Recommend me a JRPG

[BardicKnowledge]

As an aside, if you find any desire to pick up an action-RPG, I highly recommend Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale -- it pokes fun at a great deal of jRPG conventions and doesn't take itself too seriously. It's not too deep and doesn't have the length most of the other suggestions do, but if you're in the mood for some lighthearted fun, have at it.

[Thalzon]

FFTA2 had an interesting female villain in Illua, though. I liked her, even if her motives weren't ever really explained.

Also, I highly recommend the Penny Arcade Adventures games. The battles are fast-paced and strategic, and the music rocks.

[Dhsu]

is live-a-live pronounced lih-ve or lie-ve?

Long 'i', judging from the Japanese spelling ("Raibu A Raibu").

[relyanCe]

gonna second Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume. Great srpg.

the meta-plot will kind of confuse you if you haven't played the original Valkyrie Profile (PS1), but otherwise it's some crazy fun.

[Capa Langley]

As an aside, if you find any desire to pick up an action-RPG

I would like to say the Ys series, myself.

[EC2151]

I'll just say that as a history major, the plot to Valkyrie Profile: CotP really annoyed the hell out of me, especially when I played it coming off of taking a semester of a class on the Vikings, but that's just me.

For some reason, the whole "I MUST GET REVENGE ON THE GODS FOR KILLING -x- !!!!!" wears thin on me super quick.

But that's just this guy's opinion.

[Cinderwild]

so i don't like jrpgs, on the whole. i hate the ridiculous and convoluted storylines, i don't like grinding, and i don't like anime or anime-inspired cliches (15-year-old protagonists with crazy hair, every girl being 12 and cutesy and annoying, loud and overdone gasps at the dumbest things, generally terrible voice acting).

I just wanted to say I feel happy when I find a kindred spirit in anime hating.

[K.B.]

Echoing Vagrant Story. Its only blemish is not having a button to hot-swap weapons. As-is, there is some tedium involved in frequenting the menu to switch your weapons so they're properly leveled against the desired enemy type. The battle system is based on that of the first Parasite Eve. It's up there with the first Silent Hill as some of the best storytelling I've seen in a game. And yes, the music is excellent.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin (for the ps1) is the best jrpg I've ever played. I've never been as attached to a cast of characters as I was to its by the end of that game. That's due to a combination of superb character development, dialogue, storytelling, and music. A couple of the characters are somewhat immature, and three in total are in high school, but that's the extent of any anime comparison. The game delves into psychological issues and philosophical ideas and handles both sets adequately. The game's also a treat for the completionist, as each npc's dialogue around town changes with nearly every minor plot point, some being humorous and others adding minor details to the story. The graphics are good for the ps1 era (isometric, sprites). The persona system allows for a large amount of cutomability and strategy in battles, and the contact system, while somewhat esoteric, lends another level of strategy (when to fight and when to conserve hp/mp by trying to contact). The contact system is odd at first, but once I started taking notes, I quickly came to enjoy it. The encounter rate is higher than I liked, but less than five minutes using save states in the casino's bingo game and this is fixed (you'll know when you get there... less than ten hours in, as I recall). You should know if you'll like the story by the time you reach the first impactful scene - in the abandoned prison - which is about two hours in. Never released outside of Japan, but about two years ago it got a fan translation which, as should be evident from my prior ravings about the dialog, is excellent.

[side note: I'm in December of P3:FES, but as good a that game is, it still falls short of the bar set by P2:IS... thus far.]

Disclaimer: I haven't played any current-gen jrpgs, and I've played very few last-gen jrpgs. I've hit most of the highly-rated ones through the ps1 era.

I've taken a few notes on potential current-gen rpgs from this thread. Thanks for the recs.

[Nick Hyral]

Prophet, Dragon Quest ties together loosely in and of itself. For example DQ IV and V has a theme of a legendary hero which you know far more about in DQ IV. However they were wise enough to make it vague enough in DQ V that you can live not knowing said details as your characters are really clueless as well. You don't have to play the games in any specific order to understand them. So if you wish to step into them do so at your leisure starting where you want.

