Recommend the two best JRPG's in history.

[bigredlyms]

Golden Sun: TLA, Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken, and Pokemon: Heart Gold are my all time favorite games, and I'm really not a JRPG guy. The systems in those games are perfect. In golden sun, it expands perfectly on the first game, starts out extremely linear and then shifts seamlessly into a JRPG sandbox. Its a game where grinding can be fun, treasure hunting and side quests are stumbled across, and I enjoyed it immensely. FE for the GBA is my all time favorite game. It is easy to learn, but insanely hard to master. Even if youve played through the entire story 15 or so times, as i have, you still get a different experience every time because it has endless replay value. It may be a tactics style game, but it's definitely a JRPG and is amazing. And lastly, Heart Gold doesnt need much said about it. The Pokemon franchise is well-known and this is a near perfect remake of my favorite pokemon generation: Gen 2. All three would e wonderful choices, especially the latter two if you are looking for something a little different than all of the JRPGs that are so similar to the Final Fantasy series.

ps i also like Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelists of the Roses. Its silly and ridiculous but it gets the job done well.

 

[Christopher Fisher]

Well, the ones that will get people the least pissed off with you are Chrono Trigger and FF6. Seems a little odd that there is a specific JRPG genre--why isn't it just RPG?

Because I consider them different genres entirely, they play different, feel different, are developed different, in the end they are just extremely different.

Are you including Demon Souls/Dark Souls in the JRPG genre? Because those are far more like WRPGs than JRPGs. Anyway, me personally...I probably like Lunar Silver Star Story Complete and Tales of Symphonia the best. Tales had the best JRPG combat system I've ever played, and Lunar SSC had the most memorable story and characters to me. My favorite is definitely Lunar SSC; it may have been somewhat cliche at the time (I don't know--I was too young to have been inundated with JRPG cliches), but I just remember really falling in love with that game.

It also happens to be one of the few JRPGs from the Playstation era that I could see myself going back to replay. I hate crappy 3D, but I LOOOVVEEE beautiful, intricate 2D.

 

[Tanis]

Classic:
FF6 & Earthbound

Post-Classic:
CC & VP

Modern:
P3:FES & VC

 

[JEBWrench]

I'm gonna throw in a non-Japanese JRPG. Just to be different.

Anachronox.

Also for something not mentioned, Star Ocean: Second Story. There's a lot of content, interesting gameplay, and a horde of characters, along with choices to be made that can cost characters their lives. Which is always shiny and happy.

Honourable mention: Lunar: Silver Star. If you asked another day, I might recommend it over SO:SS, they're that close in my book.

 

[Raijha]

Final Fantasy 6, Star Ocean:Second Story

Honorable mention to the Lunar Series. Eternal Blue or Silver Star Story, both were good.

Honestly there have been a TONNE of great recommendations in this thread already (although a bunch I'd hesitate to call traditional JRPGS), there's still a long history of great gaming in this genre.

 

[Fodder Aplenty]

paper mario: the thousand year door, and pokemon heart gold, easily.

 

[MiskWisk]

Sword Art Online and ALfheim Online.

I don't care if they aren't real! THEY SHOULD BE!
oh, wait, they are MMOs anyway.

In that case, Final Fantasy 7 and probably Chrono Trigger although I don't tend to play jrpgs so my opinion shouldn't count for much.

EDIT: The Kingdom Hearts series also gets an honourable mention by being brilliant.

 

[Ryan Hughes]

Suikoden II
Suikoden III

By far the best story of any game series. Even better than Silent Hill and other Konami titles. Imagine if you will, an RPG that discourages grinding and has no quests that are not directly related to the plot or characters.

 

[TheAIOverlord]

Dodge any of those joke FF games like they're the plague.

Try Baten Kaitos and Chrono Trigger.

I get the sense you haven't actually played any Final Fantasy games. The ones after IX look bad, though (I haven't played them, so I could be wrong about that).
Final Fantasy IX has one of the best video game stories ever, in my opinion.
I apologize if any of that was rude.

 

[GamingAwesome1]

The World Ends With You and MOTHER 3.

Both have decently unique and interesting combat systems and both tell an interesting story although the former doesn't do it quite as well.

 

[YCRanger]

Persona 4. Unique and intriguing storyline and actually a little RP in your JRPG

Xenogears. A lot of games get the title of epic. Xenogears is EPIC. In pure scope I have yet to find a game that matches it

 

[Guffe]

Personal opinion:
Tales of Symphonia and Xenoblade Chronicles.

But then again I haven'tplayed FF or Chrono Trigger or Fire Emblem which are supposed to be magnificent games.

Ok, even if no one else agrees, I do. Two of my favorites, although I would rank Skies of Arcadia over Xenoblade.

Wow, got to check Arcadia out, if someone ranks it over Xenoblade and also like Tales then this might be somethign for me, haven't even heard of it <.<

 

[havoc33]

Really, really hard to choose just two. From the Final Fantasy series you could easily choose either VI, VII or IX. I'm going to go with FFVII, just for the sheer impact it had on me as a gamer. Completely mindblowing at the time.

For second I should say Chrono Trigger, but seeing that I actually haven't played it much yet (I already know I love it though), my sentimental choice would be Secret of Mana.

 

[NorthernStar]

Tales of Symphonia.
Great combat system, amazing story.

As for the other one, I'm going to have to say FFX. Loved that one. Great story, good voice acting.

 

[ImperialSunlight]

I am by no means an expert in this area, I have yet to play many of the "classics" in this genre, but these are my favourites:

Dark Souls/Demon's Souls - represents an important change in JRPGs, an openness to new ideas in the formula that are not necessarily eastern or western.

Also, gesamtkunstwerk, apparantly:


Pokemon Red/Blue - Extremely influential, helped expand interest in JRPGs to the west, developed many of the genre's staple features and in general, is a very well-balanced, extremely fun game.

 

[Klumpfot]

Suikoden II
Suikoden III

By far the best story of any game series. Even better than Silent Hill and other Konami titles. Imagine if you will, an RPG that discourages grinding and has no quests that are not directly related to the plot or characters.

In fairness, that's easy when there are so many characters that are in your party at some point!

That said, Suikoden II is one of the games I'm going to recommend here! I think that the central plot is absolutely fantastic, and it is at times incredibly touching.

The other pick is harder though. I'm inclined to go with Final Fantasy VII because I loved it as a child, but time has not been kind to it. Instead, I'mma go with Earthbound, which I didn't play until I was 19 or so. While it can be very frustrating, it's just so charming and joyful that I can't help but love it. The overall mood makes the end all the more effective.