That tempting, evil game...

[Kagim]

FF13 is one of the weakest games in the series according to what I've heard from friends, and posters here at the escapist.

If you want a JRPG go with FF7, which every JRPG fan heralds as the second coming of Christ.

FFVII is actually pretty boring... I say this as a person who thought it was awesome when i was 12 and have recently played it again at 20. Its actually quite a disappointment if played side by side with FFVI, that said...

OT: Go with FFVI first. Its one of the best in the series.

The only problem with starting with Kingdom Hearts 2 first is that its actually a sequel, so you need to play the first game, well, first. After that hurdle the second game has about an hour and a half snooze before it actually gets really good.

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

Mine has to be Fable II. I beat it sometime ago, and I recently dug it up again to go for the achievments. I decided to make a new girl character, and now I can't stop playing it. It went from a easy achievment hunting to getting all the good weapons and wanting to get 100% completion.

 

[Dexiro]

It's a love or hate thing, as with most FF games. You've got to play it to know if you'll like it :3

Personally i thought it was good right to the end. People whinge about the linearity but i thought it was brilliant, and no linearerer than tons of other games. The gameplay is great too - it's a little complicated but eases you in at a good speed (although maybe a little too slowly).

It turned me into a graphic whore too. Usually i don't care about graphics but with that game i was gawping all the way through

 

[DividedUnity]

I played lost odessy once and I enjoyed that quite a bit. That the only other JRPG ive played apart from FF XIII so I cant say i know the genre. However I feel that FF 13 was an enjoyable experience for me till I rage quit near the end of the game because of some annoying events

 

[Keepitclean]

I love western RPGs and I never really liked Final Fantasy games. A JRPG that I did like was Tales of Symphonia for Game Cube. I don't know why it stood out to me. One feature I thought was pretty awesome is the ability to have local multiplayer through the campaign. It has random encounters but it is real time fighting in those random enounters.

Oh, another great JRPG is Baton Katos. Its on Game Cube and based around cards. You may or may not like it but you can pick in up for $20 or so.

 

[Nomanslander]

I just want to add, Demon's Souls has to be one of the best WRPGs made, and by the Japanese.

If it had a little bit more story I would boast how it's better than Dragon Age....>=D

 

[FinalHeart95]

No. No. No. No.

As a non-JRPG fan, the linearity will make you want to shoot yourself. I recommend either Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, or FFVI. Earthbound isn't a very good representation of your average JRPG though, as it's just WAY out there. =P

 

[Brad Shepard]

First of all let me give you a background about my gaming habits: I am a massive WRPG fan. I have played everything from Morrowind to Mass Effect 2. Simply put, I love any western RPG that was competently made. I have never played a JRPG before in my life but FF13 intrigued me. Since this community has the greatest gaming masterminds I would like your opinion, do you think that I with my WRPG would enjoy FF13 and should I get it?

while i am a final fantasy pusher, i would say start out with another final fantasy first, but sence you play a lot of WRPGs, 13 may be a good start for you (8 and 9 are still the best in my book)

 

[Thaius]

I liked XIII a lot, personally. You have to be okay with some Japanese cultural differences (mainly their mannerisms, characterizations, and the fact that they like monologues in their stories), but overall it's a fantastic game. The battle system is my favorite in the series so far, and though the overall story isn't quite up to par with some of the other Final Fantasy games, the incredible character development and inter-relational drama of the first 20 hours more than makes up for that. It's not quite my favorite Final Fantasy game, but it's up there. One of my favorite RPGs of the millennium so far.

EDIT: I will add that I think VI, VII, and X are the best so far.

If you want a truly incredible example of storytelling with the limited technology of the Super Nintendo, play that one. A truly amazing game with genuinely emotional storytelling and one of the best soundtracks to grace a video game. Gameplay is good too, of course, but that was never what made Final Fantasy amazing: the story, characters, and all-around artistic quality is overwhelmingly good, so play it.

VII was the first to go 3D (still an old-school version of 3D, but nonetheless different from the old-school 2D RPGs). Boasting another incredible soundtrack, a long, engaging story, and more lovable characters, it's quite possibly the greatest interactive fantasy story ever told. The battle system is standard turn-based fare, but the customization outside of battle (namely the ingenious Materia system) is exceptional.

