The Only 26 JRPGs You Absolutely Have to Play

[Xeogred]

I definitely wouldn't put Cross above FF7. Maybe the others, definitely due for an FF9 replay because I only beat that one once. FF8 I've tried to replay many times but as mentioned previously around the board I can't get through it anymore so it's retired haha. For some reason I guess I was getting purely into SNES talk here, but in ways I think I like FF4-FF7 all equally. FF7 is one I can rag on a lot with the characters and plot bananas, but otherwise it's just damn fun with an awesome vibe to it.

My biggest beef with Cross is that the battle themes pretty much all suck. I do think it's one of my favorite OST's of all time, yet at the same time, it almost feels a bit non-gamey not in a good way sometimes.

So one thing I can't praise enough with Trigger is the OST. Uematsu and Mitsuda together? The mega powers combined. I tend to say if Mitsuda did as much as Uematsu has done, I'd probably like him the most of all. But it's hard to top Uematsu, he's both quality and quantity. Mitsuda is no pushover to battle themes though, with Xenogears being a testament to that. So I think it's just the more atmospheric tribal stuff that he was doing in Cross that was kind of the downfall to the battle themes being blah to me.

FYI, Robo is my favorite character in Trigger!

[prfsnl_gmr]

All I can say is I've beaten Chrono Trigger and I've beaten Chrono Cross, and Chrono Trigger was the better game for my enjoyment. That's not to say Cross is without merit, it is a quality JRPG in its own right. But better than Trigger? Not in my book.

+1

...and I really like Chrono Cross, too.

[MrPopo]

I always felt like Cross's battle system was an interesting but ultimately flawed experiment. It felt like it had a lot of false choice built into it, and I didn't much care for the elemental grid. It was trying to solve for "we don't want them just spanning spell X in every boss battle" but went too far in the other direction. I also got the true ending, so I got all kinds of extra frustration with the battle system trying to nail those requirements.

[Betagam7]

I wasn't trying to imply that I'm somehow the only person here to have played and beaten Terranigma.
It's just that I read a few comments along the lines of "IoG shouldn't be on the list because I've read that Terranigma is better" and I wanted to clarify that not everyone who has played them all prefers the latter.

One of the other things I enjoy about IoG is what a compact story it is, so I'm surprised to see comments about poor pacing.

Poor pacing (at least from a storytelling perspective) to me is all the turn based RPG's that force you to grind for hours just to be strong enough to progress the story. I0G's clean A-Z adventure is a format that I much prefer and it's strong emotional storytelling easily knocks the likes of Secret of Mana into a hat, once again, in my opinion.

Terranigma is a great game but it has several areas of "poor pacing": A ridiculously overpowered mid game boss that requires grinding or tedium to defeat and a similarly overpowered end of game boss that meant that back in the day when I didn't know what "grinding" was or did to your stats meant that I failed to complete the game.

I loved every moment of IoG though and never felt frustrated or bored by it.

[PartridgeSenpai]

I always felt like Cross's battle system was an interesting but ultimately flawed experiment. It felt like it had a lot of false choice built into it, and I didn't much care for the elemental grid. It was trying to solve for "we don't want them just spanning spell X in every boss battle" but went too far in the other direction. I also got the true ending, so I got all kinds of extra frustration with the battle system trying to nail those requirements.

That's exactly how I felt with Skies of Arcadia's battle system. It just totally killed that game for me. The elemental shifting system is kind of cool in the beginning, but it very quickly just doesn't matter because every normal enemy battle is just "spam AOE" until everything dies. I'm glad you can skip the long attack animations, but that still just becomes annoying after so many hours.

Not necissarily related to the argument at hand, but I wanted to pitch in a little bit ;p

[avrame]

I've given most of these a good solid try, but have beaten very few of them. I own The Last Story, but never gave it a play after it got bad reviews on magazines and sites I follow, is it a solid RPG?

[alienjesus]

I've given most of these a good solid try, but have beaten very few of them. I own The Last Story, but never gave it a play after it got bad reviews on magazines and sites I follow, is it a solid RPG?

I played it last year and loved it. It's fairly short for an RPG (about 20 hours) so you should definitely give it a go. There's not really another RPG that plays quite like it.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Yeah The Last Story is one the best modern JRPGs.

And Chrono Cross never sat well with me. I think it's actually the worst of the "trilogy." What I'm trying to say is that I would prefer to play Radical Dreamers instead.

[Betagam7]

I've given most of these a good solid try, but have beaten very few of them. I own The Last Story, but never gave it a play after it got bad reviews on magazines and sites I follow, is it a solid RPG?

It's excellent. It was even better before Nintendo shut down the Wii servers. Yes it's short but it also has NG+ and it's another of those RPG's that you want to experience a second time around.

[Exhuminator]

The Last Story is an action-RPG that's worth owning if you have a Wii. Innovative real time combat system, nice graphics, good characters, and excellent aesthetic customization for your party members. A little let down by technical shortcomings at times, a ho-hum plot, and a distinct lack of difficulty. Overall The Last Story is a fun JRPG and recommended for fans of the genre.