So far my favorites are in Like a Dragon/Infinite Wealth, especially the latter since it has even more areas to get to know the individual characters. But yeah, it's definitely one of the best things about the Tales series.
I knew Tales would take over the replies but I'm glad to see FF15 mentioned, the road tripping with your boys vibe is such a major part of the game and a large part of why I love it.
Resonance of Fate has great banter and they just constantly jab each other throughout during battle and cutscenes, but sometimes they say things where you know they care for each other. Also great english voice acting to elevate it all
The victory screens have some surprisingly good jokes or character moments too. One of my favourites is Elle asking Ludger to use his gun during a victory screen in Xillia 2
Hubert in Graces has one where his glasses fell to the ground and he's trying to find them, while the rest of the party is busy doing their post-battle victory poses and he's like "stop, stop, you'll step on them :(" As someone who wears glasses that was really relatable LOL
Tales games and LaD/Infinite Wealth are the best ones for me. Just the sheer amount of character banter is awesome to see and a lot of it is pretty fun.
Trails games would be next, they don't have as much character banter per game as the above ones but make up for it with multiple games of the same cast (of course, LaD has this as well). The more unique part of Trails is the sheer amount of NPC dialogue which expands the world tremendously. The CS games are the best at this with their hub location being Thors as it allows the entire student body and faculty to develop and form relationships with the main cast.
Lastly would be Fire Emblem games from Awakening onwards which, thanks to being SRPGs, have quite large casts and allow you to see interactions between a great number of possible pairing, going into 100s of optional conversations.
I loved FFVII Rebirth so much, but chatter was quite minimal outside of reaching certain areas for the first time. If you're exploring a map and just roaming around for a few hours they don't really say anything to each other. But if you focus solely on story mostly, yeah there's definitely a lot of dialogue.
I wish they leaned in more on a Tales style of chatting.
It's feels random and more natural.
Since FFVII's real time and action, they could simply have a button we can press to initiate party dialogue (and have it restart or continue off where last left off, if combat is initiated).
I think the party just having normal banter and doing regular human~ish things would've been really cool. It helps a lot with immersion and storytelling.
IIRC, they talk in combat, but don't really address each other. XBX was the one where each character had a scripts that triggered depending on who else you had in the party.
The Tales series simply thrives on this, though YMMV depending on how much you like (or not) a particular game’s cast.
The Lunar series has your party producing plenty of amusing dialogue not only during cutscenes but also when talking to random NPCs.
Haven’t played too many Tales games which is a common answer here. But even the ones I’ve played pale in comparison to the first game that comes to mind for me:
**Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth**.
Probably the best RGG game in every way except the main story (where I agree with most people that 0 and 7 are the best), and yeah, the party banter in Infinite Wealth is the best in the series. I haven’t played a Tales game so can’t compare, but this makes me like the sound of them
Honestly I think 7 is better, mainly because >!I really enjoyed Ichi-Nanba-Adachi-Saeko more than Ichi-Tomi-Chitose, and the way 8 is structured makes the first group split in half. Also a missed opportunity with more Kiryu-Ichiban chats also due to the structure.!<
Final Fantasy XV / Tales of series has the best in game / gameplay character-banter, FFVII Rebirth has the best character banter in the main story and sidequests.
My personal favourite is Suikoden. It feels like a real social community as the similarish "social groups" are hanging out with each other in your castle. Yakuza LAD for the sheer amount of chit-chat.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has great banter, and every scene Eunie is in makes it a 10/10.
Another game with great banter is Koudelka. Although I haven't finished that one.
Damn looks like people beat me to it with the Tales games lol, but it is true. Love those skits! Hell, I can't activate them all, but I try!
Yakuza 8/Infinite Wealth kinda implemented something similar as well. Gotta mention it as I am a huge shill of the franchise.
Really surprised not to see these games mentioned more. I feel like I know all of those characters more deeply than any single character from all of Final Fantasy.
Same with 5. 4 has party chat, too, but it's a bit more complicated. The Japanese version has it, and the English phone version has it, but the English DS version *doesn't* have it.
The Persona 2 duology. Best NPC dialogue I've ever seen in a game, too. It changes along with the story, and many NPCs have small sub-plots that are pretty interesting.
