Recommend the two best JRPG's in history.

[EmperorZoltan]

Dark Cloud, Dark Chronicle.

Where have all the level 5 games gone? Ni no kuni cannot come fast enough!

 

[bearlotz]

I'd also suggest Legend of Dragoon for it's fairly large cult following.

My theory is that if Legend of Dragoon had come out a year earlier, it would have taken FFVII's place in the public consciousness. As it happened, they came out in the same year and we all know how that ended.

I'm also pleased by all the FF Tactics mentions here, I sank an unholy number of hours into that when I was younger (and will continue to do so once my new memory cards come in).

OT: Legend of Dragoon and FFX, with an honorable mention to Breath of Fire 3. Dragoon is not without its problems: it was one of the first crop of games to make use of the 3D and the graphics have aged about as well as a crate of bananas, and the localization left a *little* bit to be desired. That said, the attack timing in the combat system was a nice Addition to the usual "stand in two lines and take turns hitting each other" routine and there were a lot of interesting ideas at play with the different locations (I'm looking at you, Wingly cities).

Yes yes, we all know about The Laughing Scene, I don't like it any more than you do, now hush. FFX fell down a bit in terms of linear location maps and generally making the world feel blocked off by invisible walls at times. Where it succeeded was in the massive number of different mini-games and optional areas in the world, the leveling system, and making me stop loathing Tidus by the end of the game. Particularly the leveling system: you got progressively stronger no matter what you did, but it really rewarded taking a bit of time to plan your route out. The story was very much love-hate, I thought it was good.

 

[GlenTheFox]

Chrono Trigger's my top recommendation. As for a second...Always been a fan of early Final Fantasy games. IV has a good story, and the After Years was a nice little continuation to it. VI is very engaging. I'd even throw out a recommendation for Final Fantasy Tactics if you're into the strategical tactics types of games.

 

[flamdunk]

Second, while in the gaming community you do have a point, when it comes to the general mainstream, FF7 is not the game that did that. That honor goes to Pokemon.

Wrong.
You can attempt to revise history all you like, but that doesn't make it true.

Having been around since the days of the C64 and being a huge fan of RPGs since forever, I can emphatically state that Pokemon had very little influence on popularizing Japanese RPGs in the West. No single game popularized Japanese RPGs like FF7. FF7 made them go mainstream. End of story.

Pokemon was aimed at children and had almost no effect on those of us who were actually playing RPGs in 1997. You know, older teens and adults.

I was in college myself.

Well, considering that I, my friends(across three different states, I might add), my friends' goldfish, and my friends' goldfishes' treasure chest a) got into gaming in large part because of pokemon as kids and b) most of us still consider JRPGs to be our pet genre, as well as the fact that the same thing has happened to my little cousin and her friends, I said it before and I'll say it again.

Within the gaming community, FF7 was a big game changer(no pun intended), but Pokemon has had a larger impact on mainstream culture.

And before you or anyone else call me a FF hater, no. While I'm not a rabid fan of the franchise, I love FF1, FF6, Tactics Advance, and want to try out Dissidia. The only parts of the franchise that I know of that I truly hate are FF8's gameplay and FF10's characters9save Aurin) and story.

 

[flamdunk]

Second, while in the gaming community you do have a point, when it comes to the general mainstream, FF7 is not the game that did that. That honor goes to Pokemon.

Wrong.
You can attempt to revise history all you like, but that doesn't make it true.

Having been around since the days of the C64 and being a huge fan of RPGs since forever, I can emphatically state that Pokemon had very little influence on popularizing Japanese RPGs in the West. No single game popularized Japanese RPGs like FF7. FF7 made them go mainstream. End of story.

Pokemon was aimed at children and had almost no effect on those of us who were actually playing RPGs in 1997. You know, older teens and adults.

I was in college myself.

Well, considering that I, my friends(across three different states, I might add), my friends' goldfish, and my friends' goldfishes' treasure chest a) got into gaming in large part because of pokemon as kids and b) most of us still consider JRPGs to be our pet genre, as well as the fact that the same thing has happened to my little cousin and her friends, I said it before and I'll say it again.

Within the gaming community, FF7 was a big game changer(no pun intended), but Pokemon has had a larger impact on mainstream culture.

And before you or anyone else call me a FF hater, no. While I'm not a rabid fan of the franchise, I love FF1, FF6, Tactics Advance, and want to try out Dissidia. The only parts of the franchise that I know of that I truly hate are FF8's gameplay and FF10's characters9save Aurin) and story.

Me and a bunch of my friends loved Jumpman and it got us playing games. Does that mean Jumpman did more for platformers than Mario? No. Just because you and a handful of like-minded individuals got into gaming because of Pokemon, we shouldn't revise the historical fact that Japanese RPGs were popularized by FF7.

FF7 brought Japanese RPGs to the masses. Not Pokemon. Pokemon may have had an impact on a specific age group of children but that's it. Your personal annectdote is a great memory for you. But it's not the way it happened for the mainstream in general.

Now if you say Pokemon popularized Japanese Card Battlers in the West, I will agree emphatically.
If you say it spawned several copycat card games, I will agree.
But to say that it brought JRPGs to the mainstream - no, that's over-stepping its reach.

PS. Dissidia is awesome.
Here's my level 100 Terra (yes, me) against a Level 120 Cecil (computer)

Ya know, on reflection, I'm starting to think you're right. However, being the overthinker I am, I think it had less to do with the games' own merit and more to do with the intelligence of Square.

Similar to the Xbox and the Wii, the PS1 brought in an entirely new crowd to gaming than ever before, and Square was smart enough to realize this. If they had stuck with Nintendo instead of going to a console with people relatively new to the medium, it wouldn't have had as much of an impact and wouldn't be the most popular game in the franchise.

 

[Marcus Kehoe]

Persona 4 (But play 3 first)

Nier is also really good in terms of story, but the gameplay is a little clunky, and it's not a "usual" stye JRPG but it's really good.

NIer is a masterpiece in forms of story and voice-acting, but people should maybe warn how incredibly dark it is.