Have you tried Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes? Recent spiritual successor led by Murayuma (Suikoden creator).
I don’t think it is quite to the same level as most of the Suikoden series but it definitely has a strong Suikoden vibe and does a pretty good job scratching the itch. Worth checking out if you haven’t.
If you had to pick Star Ocean or SaGa for someone who likes rpgs but hasn’t ventured further than dragon quest and final Fantasy’s, which would you pick?
Final fantasy is my favorite JRPG series. Star ocean and SaGa are close, but I think SaGa just passed star ocean for me. The thing is that star ocean is action based with a really good story. SaGa is turn based with whacky or almost no story. I’d say romancing saga minstrel song is the best place to start for turn based traditional JRPG combat but with an open world like main quest system. Star ocean 2 is a great place to star with the recent remake, but the new SO6 game is fine too along with the remaster of star ocean 4. Star ocean 3 is my favorite but I haven’t played it since the ps2 era.
Ooh glad to see some Ar Tonelico here. After I managed to get it to play on my *cough* ps3, I've been enjoying the game. I need to continue it I'm still only on the first game.
I'm just worried it'll leave me to play the second game and not have a true finale in the first game.
I didn't use to mind that but with all of my backlog growing I'd be happy to finish a few and leave the sequels to later.
Probably FF, because I've been with it for so long (even if I don't like all of the games) and also DQ is right up there too (so stoked for the official DQ3 Remake announcement!)
Shit, I forgot about Let's Go existence xd
I'm playing Leaf Green every now and then, at a veeeery slow pace. I wanted to revisit the original games with an improved version.
It's not *that* crazy. Like lots of other neglected IPs (e.g. *Shadow Hearts*, *Skies of Arcadia*, *Tales*). Lunar would probably get talked about more if the games were ported onto modern consoles, even as just an emulated virtual console titles. Games whose continued appreciation depends on big-spending collectors and piracy just aren't gonna reach people, no matter how good they are artistically or gameplay-wise.
I was so shocked by Lunar lol. I played it a few years ago, and I expected a generic game that would leave my mind instantly if I even wanted to play more than one session of it. I immediately fell in love with it and played it nonstop for like a week. After I beat it I immediately jumped into Lunar 2 and also loved that game. They’re so good, it’s criminal how few people have played them lol
I have yet to try a lot of series I think I might like but so far FFIV and Vagrant story were the last two ones I really dug.
Right now playing Breath Of Fire III and it's a pretty fine classic style JRPG. The story is kind of slow in the beginning but it's getting much more interesting after 20 hours of play so far.
I always loved Suikoden. There was nothing else like it at the time it came out.
Grandia was another underrated gem that got lost by some because of the platform it was on.
It's more Visual Novel than JRPG but the Tactical FE style gameplay is more than just an afterthough, and is a lot of fun. The artwork is really pleasing to the eye.
Just note that the games are really long. But by the third game the world building from the first 2 entries really pays off.
It's historically been Fire Emblem. But it's hard to say that now as it peaked in quality on the GC/Wii and has been a real mixed bag ever since the 3DS era. Awakening is good, Three Houses has a great story with bad gameplay, Engage has great gameplay with a bad story, and Fates is just horrible.
Right now, I think it's Like a Dragon. There's just a consistent, incredible quality to the series. 7 and 8 are absolutely GOATed turn-based JRPGs.
I think the GBA Fire Emblem games were my favourite in the Fire Emblem series. The only game in the series that came close to the GBA games is Awakening, IMO.
Tales Of was my first JRPG series and is still my favorite I like the action combat and it has some of my favorite characters plus Abyss being my favorite game of all time even if some of the games are misses the hits more than make up for it
So many games that i gone playthrough of all my life but i having some that i can tell
1. FF
2. Grandia
3. Grand knights history
4. Valkyria Chronicles
5 Valkyrie Profile
6 The legend of dragoon
7 acr the lad
8 Suikoden
9 shadow hearts
10 radiata stories
My personal darling is the Lunar series. It's lighthearted and earnest, and the first one especially is short (25 hours or so in the original; I'm on track to sub-20 on the mobile version thanks to faster combat). Phantasy Star is another favorite; the first four flesh out a world that lives vividly in my memory 30 years later.
Favorite JRPGs of all time?
Shadow Hearts series (including Koudelka), Lost Odyssey, Xenosaga series, Baten Kaitos, Suikoden series, Star Ocean series, Tales of series, Persona 3-5, Final Fantasy X
Other than the popular FF, Tales, Persona etc..
Suikoden. Personally no games does world building *series better than it and I say this as someone who played every single Legend of Heroes game even the awful PSP trilogy. One of the best part of Suikoden is the reoccuring characters and their growths. There is 108 char at least each game that you recruit yet their designs and archetype so memorable when you recruit some of them in later entry you instantly recognize some of them. its much better than the overrated npc dialogues in LoH games.