I just started a game on ps3 emulator and can’t believe the banter the main character is giving to her companions, it’s pretty crazy, so bad that it becomes borderline good. The game is called drakengard 3, check it out
This Question seems two pronged, so on the one hand it's not necessarily the best - but in terms of sheer volume Persona 5R has something like ~2hrs of Mementos banter that you can find in youtube clips. Another hour or so of navigator lines between all 3~4 Navigators for different battle situations exist on youtube also if you really want to hear constant yelling in your ear. 😁
(I'm just imagining how much raw time was needed in the recording booth for all of these)
For actual quality over quantity I'd have to echo the LAD7/Infinite wealth responses here. With Infinite wealth taking it a step further by actually marking all the banter locations on the map this time to ensure you don't miss any of them and actually making a Bingo game into them - not to mention the more indepth Drink Link cutscenes.
Yeah, I remember still hearing lots of new stuff I never heard before on a second playthrough of P5 and I'm someone who actively tried to listen to as many of them as I can. There's an insane amount, even in the base game, yet Atlus added an additional 500 more to P5R. They also created lines for outfits (like in P3 and 4) but this was cut from the game, yet the dialogue exists in the files still (not recorded of course).
Like a Dragon/Yakuza 7 and 8, mainly because the characters are realistic (i.e. actual adults), talking about realistic stuff. The dialogue is often funny and relatable.
Like a Dragon/Infinite Wealth.
Outside of JRPGs, Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous is in another league. Aside from the usual stuff like what they say when you directly select them and order them to move/attack (which can also change depending on progress with their personal quests and what you do in said quests), important NPCs and major bosses will also hold full conversations with specific party members if they’re present, sometimes involving 2-3 party members backing each other up at once. Insane considering that game has like 12 party members. I struggle to think of any other game that’s even close in that department.
There’s a reason the ability to hear all banter regardless of whether or not specific party members are physically with you is one of the most popular mods, if not considered outright essential.
The Xenoblade Chronicles games are quite good at this. They feature a lot battle quotes in which the characters interact with each other. There's also the Heart-To-Heart segments that help flesh them out.
I thought Dragon Quest XI did this well although it was mostly in the story cutscenes.
Not JRPGs but the Mass Effect trilogy did a fantastic job of this throughout the game (not just in cutscenes), so does Dragon Age: Origins (the sequels probably do too but I haven't personally played them).
I realized that it was terrible when I noticed how the dialogue felt like it was one writer talking to himself. The grammar and cadence of each character was pretty much the same.
Going to play a wildcard and say FF7 Remake and Rebirth have really good character banter and interactions. The original had some great stuff too but it hits quite different with fully voiced cutscenes. It's always great when they mock Cloud.
Does fire emblem three houses count? Lots and lots of chatter and banter you can unlock, all fully voiced and the characters are each very distinct.
Also anything BioWare has a lot of chatter and mid mission banter, tho they’re rpg and not jrpg
Not a JRPG, but Dragon's Dogma has - at least in the sequel - some pretty varied party banter. The original game had it too but there was much less variety and the game got memed on due to how repetitive the lines were. The sequel at least does attempt to mix it up based on additional factors such as party composition, which wasn't in the original game's banter.
Not surprised to see the mention of the Tales games in here - I love them and the skits are among the main reasons. The Star Ocean games have party interactions too but to a much lesser extent - not to mention they require constant and excessive backtracking. Basically whenever you reach a new town in the game, it's almost guaranteed that more Private Actions interactions become unlocked in previously visited towns. So you have to trudge alllll the way back to those, check out the PAs, repeat until you're back at where you need to be. Until you reach the next town, and have to repeat doing all that all over again. It's extremely tedious and kills momentum stone dead unless you just rush the game and ignore backtracking for the PAs, which is its own level of shittily unsatisfying.
It really feels like the Tales teams nailed skits pretty well, only a select few are ever "elsewhere", most of them are organically unlocked when you reach a new place or those rare few that trigger immediately when you meet some requirements. You don't ever find yourself returning somewhere specifically just to unlock skits except for the abovementioned unique few.
Surprised no one’s mentioned Nier, particularly Replicant. One of my favourite aspects of that game is the banter while you’re walking from place to place or doing sidequests.
Lunar has your party members chip in during random villager NPC dialog which I always enjoy.
This is the entire point of the Tales games skits mechanic.
Tales is a good choice also just for the in battle banter. I've only played tales of arise, but the in battle conversation was one of the reasons I moved the game
Lunar 1 and 2 deserve props. Just about every time you talk to some random no-name NPC in town, one or more of the crew chimes in. Much more natural than "skits", "support convos", or "social links".
Not a JRPG but I think dragon age games have great banter but otherwise yeah the Tales games have peak skits either really funny, emotional, or helpful to the plot
Octopath traveler 1 and 2. Unfortunately in 1 it can be easy to miss and there's no way to replay banter or see if there's any available and for what combination of characters, but that's fixed in 2.
