JRPG's that just got everything right

[Nayr]

Tales of Symphonia, Tales of Phantasia, Vesperia are all my ideal JRPG. However Eternal Sonata blew my mind when it came ot aesthetics and game play and story. Symphonia still remains my all time favorite though. Just stay away from dawn of the new world. Stay away from it like it is the plague, biggest let down of life.

 

[4RM3D]

Lost Odyssey had great characters, and a great plot, yet the game is very linear up until just before the final area, and the combat is fairly standard.

Eternal Sonata had a nice battle system, and a good plot, but the characters made me want to punch them in the face, it was all so goddamn cheesy.(My opinion) It was also quite linear.

Resonance of Fate, deep battle system although I would have liked to see it evolve over the course of the game. Great customization, and I liked the characters. While I respect how the story was presented, it still didn't appeal much to me.

Tales of Vesperia, probably my favourite JRPG, while some characters annoyed me.(Estelle, Karol) Yuri more than made up for it. I loved the battle system and it was open world (which I think is a must)

Tales of Vesperia... check!
Resonance of Fate... check!

What else is there to say? You already played the 2 best JRPG games on the Xbox360.

I've also played all the games you mentioned.

Eternal Sonata had a beautiful soundtrack and had nice artwork. But it was short, linear and, as you have said, cheesy.

Lost Odyssey was a pretty decent attempt. Nothing too special, but nonetheless I enjoyed the game.

The only game missing on your list is Star Ocean. Although it's a mediocre RPG. It's still fun to play through once as a die-hard RPG fan. But don't go expecting too much from it.

Lastly, the Wii has a few awesome RPG games. I haven't played them myself, but I have heard good things about them.

 

[Sunrider]

People have mentioned Chrono Trigger, and I'd like to add Chrono Cross. Just got the old port off the psn today and have only put it down long enough to eat and take an internet break.

You know actually damn near anything that is square soft but not square enix is a good jrpg.

I agree with the Squaresoft statement, with Chrono Cross as the exception. I thought that game was terrible. It does have one of the best soundtracks in video game history though.

 

[DeltaEdge]

Persona 4 is for PS2 not 360 lol. Anyways, I feel that Disgaea 1 3 and 4 got it right as did Tales of the Abyss and Tales of Symphonia. Tales of Vesperia was great, but not quite perfect imo, but still very good.

 

[DeltaEdge]

Tales of Symphonia, Tales of Phantasia, Vesperia are all my ideal JRPG. However Eternal Sonata blew my mind when it came ot aesthetics and game play and story. Symphonia still remains my all time favorite though. Just stay away from dawn of the new world. Stay away from it like it is the plague, biggest let down of life.

I actually think that Dawn of the New World wasn't bad, just a crappy sequel with an annoying main character. If anything, I recommend playing it first, then playing the original so you don't get that disappointment of how bad a sequel it was in terms of story. It wasn't great, but it had great gameplay, decent story, and okay music.

 

[Mikeyfell]

The best JRPG I ever played was Record of Agarest War.
It had some of the best writing I've ever experienced in a videogame and hands down the best acting. (All be it Japanese actors, and since I can't speak Japanese it might have just been a really really good translation job.) But the way the game perfectly balances the ridiculous campyness in some of the funnier scenes with the seriousness in the heavier scenes with out any of it seeming out of place or any actions seeming out of character for any of the 34 characters it's simply astounding. And the turn-based combat was really good too, with most of the emphasis being on figuring out where your attacks would land you in relationship to your other characters made it feel a lot like a game of chess.

Another unbelievable JRPG is Tales of Vesperia. (I love all the Tales games but Vesperia was the best to me)It had really good writing to and the combat was more Hacky-shashy button-mashy so it didn't get that boring (Unless you're picking away at a boss with a million hit points and you just spam title wave at him for half an hour)

And does Dark Souls count as a JRPG?
If it does that's another one in the top list. It didn't have a story that mattered but the mechanics more than made up for it.

 

[Vivi22]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but FES does not have party control, it's still all AI controlled.