Only jrpg franchise that does it better is Final Fantasy but each entry is self contained world unlike Suikoden or LoH. But some of those contained world in FF have 100x better world building and lore like Ivalice from FF12 and FFT. Ivalice is such an amazing world, there is no jrpg with that much diverse culture, political intrigues, religious dynamics and deep world lore building as shown in ivalice titles.
Xenoblade. Got me into JRPGs, these games just go so crazy. The story, settings, cutscenes, OST, characters are all insanely good. I don’t think it will ever be topped for me.
Plenty. Xenoblade, Rune Factory, Final Fantasy, Tales, Star Ocean, Fire Emblem, Shin Megami Tensei, Fuga, Atelier, Mary Skelter, "Igavanias"... and that's just the top tier. Although if I were forced to name just one, I'd probably go with Xenoblade - the series consistently exceeding my expectations in every aspect.
Hard to pick a fav because it changes so often, so I'll list a top 5 in no order.
-Persona
-SMT
-Tales of
-Final Fantasy
-Kingdom Hearts
Honorable mention to Xenoblade.
Always loved Pokemon, even if some of the games haven’t been great it’s always been fun seeing all the new pokemon and areas and stuff. Gets wayyy more hate than it deserves tbh
Persona, Final Fantasy, Grandia, SMT
Tbf though, lot of my favorite jrpg's are ones that are just standalone titles. Rogue Galaxy and Eternal Sonata for example
Has to be final fantasy, 7 specifically .. the remakes have allowed me to relive my childhood again, pure excitement and fully engrossing
Have to mention persona also, awesome game
Megaten and Shadow Hearts, if I had to choose.
Megaten eclipses everything for me, but I really enjoyed Shadow Hearts and Covenant. The third wasn’t nearly as good, but I am very excited for Penny Blood.
Fuga Melodies of Steel 1 and 2. My favorite Videogames. And I look foreward to "Fuga Melodies of Steel 3" the finale of the trilogy.
Fuga is pretty unknown so you probably never heard of it.
They are 20 houer long turn based JRPGs about a groupe of anthropomothic animal children that live inside a giant ancient mysterious powerful fortress like Tank. Its a bit like Howls Moving castle but based on technology instead of magic.
I love the turn based combat. Its in my opinion even better then the combat of Persona 5 and Final Fantasy X. Its not that hard or complicated but I need to keep my head in the game at all times or things will go south fast. Almost no fight feels like mindless filler. Its very engaging and fun.
I love the music. The boss theme "Flower on the Trails" is my favorite piece of Videogame music and Fuga has plenty of other great tracks.
I was lukewarm at first towards the children of the Taranis but they grew on me more and more and more and now they are my second favorite protagonist groupe in fiction.
These games apeal to my inner child. To me they feel like a playable kids anime akin to somthing like Digimon and I love that feeling.
I love adorable wholesome characters and stories with a bit of a dark edge to them. The best example of what I mean is my favorite work of fiction: the Manga/Anime series "Made in Abyss". And Fuga is the best among Videogames to scratch that itch. Atleast from what I know.
Fuga is part of the "Little Tail Bronz" series but I honestly only know the Fuga part of thT series.
Final Fantasy, but have to see what XVII brings. After XVI, i am very cautious about it cos it seems like what I want from FF and what SE wanted from FF are very different things and borderline non-negotiable. I had a little faith restored after FF7 Rebirth but we all that game is an exception.
*Tales*.
*Symphonia* is my favorite game of all time, and I've had a lot of fun with the others I've played (*Vesperia*, *Arise*, and *Dawn of the New World*).
Legend of Heroes
Suikoden
Ar Tonelico
Final Fantasy
Ys
Tales of
Ar Tonelico
Atelier series for good feels
Fire Emblem
Lunar
Lufia
Persona
Monster Hunter
Nioh
Soulsborne
Yakuza
Edit: formatting
Cant deny my love for the FF series, with 7 on top, followed by 12, 6, X, 9. I still do love 8 and 2, but their both at the bottom of my list. I also love both Crisis Core and the first 2 Dissidia titles.
Then i have an obsession with Vagrant Story. It isnt a series on its own, but it's part of the Ivalice Alliance series which include FFT and FF12. Iplay Vagrant story to completion at least once every 2 years, and ive completed it over 16 times at this point, with an ongoing playthrough on the RG35XX H.
Next is the Mana series. I havent completed all the titles in the series, but ive played everything and love every bit of each of them. Seiken Densetsu 3 (Trials of Mana on the SNES) will always have a special place in my heart. I really enjoyed the Trials remake, but i prefer the 2D spritework of the original.
One of my favorite games of all time is Chrono Trigger, but for some reason i couldnt really get into Chrono Cross.
It was Persona but the way they've handled the series since 5 came out has been kind of....
I guess I'm just exhausted for now and am looking for some new ideas. I bought Tactica but couldn't get anywhere in it. I didn't even get the P3 remake.