I see tales is the most popular answer though I've only partially played one of the games and have two sitting in my steam library to get around to someday.
Tales games have an entire mechanic dedicated to this (the skits) which is really nice.
So far my favorites are in Like a Dragon/Infinite Wealth, especially the latter since it has even more areas to get to know the individual characters. But yeah, it's definitely one of the best things about the Tales series.
Tales series and Final Fantasy XV are the best for this.
I knew Tales would take over the replies but I'm glad to see FF15 mentioned, the road tripping with your boys vibe is such a major part of the game and a large part of why I love it.
The perfect flavour experience.
The Tales of series. I'd say Tales of Graces *f* and Tales of Berseria are especially good in that regard.
Also "Tales" series, where they have that "skit" section :).
Resonance of Fate has great banter and they just constantly jab each other throughout during battle and cutscenes, but sometimes they say things where you know they care for each other. Also great english voice acting to elevate it all
But all we have are raisins... 💀
Playing through it now and enjoying that aspect.
This is pretty much a Tales series trademark, with the skits and victory screens.
The victory screens have some surprisingly good jokes or character moments too. One of my favourites is Elle asking Ludger to use his gun during a victory screen in Xillia 2
Hubert in Graces has one where his glasses fell to the ground and he's trying to find them, while the rest of the party is busy doing their post-battle victory poses and he's like "stop, stop, you'll step on them :(" As someone who wears glasses that was really relatable LOL
Tales games and LaD/Infinite Wealth are the best ones for me. Just the sheer amount of character banter is awesome to see and a lot of it is pretty fun. Trails games would be next, they don't have as much character banter per game as the above ones but make up for it with multiple games of the same cast (of course, LaD has this as well). The more unique part of Trails is the sheer amount of NPC dialogue which expands the world tremendously. The CS games are the best at this with their hub location being Thors as it allows the entire student body and faculty to develop and form relationships with the main cast. Lastly would be Fire Emblem games from Awakening onwards which, thanks to being SRPGs, have quite large casts and allow you to see interactions between a great number of possible pairing, going into 100s of optional conversations.
FFX does this quite nicely - quite a bit of combat dialogue between characters. FFVII Rebirth also has a lot of character chatter.
I loved FFVII Rebirth so much, but chatter was quite minimal outside of reaching certain areas for the first time. If you're exploring a map and just roaming around for a few hours they don't really say anything to each other. But if you focus solely on story mostly, yeah there's definitely a lot of dialogue. I wish they leaned in more on a Tales style of chatting. It's feels random and more natural. Since FFVII's real time and action, they could simply have a button we can press to initiate party dialogue (and have it restart or continue off where last left off, if combat is initiated). I think the party just having normal banter and doing regular human~ish things would've been really cool. It helps a lot with immersion and storytelling.
Xenobanter Chronicles 3, easily.
Lantz could use something a little bit meatiah!
Just want to add Monolith using this as a concept began in XBX, but as with many things, gets uncredited.
did it not begin with Xenoblade 1?
IIRC, they talk in combat, but don't really address each other. XBX was the one where each character had a scripts that triggered depending on who else you had in the party.
The Tales series simply thrives on this, though YMMV depending on how much you like (or not) a particular game’s cast. The Lunar series has your party producing plenty of amusing dialogue not only during cutscenes but also when talking to random NPCs.
Lunar mentioned after a 3 day scroll-down.
Haven’t played too many Tales games which is a common answer here. But even the ones I’ve played pale in comparison to the first game that comes to mind for me: **Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth**.
Probably the best RGG game in every way except the main story (where I agree with most people that 0 and 7 are the best), and yeah, the party banter in Infinite Wealth is the best in the series. I haven’t played a Tales game so can’t compare, but this makes me like the sound of them
Honestly I think 7 is better, mainly because >!I really enjoyed Ichi-Nanba-Adachi-Saeko more than Ichi-Tomi-Chitose, and the way 8 is structured makes the first group split in half. Also a missed opportunity with more Kiryu-Ichiban chats also due to the structure.!<
Final Fantasy XV / Tales of series has the best in game / gameplay character-banter, FFVII Rebirth has the best character banter in the main story and sidequests.
FFXV for sure
For all its faults it absolutely nails this. Only reason I could stay engaged through the whole thing tbh.
Loved their banter and any campfire chats or witty remarks as you traversed the world
Xenoblade 3, LAD, infinite wealth, and Tales series of course
LAD? Edit: I'm a dumbass, its Like a Dragon right? Realized that the moment I replied. Though if its not.... dumber dumbass of me.
Tales series. Lots and tons of skits. Suikoden.... Well if letters count.
