Good Japanese RPGs?

[Captain Fabio]

Normally this type of thread would go in 'Quick Questions', but it is getting a lot of traffic and people might get some good recommendations, so I shall leave it as it is.

I say Tales of Symphonia. This is always going to be one of my favorites since I played it religiously in my childhood.
I see someone mentioned 'Demon Souls', you will rage at this game; it is one of the hardest I have ever played! XD​

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[Algo Fonix]

Wild Arms 1 and 2 are really good what with their Japanese style writing but wild west setting. They're for PS1 but backwards compatibility and stuff. I hear WA1 has some issues with the PSN version, but a physical copy is fairly cheap.

Suikoden is also on the PSN. It's an early PS1 title and shows, but it's quite fun and has a pretty decent story and 108 characters to recruit.

Of course I've not played any of this generations RPGs so I'm no good.

 

[Kung Fu Ferret]

Kingdom Hearts is awesome. it's Disney and Final Fantasy TOGETHER!

 

[Awkward Squirtle]

Get a Wii for cheap and Xenoblade Chronicles (when it comes out, if you're in the US). Spending extra is worth it for the best JRPG of the generation. Plus you then have a Wii for other great games like Mario Galaxy and Zelda, and of course, the multiplayer games like Mario Kart, NSMBWii, and Smash Bros. RPG-wise on the Wii, there's also The Last Story.

 

[A Pixy]

Chrono Trigger is better than anything in this thread.

The graphics (for the SNES anyway) was great. Even design wise, Akira Toriyama hit the ball out of the park. Character designs, location designs and, Toriyama's speciality, mech designs all look varied and fun.

Stories are always important in RPGs and Chrono Trigger seems to understand it can't tell a giant, epic because it is a video game, so the story is kept simple. The story is very character driven. The characters themselves are all likeable and memorable. There are plenty of NPCs that are also quite memorable.

The gameplay itself is probably the best JRPGs will get. This game's huge innovation was Tech Points. While your characters gained XP like any other JRPG, they also gained Tech Points. When they got enough Tech Points, they learned a new ability. This incentivized you to use every character to see what abilities would be useful. Another innovation would be the game took the, at the time, normal 3 characters on screen, and made the game revolve around it. Each character is quite different in terms of almost everything and mixing and matching them to see which groups will work better at the next enemy. In most JRPGs, your strategy is 'Wail on the opponent until it stops moving' and, if you find a monster you can't beat, just grind. Grinding is (not) fun. Chrono Trigger forces you to switch your party up. Switching your party up was much more fun than grinding, that's for sure.

So, yeah, go play Chrono Trigger. Yesterday.

 

[Awkward Squirtle]

I dunno. As much as I love Chrono Trigger, I thought Xenoblade was more fun to play. The game has tons of things that are just there for gameplay rather than immersion purposes (e.g. instant travel, control over time of day), the battle system is better, the environments are outstanding, and the soundtrack beats Chrono Trigger's (believe it or not).

I know Chrono Trigger was the first game to implement tons of features, but most of those are pretty common nowadays (e.g. some sort of skill points, no grinding, switching up party etc), so you can't really use them as selling points. Chrono Trigger's gameplay is good, but compared to more recent RPGs, quite basic.

Also, I'm not sure where you're getting 'Chrono Trigger doesn't tell an epic story' from, or even that 'epic stories' are a bad thing. Sure, it may not have a million plot twists, but the plot is still pretty 'epic'. There's nothing wrong with fleshing out the game world; as long as the it's kept interesting, I'd say a grander, more detailed story is better than a simple Chrono Trigger-like one.
Chrono Trigger does have excellent pacing, though; I'd also recommend it if you don't mind sprite-based games. Try to get the original or the DS version though; apparently the PlayStation/PSN version has horrendous loading times.

 

[Mechanic]

I know it has been said but...

In 3 words...

Tales of Symphonia...

 

[Cello]

I'm surprised no one has recommended the Breath of Fire series. The first and second are kind of hard to get into since they're really old (Not saying they're not good. They actually play like classic FF games somewhat.), and the 5th one sucked, but the 3rd and 4th are pure gold.

 

[PaperNapkin]

I highly suggest that you download an emulator and try the Phantasy Star series (though III should be skipped). While the graphics are a little outdated for I and II the core gameplay mechanics are sound and typical of JRPGs. IV is a little more recent, if you can call it that, and it shows with decent graphics and an amazing story line.

 

[BiZNicK]

Well for PS3 I'd definitely recommend Star Ocean: The Last Hope and Tales of Vesperia

 

[Joshawott]

Though I've never played it, I've heard that Seiken Densetsu 3 is really good.

 

[U.Flame]

As long as we're recommending Tales games, I think a really good one is Tales of Phantasia for the PS1/PSP. It dissapoints me that the only english version is the crappy GBA one, Phantasia's best is in the PlayStation. I haven't actually tried the PSP one, it's supposed to be improved more than the PS1 version. But I have played the PS1 version and I HIGHLY recommend it.

 

[Mato]

I know it has been said but...

In 3 words...

Tales of Symphonia...

Out of all the Tales games made, why Symphonia?

It fails in comparison to Abyss and Vesperia. I also have high hopes on Graces surpassing it, as well. Though, I did like Symphonia, and it isn't at all a terrible game, it isn't the best Tales out there.

Well for PS3 I'd definitely recommend Star Ocean: The Last Hope and Tales of Vesperia

Tales of Vesperia isn't on the PS3 unless you have it imported...

Here's a list of imo, good JRPGs:
Persona 3 & 4
Demon's Souls & Dark Souls
Eternal Sonata
Hyperdimension Neptunia
Tales series
Atelier series
Final Fantasy series
Xenosaga series

I'm sure I'm missing some. Oh well.

 

[rainbowism]

I've got to go with Radiant Historia, or Persona 4.