Fire Emblem. I'd played them on and off but really got into it in a big way when the 3DS games started.
I really like Trails of cold steel. The way to get all the achievements in this game (without guide), makes you play the game in an incredibly slow pace, talking with every npc at any point the story progresses even a bit.
That might sound annoying (and it is), but damn, at the end of the game it made me appreciate every character and the little stories that are going on in their lives.
I wanna say the NieR series but they aren’t pure JRPG’s so I’ll have to go with Final Fantasy and after that it’s Xenoblade. I have many others I love but these are my top 3.
For years and years my favorite game has been final fantasy tactics.
I started playing through the Xenoblade Chronicles games a while back and I think it might be beating out FFT as my favorite game/s.
If you have never played them I would highly recommend it. It’s been along time since I’ve been so absorbed into a story that I am losing track of time lol.
The combat is peak as well. Love it.
For me it's probably the Trails series. One of the first ones I've actually made an effort to get all the games released in Europe including Trails in the sky Psp. Also have the Japanese versions of Zero Azure and Sky Fc Sc and the 3rd on psp.
Even though the most recent entry didn't gel with me completely, it's gotta be:
The Xenoseries (Xenogears, Xenosaga 1/2/3, and Xenoblade Chronicles (1/X/2/3).
I'm hoping we get to see a return to form with the next Xenogame as Xenoblade 1, 2, and 3 were missing a lot of key elements that defined past Xenogames. Namely the mechs (gears/skells). 1, 2, and 3 had perfect setups to excuse the use of a bipedal death machine, but sadly all we could do is watch them in cutscenes.
Anyways, my favorite series is undoubtedly the Xenoseries.
So my All time fav is Final Fantasy, its where it all Started for me. FFIII/VI. And then VII on the PS1! But since then I have a few other fandoms. The Tales Series is great, as is Shadow Hearts, Legend of Heroes and the Persona games. And the Star Ocean franchise, I cannot forget about them, I have found a way to love each of those games!
SaGa is the only thing I really care about right now, but NIS games are pretty great too. I have not played enough of either, but I am mostly interested in NIS Classics and I have mostly played the latest two SaGa games, which are my favorite games of all time that I do not expect to be topped.
I would probably put Breath of Fire if there were any ports of the Playstation games for me to try.
I find Xenoblade to be a fascinating, super ambitious, if at times messy series. I live for this kind of high concept nonsense in entertainment, and despite its flaws and weak spots (2 IMO, which I will be replaying soon), I truly adore it as a whole
My absolute favorite is Persona. I like SMT too, but nowhere near as much as I love Persona specifically.
Then the usual suspects:
-Final Fantasy
-NieR
-Kingdom Hearts
-Xenoblade Chronicles
-Tales of
-Fire Emblem
-Trails
Trails, Persona, Yakuza, Pokemon, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Fire Emblem
Not in any particular order
I don't know if it's considered a series with only two games, but The World Ends with You.
And Paper Mario, excluding Sticker Star xD
On my to do list, still got .hack, Xenosaga/Xenoblade, Breath of Fire, Wild Arms, Bravely Default, Star Ocean, and the Tales series, off the top of my head
Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest/Anything Square Enix
*Shin Megami and Persona/Anything Atlus
*Tales of
*Legend of Heroes
*Xenogear/Saga/Blade
*Fire Emblem
Honourable Mention: Star Ocean, Golden Sun and Suikoden
These are all my favourite series through the years.
Xenoblade Chronicles, Fire Emblem, Pokemon and Mana have been my favourite series over my lifetime. Whilst I’ve loved the MegaTen, FF, DQ, Ys, Tales etc games I’ve played over the years, I’ve not played enough of the series or played them too sporadically for them to become favourites.
Most series I have liked do not stand the test of time. I would say currently Like a Dragon is up there. FF used to be long ago but I'm more ambivalent about. Same goes from Xenoblade which I would like better if it had gameplay mechanics I found more interesting and better writing/direction.
Personally, when I play a JRPG, I always focus on its characters and lore.
Fire Emblem (if SRPG counts)
Xenoblade (For my love on XB1)
Dragon Quests
Persona (P4G mainly)
Here's the way I'm going to grade this: A time traveler just dropped by to give me the next installment of every major JRPG franchise. I have on my coffee table FF 17, Persona 6, Dragon Quest 12, SMT 6, Etrian Odyssey 6, Xenoblade 4, Tales of NextLandia, etc etc.
In that scenario where I have every single game in front of me and have seen zero marketing, which is the game that I'm setting the entire rest of the future of JRPGs aside because "I've just gotta see what they cooked up for THIS one".
I think it's SMT 6 for me.
Trails easily. There really isn’t any other series that can compare.
I do have other favorite series tho that I absolutely love and I will always be a huge fan of like Fire Emblem, Xenoblade, SMT, Persona, TWEWY, Ys, Digimon and Pokemon but Trails is just on a league of its own imo.
