Recommend the two best JRPG's in history.

[Arkayn]

Final Fantasy IX. Everyone has already said why but it is amazingly open and interesting as far as the world goes and the story is great. Full of excitement, emotion and depth.

Vivi is the coolest character EVER!!!

For the 2nd choice,

Dark Souls. If you learn how the story is indirectly told through the item descriptions, npc dialogue and then connect the dots the locations and covenants it is very very well written.
As for as the gameplay mechanics, well once you learn how the leveling of stats and how they work with items and armour goes and build a very focused character on say, strength or dex, faith or intelligence etc you will see why it is one of the best games ever.
It is not how hard it is, it is how clever it is in seeming hard till you get how to play it then it makes most action rpg's look half arsed.

 

[Mister K]

My personal favorites are Final Fantasy X and Chrono Trigger, with Persona 4 on the third place.

Final Fantasy X and Persona 4.

Ignore what the haters say. FFX was a great game. But all of them go "WAH BAD VOICE ACTING" cite that one laugh scene, and walk away.

Amen to that.

 

[Rastien]

Not sure if it's been mentioned but seriously try Grandia 1 so many people have over looked this game it is amazing, awesome combat, heart warming story and half decent voice acting to boot, sure it's a PS1 game but give it a go.

I have written a rough overview of this game on my blog today funnily enough check my profile for a link if you are interested.

2cnd personal favorite has to be FF7 cliche i know

 

[havoc33]

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.

Not to mention one of the funniest RPG's ever, Steiner is absolutely hilarious!

 

[Teh Jammah]

My personal faves would be Persona 4 and Tales of Vesperia. But there's a lot of other good stuff in this thread as well.

 

[Doom972]

Chrono Trigger and Golden Sun. You'll probably have to play Golden Sun: The Lost Age too, since they're two parts of one whole story that couldn't fit on a single cartridge.

 

[hermes]

Chrono Trigger and Dragon Quest 8 are definitely up there.

 

[go-10]

I'm gonna get a lot of hate but...

1. Final Fantasy VII
2. Chrono Trigger

 

[Oly J]

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.

Not to mention one of the funniest RPG's ever, Steiner is absolutely hilarious!

I agree, as a kid when I first saw the "Steiner to the rescue" scene near the begining I laughed so hard that my sides ache just thinking about it to this day


question: are the majoraty of people who name Final Fantasy's deliberately avoiding 7 to avoid sounding fanboyish or is it just coincidental? as it was my first Final Fantasy I WOULD heartily recomment FF7 without a hint of irony, I loved it, and yes it's probably hugely overrated at this point but it's worth remembering that sometimes popular things are popular for a reason...that is I WOULD recommend 7, but the dated graphics of the time kind of make it a bad example if you want to immediately impress, I'd have to go with 9 too...which I'm currently replaying by the way, beautiful scenery even by modern standards, great story, etc, you've read this a few times by now,

as for a second one, I'm going with Kingdom Hearts...yeah you heard, Kingdom Hearts, what's not to love about that game? (the first one at least) ok the story was a little strained by the very nature of the crossover, and it's great that they're using characters from Final Fantasy, but would it kill them to have ONE FF location to visit? but in spite of all that I don't remember another game that gave me more fond memories, and also how proud I was when I finally beat Sephiroth, on my 65th attempt, by the skin of my teeth

 

[Kurenaino]

Tales of Symphonia. TALES OF SYMPHONIA. Or most of the other games in the Tales series, for that matter. The series as a whole has this lovely tendency to set things up all stereotypical and then shit all over the standard conventions.

Then...Xenoblade Chronicals was excellent. And Persona 4 may very well be one of the best RPGs ever created. So...those.

 

[BeeGeenie]

FFVI and FFIX

Search your feelings. You know it to be true. >

 

[MiskWisk]

question: are the majoraty of people who name Final Fantasy's deliberately avoiding 7 to avoid sounding fanboyish or is it just coincidental? as it was my first Final Fantasy I WOULD heartily recomment FF7 without a hint of irony, I loved it, and yes it's probably hugely overrated at this point but it's worth remembering that sometimes popular things are popular for a reason...that is I WOULD recommend 7, but the dated graphics of the time kind of make it a bad example if you want to immediately impress, I'd have to go with 9 too...which I'm currently replaying by the way, beautiful scenery even by modern standards, great story, etc, you've read this a few times by now,

as for a second one, I'm going with Kingdom Hearts...yeah you heard, Kingdom Hearts, what's not to love about that game? (the first one at least) ok the story was a little strained by the very nature of the crossover, and it's great that they're using characters from Final Fantasy, but would it kill them to have ONE FF location to visit? but in spite of all that I don't remember another game that gave me more fond memories, and also how proud I was when I finally beat Sephiroth, on my 65th attempt, by the skin of my teeth

I said 7 after I realised my first two were MMOs and so didn't count.
[small]and didn't exist in the real world[/small]

Captcha: upvote this
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[havoc33]

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.