X is more up to par graphically, being made more recently, and it excels in many areas. Despite one particularly cheesy scene and patchy early PS2 voice acting, it is a fantastic game with a great character-driven story. The soundtrack is not the best, but still rather good (not to mention it has To Zanarkand, possibly the most beautiful piano song I have ever heard). It also has my second-favorite battle system of the series.

EDIT #2: For the record, Final Fantasy VII was the first RPG I ever played, and I quickly fell in love with JRPGs after playing that masterpiece of a game. Just throwin' that out there.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

Short answer, no.

Not if that's what you're expecting, heck FF13 I think is one of the worst to get into JRPG games with, start with something a little older.

Like any of the Tales games.

 

[Brain_Cleanser]

FF13 is one of the weakest games in the series according to what I've heard from friends, and posters here at the escapist.

If you want a JRPG go with FF7, which every JRPG fan heralds as the second coming of Christ.

Your friends are lying. 13's actually one of the best games in the series. (To me. FFV is my favorite, I'm ... diffrent)
Though, if your transfering from WRPGs to JRPGs, FF12 emulates the Western style very well, and is pretty cheap used. That's my suggestion. Use it as a jumping off point.

 

[rt052192]

im a western rpg kinda guy. give me a good Tolkien rip-off and a six pack of mountain dew(thats how i roll) and i'll be happy. JRPG is way too over the top cinematic flashy sequences for me and the storyline doesn't arouse me as does a good western rpg medieval-esque quest/epic journey.

 

[Legendsmith]

Start with a good JRPG, ie NOT FF13

 

[Brian Hendershot]

First of all let me give you a background about my gaming habits: I am a massive WRPG fan. I have played everything from Morrowind to Mass Effect 2. Simply put, I love any western RPG that was competently made. I have never played a JRPG before in my life but FF13 intrigued me. Since this community has the greatest gaming masterminds I would like your opinion, do you think that I with my WRPG would enjoy FF13 and should I get it?

Yeah, your not going to like it.

I'm one of the big FF fans and I don't really even like it anymore. It's dragging its butt with the story and...I could go on all day with this.

Start out with Persona 3. Its a good JRPG and my friend who never played any RPGs ever liked--in fact loved it, he beat it like three times.

If you feel like going old school try Golden Sun (GBA), Legend of Dragoon (PS) or even fire Emblem

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I haven't played FFXIII, but if you really want my opinion, JRPGs were greatest during the SNES era which gave us great titles like Chrono Trigger, Secret of Evermore, Super Mario RPG, Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy VI (aka Final Fantasy III), and others. Although some relativity recent JRPGs that are pretty decent include Star Ocean: Till the End of Time and Dragon Quest VIII (although you'll probably get lost around the middle of that one).
If you looking to get into JRPGs and are a WRPG fan, I'd suggest starting with any of the titles I've listed.

 

[MorphingDragon]

If you own a PS3 I would say get Folklore, its got to be one of the best story driven JRPGs Ive played.

If youve only got a 360, try source Blue Dragon.

 

[BlackndEclipse]

I found Infinite Undiscovery and The Last Remnant to be quite enjoyable.Infinite Undiscovery has pretty good gameplay, though the story goes a bit out of whack near the end. The Last Remnant gets hard but it's still pretty good, Magna Carta 2 is also fairly decent, despite the fact that the characters have little to no fighting stamina.

 

[The Lawn]

My roomie is playing it right now, and he says it's pretty much a bunch of pretty corridors where you randomly fight things that lead to a movie and then another corridor.

If you like the open world freedom of WRPGs like me, you will find JRPGs like FFXIII very confining.

 

[Gauntes]

Since this community has the greatest gaming masterminds

We are now hiring henchmen
the last one did marvelous work in the MS department
and if you ask me if MS stands for Meat shield, I am obligated to say no

On the topic, I didn't really enjoy FFXIII all that much
mostly because the first few hours of gameplay didn't really start to get exciting

Me being rabid fan of Western RPGs probably didn't help all that much either