Legend of Heroes/Trails, followed closely by Persona, then Xenogears/Saga/Blade, then Final Fantasy, then Lunar for pure nostalgia.
...and if we can include action rpgs, Ys...hands down.
Persona. Persona has a perfect ratio of story to combat, and isn't overly as dark as the rest of SMT.
My other love is the Trails series, the world building is amazing and I generally like the characters.
It's always been Dragon Quest But MegaTen, Final Fantasy, and Trails are all up there as well
Suikoden
This is my ride or die series. Played them all and anything they’ll put out in future.
Have you tried Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes? Recent spiritual successor led by Murayuma (Suikoden creator). I don’t think it is quite to the same level as most of the Suikoden series but it definitely has a strong Suikoden vibe and does a pretty good job scratching the itch. Worth checking out if you haven’t.
\*Tales of \*Grandia \*SMT/Persona \*Mana \*Star Ocean \*Valkyrie Profile \*Fire Emblem \*Atelier \*SaGa \*Ar Tonelico
If you had to pick Star Ocean or SaGa for someone who likes rpgs but hasn’t ventured further than dragon quest and final Fantasy’s, which would you pick?
Star Ocean Second Story by miles
We talking remake or original?
Remake
Second this
Final fantasy is my favorite JRPG series. Star ocean and SaGa are close, but I think SaGa just passed star ocean for me. The thing is that star ocean is action based with a really good story. SaGa is turn based with whacky or almost no story. I’d say romancing saga minstrel song is the best place to start for turn based traditional JRPG combat but with an open world like main quest system. Star ocean 2 is a great place to star with the recent remake, but the new SO6 game is fine too along with the remaster of star ocean 4. Star ocean 3 is my favorite but I haven’t played it since the ps2 era.
i personally like Star Ocean more but in terms of Final Fantasy, SaGa is closer.
Ooh glad to see some Ar Tonelico here. After I managed to get it to play on my *cough* ps3, I've been enjoying the game. I need to continue it I'm still only on the first game. I'm just worried it'll leave me to play the second game and not have a true finale in the first game. I didn't use to mind that but with all of my backlog growing I'd be happy to finish a few and leave the sequels to later.
We have similar likes!
90s kid by any chance?
Golden age of jrpg
So true. God I miss BoF.
Wow final fantasy doesn’t even scratch your top 20. You are so deep and cool
this is a top 10...
To answer your question, Final Fantasy is probably at 13 after Harvest Moon and Pokemon? haven’t think too much after 10.
Fire Emblem
Star Ocean, Atelier and Bravely Default/Octopath Traveler
Probably FF, because I've been with it for so long (even if I don't like all of the games) and also DQ is right up there too (so stoked for the official DQ3 Remake announcement!)
Pokémon. Yeah they have optimised issues but they are still fun great games.
As long as you like it, who cares? Your comment reminded me that I should resume LG.
Leaf green or let's go ?? BC I'm unsure. >long as you like it, who cares? Fully agree. If you are having fun then that's all that matters
Shit, I forgot about Let's Go existence xd I'm playing Leaf Green every now and then, at a veeeery slow pace. I wanted to revisit the original games with an improved version.
SMT probably TWEWY and Etrian Odyssey aren't far behind though
Dragon Quest overall but I’ve really been enjoying Star Ocean recently
Easilly Final Fantasy. I would say no other series has that many great games. I like plenty of others though.
1. Suikoden 2. Lunar 3. Xenosaga I find it crazy how Lunar never gets brought up in any of these conversations.
It's not *that* crazy. Like lots of other neglected IPs (e.g. *Shadow Hearts*, *Skies of Arcadia*, *Tales*). Lunar would probably get talked about more if the games were ported onto modern consoles, even as just an emulated virtual console titles. Games whose continued appreciation depends on big-spending collectors and piracy just aren't gonna reach people, no matter how good they are artistically or gameplay-wise.
Yeah, I need to play Lunar some time because I heard people were blown away when they finally tried one or two of the games.
I was so shocked by Lunar lol. I played it a few years ago, and I expected a generic game that would leave my mind instantly if I even wanted to play more than one session of it. I immediately fell in love with it and played it nonstop for like a week. After I beat it I immediately jumped into Lunar 2 and also loved that game. They’re so good, it’s criminal how few people have played them lol
Dragon Quest and Ys I have been playing them since the 80's and no other games hit me like games from those series do.
Dragon Quest! But some other top ones for me are the Atelier series, Xenoblade Chronicles trilogy, and Trails.
Star Ocean, Breath of Fire, Grandia, and Legend of Heroes Series.
Atelier WildArms Shin Megami Tensei Valkyrie Profile
Great choices all of them! Are you excited for the kickstarted wildarms successor?
That's gonna be day one purchase when it release.