Not to mention one of the funniest RPG's ever, Steiner is absolutely hilarious!

I agree, as a kid when I first saw the "Steiner to the rescue" scene near the begining I laughed so hard that my sides ache just thinking about it to this day


question: are the majoraty of people who name Final Fantasy's deliberately avoiding 7 to avoid sounding fanboyish or is it just coincidental? as it was my first Final Fantasy I WOULD heartily recomment FF7 without a hint of irony, I loved it, and yes it's probably hugely overrated at this point but it's worth remembering that sometimes popular things are popular for a reason...that is I WOULD recommend 7, but the dated graphics of the time kind of make it a bad example if you want to immediately impress, I'd have to go with 9 too...which I'm currently replaying by the way, beautiful scenery even by modern standards, great story, etc, you've read this a few times by now,

as for a second one, I'm going with Kingdom Hearts...yeah you heard, Kingdom Hearts, what's not to love about that game? (the first one at least) ok the story was a little strained by the very nature of the crossover, and it's great that they're using characters from Final Fantasy, but would it kill them to have ONE FF location to visit? but in spite of all that I don't remember another game that gave me more fond memories, and also how proud I was when I finally beat Sephiroth, on my 65th attempt, by the skin of my teeth

Yeah, I know, it's weird. I actually recommended FFVII in an earlier post here. I still think it holds up very well. The prerendered backdrops looks great compared to other full 3D games of the PSOne era. Just fire up Tomb Raider or Metal Gear Solid, and you'll see what I mean. Anyways, FFVII has it all IMO: amazing world (I love the gritty, cyberpunk look of Midgar), great cast and a memorable story (not many games dare to kill of a main character in such a way these days I tell you). Sure, some people might overrate it, but at the same time it almost singlehandedly brought RPG's to the casual gamer in the west, and I'm not sure how you can underestimate that. Even for me, having played a few proper RPGs before its release, FFVII still blew my mind when I first booted it up back in 1997.

 

[Yggdraz0r]

You all should pull down the Gamecube from it's shelter and play some proper Baten Kaitos: The Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean. The voice acting isn't all that bad as they might have you think, but the rest makes up for it.

The gameplay, the art style and most of all: Dat OST. The gameplay is just so much fun :3. Sunrise combo's are a great joy once you finish one.

And I would second (or third or fourteenth, where we at?) Tales of Symphonia. By far one of the best battle systems I have come across. No silly turn based menu scrolling battle system. Button mashing combo spree's . Can't get better I'd say.

 

[Christopher Fisher]

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.

I assume you played the games when you were younger, if not then try waiting a little while and go back to them.

Most of the final fantasy games age terribly. I'm not talking about the graphics but the characters and plot. I don't understand how any adult, who does not suffer a fetish for the weaker parts of japanese culture, could enjoy the aesthetics of the later final fantasy games. There are some great summons, but I feel like they're bright spots in an otherwise gray everyday.

Breath of Fire (1 and 2 specifically) and Earthbound in example are games whose stories I feel age a lot better. They're enjoyable as an adult and the characters are easier to relate to. In my opinion that is

I think this might be the reason I generally dislike just about every JRPG that has come out this generation, with the exception of the Paper Mario franchise. They probably just didn't seem as ridiculous when I was younger....on the other hand, I do think certain JRPG franchises like Final Fantasy truly have gotten worse. Evidence: Nooj.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

If you're writing a school newspaper article, I would recommend just sticking to the clichés, i.e. FFVII, Chrono Trigger and maybe Persona 4 as it's sort of a modern classic. It's always better in cases like these to stick with something that is widely known. If you were writing an article about the greatest films ever made, you wouldn't be writing about some movies one internet community considers superior to "Casablanca" or "Citizen Kane", would you? FFVII may be overhyped, but there has to be some reason behind why it is considered one of the greatest RPGs of all time.

 

[Zeldias]

This is really hard. How about you pick two from my list instead? lol

SMT: Nocturne
Tales of Vesperia (Best Tales of... IMO)
Final Fantasy 6
Final Fantasy Tactics
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together
Breath of Fire 3 and 4
Suikoden 1 and 2
Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2
Okage: Shadow King
Shadow Hearts

Each amazing. If I absolutely had to pick two for myself, I'd probably go with Suikoden 2 and either TO: LUCT or Nocturne. If I was picking for a person new to the genre, then Vesperia and either Okage or Shadow Hearts.