Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger are lauded as two of the best JRPGs ever. Many folks still put Chrono Trigger in their top ten lists. That's good for those games, but they're over 25 years old. Shouldn't people have made a lot of games that are even better, since then? Even just in their niche, at least ten? Are we doing something wrong?
I'd love to see a list of at least ten JRPGs that are better than those two, with explanations and justification for why.
@relee i can't do explanations adn justifications right now, but i can give you a couple jrpgs we like better than those, in no particular order:
- Wild Arms 3
- Tales of Vesperia
- Tales of Berseria
- Radiant Historia
- Baten Kaitos
- Xenoblade Chronicles
- Final Fantasy XIII
- Trails from Zero/Trails to Azure
- Trails in the Sky/Trails in the Sky SC
- Suikoden 2
-F/R
@Felthry Thank you for the list! ^.^
I'd love to hear some explanations and justifications if you find the time.
It's true I haven't played a lot of them, too. Final Fantasy XIII gets a pretty bad rap in particular, but you're not the only one I've seen praise it.
I still need to get back to Suikoden 2 and finish it, too. I'm ashamed it was a gift and it took me so long to get to it, and then I didn't finish it. ^.^;;
long, explanations and justifications
@relee okay here's a couple of them, just put really briefly
- Wild Arms 3: Well-written, engaging story. Female protagonist. No awkward romance subplot. Music is excellent.
- Tales of Vesperia: Characters are great, and character development is excellently done. Two party members are all but canon in lesbians with each other.
- Tales of Berseria: A "light is not good" kind of story. Believable characters, very enjoyable battle system.
- Radiant Historia: Really cool concept, does what Chrono Trigger couldn't with time travel. Emotional story, though ends with a sequel hook for a sequel we'll probably never get. Yoko Shimomura music.
- Baten Kaitos: Excellent unique battle system. Fascinating worldbuilding and story. Soundtrack is quite possibly Sakuraba's magnum opus. Strong character designs and art direction.
- Xenoblade Chronicles: Great worldbuilding and story, actually good voice acting too (a rarity in video games). Characters are well-written.
- Final Fantasy XIII: Antifascist as fuck. Combat system is surprisingly deep and difficult for a game where your main action is "auto-battle". Really neat music for a Final Fantasy game--this is the first FF that Uematsu didn't do any work on, so the music is very different. Characters are amazingly believable and feel like they could be real people.
- Trails from Zero/Trails to Azure: Falcom loves two-part stories. Second arc of the Trails series. Worldbuilding, story, and characters are excellent, plot twists are done *amazingly* (as is the norm for the series). Music is excellent. Most of the comments for Trails in the Sky/Sky SC below apply here as well.
- Trails in the Sky/Trails in the Sky SC: First arc of the Trails series. Required reading for playing Zero/Azure above (do NOT skip games in this series, including Trails in the Sky The 3rd, which barely didn't make this list). Combat system is great, but the story, characters, and worldbuilding are where this series truly shines. Honestly one of the best video games we've ever played in all those categories. Plot twists are amazing, and recontextualize pretty much *everything* you've done up to where the plot twist happens. Again, music is fantastic. Falcom's music team knows what they're doing.
- Suikoden 2: Sprite art is *beautiful* and ridiculously detailed, at least in the first half of the game before they unfortunately ran out of budget. Story is great, and it's neat how it interacts with the previous game if you have a save file from it! Been a while since we've played it, so not a lot of details i'm afraid. I remember we could really tell why people say it's the best game ever made, though.
-F/R
long, explanations and justifications
@Felthry Finally took the time to read all that. Interesting thoughts! I gather you really like JRPGs. Have you played any of the Grandia games?
It occured to me that you explained what makes each of those good, but to compare them to something and say "This is better." you kinda have to point out the shortcomings of the one where the other shines, and I'm not sure what Chrono Trigger's shortcomings are that are surpassed, or even what makes it so beloved.
re: long, explanations and justifications
@relee yeah we like jrpgs a lot, story is a big thing, as is music
we have played part of grandia and should go back and finish it sometime
pointing out the shortcomings of things is not something we're really good at? i just pointed out the stuff that makes those games some of our favorites
-F
re: long, explanations and justifications
@Felthry That's fine. I was mostly observing my own shortcoming of having poor metrics for comparing jrpgs.
Grandia is great. I liked Grandia 2 also, it is very different though. Most prefer 2, I prefer 1.
What are the three most recently released jrpgs you've played? I'm curious about today's scene.
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@relee well live a live is a cult classic for a reason, xenoblade 3 is okay but still not as good as xenoblade 1, and pokemon violet is enjoyable but a buggy mess that should have gotten at least a year more dev time
-F
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@Felthry I played some of the original Xenoblade on the Wii. I keep thinking I should give it another try, but at the same time there are so many games. XD
Are there any other modern JRPGs of note you'd like to mention?
re: long, explanations and justifications
@relee The entire Trails series, which you absolutely have to play in order to avoid major spoilers
final fantasy X i don't think made the list but is worth a play
lots of Tales games; Vesperia and Berseria were on the list but Xillia, Xillia 2, Symphonia, and Graces are also all really good
Paper Mario TTYD
the Golden Sun series
the Megaman Battle Network series (good for gameplay, not story. The story is more amusingly bad than anythign)
-F/R
re: long, explanations and justifications
@Felthry I've heard good things of those, but I'm not sure how modern some of them are anymore. XD
Do you like any of the Megaten games?
re: long, explanations and justifications
@relee my criterion for modern here was the same as before: newer than CT and FF6
and we have never heard of megaten games
-F
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@Felthry Megaten is one of a few catch all terms for games related to Shin Megami Tensei. There's a lot of spinoffs, and spinoffs of spinoffs, and the originals keep getting remade and stuff. There's a lot. ^.^;;
Shin Megami Tensei 4 and SMT4 Apocalypse on the 3DS got praise, and Shin Megami Tensei 5 on the Switch. Persona 3, 4, and 5 all have passionate followers. Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey was pretty great, imo.
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@relee oh, that's a series we've heard of but know nothing about
-F
re: long, explanations and justifications
@Felthry You might consider giving it a try, then! A lot of them have superficial connections but aren't direct continuations, so you can start at various places.
The first three main-line Shin Megami Tensei games are in different times of the same world, but the others are usually AUs. The Persona games have loose meta connections but they're all self-contained too, though the first two are very different from 3, 4, and 5.
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@relee we've heard of the persona games, mostly that they have some hugely transphobic parts
-F
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@Felthry I haven't encountered hugely transphobic parts. I have heard there are some bits that are misunderstandings, but I think real people have misunderstandings too, right? Especially in Japan. ^.^;;
I have heard that the stereotype in Japan rolls gay, trans, regular crossdressing, etc all in one 'bin' and there's an expectation that if you're any of them you're all of them, which is kind of foolish, but folks might feel pressured to do that to fit.
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@Felthry Oh, I've played 3 and I've played a good portion of 4, and not 5. So, I can't say for everything. That's what I meant when I said "I haven't encountered". There may be some I haven't seen yet!
They're games about teenagers in high school, and so there's a lot of complicated things. One of the characters in Persona 4 isn't sure who or what he is and he's exploring and experimenting but afraid to be open about it, and he's open with the player.
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@Felthry How do they fare?