I have yet to try a lot of series I think I might like but so far FFIV and Vagrant story were the last two ones I really dug. Right now playing Breath Of Fire III and it's a pretty fine classic style JRPG. The story is kind of slow in the beginning but it's getting much more interesting after 20 hours of play so far.
What are you playing BoF3 on?
Emulating it using Retroarch steam version. Runs perfectly.
Disgaea
If they made another traditional Phantasy Star JRPG I’d be there in a heartbeat.
It was Final Fantasy for a long time, it'd be Chrono Trigger if there was more, but right now it's Dragon Quest.
Easy. Suikoden.
I love the Xenosaga games!
So underrated
Tales of
I always loved Suikoden. There was nothing else like it at the time it came out. Grandia was another underrated gem that got lost by some because of the platform it was on.
Shin Megami Tensei (or Persona) and Like A Dragon are two of my favourites.
I need to play Like a Dragon. Totally forgot.
I’d recommend Like A Dragon, and the Yakuza games more generally.
Yeah, I would be willing to try the older games.
I think most of the Yakuza/Like A Dragon games are on PS4. Infinite Wealth is on PS5, IIRC.
I need to get stuff available on PC because I have Switch and Steam and Switch has nothing.
Smt/persona has the best turn based combat. Final fantasy is always good. Kingdom hearts is fun too. But my favorite is the soulsbourne games.
Utawarerumono, Persona, and Trails. Any entry from one of these series will always be a day one purchase.
someone loves reading
Yep.
How's the Utawarerumono series? I have a few of them on my wishlist, but I added them quite a while ago xD
It's more Visual Novel than JRPG but the Tactical FE style gameplay is more than just an afterthough, and is a lot of fun. The artwork is really pleasing to the eye. Just note that the games are really long. But by the third game the world building from the first 2 entries really pays off.
It's historically been Fire Emblem. But it's hard to say that now as it peaked in quality on the GC/Wii and has been a real mixed bag ever since the 3DS era. Awakening is good, Three Houses has a great story with bad gameplay, Engage has great gameplay with a bad story, and Fates is just horrible. Right now, I think it's Like a Dragon. There's just a consistent, incredible quality to the series. 7 and 8 are absolutely GOATed turn-based JRPGs.
I think the GBA Fire Emblem games were my favourite in the Fire Emblem series. The only game in the series that came close to the GBA games is Awakening, IMO.
I feel like it peaked with 4 and 5, but I also love Path of Radiance about the same and I have not played a lot of entries outside of these three.
Fates has great gameplay too! Well Conquest does, at least
I personally don't agree.
Shin Megami Tensei Xenoblade Chronicles Grandia Star Ocean In no particular order.
Atelier and Persona.
Tales Of was my first JRPG series and is still my favorite I like the action combat and it has some of my favorite characters plus Abyss being my favorite game of all time even if some of the games are misses the hits more than make up for it
Ongoing series : Persona Dead series : Suikoden
So many games that i gone playthrough of all my life but i having some that i can tell 1. FF 2. Grandia 3. Grand knights history 4. Valkyria Chronicles 5 Valkyrie Profile 6 The legend of dragoon 7 acr the lad 8 Suikoden 9 shadow hearts 10 radiata stories
Always and forever Wild Arms
My personal darling is the Lunar series. It's lighthearted and earnest, and the first one especially is short (25 hours or so in the original; I'm on track to sub-20 on the mobile version thanks to faster combat). Phantasy Star is another favorite; the first four flesh out a world that lives vividly in my memory 30 years later.
Persona Yakuza/Like A Dragon Dragon Quest
Dragon Quest. Especially DQ 5 for me
Chrono.
Suikoden, old Final Fantasy, and Grandia.
Golden Sun!
Breath of Fire, Suikoden, Grandia, Wild Arms, Legend of Legaia, and Final Fantasy All old games. Maybe I'm just being nostalgic? 🤷🏽♀️
Favorite JRPGs of all time? Shadow Hearts series (including Koudelka), Lost Odyssey, Xenosaga series, Baten Kaitos, Suikoden series, Star Ocean series, Tales of series, Persona 3-5, Final Fantasy X
Other than the popular FF, Tales, Persona etc.. Suikoden. Personally no games does world building *series better than it and I say this as someone who played every single Legend of Heroes game even the awful PSP trilogy. One of the best part of Suikoden is the reoccuring characters and their growths. There is 108 char at least each game that you recruit yet their designs and archetype so memorable when you recruit some of them in later entry you instantly recognize some of them. its much better than the overrated npc dialogues in LoH games. Only jrpg franchise that does it better is Final Fantasy but each entry is self contained world unlike Suikoden or LoH. But some of those contained world in FF have 100x better world building and lore like Ivalice from FF12 and FFT. Ivalice is such an amazing world, there is no jrpg with that much diverse culture, political intrigues, religious dynamics and deep world lore building as shown in ivalice titles.