Some of the games can become a bit of a grind depending on the type of player you are. If you like a challenge you can survive perfectly fine with a right group set up and going in prepared without having to stop somewhere and grind out levels. If you like to roflstomp a boss then prepare for a grind ahead of you. I highly recommend DQ V to you though because it's got a nice balance of game elements to it. It has a well done story as I said before. The pacing to it doesn't feel rushed. You have some characters that are well defined where it's necessary but kept bland enough when appropriate. One of the recurring villains in it.. They make him a character you definitely loathe for personal reasons directly tied to the story. And the ability recruit and train a group of monsters to round out your team to your liking is a very nice addition to a solid system.

Overall it just has plenty to do, it's simplistic enough to just pick up and play. And it's got some extras like a few casinos, the TNT boards, some side quests, an extra dungeon after it's been beat and some extra challenges to complete all should you choose to. I found the difficulty easy to control, and it's been a game I've picked up multiple times now and play over and over.

Edited February 10, 2011 by Nick Hyral

[Orion]

Fire Emblem - Path of Radiance for GC. I am have not been a huge fan of FE series ... which I have found to be silly, with non-sensical character interaction, superfluous dialogue and muddled storylines. And just very slow paced. so I wasn't much of a fan... until I played this game. I can't get enough of war strategy in gaming and this game delivers. The production and game mechanics are top notch. Really excited to check out more recent developments in the series.

[Mustin]

dude.

I'm with you on something needing to be IMMEDIATELY good - waiting for a game to get good? AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FO' DAT!

I hate most RPGs, too. Super Mario RPG is awesome, but it's no Chrono Trigger. Going back and playing it - it's totally monotonous. Final Fantasy V? Can't fucking stomach it when compared to IV and VI. Vagrant Story? More like Vagrant BORING (hahaha but really - I found it boring).

That said, Wild ARMs really kept my attention. The visuals are PS1 but they're hyped up SNES and not the polygon fuckfests we got in that era. And the music MY GOD THE MUSIC. The music is so damn good it will keep you completely enthralled. The moment when the game finally starts (you'll know it when you see it) you stand up and ask, "What am I experiencing right now?!" And the answer is a pretty dang good game. Again, it may be no Chrono Trigger, but as a dude that doesn't like most RPGs and has also played Chrono Trigger a bajillion times, I'd check out Wild ARMs.

Chuch.

[RoeTaKa]

There's some interesting suggestions in here. Vagrant Story is something I've found to really like now that I'm older, back when it came out it was a much more frustrating experience and was difficult to enjoy. However it does take time to really get into it.

Like Mustin said, you can't really go wrong with Wild Arms 1.

Grandia 2 was also great, brilliant battle system and some of the voice acting carries it too. I always thought it was funny that Cam Clarke was Ryudo and Paul Eiding (the voice of Roy Campbell) was Skye, just kinda interesting. Grandia 1 is I think considered better, but I really enjoyed this one. I think Dhsu said get the Dreamcast version, not sure if there is a special reason for that but you do get to hear its lovely disc reading noise for every magic spell cast in battle.

Suikoden 2 I think is an absolute must play. I only played it for the first time earlier this year whilst looking through forums for threads like this. And it made me finally go back and finish Suikoden 1, which made me want to go back and play 2 again for special reasons. Just great characters and story, incredibly absorbing.

I'm surprised Radiant Historia on the DS hasn't been mentioned. It's a fantastic game, if you love Chrono Trigger you'll get a kick out of this. It has a Time travel element, there are two parallel timelines that produce different outcomes to the story which you need to switch between in order to progress either one, you also can get things wrong which is interesting to see and sometimes surprising. You also need to travel back in time to make certain things happen or play something out differently, which is really cool. Like CT, all enemies are on the map so no random battles. It has a very addictive battle system, right up there with Grandia 2 if you ask me. I'm not even that into grid based battle systems but this just works in a way that's fun and tactical whilst sometimes challenging. Eventually you get to the point where you can set up about a dozen turns for your characters and manipulate the grid so you're attacking all the enemies at once dealing huge damage, it's awesome. I wouldn't say the story is typical JRPG, there is a political aspect of countries going to war and gets much more interesting as it goes on. Yoko Shimomura also composed the soundtrack, personally some of her work is hit and miss for me but I thought this was a really good soundtrack that really got the feel of the game right. It was at one time out of print, I think there was a reprint maybe last year I'm not sure, yet it's still not that pricey if you can find a copy.

