Help me out RPG lovers

[Soul Splint]

Alright, the holidays (and my birthday, incidentally) are right around the corner, and I need to know what to tell people when they ask me what they want. I'm really wanting some good RPG's for either the 360, the DS, or the Wii. Here's a sampling of my tastes:

I own and love Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Dragon Quest IX, Final Fantasy III (DS), Fable II, and probably a few others I'm forgetting, but they should give you an idea.

I tried Fallout 3 and Chrono Trigger and they didn't hold my attention very well.

I would be very grateful if you explain why you think I'll like your picks so I can base my choice on that and not on "OMG best game evar get now."

Appreciate it!

[Jonnas]

Bowser's Inside Story is an excellent take on the genre. Partners in Time is also pleasant, though BIS is better in every way.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is about to come out. The predecessors were excellent in terms of gameplay, and it seems they would match your tastes. This game seems to be following suit, so give it a try.

[Bahamut]

The Lufia 2 release on the DS has been quite interesting to me so far.

[Thalzon]

Arc Rise Fantasia is a fairly epic 50-hour adventure that I was pleasantly surprised by.

If you can find it, Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins to the Moon is an RPG-lite with a touching story, but not much else.

Lost Odyssey is an XBox JRPG that has a story most excellent. The gameplay is shallow and kind of dull, but all the story makes it a fun game to watch.

Get Rune Factory. Any of them. Frontier on Wii is the current best one, but the 2 DS offerings are nice, and the 3rd one drops next week.

[EC2151]

Lost Odyssey: great turn-based RPG with a balls-good story.

Final Fantasy: The Four Heroes of Light- simple and fun classic FF, the type you've been wanting to play for a while now.

Skies of Arcadia: Legends for the Gamecube

-One of the best RPGs for the Dreamcast, and probably one of the best for the GC as well. Great music, fun story, fun turn-based combat- it's a must-own for RPG fans.

[Bahamut]

Ah yes, I love Lost Odyssey. It is clearly a game driven by narrative done in an artistic way. It may or may not be your cup of tea.

Tales of Vesperia is a game I loved - it's got action in battles, difficulty, and has the feel of a full fledged JRPG.

[Solid Krono]

I tried... Chrono Trigger... didn't hold my attention very well.

I don't think RPGs are for you then. Blasphemy

[Zaid]

Tales of Vesperia.

Doesn't need an explanation, just play it.

[Brandon Strader]

Blue Dragon, man! Eternal Sonata is cool. I concur about Lost Odyssey. Tales of Vesperia get. Why not Fable 3

[Thalzon]

I played Blue Dragon. I strongly, STRONGLY recommend downloading and playing hard mode from the get-go. The normal mode is an absolute joke that never gets difficult. There is no difficulty curve -- there's a difficulty plane.

[Gollgagh]

There is no difficulty curve -- there's a difficulty plane.

rofl I love this description

[Tensei]

Too much JRPG suggestions in this thread. If you liked the ME games, you might enjoy Dragon Age, which has a lot of similarities to those games in terms of character interaction etc.

[Brandon Strader]

I played Blue Dragon. I strongly, STRONGLY recommend downloading and playing hard mode from the get-go. The normal mode is an absolute joke that never gets difficult. There is no difficulty curve -- there's a difficulty plane.

Perhaps. I was going to do a New Game+ one of these days (all my stuff is completely maxed out) and it'd probably be smart to try it on that hard mode. Gotta finish up my achievements. I have like 945g or something crazy like that.

[Capa Langley]

For the Wii: Super Paper Mario, Little King's Story

For the DS: Pokemon (any), Etrian Odyssey

For the 360: Dragon Age, Fable 3

[Brushfire]

Don't listen to anybody who likes Fable 3. The game is terrible. Fable 2 was better, but that game sucked as well. Lost Odyessy is awful, but I seem to only have that opinion. Dragon Age is excellent, though there are problems with the game at times. Like the complete standstill to the plot that happens about midway through. Fallout New Vegas is the bee's knees. Tales of Vesperia continues the tradition that the Tales of are good games. Blue Dragon blows. Magna Carta 2 blows, no matter what Brandon Strader says. I dunno if Shadow Complex could be considered an RPG, but it does have RPGs in it. It is a great game. It's an oldy but Oblivion is still good, and the Game of the Year version has all the DLC.

Pokemon Heart Gold or Soul Silver are excellent remakes of what is considered the best Pokemon game.

There is nothing good on the Wii.

