My favorite RPGs are Pokémon, Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy main titles, Dragon Quest main titles, Castlevania, Mario&Luigi, Paper Mario, and X-Men Legends. Usually, third-party support Spin-Off RPGs sucks.
Xenoblade DE
Xenoblade 2
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Dragon Quest XI
Witcher 3
Ys VIII
Neo: The World Ends With You
Monster Hunter Stories 2
Tales Of Vesperia
Final Fantasy VII
Earthbound — for the surreal play with genre tropes and outsider's subversive take on American culture and thoughtful thematic elements that are wrapped up in a delightful, playful presentation.
Shin Megami Tensei 3 — genuinely engaging battle system that always keeps things interesting. You will get one-shot quite a few times but once you learn the ropes and how to adapt your team the game becomes so rewarding. I also dig the sparse, melancholic plot.
Tales of Abyss — far from the most polished game here and even within its own series but I find the divisive main character to be brilliantly written. He is deeply flawed and irritating from the outset but to witness him mature and grow into his full self by the end is a character arc that is rarely matched in the medium.
Xenoblade Chronicles — I love the second game as well but find the narrative of the original more focused. It's the classic hero's journey including some of the more out there moments usually abandoned by contemporary uses of the form. The sense of place the game captures as you advance across the Titan also beats out the sequel. The sequel has more creative settings but they aren't as fully realised as the original's twin titans.
Dragon Quest 8 — I do think 11 is the better game but 8 was the game that got me into the genre. I loved its simple accessible battle system, sprawling melodramatic plot and ethereal string-laden classical score. 8 is a timeless classic. Give it a shiny new coat of HD paint and it'll stand up there with the very best released today.
It depends on the subgenre. There are so many different flavors of rpg these days.
Diablo series (dungeon crawler)
The Elder Scrolls series (open world)
Ys series (action/adventure)
Valkyria Chronicles series (tactical)
Borderlands series (first person shooter)
...are some of my favorites.
Switch Physical Collection - 1,247 games (as of April 15th, 2024)
Favorite Quote: "Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age the child is grown, and puts away childish things. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies." -Edna St. Vincent Millay
Now that I've played a few more Jrpg's, I still have to say by far that Xenoblade remains my favorite series. Particularly the original game, since 2 doesn't really get good until the last 2-3 chapters.
Persona is probably my second favorite JRPG series, with Tales being 3rd, at least going off the one tales game I did play, which was Tales of Berseria.
"It is fate. Many have tried, yet none have ever managed to escape it's flow."
everything Xenoblade Chronicles. I've played everything available on Switch & it's the most consistently top tier JRPG franchise I've ever encountered.
Final Fantasy X & VII Remake. FF as a whole is very hit or miss with me, but when it hits it really hits, and these two are fantastic, IMO.
Tales of the Abyss & Vesperia. Could be a bit biased as these were my first two Tales games, but I hold them both in relatively equal high esteem.
Dragon Quest VIII & XI. DQ is pretty consistently good overall (and I love the unique narrative setups of IV & V), but overall I think the newer ones are a bit better (XI is the most modern, though I prefer VIII's party).
Ys VIII. Really slick action RPG that's just really fun to play especially in terms of combat, and it's dungeons have an almost Zelda like element to them which is a neat twist for a JRPG.
The first two Kingdom Hearts games and the original Paper Mario get honorable mentions. It's been so long since I played these I'm not confident in saying how well they hold up, but they were instrumental in getting me into the genre when I was younger.
This is a genre I like, but the games are usually so long and sprawling I never finish them. But I made it to the end of Grandia 2 and Baten Kairos Origins. Fantastic games that don't get enough love.
judaspete
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Xenoblade Chronicles 2 - Torna The Golden Country - If this was little bit more fleshed out, it'd be pretty much everything I could want from a Xenoblade game. As it stands, the emotional, tragic narrative, streamlined battle system, meaningful side quests, fantastic (if small) cast, and gorgeous presentation push it up to near the top of my list. Certainly, this is the greatest expansion I've ever played to date. XC2's world shines without the aggravating mechanics and design bloat from the main game. And while the goofy anime humor and fanservice from the main game don't really bother me, I know there are a number of people who probably appreciate the way those elements were pretty much stripped entirely from this title.
Monster Rancher 2 - Of the three Monster Rancher games I've played, this one is easily my favorite. As it stands, this is one of the only games I've played where you actually spend more time bonding with and raising your monster than getting it to fight for you. The way it utilized CDs and Playstation discs to generate new monsters is still one of the greatest technological gimmicks I've seen in a game to date.
Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete - The ideal archetype of the sort of JRPGs I loved growing up. I can't really say it does any one thing amazingly well, but the way it brings together traditional JRPG elements alongside a healthy helping of humor and romance makes it a favorite.
Final Fantasy VII - The massive tsunami of excitement this title generated for more than a decade after its release might have been a bit much, but this really was the Star Wars of JRPGs when it first released. More importantly, it still has, for my money, the single best set of characters in any JRPG, as well as the best soundtrack in the series. And while the character models in the overworld look a tad... blocky and basic today, they still have a charm to them, and the JPEG backdrops still look fantastic.
Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan - Not the most challenging or complex entry in the series, but I really appreciated the way it pushed the gameplay of the series forward with the involved overworld exploration. The music, class system, and dungeon design still stand out as being particularly good as well. In truth, most of the games in this series are fantastic, but EOIV hits the right balance of challenge and accessibility for me on its normal difficulty setting.
Persona 5 Royal - God, almost everything about this game is SO good. If it had more balanced combat, it'd practically be perfect. Persona 5 was already great, since it brought back an improved version of Persona's negotiation system from the first two games along with actually well-designed central dungeons, and Royal improved the presentation, made some decent QoL changes, and tacked on an absolutely stellar and meaty final story arc that totally redeems the base game's somewhat lackluster final act.
Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse - A controversial game for SMT fans, given its adoption of more anime-inspired characterizations, but any way I look at it, it's one of the best video games ever made. AMAZING gameplay with tons of QoL improvements over SMT IV, great difficulty scaling over the course of the game, tons of demons to collect, gorgeous music, a well-paced, well-constructed narrative, and a set of characters I actually cared about, which is, frankly, a series first for me. As excited as I am for SMT V, it'll have a tough time topping this gem.
Mine is probably: Persona 5 Royal, Persona 4 Golden, Persona 3 FES, Ni No Kuni 1, Dragon Quest 11, and NieR Automata. (I haven't played as much of Automata as I would like but I adore it).
FMA is the best anime ever made. Don't @ me especially if you like SAO more.
Bravely Default 2
Cosmic Star Heroine
Fire Emblem: Awakening
Longest 5 Minutes
Mario and Luigi: Dream Team
Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door
Pokémon Black and White
Final Fantasy VII - The massive tsunami of excitement this title generated for more than a decade after its release might have been a bit much, but this really was the Star Wars of JRPGs when it first released. More importantly, it still has, for my money, the single best set of characters in any JRPG, as well as the best soundtrack in the series. And while the character models in the overworld look a tad... blocky and basic today, they still have a charm to them, and the JPEG backdrops still look fantastic.
FFVII would've been on my list if I was more into the Final Fantasy ATB system, for largely the reasons you said. Strongly agree with the music, undecided on characters.
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