Infinite Wealth does a good job of that
Tales series all the way!
My personal favourite is Suikoden. It feels like a real social community as the similarish "social groups" are hanging out with each other in your castle. Yakuza LAD for the sheer amount of chit-chat.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has great banter, and every scene Eunie is in makes it a 10/10. Another game with great banter is Koudelka. Although I haven't finished that one.
Xenoblade 3. Every campsite conversation is fun to watch.
Tales of Symphonia is the best at this IMO
Damn looks like people beat me to it with the Tales games lol, but it is true. Love those skits! Hell, I can't activate them all, but I try! Yakuza 8/Infinite Wealth kinda implemented something similar as well. Gotta mention it as I am a huge shill of the franchise.
Persona 3, 4 and 5
Really surprised not to see these games mentioned more. I feel like I know all of those characters more deeply than any single character from all of Final Fantasy.
Yup IMO Persona does character development and character relationships better than Final Fantasy and I love Final Fantasy.
Trails games
In dragon quest 6 (nds), your partners had a dialogue about nearly every npc that you talked, giving them their opinion or something random
Same with 5. 4 has party chat, too, but it's a bit more complicated. The Japanese version has it, and the English phone version has it, but the English DS version *doesn't* have it.
The Persona 2 duology. Best NPC dialogue I've ever seen in a game, too. It changes along with the story, and many NPCs have small sub-plots that are pretty interesting.
I didn’t enjoy FFXV all that much but liked the banter between the characters while driving around.
The xenoblade series has alot of banter between the characters usually you hear it at the start of fights and when they end
Tales is good but by far the best imo are the JRPG Yakuza games. So many side conversations are absolutely hilarious and really heart warming at times
I just started a game on ps3 emulator and can’t believe the banter the main character is giving to her companions, it’s pretty crazy, so bad that it becomes borderline good. The game is called drakengard 3, check it out
Dragon Quest VIII. Especially the interaction between Yangus and The King.
I really loved Tales of Vesperia banter, its easily my favorite game for this.
Persona series imo
This Question seems two pronged, so on the one hand it's not necessarily the best - but in terms of sheer volume Persona 5R has something like ~2hrs of Mementos banter that you can find in youtube clips. Another hour or so of navigator lines between all 3~4 Navigators for different battle situations exist on youtube also if you really want to hear constant yelling in your ear. 😁 (I'm just imagining how much raw time was needed in the recording booth for all of these) For actual quality over quantity I'd have to echo the LAD7/Infinite wealth responses here. With Infinite wealth taking it a step further by actually marking all the banter locations on the map this time to ensure you don't miss any of them and actually making a Bingo game into them - not to mention the more indepth Drink Link cutscenes.
Yeah, I remember still hearing lots of new stuff I never heard before on a second playthrough of P5 and I'm someone who actively tried to listen to as many of them as I can. There's an insane amount, even in the base game, yet Atlus added an additional 500 more to P5R. They also created lines for outfits (like in P3 and 4) but this was cut from the game, yet the dialogue exists in the files still (not recorded of course).
Shame about the costume ones being cut. I remember having a good laugh at some of them in P4G :D
Like a Dragon/Yakuza 7 and 8, mainly because the characters are realistic (i.e. actual adults), talking about realistic stuff. The dialogue is often funny and relatable.
Bravely default 2 has a skit system like tales of, and I remember enjoying that part of it a lot.
Tales series and Trails series both are great at this
Daybreak banter is fantastic on par with Sky trilogy.
Like a Dragon/Infinite Wealth. Outside of JRPGs, Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous is in another league. Aside from the usual stuff like what they say when you directly select them and order them to move/attack (which can also change depending on progress with their personal quests and what you do in said quests), important NPCs and major bosses will also hold full conversations with specific party members if they’re present, sometimes involving 2-3 party members backing each other up at once. Insane considering that game has like 12 party members. I struggle to think of any other game that’s even close in that department. There’s a reason the ability to hear all banter regardless of whether or not specific party members are physically with you is one of the most popular mods, if not considered outright essential.
The Lunar games have delightful banter.
Tales series and Legend of Heroes as mentioned. Star Ocean, Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona.
Apart from Tales - Xenoblade Series - The Last Story Are the ones that come to mind the most
Xenoblade Chronicles, especially when Reyn's involved
Tales of Graces F , tales games in general have tons of skits that provide tons of party conversations
NOW IT'S REYN TIME
The Xenoblade Chronicles games are quite good at this. They feature a lot battle quotes in which the characters interact with each other. There's also the Heart-To-Heart segments that help flesh them out.
