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[Enzo]

So, I decided to create one of those recommend me a game threads the kids are doing these days. I would appreciate your help!

I've been nostalgic for the good old days of JRPGs, but I've had trouble finding anything recently to scratch the itch, and replaying games I've beaten (in some cases, more than once) holds very little appeal to me. Any recent JRPGs I've tried have been unplayably bland (FFXIII, looking at you). I'd hate to pull the "Back in my day" card but BACK IN MY DAY RPGs didn't need fancy graphics and extended cutscenes and full voice-acting and orchestral soundtracks and 3-minute summon-attacks, all we got was some customization and strategy and a decent storyline with likeable characters and that was all we needed, damnit.

Some of my favourites off the top of my head:
Chrono Trigger
Final Fantasy 5/6
Front Mission 1/3
The World Ends with You
Tales of Symphonia
Seiken Densetsu 3
Super Mario RPG

Etc. So yeah, I guess looking for more games like that. I've played most of the classics, so I'm not going to list them all. As you can see from my list of favourites, both Action and Tactics RPGs are still on the table.

HARD MODE: Games on the PC, either free or affordable with digital distribution (Steam or other Online Purchase).

B12, go go go!

[Seriyu]

Have you played Live a Live or Romancing SaGa 3?

Both will require a translation patch, and both are fantastic and for the SNES.

[Enzo]

Have you played Live a Live or Romancing SaGa 3?

Both will require a translation patch, and both are fantastic and for the SNES.

Beaten Live a Live twice. Played Romancing SaGa but savestated into an unwinnable battle and quit. Both a long time ago. And Bahamut Lagoon and probably most of the other really good fan-translated SNES games

I... I had a lot of ROMs back in the day. I am not proud, but it is the truth.

[Seriyu]

HMMMM, it's not quite a JRPG, but super robot wars 3 is a turn based strategy game, with a lot of chatter. Being based off of (and containing a large amount of) old giant robots means the plot is perhaps a bit more anime then you may be used to. I'm assuming you've played all the early final fantasies, uhhhhh, hmmmm.

EDIT: OOH, played Robotrek? You might've, but if not give it a shot. It's a surprisingly neat little game.

[lordcooper]

I can't really think of any good jrpg games for PC so consolebox might have to do.

Resonance of Fate is superb IMO.  Unique battle mechanics, reasonably complex (and not emo) characters and a cool steampunk theme.
The .hack series gave me countless hours of entertainment back in the PS2 days.  It's probably playable with an emulator these days.
Lost Odyssey follows the old FF template, but has an incredibly emotive storyline and some pretty damn cool ability systems.

[UltraValican]

The World Ends with You

You sir are a gentleman and a scholar.
Have you heard of Disgaea(PS2, PSP,PS3)? Its a JRPG with (seldom used) tactical elemants. The stories are okay and the writing is (somewhat intentionally) like a saturday morning cartoon. Where the game really shines is customization and the sheer potential each character(and item) has.

Zettai Hero Project(PSP): Unlosing Ranger V.S Dark Death Evil Man  is a Mystery/Wonder Dungeon(JRPGXRogue Like). You play as a bystander that witnesses the death of the super hero "Unlosing Ranger" right before his historic showdown with Dark Death Evil Man. Upon his death he hands you his morphing belt, and you assume the role of the Unlosing Ranger. Again, silly writing but TONS OF CUSTOMIZATION. Your Hero's abilities, appearance, and stats change with his equipment. Items are fusible and upgradeable; however, upon death you lose everything in your inventory and all of your money. Each time you die, you get a "phobia" which decreases your defense against what killed you, but if you kill enough of what killed you, you will beat the phobia and get a (stackable) experience bonus for whenever you kill something. Also, this game gives you a customizable theme-song, do other JRPGS let you have a theme-song, I think not.




Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey and Nocturne(For the DS and PS2 respectively): Shin Megami Tensei is sort of like a "monster collecting" game, except the monsters are gods, demons, and spirits from folklore, urban legends, and religions. Great Plot. Challenging Gameplay. And ‼FUN‼ bosses. Honestly almost any SMT game is a must play for a JRPG fan. However, the "Persona" series focuses A LOT more on "dating sim" aspects, so be cautious of that. WARNING: These games do borrow things from real world religions(including Christianity), so don't play this if your easily offended.

Etrian Odyssy(DS):This is a dungeon crawling style game. Plenty of challenge, several classes, a deep skill system, and a customizable map(You chart the dungeon yourself). The flow of the game is standard fare, kill monsters, sell their body parts, buy weapons made from those body parts, rinse and repeat. The game does change this up with special monsters called F.O.E.s, FOES are monsters that show up in the dungeon(they aren’t random encounters), are usually too strong to defeat when you first encounter them(forcing you to plan escape routes as you navigate), and some will chase your party through the dungeon. I recommend the third because there is an ocean navigation portion (that’s completely optional but its REALLY helpful, and in this game you'll need all the help you can get) that you could get into for HOURS.

[Mephisto]

What if I were to recommend some JRPGs with fancy graphics, extended cutscenes, full voice-acting, orchestral soundtracks, customization, strategy, a decent storyline, and likeable characters?

Not all of these games may contain all of these characteristics and a few are subjective, so YMMV. They're also all on the Wii.