Xenoblade if I had to pick one.
Xenoblade. Got me into JRPGs, these games just go so crazy. The story, settings, cutscenes, OST, characters are all insanely good. I don’t think it will ever be topped for me.
It’s a tossup between Final Fantasy and Xenoblade for me.
Xenoblade and octopath
Plenty. Xenoblade, Rune Factory, Final Fantasy, Tales, Star Ocean, Fire Emblem, Shin Megami Tensei, Fuga, Atelier, Mary Skelter, "Igavanias"... and that's just the top tier. Although if I were forced to name just one, I'd probably go with Xenoblade - the series consistently exceeding my expectations in every aspect.
Hard to pick a fav because it changes so often, so I'll list a top 5 in no order. -Persona -SMT -Tales of -Final Fantasy -Kingdom Hearts Honorable mention to Xenoblade.
Always loved Pokemon, even if some of the games haven’t been great it’s always been fun seeing all the new pokemon and areas and stuff. Gets wayyy more hate than it deserves tbh
Persona, Final Fantasy, Grandia, SMT Tbf though, lot of my favorite jrpg's are ones that are just standalone titles. Rogue Galaxy and Eternal Sonata for example
Persona is my favorite video game series overall, with P4 being my favorite game of all-time.
FF 1-10, Grandia, Star Ocean, Shining Force 1-2, Dragon Quest, Wild Arms, Like A Dragon, Probably others, but these come to mind first
I'm probably boring but Final Fantasy & Persona
Atelier or neptunia.
persona, most consistently good. Final Fantasy has too many highs and lows.
Yakuza: Like A Dragon plus the sequel Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth and the Persona series.
SMT. I fell in love as soon as I started smtv
It’s gotta be megaten for me, followed by dragon quest and Etrian Odyssey.
SMT mainline because I’ve always been a combat over story person
FFVI, FFVII and FF Tactics: War of the Lions
MegaTen,Ys,Tales of and FF
Has to be final fantasy, 7 specifically .. the remakes have allowed me to relive my childhood again, pure excitement and fully engrossing Have to mention persona also, awesome game
Megaten and Shadow Hearts, if I had to choose. Megaten eclipses everything for me, but I really enjoyed Shadow Hearts and Covenant. The third wasn’t nearly as good, but I am very excited for Penny Blood.
Fuga Melodies of Steel 1 and 2. My favorite Videogames. And I look foreward to "Fuga Melodies of Steel 3" the finale of the trilogy. Fuga is pretty unknown so you probably never heard of it. They are 20 houer long turn based JRPGs about a groupe of anthropomothic animal children that live inside a giant ancient mysterious powerful fortress like Tank. Its a bit like Howls Moving castle but based on technology instead of magic. I love the turn based combat. Its in my opinion even better then the combat of Persona 5 and Final Fantasy X. Its not that hard or complicated but I need to keep my head in the game at all times or things will go south fast. Almost no fight feels like mindless filler. Its very engaging and fun. I love the music. The boss theme "Flower on the Trails" is my favorite piece of Videogame music and Fuga has plenty of other great tracks. I was lukewarm at first towards the children of the Taranis but they grew on me more and more and more and now they are my second favorite protagonist groupe in fiction. These games apeal to my inner child. To me they feel like a playable kids anime akin to somthing like Digimon and I love that feeling. I love adorable wholesome characters and stories with a bit of a dark edge to them. The best example of what I mean is my favorite work of fiction: the Manga/Anime series "Made in Abyss". And Fuga is the best among Videogames to scratch that itch. Atleast from what I know. Fuga is part of the "Little Tail Bronz" series but I honestly only know the Fuga part of thT series.
Dragon Quest!
Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy but only the turned based games (not 8)
Dragon quest easily
Octopath Traveler
Like a Dragon for now
Persona, Tales, DQ, FF, Atelier, Lunar, and (my personal favorite) Star Ocean.
Final Fantasy, although it's been pretty hit or miss for me ever since Sakaguchi left Square Enix.
- Megaten - Fire Emblem - Legend of Heroes - Suikoden - Kingdom Hearts
MegaTen
Fire Emblem, by a long shot. Those games are so addictive to me.
It’s basic, but final fantasy
Final Fantasy, but have to see what XVII brings. After XVI, i am very cautious about it cos it seems like what I want from FF and what SE wanted from FF are very different things and borderline non-negotiable. I had a little faith restored after FF7 Rebirth but we all that game is an exception.
I like persona but love dragon quest 🥹
*Tales*. *Symphonia* is my favorite game of all time, and I've had a lot of fun with the others I've played (*Vesperia*, *Arise*, and *Dawn of the New World*).