[Icrosonze]

For DS:

The World Ends With You:

Excellent story, innovative battle system, colorful artstyle and music choices. Extremely customizable, even with the difficulty: lets beginners storm through it, and rewards those who choose to challenge themselves.

Yes, the beginning shows the protagonist as moody and antisocial. Not only is it done right though, it changes relatively soon as well. Just don't spoil anything for yourself while playing it.

Shin megami Tensei: Devil Survivor

Great story, multiple plot paths. Artstyle is nice, if not innovative. Music is good, some of it's rather catchy. Great characterization of all characters, as well as letting you characterize the main character however you want (and it does have an impact on story).

Battle system: classic grid style, but teams instead of single units per square. Winning a battle depnds very much on strategy and abusing weaknesses as opposed to grinding to increase levels. In fact, there seems to be an anti-grinding system in place, where experience needed to level up raises exponentially instead of linearly.

Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story:

Cute, funny, fun battle system. Music is amazing. Bowser is amazing. F... main villain is amazing. You really can't go wrong with this.

Pokemon HeartGold / SoulSilver:

Fun, possibly extremely nostalgic. Lots of polish everywhere, you won't get bored.

Don't know bout the Xbox. There are no good RPG's for the wii.

[Lint]

If you can give a reason why you didn't like Fallout 3 or Chrono Trigger it would be a lot easier. I can't tell whether to recommend a game based on if it's more action-oriented, JRPG-oriented, or if you just want us to tell you "Best Game Ever" - which you've specifically said you don't want, but have just excluded 2 games that could overlap with most RPG categories in the top 10.

If you don't mind the first-person view, I recommend either trying Fallout 3 again or going back to Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - or even Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind if you are into finding a lot of fan-made content. Fallout 3 is Oblivion in the future, and Oblivion is pretty much Morrowind in a bigger world and better graphics. All of them have a fair amount of customization, though the first expansions for Fallout 3 aren't that great. Also, for all 3 games the PC version can be slightly more satisfying than the console version. Oblivion and Morrowind have always been more about messing around than actually doing any story missions (for me), and they're good games for that, though Oblivion will punish you for not doing the story.

You like Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, so I would say play everything else Bioware has made. Dragon Age at the top of the list and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic if you feel like working back from Mass Effect. They all have good plot-driven atmosphere, the whole "choose your own adventure" story, and good customization options. Jade Empire could work too, but it's been a few years for me and that's a classic Xbox game.

Frankly, I'm on board with Brushfire about Fable II sucking, Fable sucking, and Peter Molyneux being a hype engine that can't deliver for crap - or maybe I just didn't care about what Fable was delivering. Regardless, if you love Fable II I wouldn't be surprised if you also love Fable 3, but I take no credit for endorsing this decision. Or, you know, you could just get GTAIV with the expansions. As a note, I did play the first 2 Fable games through in their entirety, multiple times even for Fable 2 - and while I will admit that they can be fun, I don't think it's worth the price of a new game.

Other people have recommended Tales games and Golden Sun, and I think these are pretty good series. I haven't played their latest installations, but I feel like these are the kind of things where they're not going to totally break a good thing. For that matter, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is supposed to be decent, so maybe Re:coded won't totally suck.

Friends don't let friends play Magna Carta. I'm telling you this right now, don't buy Magna Carta, don't rent it, don't do anything that might encourage them to keep releasing these fanservice-ridden pieces of ****. If you really want a copy of the game, I will gladly sell it to you, but it's bad. For that matter, I'm not sure that I can say that someone who doesn't like Chrono Trigger should EVER buy a game released by Atlus. Atlus released Etrian Odyssey and generally releases games that are solid, but are sometimes (often) directed at a niche market. If you really enjoyed the old school feel of FFIII then you should look into Etrian Odyssey, and if you've ever played a strategy RPG and don't mind spending 100+ hours of your life grinding out levels, Disgaea might be for you.

tl;dr

What do you like in RPGs? look at bold titles above and the underlined advice is not a joke. The World Ends With You. Tales of (fill in whatever title can be found). Play through more of Fallout 3 if you can, and if you like it, get Oblivion.

[relyanCe]

disgaea DS is pretty good if you're into SRPG at all. good blend of humor and awesome, plus addictive gameplay

[luhny]

I read you love Final Fantasy 3 for DS?

Then you might try Final Fantasy 4 on the DS. I think it is a very decent port of the original game and if you like the style and system of FF3(DS) then I am pretty sure you will find a good time with FF4(DS).

just my 2 cents.