Hmm, not sure where I heard that then. May have confused that fact with P3P somewhere along the way. Still, it's not like it would make or break the decision to buy it when the extra content is the more interesting part for me. More control in battle would be nice, but not a deal breaker when you consider how good P3 was without it.

 

[Aurora Firestorm]

Persona 3 and 4, if combined together, would be the end-all for JRPGs. Persona 3 had the epic plot and dark scary atmosphere, and P4 had the character development and consistency that P3 never had.

Chrono Trigger is pretty well-rounded. There's a reason it often makes lists like "top N RPGs ever."

 

[Lev The Red]

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was the only jrpg i truly LOVED. i play a bunch of others, and even liked a few, but something about the story, mechanics, and interface of Tactics Advance made me fall in love with it.
the sequels weren't quite the same. War of the Lions made me die a little inside.

FF12 was pretty good, too, but i never got past that bird thing that i had to cast darkness on all of my party to beat.

 

[Nayr]

Tales of Symphonia, Tales of Phantasia, Vesperia are all my ideal JRPG. However Eternal Sonata blew my mind when it came ot aesthetics and game play and story. Symphonia still remains my all time favorite though. Just stay away from dawn of the new world. Stay away from it like it is the plague, biggest let down of life.

I actually think that Dawn of the New World wasn't bad, just a crappy sequel with an annoying main character. If anything, I recommend playing it first, then playing the original so you don't get that disappointment of how bad a sequel it was in terms of story. It wasn't great, but it had great gameplay, decent story, and okay music.

Actually I would have to agree with you on a lot of that. I really enjoyed the combat, even a bit more then in the first one. I just could not stand Emil, and that the other characters like Lloyd were maxed at level 50, even if Emil was 200. The use of monsters in combat, I did not care for either. But the game play was solid, if only I could roam the map once more.

 

[LittleBlondeGoth]

The only reason people assume that JRPGs are all linear corridor fests is because of Final Fantasy (despite the fact that the worlds of Final Fantasy have traditionally been quite open in themselves). I know what you mean when you say JRPGs tend to be more story-focused than the likes of Skyrim, but I still feel a little sad when even fans of the genre seem to admit that JRPGs are inherently more linear than their western counterparts. After all, it's not as if every WRPG offers the same amount of choice as Skyrim or Mass Effect. If we're going to hold the standards of WRPGs to those games, then we should hold the standards of JRPGs to equivalent games. There's a world of difference, after all, between FFXIII and Xenoblade Chronicles.

Oh, I agree, and to me that's the beauty of RPGs. I've played the Final Fantasy series more than any other, so they're what I'm familiar with most I suppose. Whilst they're certainly not as open world as Skyrim, I've never really thought "this is a linear game" while I was playing until XIII; and even then it didn't really bother me much. But then I'm also one of the few people who didn't want to strangle Vanille or Hope, so maybe I'm getting easy-going in my old age.

Hell, I remember playing VII for the first time back in 1997 and spending what felt like hours running round Midgar (which seemed huge). Then I came out and the world map was there and my head almost exploded. It's weird. Even though there was a definite path you followed - you couldn't get beyond the next village until you'd got the buggy, then the plane, then the airship etc - I never felt like I was being railroaded down a certain route. I'm more aware of it now though, but again that's probably age talking.

For what it's worth, I don't have a preference for linearity or open-worldedness (it's late at night and I appear to be making up words), as long as the execution is well done. I try and enjoy a game for what it is, rather than what I expect or want it to be. I love Final Fantasy for the experience they give me, but I've also enjoyed Xenogears, Secret of Mana, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Suikoden, Dungeon Master, Alundra...

Augh, now I want to go play one of them for a bit.

 

[Iggy Sent Me]

No mention of the Mario RPGs? Of particular note are Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Hell, even Yahtzee likes them.

 

[Ice Car]

Tales of Vesperia was awesome. Overlimit is broken as fuck though, ability to chain artes infinitely at the first tier? lol. I used to just spam Azure Blast with Yuri, a lot. Deals a lot of damage and often gets enemies, even bosses assuming they don't have invincibility to flinch/stagger in some cases. I've killed bosses on Unknown Mode that way, which is insanely hard... Try it. Bosses have about 5 times the normal health and normal enemies kill you in two hits, even if you also choose 10x experience and are technically overleveled for the whole game.