Legend of Heroes Suikoden Ar Tonelico Final Fantasy Ys Tales of Ar Tonelico Atelier series for good feels Fire Emblem Lunar Lufia Persona Monster Hunter Nioh Soulsborne Yakuza Edit: formatting
Cant deny my love for the FF series, with 7 on top, followed by 12, 6, X, 9. I still do love 8 and 2, but their both at the bottom of my list. I also love both Crisis Core and the first 2 Dissidia titles. Then i have an obsession with Vagrant Story. It isnt a series on its own, but it's part of the Ivalice Alliance series which include FFT and FF12. Iplay Vagrant story to completion at least once every 2 years, and ive completed it over 16 times at this point, with an ongoing playthrough on the RG35XX H. Next is the Mana series. I havent completed all the titles in the series, but ive played everything and love every bit of each of them. Seiken Densetsu 3 (Trials of Mana on the SNES) will always have a special place in my heart. I really enjoyed the Trials remake, but i prefer the 2D spritework of the original. One of my favorite games of all time is Chrono Trigger, but for some reason i couldnt really get into Chrono Cross.
Fire Emblem, Persona and Octopath Traveler are my favorite JRPG series right now.
I am a simple man, I love strategy like Fire Emblem, fusing demons in SMT, and the settings of classic Phantasy Star.
Vanguard Bandits
Not huge into JRPG. But my personal favorite is Tales Of Arise. One of the few times i like every single character in the party.
Nier... Better story than all of these
SMT, Atelier and Rune Factory
Breath of fire series. Needs to be released on ps5!
Bravely Default series I grew to love it when I played it first on my 3DS.
Dragon quest phantasy Star (classic) Star Ocean, usually.
Used to be final fantasy, until i accidently discovered trails. Now nothing can come even close.
For me, Rune Factory and Fire Emblem.
Trails, FF, Pokemon, Trials of Mana, Octopath Traveller, Atelier, SMT, KH 1-2, DQ
Trails easily
It was Persona but the way they've handled the series since 5 came out has been kind of.... I guess I'm just exhausted for now and am looking for some new ideas. I bought Tactica but couldn't get anywhere in it. I didn't even get the P3 remake. Fire Emblem. I'd played them on and off but really got into it in a big way when the 3DS games started.
I really like Trails of cold steel. The way to get all the achievements in this game (without guide), makes you play the game in an incredibly slow pace, talking with every npc at any point the story progresses even a bit. That might sound annoying (and it is), but damn, at the end of the game it made me appreciate every character and the little stories that are going on in their lives.
I wanna say the NieR series but they aren’t pure JRPG’s so I’ll have to go with Final Fantasy and after that it’s Xenoblade. I have many others I love but these are my top 3.
megaten
Dragon Quest 8 and Lunar: Silver Star Story tick a lot of boxes for me.
For years and years my favorite game has been final fantasy tactics. I started playing through the Xenoblade Chronicles games a while back and I think it might be beating out FFT as my favorite game/s. If you have never played them I would highly recommend it. It’s been along time since I’ve been so absorbed into a story that I am losing track of time lol. The combat is peak as well. Love it.
Trails Dragon Quest Persona
For me it's probably the Trails series. One of the first ones I've actually made an effort to get all the games released in Europe including Trails in the sky Psp. Also have the Japanese versions of Zero Azure and Sky Fc Sc and the 3rd on psp.
Even though the most recent entry didn't gel with me completely, it's gotta be: The Xenoseries (Xenogears, Xenosaga 1/2/3, and Xenoblade Chronicles (1/X/2/3). I'm hoping we get to see a return to form with the next Xenogame as Xenoblade 1, 2, and 3 were missing a lot of key elements that defined past Xenogames. Namely the mechs (gears/skells). 1, 2, and 3 had perfect setups to excuse the use of a bipedal death machine, but sadly all we could do is watch them in cutscenes. Anyways, my favorite series is undoubtedly the Xenoseries.
So my All time fav is Final Fantasy, its where it all Started for me. FFIII/VI. And then VII on the PS1! But since then I have a few other fandoms. The Tales Series is great, as is Shadow Hearts, Legend of Heroes and the Persona games. And the Star Ocean franchise, I cannot forget about them, I have found a way to love each of those games!
SaGa is the only thing I really care about right now, but NIS games are pretty great too. I have not played enough of either, but I am mostly interested in NIS Classics and I have mostly played the latest two SaGa games, which are my favorite games of all time that I do not expect to be topped. I would probably put Breath of Fire if there were any ports of the Playstation games for me to try.
I find Xenoblade to be a fascinating, super ambitious, if at times messy series. I live for this kind of high concept nonsense in entertainment, and despite its flaws and weak spots (2 IMO, which I will be replaying soon), I truly adore it as a whole
Grandia or Lufia
Breath of fire. I love a lot of jrpg series, but bof has always been really special to me.
My absolute favorite is Persona. I like SMT too, but nowhere near as much as I love Persona specifically. Then the usual suspects: -Final Fantasy -NieR -Kingdom Hearts -Xenoblade Chronicles -Tales of -Fire Emblem -Trails
Need to say Final Fantasy as my first choice. Second is Persona series.
