Shin Megami Tenesi 3: Nocturne. You're a survivor turned demon in a post-apocalypse world, and everyone hates you, even God. You're fighting demons after demons trying to change the world in what you see fit, be it changing it back to what it was, leaving as it is or three other Reasons. Never before have I seen a game with such great atmosphere and settings. It might sound emo and depressing, but it really isn't. It's tense as hell, with great writing and dialogues. (Quite funny at times.) The RPG mechanics is genius as well, where you are reliant on fusing the demons you recruited in order to get a better demon to progress further. The turn-based system plays more like a puzzle, especially boss fights, unlike most RPGs where as long as you have good stats you're good, but not in Nocturne. Your level doesn't matter much, it's what demons you have and what moveset you have. If you can figure out a strategy that is winnable, then congratulations. If not, you're as dead as the human souls wandering the world.
The Pokemon series should STEAL this game's formula, because next to Nocturne it's like a new toy car next to a say...a shiny new labhorgini. Holy crap it's impossible to go back to it.
EDIT: Also, best soundtrack. Meguro is a genius. Though I have to say the characters are bland (hate Chaiki. With a passion), especially after playing Persona 3 and 4.
Skyrim and Guild Wars 2.
Skyrim is so customizable and 'down-to-the-player', the graphics are just amazing, general gameplay is very interesting and unique. The way in which you can explore the whole map is great, especially since is so big and Bethesda have detailed every single bit. The variety in the game is crazy, I think it would take over 1000 hours game time and you couldn't complete the game; there are thousands of quests and loaaadddsss of places to explore around the map.
Guild Wars 2 also, the customization, exploration, graphics, storyline, originality, variety all those sort of things make a great RPG game that I would be certain to buy.
Definitely Skyrim. They only problem i found with it was some of the dungeons were a tad repetitive in regards to graphics and appearance. Other than that, it's amazing. Both graphics-wise and gameplay-wise.
I respect your opinions and despite personally thinking Skyrim is awful in many ways to me, I do have to say that the gameplay is absolute ****. The combat is horrendous, boring, a mess and not polished. I'll give you atmosphere, setting and the exploration factor, but to say it has a good gameplay is completely false.
Still Suikoden 2 for me.
(Although Persona 2 is close behind!)
I haven't played it but why Persona 2 over 3 or 4? I know many SMT fans consider 2 to have a much superior cast and story, but isn't the gameplay awful? 3 is arguable (Portable is basically 4's mechanics though, thinking of getting it because I love the cast better but can't play through FES), but 4 has completely staisfying and fun mechanics.