Modern JRPGs

[Bonk4licious]

So recently I picked up Tales of Xillia after the sequel released and hearing about it, and I'm having a blast with it. Other than ToX, my only other JRPG experience is Persona. It's definitely a genre I want more into, but I'm wondering what some of the better series are on like PS3/360/Wii/PC, or at least which ones you guys like better than some of the others. Any recommendations?

 

[shrekfan246]

How "modern" are we talking here?

Lost Odyssey on the Xbox 360 has received a lot of praise, I've never played it myself but it's apparently very similar to older Final Fantasy titles, and if that's true then I would personally say it's probably worth checking out.

There are a lot of relatively odd JRPGs these days, but they're of varying quality and people will give you wildly varying answers. For instance, I'd personally say Resonance of Fate is worth checking out (it's for PS3 or 360), because it has a highly interesting world and unique combat mechanics, but those same combat mechanics are a large part of the reason why many other people would say "No, you should avoid it".

Then of course there are titles like Folklore or White Knight Chronicles II on the PS3. The former has, again, a very interesting world and some pretty neat pseudo-monster-collection action-RPG combat, while the latter is something similar to Dragon Age: Origins but more generic in world-building and more JRPG-weird in everything else (in particular, its combat can be quite slow and it doesn't have the most gripping storyline ever told).

And the Wii has titles like Xenoblade Chronicles (again fairly similar to Dragon Age: Origins, but with a more open world and far better melee combat) and Pandora's Tower (an action-RPG with a highly strange world and story). I think there's a Fire Emblem game on the Wii as well (Fire Emblem being a series of tactical JRPGs which are widely known for how difficult and punishing they can be, not terribly unlike X-COM).

And then there are even more niche titles like Disgaea or the Atelier franchise, which feature "anime" tropes even more heavily than all of the previous games I've mentioned.

Now, if you had a 3DS, that system has quite a few quality JRPGs on it right now. But... well, yeah. Unfortunately the PC doesn't have much in the way of quality JRPGs right now, there are a few really niche lower-budget titles, but the "creme de la creme" so to speak are basically just the re-releases of Final Fantasy VII and VIII, and... well, those aren't games which have aged particularly well, though I still like them quite a lot.

Oh, there's also Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Remix and soon to be 2.5 Remix on the PS3. They're action-RPGs which combine Final Fantasy characters (and plotting) with Disney worlds and characters. The story is incredibly weird, especially after the first game which has a mostly self-contained plot, and the writing/dialogue can get very melodramatic (I'd be interested in finding out how many times the words "heart" and "darkness" are used throughout the franchise), but gorram I love it too much anyway.

 

[Fractral]

If you enjoyed Persona, you should check out the rest of the Shin Megami Tensei series. I'm not sure whether you'd be able to play them on those consoles though, since most of them are on PS2 and the rest are on the (3)DS. Nocturne is especially good, as are the Devil Survivor games.
The Final Fantasy games are also worth checking out, although the 'good ones' are generally agreed to be the older ones. I think you can get 4 through 6 on the Wii virtual console, and 7 through 9 on PSN. I've never used it myself but I've heard that there are a lot of great older JRPG's on the Wii virtual console, such as Chrono Trigger and Earthbound.
There aren't a huge number of good JRPG's on the 360. Lost Oddessy is fairly popular, but I didn't like it mainly due to the very slow combat system. I'm not sure about the very few others. Unless you emulate (which, depending on how you obtain the games, can be illegal) the PC doesn't have many good JRPG series either.
I'm not sure about Wii or PS3 exclusives since I don't own those systems.

 

[Jason Rayes]

Tales of Vesperia and Tales of Graces F are another two games in the Tales series that are worth checking out if you are liking Xillia. Though I recommend a break between Tales games to avoid burnout

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky is out on steam now I think (also on psp) so give that a go.

Valkyria Chronicles, Disgaea series, Ar Tonelico, Atelier series, Ninokuni, Lost Odyssey are all great ones too.

 

[Blitsie]

Definitely also vouch for Ni No Kuni, that and Xenoblade are hands down one of the best JRPG's I've played in a long while. Ni No Kuni has this perfect combination of old and new (and just outright oozes charm) while Xenoblade just flat-out turned the genre on its head for me at times with how completely different it handles some things.

White Knight Chronicles 2 I'd say is sort of worth checking out, the whole turning into a gigantic knight to stomp your enemies with is darn awesome, but I highly recommend doing research on it before jumping in, its a solid overall JRPG with a pretty cool town building mechanic but its multiplayer, which was admittedly one of its more favorable elements, got shut down sadly and I recall the game involving quite a lot of grinding.

 

[Vivi22]

If you enjoyed Persona, you should check out the rest of the Shin Megami Tensei series. I'm not sure whether you'd be able to play them on those consoles though, since most of them are on PS2 and the rest are on the (3)DS. Nocturne is especially good, as are the Devil Survivor games.

A ton of Megaten games are available as PS2 classics on the Playstation network (might even be all of the PS2 games actually now that I think about it). Which is nice, because I remember trying to track down used copies of Digital Devil Saga years ago and that would have been really damn expensive. $10 is a pretty nice price for that stuff.

 

[Guffe]

Xenoblade Chronicles
Tales of (series), Symphonia for GameCube/Wii
The Last Story
Fire Emblem
that is a good start (all Nintendo)

 

[Bonk4licious]

I actually do have 3DS and Vita, so I'll have to check out the other SMT titles, though I hear some of them are pretty rage-inducing.

I really appreciate the feedback guys! As someone new to JRPGs, simply getting into them for some diversity and out of a recent desire to get more out of my anime obsessions, this is really helpful. I actually did really enjoy the last Fire Emblem title, so I'll probably check the others out and see if I can get hands on Xenoblade since almost all of you guys are pointing me in that direction, haha.

 

[Weltall1021]

I'd recommend just about any of the namco tales series, Xenoblade too (game blew my mind about 4 times in the last 20 minutes) though another great series is Star Ocean. Valkyria Chronicles is great if your into tactical jrpgs and it's art style is really neat. Also a bit left field is the game MS Saga - A new Dawn. It's a gundam RPG with plenty of customization if you can get over how the main character runs. (all i can say is rigid spine)