Three of the games I'm currently trying to beat, along with how they relate to the thread (note that while I am nitpicking portions of each, I do really enjoy each of them in turn and would highly recommend all three):
Arc Rise Fantasia
- Pretty good customization - each weapon for each character has effects that can be unlocked and transferred to any other weapon. There's a very customizable magic system.
- 2d characters - each has a shtick which they rarely deviate from. There are few plot twists that you can't guess beforehand.
- The story isn't amazing. The young (<18) military commander gains mystical dragon powers and goes on a quest to SAVE THE WORLD with an exotic young priestess from a far-away land.

The Last Story
- Not extremely customizable. You can select from a large range of equipment, as long as you don't mind swords/knives for the melee characters and knives for the casters. Equipment can be upgraded along linear paths (+1 to +5, with each new level adding a static amount to attack/defense) to become stronger.
- Characters have some amusing banter amongst themselves. I've not beaten it yet, but there haven't been any plot twists that either weren't blatantly obvious or actually spelled out to the player (if not the character).
- Again, you've seen this story before. Pretty-boy gains the power of the outsiders, falls for a tomboyish princess, and is the only one who can save the good kingdom from the evil baddies who wish to conquer it.

Xenoblade
- A large amount of customization, as long as you don't mind all of it being equipment-based. On the world map and in battles, equipment shows up on the characters.
- Wide open world with a huge number of sidequests, mostly using the staple "Bring me fifteen dire wolf assholes" type of quests.
- Guess what? You've seen this story before, too. This one specific young man in the military is the only one who can wield the mystical Sword of Yendor against the evil machine-men that live on the only other land mass in existence. He falls for an exotic princess who may or may not be of the same species. If the evil machine-men do take over, bad things will happen to all life everywhere.


Edit: Since I finally went back and read the list of games in the OP, I'll list the fourth game I'm trying to beat at the moment: Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. I don't feel like doing a big write-up, but if you liked the original, you'll probably like this one. Not only are the battle system, graphical style, etc basically identical (minus the free-roaming world map), but there are cameos from most (all?) of the original characters. There's also the added element of Gotta Catch 'Em All in that you can add a number of monsters to your party and keep the rest in a box.

[freeformschooler]

-snip-

I was in here preparing to recommend a few games... and saw UV's post which contained all of them. Basically, "seconded to everything", but especially the Shin Megami Tensei series.

[Nilum]

I'm not going to recommend Ar Tonelico, I'm just going to name-drop it and quietly leave this thread.

[Enzo]

Thank you for the recommendations! A few interesting things I haven't looked into and a few I forgot I had meant to look for. No PC games though?

EDIT: OOH, played Robotrek? You might've, but if not give it a shot. It's a surprisingly neat little game.

Tried it a long while back, it was neat but it didn't really hold my interest.

Resonance of Fate is superb IMO.  Unique battle mechanics, reasonably complex (and not emo) characters and a cool steampunk theme.
The .hack series gave me countless hours of entertainment back in the PS2 days.  It's probably playable with an emulator these days.
Lost Odyssey follows the old FF template, but has an incredibly emotive storyline and some pretty damn cool ability systems.

Resonance of Fate looks pretty cool. It got lukewarm reviews but that doesn't really mean a damn thing a lot of the time. Looking into it. Basically the same thing for .hack, I've heard a lot of people say they like it and I can't actually remember what put me off trying it in the first place. Lost Odyssey: No Xbox, so yeah.

Have you heard of Disgaea(PS2, PSP,PS3)?
Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey and Nocturne(For the DS and PS2 respectively):
Etrian Odyssy(DS):

Disgaea! I guess it's about time I played that actually, since it has been out on DS for a while, and I'm much more likely to track that down than the old PS2 disc. I didn't realize that there was a Shin Megami Tensei game for the DS, I'll have to look into that. Etrian Odyssey is mostly just a Dungeon Crawl, isn't it? I have plenty of straight Dungeon Crawling at my disposal.

Arc Rise Fantasia
The Last Story
Xenoblade
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World

Wait, people have been making third-party Wii games that don't suck? Mind=Blown. Hopefully my Wii isn't completely clogged with cobwebs by this point.

The World Ends with You

You sir are a gentleman and a scholar.

Best game. Don't even get me started on how much I love that game.

[Darkmere]

Golden Sun rabble rabble!

[Enzo]

Golden Sun rabble rabble!

:[

[Frumple]

Black Sigil on the DS is a definite JRPG and fairly interesting. You've got the dragon quest line, too... including the monsters stuff. Caravan for the GBA was fantrans'd a while back, and it's pretty decent if you cheat the food mechanic away

As for PC JRPGs, well... there's some flash ones! Also Septerra Core. Which is about the only non-emulated JRPG I've personally noticed on the PC... barring rpg maker stuff. Supposedly there's some damn good ones made with those things, but I've never really got around to playing them. The spirit engine games might count, I'unno. There's a few more I'm forgetting, actually... hrm. There were a couple supposedly good indie PC JRPG-ish games made, like... five, six years ago? Something with an A involved? In the title. There was a sequel. Man, I dunno

[TempAcc]

I've only heard sweet things about Record of the Lodoss War ever since it got translated, but haven't tried. You could try it for me

[Darkmere]

Golden Sun rabble rabble!

:[

I should have been more specific. The Golden Sun was the recommendation since it hasn't been mentioned. And the rabble rabble was because it hasn't been mentioned.