I have 990 GS in it, only missing the travel 100,000 kilometers one. REALLY? That annoyed the fuck out of me. It's that one achievement that holds me back from Vesperia Master. I hate distance travelled achievements and challenges in every game, because the developers almost NEVER add an ingame counter to it and use metric units that you can't even measure in game, only guess.

It also doesn't carry over with New Game+.

Tales of Symphonia was also great, one of my favorite games on the GC. I never sold that wonderful game. I played it through at least 20 times, did some speed runs. Story is great, characters are great, combat is good, though inability to move freely bothered me. (Actually, it only bothered me after replaying at after playing a Tales of game with Free Run) Lots of hours of gameplay, sidequests, and a lot off stuff for completionists like in every 'Tales of' game.

Also, fuck you Namco. Y U NO RELEASE EXTRA CONTENT IN AMERICA? I believe ToV got at least 3 extra dungeons, a new super boss, playable Flynn and another new character, a few new artes, new titles, lots of costumes, new weapons, blah blah blah etc.

 

[SebbyGVS]

I have 990 GS in it, only missing the travel 100,000 kilometers one. REALLY? That annoyed the fuck out of me. It's that one achievement that holds me back from Vesperia Master. I hate distance travelled achievements and challenges in every game, because the developers almost NEVER add an ingame counter to it and use metric units that you can't even measure in game, only guess.

A rubber band on your left analogue stick, problem solved.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

Probably Final Fantasy Tactics(the original one). I loved pretty much everything about that game, even the blunt translations.

 

[Sore Wa Himitsu Desu]

I'm especially partial to games by GUST, Inc. Ar Tonelico, the Atelier series, Mana Khemia.
Ar Tonelico
Fascinating setting, interesting characters, good story, decent to good battle system, and one of the most gorgeous soundtracks ever (the game series originated out of the music, so one would hope it's good in that department). I can't judge the 3rd game, but the second game...major technical glitches that don't break the game, but do a good job of damaging it.
Atelier
The series has a quirky soundtrack, well-developed characters, and every game in the series has a deep crafting system. Stay away from Iris 2 and 3 though.
Mana Khemia
A JRPG that in no way, shape, or form involves the awakening, resurrection, rising, or otherwise appearing of a dark lord figure. Some of the music is obnoxiously catchy, and the characters are all fleshed out well. The sequel made some excellent system changes, but it spread itself a bit too thin and so the characters aren't as well developed. The series has a creative leveling system, based on crafting.

Ignoring ones that have already been mentioned, I'd recommend Lufia 3 for the Gameboy Color, probably the best non-Pokemon RPG for the Gameboy or GBC.

 

[lordlillen]

wouldnt dark souls techicaly qualify as a JRPG if so i choose dark souls.
BTW FFX had a terrible plot.

 

[Et3rnalLegend64]

Or you could play Persona 3 Portable. P3 with P4's battle system, option to play as a girl, P4 and Catherine references, new Personas, and some Social Link updates. Downsides are that cutscenes are done in-engine instead of animated, there's no FES story, and you have to buy a PSP if you don't have one already. But yeah, go do that. And play Persona 4 anyway. Or wait for P4's re-release for PSP too.

I do have a PSP, but never bothered to get P3P. I knew it improved some areas, but if I was going to buy the game again I'd try and track down FES so I could get the additional story content, more battle control as well as still get the anime cutscenes.

I do want to track down a copy of Persona 4, in part because the re-release is going to be for the Vita, not the PSP, and given it's the only game I want for it, I might as well save some money and just buy the original if I can.

Ah, I did get that wrong, didn't I? In which case, best of luck hunting down FES and P4. Hopefully you can get them for $30 US like I did and not some exorbitant price.

 

[stinkyrobot]

While it's also a strategy game fire emblem GBA

 

[Solo-Wing]

[HEADING=1]FINAL FANTASY IX[/HEADING]

That game did EVERYTHING right. I love it and want everybody to play it.