The Chewers "Best JRPG's and their related experiences" thread

I used to love JRPGs. FFVII & Tactics, Tales of _____, Vagrant Story, etc.

Then I started doing tabletop gaming, and I haven't really been able to look back without extreme criticism. There's so much world-breaking inconsistency that I almost can't play them anymore. FFIX and XII I had a good time with, and very recently, but most older fare is immersion-proof.

It makes me a little sad, honestly. One form of gaming ripped open a series of total logical flaws with another that I couldn't just blame on, say, a crappy GM.

My all time favourite non-FF JRPGs have to be Grandia on the PS1 and Skies of Arcadia on the Gamecube/Dreamcast.

Grandia was just fantastic and it really captured this fantastic feel of adventure and discovery whilst been unbelieveably hard at times.

Skies of Arcadia was a game that should have been a slog, overly long battles + insane encounter rate = ARGH, but it had so much charm that it was almost impossible to put down.

The Shadow Hearts series is really the only one I've played aside from dabbling in FFVII. I played more for the random ring to-hit mechanic more than anything, but some of the characters were fun, including the dollmaker who had different powers depending on what his doll was wearing and a vampire turned pro wrestler. The improbability of the World War I setting made it even more enjoyable.

Chrono Trigger
FF7 (Yeah, that game did it for me)
And the Mario and Luigi games on DS and gameboy

RPGs is like the horror genre for me... it doesn't do anything for me unless it's truly something special. So yeah, it's the best of the best for me (or the most accessible)...

FF VII (not great in retrospect, but it has a damn interesting world)
Chrono Trigger (aged much better than FF VII, way more sophisticated, untouchable)
Mario RPG/Paper Mario series (these games can get a little tiring after a while, but goddamn is the writing great).

Final Fantasy VI

Xenogears

Chrono Trigger


Honorable Mentions: Final Fantasy Tactics, Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy VII.

Best JRPG?

Earthbound

Hands down.

Personally, JRPGs are very specific to the PS1 for me. My parents had a Genesis when I was very young during the 16-Bit days, and that collected dust as I got a little bit older and got into Sierra and Lucasarts adventure games. Like many, FFVII was the first JRPG I ever played, and it hooked me in a big way to the genre over the life of the PS1. I just had never played anything like that before, and I liked how smart it was at the time (keep in mind, I was thirteen). I think it was actually the first console game I ever played that had an identifiable story. I was used to platformers and Punch Out (my other addiction, maybe it was for the best I could only play this at my friends house), so FFVII was a revelation.

PS1 favorites include Xenogears (crappy second disc and all) and Vagrant Story. Chrono Cross was forgettable, if not gorgeous. Anything Square, I was game.

Of course, I was also into PC gaming at the time, and started dabbling in RPGs on that platform. Mainly Bioware and Black Isle stuff, which combined the story and customization that I liked in the JRPGs and a very heavy influence from the adventure era. Really, how could the JRPGs compete with a big Barbarian who had a lovable hamster of power?

And now Bioware makes console games, and I think that there's a certain JRPG influence there, despite the slightly more flexible story lines. I remember KOTOR striking me as very JRPG-ish.

Phantasy Star IV. Beginning of a weird-ass love affair. A love affair Chrono Trigger would consummate something fierce about a year later.

I've tend to choose my JRPGs very carefully, if it sucks me in, I might spend every bit of free time on it. The last one I've played was Final Fantasy XII. The combat system was fantastic, but I was really let down by the lack of story for the characters. The world, the creature design was fantastic, by fat the best I've seen in the FF series. Had the characters had been given (any!) story, it would've been my favourite of the series. I obsessively completed the sidequests and put in - 160 hours -. That's scary. Never again! To this day, I'd probably still say I enjoyed FF3/VI the most, if only for the massive cast of cool characters and over-powered Genji gloves which made for a fun time shredding through bosses.

For old-school RPG thrills, I can't recommend Dragon Quest VIII enough. It's funny, good-looking and the open-world feel is great and well-designed. The combat is slow though. I can't understand why they kept that turgid menu system untouched.

i just finished playing Okamion PS2, which is an action/RPG, I'd recommend it to anyone looking to play a true sequel to Zelda. In fact, I'd say it easily surpasses The Ocarina of Time as the best action/RPG I've played.

Didn't we already decide here that liking JRPGs makes you a pedophile? Well, it does. Which is fine if you're a child yourself, but otherwise is bad form.

It must have been the actual choices that matter... no, wait, JRPGs don't have those. Maybe it was the romantic storylines that advance beyond giggling and holding hands... no, wait, JRPGs don't do that. Perhaps it was the attempt to tell a storyline more mature than the discards of an anime fan fiction collection... ah, who am I kidding? The only thing true RPGs and JRPGs have in common is that they involve stories.

The very definition of a JRPG is to eliminate role-playing from the start. They are by and large non-interactive anime stories on rails. You don't play a role, you watch the story of an effeminate boy as he rises from a lowly chicken farmer to becoming the key to saving the universe from an effeminate man, all while living a great romance with his brain-damaged girlfriend that culminates in admitting they like each other and almost kissing, and watching as friends die then return to life with no explanation. Meanwhile the player presses the X button continuously for 30+ hours. And at some point, you may have to hump a giant ostrich.

The best Japanese Role-playing Game is DEAD RISING. It forces you to make choices that matter. And liking it doesn't make you a pedophile.

But really, Bioware style RPGs unfold their multiple storylines in a way akin to Choose Your Own Adventure Books. This isn't a bad thing, it's just more or less where the technology is at. Sure, there are choices that matter to the plot, but they are usually binary choices. The story still follows a path, just one that branches here and there into different directions.

JRPGs have their roots in older consoles, and I can see the resistance of the genre to grow beyond those roots as a serious flaw (I don't even play them anymore). But, they basically formed the mold for console RPGs, and to deny the influence they had over more recent western console RPGs is like denying Resident Evil's influence over games like Dead Space. You may like the more recent, modern stuff better (Which is perfectly fine! I do, too.), but there is a history there.

Oh yeah. For all the talk about Aeris dying being a pivotal moment in games and whatnot, Alys' death hit me with that long before, and without Nobuo Uematsu doing most of the heavy emotional lifting.

What was funny about Aeris' death is that it didn't feel like a huge deal if you were leaning toward Tifa in the romance plot anyway, like I did on my first play through way back when. When all my mates in the eighth grade were talking about how heavy that moment was, I couldn't help but think people were getting all worked up just over having their best healer taken away.