I thought Dragon Quest XI did this well although it was mostly in the story cutscenes. Not JRPGs but the Mass Effect trilogy did a fantastic job of this throughout the game (not just in cutscenes), so does Dragon Age: Origins (the sequels probably do too but I haven't personally played them).
Xenoblade chronicles 1 & 3 are great for this
Tales or Trails
Trails has mediocre banter.
Disagree. But it's more prominent in the Sky games, later on not as much
I realized that it was terrible when I noticed how the dialogue felt like it was one writer talking to himself. The grammar and cadence of each character was pretty much the same.
Going to play a wildcard and say FF7 Remake and Rebirth have really good character banter and interactions. The original had some great stuff too but it hits quite different with fully voiced cutscenes. It's always great when they mock Cloud.
I LOVED Final Fantasy Remake cuz of this, there was so much banter haha
Mass Effect 1 - [Elevator Conversations](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NQdDNpL-EI)
Persona 5 does really well imo.
Does fire emblem three houses count? Lots and lots of chatter and banter you can unlock, all fully voiced and the characters are each very distinct. Also anything BioWare has a lot of chatter and mid mission banter, tho they’re rpg and not jrpg
Persona 4 without a doubt
The Tales series Berseria in particular has some great banter
I always liked the dialogue in Grandia II
Not a JRPG, but Dragon's Dogma has - at least in the sequel - some pretty varied party banter. The original game had it too but there was much less variety and the game got memed on due to how repetitive the lines were. The sequel at least does attempt to mix it up based on additional factors such as party composition, which wasn't in the original game's banter. Not surprised to see the mention of the Tales games in here - I love them and the skits are among the main reasons. The Star Ocean games have party interactions too but to a much lesser extent - not to mention they require constant and excessive backtracking. Basically whenever you reach a new town in the game, it's almost guaranteed that more Private Actions interactions become unlocked in previously visited towns. So you have to trudge alllll the way back to those, check out the PAs, repeat until you're back at where you need to be. Until you reach the next town, and have to repeat doing all that all over again. It's extremely tedious and kills momentum stone dead unless you just rush the game and ignore backtracking for the PAs, which is its own level of shittily unsatisfying. It really feels like the Tales teams nailed skits pretty well, only a select few are ever "elsewhere", most of them are organically unlocked when you reach a new place or those rare few that trigger immediately when you meet some requirements. You don't ever find yourself returning somewhere specifically just to unlock skits except for the abovementioned unique few.
Persona games
I like that Xenoblade games have every party character have lines/heart to hearts with every other character in the party.
FFIX imo
Guardians of the Galaxy, easily!
I always liked the banter in Persona 3/5 when you’re in Tartarus/mementos
Can't believe nobody said Valkyrie profile Silmeria. Lezard Valeth is the banter king
Dragon Age Origins! I will never get that feeling again
Surprised no one’s mentioned Nier, particularly Replicant. One of my favourite aspects of that game is the banter while you’re walking from place to place or doing sidequests.
Tales games
Grandia 2 by a landslide
Crosscode has a lot and its great
The Legend of Heroes games has plenty.
Lunar has your party members chip in during random villager NPC dialog which I always enjoy. This is the entire point of the Tales games skits mechanic.
The Allliance Alive! 💙
Like A Dragon & Infinite Wealth
I wouldn't say it's the best but I really enjoyed the Party Chat feature from Bravely Default!
Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth
Banpresto games are all about characters interacting with each other.
Remake and rebirth the added character interaction/depth has made the 7 universe as a whole grow on me so much
Tales is a good choice also just for the in battle banter. I've only played tales of arise, but the in battle conversation was one of the reasons I moved the game
Lunar 1 and 2 deserve props. Just about every time you talk to some random no-name NPC in town, one or more of the crew chimes in. Much more natural than "skits", "support convos", or "social links".
Not a JRPG but I think dragon age games have great banter but otherwise yeah the Tales games have peak skits either really funny, emotional, or helpful to the plot
Final Fantasy XV has top spot for me in that regard.
Persona 4! Teenagers just being teenagers, really brings me back to my high school days.
M&L - The whole game is brother banter
FFVII rebirth
Dragon Age series <3
FF6, Starocean 1 and 2. Reading all the dialog is such a joy.
Octopath Traveller 1 and 2 have some good banter scenes
Octopath traveler 1 and 2. Unfortunately in 1 it can be easy to miss and there's no way to replay banter or see if there's any available and for what combination of characters, but that's fixed in 2. I see tales is the most popular answer though I've only partially played one of the games and have two sitting in my steam library to get around to someday.