I've fallen out of love with RPGs(find me a good one?)

[PGchris]

I used to get excited to play any RPG, for some wierdo reason got a alot of satisfaction out of grinding then destroying a boss and then rinsing and repeating. But these days that is not the case and the majority of RPGs bore me to hell. I recently picked up Odin Sphere but got bored with it pretty quick. So now I'm on the prowl for a good RPG to get me back into the genre, I'm trying to find something that doesn't have a crazy amount of hours and is at least a bit on the light hearted side. I thought about picking Disgaea cause apparently it's pretty goofy, but I don't if I'm ready to put a ton of hours into that game. Maybe one of the newer pokemon games are they any good? I havent played one since the original red and blue. Also is the Monster Rancher series any good?

[MrPopo]

So the interesting thing about Disgaea is that you can beat the storyline in about 20 hours or so. The hundreds of hours comes from pimping out your team for the insane post-game content.

As for Pokemon, the game play hasn't changed much since the R/B days. There's basically a lot more you can do then stomping other trainers, but that core gameplay hasn't changed (aside from the inclusion of 2-on-2 battles). So it depends on how much you enjoyed the original offerings.

[Ack]

Live A Live.

It's a Japanese-only Super Famicom title, though translated ROMs have found their way onto the Internet. Its pretty story driven, but the story is varied, with a lot of influence from other media. Also, it has a fairly unique combat system. The game's broken into segments, where you pick a character and get to play as them for a bit, so you can take it in short doses. It might be what you're looking for.

[lisalover1]

Tales of Symphonia. I had the same problem you have; I just could never get into an RPG. Then I found this game. It was fun, exciting, had a phenomenal story, a fast-paced and fun battle system, and beautiful graphics. It's my 3rd favorite game of all time, with Kingdom Hearts and Golden Sun in the 1st and 2nd places [Both also excellent RPG's].

[the7k]

I've fallen out of love with JRPGs as well, mainly because I played SMT3:Nocturne for the PS2. Ever since playing that, no other RPG has even come close to drawing me in and actually making me interested in it. I blame that squarely on... well, Square. Among others who refuse to change anything up.

I like Disgaea as well, but I personally don't lump TRPGs in with JRPGs. I also loved Phantom Brave, which had a story that almost felt Disney-esque at certain points. Would have grated on me as a kid, but now I actually want crap that is light-hearted if it can't successfully be socially relevant.

If you do want a serious TRPG, Final Fantasy Tactics is the way to go. Don't let the "Final Fantasy" fool you, this game doesn't belong to the FF line, and I mean that in a very good way. The story is actually believable, the characters have motives that are believable rather than "Mwah Hah Hah! I'm gonna resurrect an alien god!", the scale is much more localized than the other globe spanning FF titles, and the combat makes you think (a little) rather than mash X til the troops come home. I also got very addicted to Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lotus for the GBA.

As for Tales of Symphonia, I sure went through a lot of trouble to get that game and all it ever does is sit on the shelf. I think I played less than 2 hours of it before I decided I couldn't take it anymore. Too many cliches for my tastes. The only Tales game I ever was able to get through was Tales of Phantasia for the SNES, and that was probably because of the humorous DeJap translation. Made me love Archy when, from what I've heard from those that played the GBA version, she was a rather humorless character.

Ack: I've heard of Live A Live, but never got around to actually getting it. It probably has something to do with SNES emulation; I used to love it back in the day, but now all I want to do is play 'em on the actual hardware.

[Ack]

Yeah, I know, but unfortunately there were so many awesome SNES games that never made it out of Japan. I would really recommend a look, if only to see Square go a very different route with an RPG.

[Gamerforlife]

I've been enjoying rpgs on the PSP of late. Jeanne D'Arc is a great strategy rpg that doesn't require much grinding and is rather easy to pick up and enjoy. Crisis Core was pretty cool too because it has an action oriented combat system that actually keeps you awake. If you play well, you don't need to grind much in Crisis Core either(unless you want to do all the optional stuff).

I find rpgs work better on portables. Though the games I mentioned don't require much grinding, I actually don't mind level grinding so much when I can do it while watching tv.

Also, Disgaea on the PSP is pretty cool. I hear they are also bringing out Disgaea 2 on the PSP soon

[Gamerforlife]

Oh, and Tales of Symphonia sucks IMO and I'm not surprised the topic creator didn't enjoy Odin Sphere.

[MrPopo]

Odin Sphere requires a certain kind of personality to get through. I think we can all agree that it looks fantastic, and it had an interesting storyline behind it. However, the gameplay was poorly implimented, leading to much frustration. Fortunately, based on a lot of the videos I've been seeing, the follow-up, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, is looking to fix those flaws and give us awesome looking action.

[Ivo]

Maybe you can try "western" RPGs like Morrowind / Oblivion, Baldur's Gate, Fallout etc.