[Dhsu]

I think Dhsu said get the Dreamcast version, not sure if there is a special reason for that but you do get to hear its lovely disc reading noise for every magic spell cast in battle.

LOL, true. Actually, I suggested it because the PS2 version is kind of buggy, and there are some cool graphical effects and shadows in the DC version that are missing in the PS2 port. Also there's slowdown in a few places and framerate isn't going to be as smooth. And this isn't necessarily a downside, but they did replace the real-time cutscenes with more cinematic pre-rendered ones (same low-poly models though).

Wild ARMS is great, but 100% super anime.

Edited July 15, 2013 by Dhsu

[Orion]

A game that often gets overlooked is Arcana for snes. It's a dungeon crawler but the art style is very refreshing and kind of innovative, particularly for the time. There are many strategies that make the game fun as an rpg and it's a great deal more challenging than most other rpg's for the time. Made by the excellent Hal Laboratories under the musical direction of the composer for F zero and Kirby. Just a little slice of awesome.

[prophetik music]

reply to a post from two years ago

necrobump much?

[Annie Felis]

So uh hey, are you still looking for recommendations or is this thread pretty much pointless now?

[XPRTNovice]

For me, this is the first time I've seen this thread, and will be consuming shortly.

[prophetik music]

So uh hey, are you still looking for recommendations or is this thread pretty much pointless now?

pointless.

[avaris]

Brad what games out of these did you actually play? And which ones did you find good.

BTW you never played Secret of Mana?

Also two games I didn't see recommendations about:

Valkyrie Profile 2

Lufia 2

Also a bunch of the Tales games can be wildly entertaining...I mean a fighting game as the battle system...genius!

[Orion]

Just getting started on Super Paper Mario for Wii. Looking mighty fine so far. Really loving the art style and the music.

necrobump much?

Uh, Old thread is relevant thread and far from dead?

It was only a matter of time before someone politely pointed out my crappy forum etiquette.

[Orion]

pointless.

My mistake. Mods, please close thread and banhammer me for being a dastardly rudeboi.

[Argle]

Are the Mario RPG games actually a JRPG? I always though of them as... something else. That reminds me, I need to play the first Paper Mario. Bought it on the virtual console since I never played it back in the day.

[BardicKnowledge]

Since the first round of this thread, there has been an amazing jRPG to be released on Steam. I highly recommend Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale to everyone -- it makes fun of the majority of jRPG conventions by casting you in the role of a shop owner that has to sell items to adventurers! Comedy gold, though it _is_ super anime (and is self-aware as such), so that might be a killer for some folk (you're missing out though!)

[Orion]

Are the Mario RPG games actually a JRPG? I always though of them as... something else. That reminds me, I need to play the first Paper Mario. Bought it on the virtual console since I never played it back in the day.

It depends. I don't know that I would be able to quantify what Mario is. It's so weird

How would you quantify a jrpg? Is this just assuming the game in question is a role playing game simply made in japan or are we indicating the presence of basic stylistic elements commonly found in many jrpgs, like cutesy character portraits, kawaii, and annoying dialogue? ;P

I love the mario rpg series. It definitely does its own thing. It is very japanese in that the sense of humor is fairly irreverent, which also appears to be a hallmark of nintendo's flagships in general. I would probably label it as a jrpg b/c I don't know what else you would call it.

The dialogue and humor of the game is very random, very jrpg in terms of method. Generally the mario games are somewhat non-sensical and very cutesy without being Kawaii but the sense of humor and the material isn't vapid as I usually find with a lot of jrpgs. It's tasteful stuff. I find that the mario rpg titles are all pretty great and are usually beyond classification. I guess I would be hard pressed to confine it to typical jrpg fare.

[Fureddi]

It is very japanese in that the sense of humor is fairly irreverent, .

I wouldn't use this as a point, because, us British have some fairly irreverent styles of comedy, and don't get me started on American adult cartoon shows.

I played Mario RPG on an Emulator once upon a moon, and to be fair, it is quite different from what I had played at the time, but, I don't think it quite is a true "JRPG", it doesn't strike me such compared to say, Disgaea, or some other game I once had on PSP but I can't remember the damned name of...