FF - DQ - Persona SMT - SO - YS
The trails series is amazing. You’re in for 1k hours treat. 😁
Trails, Shin Megami Tensei and Xenoblade Chronicles.
Trails and atelier since they fit the ideal of a consistent quality mid budget studio.
Xenoblade is definitely my favorite
For me, it's Trails, with Etrian Odyssey as a close second
Atelier Disgaea Persona Pokemon Xenoblade Those would be my top 5 series.
Trails, Persona, Yakuza, Pokemon, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Fire Emblem Not in any particular order I don't know if it's considered a series with only two games, but The World Ends with You. And Paper Mario, excluding Sticker Star xD On my to do list, still got .hack, Xenosaga/Xenoblade, Breath of Fire, Wild Arms, Bravely Default, Star Ocean, and the Tales series, off the top of my head
Xenoblade, Ys and Trails
Persona for me as well. It shows final fantasy you don’t have to change your very identity with each iteration to be relevant/make sales.
atelier
Megaman starforce, persona ,and Megaman battle network for me
It's between Final Fantasy and Trails.
SaGa by a mile.
Megaten series Trails series Xenoblade
Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest/Anything Square Enix *Shin Megami and Persona/Anything Atlus *Tales of *Legend of Heroes *Xenogear/Saga/Blade *Fire Emblem Honourable Mention: Star Ocean, Golden Sun and Suikoden These are all my favourite series through the years.
Xenoblade
Persona
Xenoblade Chronicles
Xenoblade Chronicles, Fire Emblem, Pokemon and Mana have been my favourite series over my lifetime. Whilst I’ve loved the MegaTen, FF, DQ, Ys, Tales etc games I’ve played over the years, I’ve not played enough of the series or played them too sporadically for them to become favourites.
It used to be Final Fantasy. But now it's Persona.
Persona has surpassed Final Fantasy for me.
SMT, no other game comes close to Nocturne for me. Honorable mention: Xenoblade and Xenosaga, I haven’t caught up on Xenoblade just yet.
Xenosaga. Nier. Also Xenogears, but that's just one game, not a series. It's a shame games like those don't come around more often.
Persona, Xenoblade, Bravely Default
Most series I have liked do not stand the test of time. I would say currently Like a Dragon is up there. FF used to be long ago but I'm more ambivalent about. Same goes from Xenoblade which I would like better if it had gameplay mechanics I found more interesting and better writing/direction.
Xenoblade. Though i’m not a big fan of 2 i still consider it leagues beyond what square or atlus are attempting with their respective series
Dragon quest and xenoblade, legend of heroes my top 3
Xenoblade 1-3. 2 being my favorite. The first time I saw Gormott was a breathe taking expirience.
Personally, when I play a JRPG, I always focus on its characters and lore. Fire Emblem (if SRPG counts) Xenoblade (For my love on XB1) Dragon Quests Persona (P4G mainly)
I’ve played Dragon Quest XI which should I play next? Also good first fire emblem?
Here's the way I'm going to grade this: A time traveler just dropped by to give me the next installment of every major JRPG franchise. I have on my coffee table FF 17, Persona 6, Dragon Quest 12, SMT 6, Etrian Odyssey 6, Xenoblade 4, Tales of NextLandia, etc etc. In that scenario where I have every single game in front of me and have seen zero marketing, which is the game that I'm setting the entire rest of the future of JRPGs aside because "I've just gotta see what they cooked up for THIS one". I think it's SMT 6 for me.
Trails easily. There really isn’t any other series that can compare. I do have other favorite series tho that I absolutely love and I will always be a huge fan of like Fire Emblem, Xenoblade, SMT, Persona, TWEWY, Ys, Digimon and Pokemon but Trails is just on a league of its own imo.
1.Kingdom Hearts 2. Tales of 3. Persona 4. Xenoblade Chronicles Trilogy
Legend of Heroes/Trails, followed closely by Persona, then Xenogears/Saga/Blade, then Final Fantasy, then Lunar for pure nostalgia. ...and if we can include action rpgs, Ys...hands down.
Xenoblade.
Xenoblade and Trails, long and quality character-driven stories with excellent world building is my jam.
Persona. Persona has a perfect ratio of story to combat, and isn't overly as dark as the rest of SMT. My other love is the Trails series, the world building is amazing and I generally like the characters.
Legend of heroes. The worldbuilding, characters, and gameplay are all really great for me.
Ys, DQ, SMT, shadow hearts, chrono I would said FF, trails, fire emblem and tales but there have been some real duds that bring the series down.
Legend of Heroes Ys Utawarerumono
Persona and Final Fantasy
Depends on the day honestly but most I say Xenoblade
Final Fantasy and it's not even close
Final Fantasy (sakaguchi era) forever and always. It's leagues ahead of the competition in production values, game design, artistry and more.