[Tensei]

Please don't get Golden Sun if you didn't like Chrono Trigger. It turns up the JRPG cliches by a factor 10 and is needlessly verbose.

[Nick Hyral]

Lemme see RPG's for the DS..

I second and third everything about Bowser's Inside Story, though I personally enjoyed Partner's in Time much more.

Nostalgia has an Arcadia type system to it with alot of the old cliche stuff we've come to love in the old age of the RPG.

The World Ends with You is also a good choice, unique style of play and story.. was surprised with this one.

Any of the earlier Dragon Quest games.. I personally enjoyed the fifth one in the series, pretty good story, likable characters and a villain you want to stab in the kidney.

Ragnarok DS was a fun one for me. Not everyone's cup of tea but I played Ragnarok Online religiously, the stylus use is affective and gets the job done.

Izuna I or II. Dungeon crawling game with some pretty colorful characters and interesting story all around.

For the 360.. All I can really think of is Tales of Vesperia,and Borderlands if you've not played it on the PC is an interesting hybrid of RPG and FPS that is pretty entertaining. Really shines when you kick back and play with others.

Lemme see.. for the Wii... a game that I had loads of fun with on the PS2 that made me pick it up again for the Wii was Phantom Brave. I wouldn't call it a top tier RPG but the amount of customization and detail to your characters and such will provide you with loads of game time.

That's all I can really think of at the moment.. Might post more later if something comes to mind.

[Soul Splint]

Alright, now I'm gettin some ideas!

To answer a few people and give some more info:

EVERYTHING I've heard about Fable III has warned me to stay away from it, especially the clunky battle system. Maybe later, but def not now for $60.

I already own Diamond and Soul Silver, forgot to mention them.

Have been considering Dragon Age and Elder Scrolls IV, so I'm glad to see some people recommend those.

Reasons I disliked Fallout 3 and Chrono Trigger:

Fallout 3 was fun for a while, but I really hated how you were almost forced to rely on the VATS, and for me if felt like it hardly ever came through. The standard battle system just wasn't crisp enough to rely too much on FPS skills. (Unless I missed something.)

I really can't say what turned me off about Chrono Trigger, but my suspicion is that it has something to do with never playing the original. It just seemed to plod along to me, and the battle system just wasn't intriguing. (Even though it's quite similar to some RPG's that I love.)

The two games I'm most on the fence about are Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story and Tales of Vesperia. They just don't look like my normal cup of tea, but I've read glowing reviews on here and other sites. I'm ALMOST over the edge to where I'm considering asking for them. Almost, so feel free to give me a push.

I have heard horror stories of the grinding in Disgaea, so that's kind of a turn off.

For a good part of today I will be going through all the recommendations that have been made, thanks to everyone who has replied, but please keep them coming if you can!

[Soul Splint]

Please don't get Golden Sun if you didn't like Chrono Trigger. It turns up the JRPG cliches by a factor 10 and is needlessly verbose.

Wow. Thanks for putting it that way, because I had been considering Golden Sun. I'll watch it more carefully and wait until after I can read a few reviews to see if I want it.

[WaywardSon]

I dunno if Shadow Complex could be considered an RPG, but it does have RPGs in it. It is a great game.

Is that the one for XBox 360 with gameplay similar to Super Metroid? I've only played the demo, but it seemed to be fun.

[Nick Hyral]

Oh! Another Wii RPG that wasn't too bad was Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. Seeing as you can easily pick up the first for the cube cheap these days you might like those. The story was a bit different than the usual.. Not as entertaining as ToP or so I feel anyway. But it was a pretty good game nonetheless.

Another DS rpg worth mentioning if you like tactical games at all is Luminous Arc. Again, not some ground breaking story.. but the characters were extremely colorful and entertaining. And ofcourse Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 wasn't too awful bad.

As for Disgaea.. It depends on the kind of player you are. To some players yes it is "grindy" but those are more the casual types I suppose. If you're more a player who enjoys the changes a single level up could afford, the skills and mastery available to you and overall just micromanaging things about your characters.. it would be more your thing... I also personally enjoyed the system mainly as battles felt more impressive and epic as you got stronger.. It didn't feel like most games where you're someone just "stronger than the other guy." You could progress to obscene levels of power that make you feel like a force to be reckoned with.. Laharl felt like an Overlord, etc.

Bowser's Inside story while definately "different" is loads of fun. It has a simplistic battle system, easy to pick up and master, catchy mini games, and some of the usual oddities that is a Mario and Luigi game.