arrrggghhh! RPG overload on DS (which is a good thing)

In other news; Phatasy Star Zero has recieved creditable reviews from both N-Gamer and ONM. Add to that Glory of Heracles (84% from N-Gamer). Sands of Destruction was given around 70% I think, though that review was very harsh imho as there was little wrong with it. They seemed to think it was a bit too unremarkable. Sakura Wars sounded like it'd've been better on the DS than Wii too.

Chrono Trigger, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, and Mario & Luigi:Bowser's Inside Story are the best and most fun DS RPGs.

I haven't seen anyone mention Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, or the sequel, Spirit Tracks. Do they not qualify as RPGs, or do people just not like them?

They don't qualify as RPGs. People DEFINITELY like them.

I really want to play 'Devil Survivor' and 'Knights in the Nightmare' but they ain't got a EU release date yet

Has anyone mentioned a game called Disgaea? I've seen some good reviews of it but I like to have some fan feedback before buying. Also, what about a game called Nostalgia? The NL review was 9/10 but IGN only gave it a 7.2. Does anyone have word about this game?

The aformentioned Bowser's Inside Story and Mega Man Star Force.

Disgaea is on my amazon wishlist.... you should definitely go for it. Games don't make my amazon wish list unless they are highly recommended by gaming websites or metacritics. I think that's a solid choice... but I haven't played it myself... but I've read enough reviews to know that it would be an excellent game should you do so... besides, it's made by Squeenix!

Disgaea ds got mixed reviews, but the RPGites in my gaming community over here seem to generally really like it as does, I think, N-gamer magazine, Its a mainly numbers and levelling up, but decent.

BTW the revws for the Japanese Import of Dragon Quest XI: Defenders of the Starry Sky read quite awesomely. I think it could right up there with the top 5 ds RPG games when released in the EU and NA!

Another thing to remember, and this is important, even if a DS RPG game is reviewed at around 7/10 its probably still very much worth considering. The number of quality of RPGs is so high on DS that that 7/10 game may not have much wrong with it other than not being quite as good in terms of star qulaity as the 8/10 and 9/10 games. However, the game itself is STILL very much probably a very decent play through.

Completely agreed. To be honest if I really have my heart set on a game I seldom get my mind changed by reviews... but if stuff goes 'under the radar' that I forget about, and I see it gets at least 7/10's.. I take a plunge.

The best example of this is Hotel Dusk - I wanted it, bought it, saw that it got 7/10's, thought it would be nothing more then good... but it ends up being one of my favourite games for the system.

There are so many RPG's for the console it's unreal, so yeah, 7/10 usually means a solid purchase.

bowsers inside story!