Your top 10 RPGs, though you all are still top 10 RPGS ;P

[cat121212]

Top RPGs, Hmm..

FFIV
FFTactics
Gravity Rush (Counted as an RPG? I think so..)
FFIX
FFXIII-2
Vagrant Story
FF Type-0 (I NEED this game to come to the West!)
Chrono Trigger
FFVII
FFV (still playing this one)

[Wolf Kanno]

<xml> <o:officedocumentsettings><o:relyonvml><o:allowpng></o:allowpng></o:relyonvml></o:officedocumentsettings></xml>New year, have some time to really plunge into this, and figured with some recent threads it wouldn't be too bad to revive this one. This was a very tough list to make since a few games have shifted dramatically and new ones came in. My top four were not too difficult to ascertain but the last six took a little re-arranging and my ten spot changed at least four times based on my mood at the time. Hell I shifted one of my choices three ranks cause on my reflection I realized I liked it more, so understand that most of these rankings are not really set in stone for me.

10. Wild ARMS



This is probably going to be my most controversial entry on the list, cause for most people this game is just a fairly generic 16-bit JRPG with some poor 3D graphics and a pretty basic battle system that doesn't have all the bells and whistles of other PS1 JRPGs. Instead I like to feel the game represents the best qualities of the JRPG genre, featuring an expansive world with tons of side quests and secrets. Three interesting and tragic figures, a gorgeous soundtrack, a fairly solid battle system that keeps each character unique, and heavier focus on problem solving puzzle dungeons as opposed to just random encounters. Filgaia is an interesting world and I feel WA1 did more to lay the foundation for what this world is than it's later titles. The Force Abilities I feel are better alternative to FF's usage of Limit Breaks, and I like how it took and expanded on Lufia 2's Tool system to create a Zelda style quality to the puzzles. The game also hd several ingenious plot twists and a pretty interesting cast, and mythology. Despite not being an exceptional game that is well known among fans, it's still a game that I think fondly of and I still feel shows how the framework of the JRPG can be compelling and open for new ideas. Plus that opening is just so damn awesome...



9. Xenogears



I love this game, I don't think there has ever been a game as overly ambitious as this one except maybe it's spiritual sequel Xenosaga. While Xenogears may never had reached what it was trying to achieve, I feel it has come closer than Takahashi's later works. As a game, I felt Xenogears did more to show how 3D could be utilized into an actual JRPG world, the ability to move around fully 3D environments and actually jump about and platform I felt was novel idea, course being how Square makes RPGs and not platformers,said elements have not aged well at all but I still respect the idea, same with the battle system, which gains its main draw by being a more interactive and organic system than typical JRPGs. The player inputting and creating combos as opposed to just issung basic orders, though you can still so as well. I feel it's aged better than others but what do I know... In truth, Xenogears will largely be remembered for its expansive world, mature themes and epic storyline that transcends time and space. Fei for me it one of the most complex and best written protagonists of the genre and I like how he transitions back and forth from a coward to a hero, to unlikable to sympathetic. He is still one of the most human characters I've ever seen in the genre, no other game before it has ever really made the player question ideas of religion, philosophy, government, and our own impact on time. I don't think there has ever been a game that has ever affected my personal views of life like this game has.



8. Breath of Fire III



This takes me back. I've always felt bad about the Breath of Fire series, it's popular enough to have a small following and be named dropped by magazines but it's largely always been overshadowed by Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. The thing is, it's a damn good series and with the exception of some bizarre elements here and there, I feel the series stands toe to toe with the big guns of the genre. BoFIII was an early PS1 game that finishes off the "Goddess Myria trilogy" and I feel the game really stepped up in every aspect from its 16-bit predecessors as both a story and gameplay. The plot is more detailed and generally more serious and well thought out without some of the weird sidetracking elements that the early games suffered from, whereas I felt the whole cast also received good attention and was mostly well rounded. Ryu from BoFIII is my favorite of the series and I love Rei, Teepo, Momo, and Garr as well. The gameplay is typical JRPG fair with a few interesting abilities and commands shaking things up, it's customization system is actually a refined and vastly upgraded version of FFVI's Esper system, with your character becoming students to various masters in the world whose teachings affect their stat growth and teach them techniques unique to them. Said skills can only be learned once but you're free to give the skill to anyone in your party further customizing their own unique techniques they learn since each character is more of specific job role (Nina = Mage, Rei = Thief) so you can do some interesting customization. It's in fact my favorite customization system barring a Job Class system. The Dragon Gene system makes playing as this Ryu the most fun as you mix and match genes to create bizarre dragons. The story is a nice coming of age story and I like watching Ryu grow from a little kid who freaks out when he swings a sword to the determined and often more world weary traveler who is searching for the truth behind why his race was hunted to extinction centuries ago. Even Myria herself is presented as a more complex figure than her incarnation if BoF1. The game is just solid through and through, and its what I think of when I think of a perfectly balanced and solid RPG experience.



7. Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne

SMT3_back_cover.jpg

You know, I originally didn't plan on this one being in my list but the more I thought about it the more I felt it needed to be here. The best way to describe Nocturne is that its a mature Pokemon, despite historically, Pokemon is a kiddie version of MegaTen. If you love character driven stories with lots of high adventure, humor, and romance... well this is not your game and in fact I'm pretty sure most people would have an exceptionally hard time getting into this game. It has more in common with hard-as-nails 80s PC RPGs than anything modern. Hell beating the game nets you the ability to play the game in the series traditional First person view. Gameplay-wise, I feel that MegaTen creates a system that really makes a strong argument that Turn Based battle systems can be fun and exciting, it just had to go back to the genres roots of being more about strategy, and being unforgivingly difficult. The Press Turn system works by rewarding you for exploiting an enemy weakness or landing a critical hit, doing so will grant your party an extra turn (for a maximum of 8 turns) dodging attacks or having elemental protection will make your opponent lose turns. The catch is that the system works both ways and your opponents use the system as well. So defense and proper party balance is key. In the early sections you play the elemental exploitation game but by end game this becomes more difficult and its better to build defensive teams that eat up the bosses turns. If your main character dies its auto-game over, but since due to his deep customization, he can effectively be better than most of the demons you will recruit so its pretty easy to adjust him to be the last man standing in your party. The game is very difficult for the genre and to say you will die a lot is an understatement. From a story perspective I feel the game is intriguing, focusing more on a dissection of ideals than characters. The cast of characters are interesting but largely a muted experieince compared to the sugar filled emotional rollercoaster style characters people have come to expect of the genre, instead it's not about who these people are but rather what they stand for. The world ends 15 minutes into the game and now you are trapped in a incubating new world that is simply waiting for someone to come up with its Reason for existence. Multiple demon factions battle it out to determine the new world's future and you can join any of them or work against all of them, you can even make a literal deal with the actual devil. The story explores the factions and what ideals they represent, preaching of their more altruistic goals while showing the player the dark side of their visions of the world. Do you wish to end suffering by wiping out the cause of conflict which is individulaity, resulting in a world of a hive mind? Do you choose to support the individual and create a world where might makes right so that only the strong individual can have happiness but give everyone a shot based on their ability(or lack there of), or do you choose the path of self-reflection and isolation where all sentient life is forever seperate from each other and only exist in a world of their own creation without the fear or pleasure of another person? The game I feel really makes you sit down and think about where you stand on certain subjects, and I felt it really makes the player explore themselves as you play along. These elements are largely why I felt this needed to be on my list. It was just such a quirky and interesting game and I am happy the series hasfinally made its way outside of Japan.



6. Vagrant Story

top-100-rpgs_vagrant-story.jpg

I have a really hard time putting this game on my list, not because it isn't an awesome game, but because I sometimes find it difficult to justify it being a RPG, I honestly feel it falls in closer to Zelda territory where its nearly difficult to really peg into any one genres slot and so we just settle on RPG to make our lives simpler. Vagrant Story is pretty much Metal Gear Solid set in Matsuno's fantasy universe. You play a lone government agent set to rescue some hostages from a cult that has shady connections to the Duke whose son was kidnapped, all the while uncovering government conspiracies and a greater conflict that our main hero finds himself trapped in. The game is a dungeon crawler with some Zelda style block puzzles and a modified version of Parasite Eve's combat engine which incorporates a combo system. A big part of the system is the Risk system which is designed to make the player strategize and pace their attacks as rising risk makes hit rate go to crap and makes you more susceptible to magic (which will kill you in this game). When I first played the game, I hated the Risk system but now that I am older I recognize its strength and appreciate it more. Its characters and story are Matsuno at his finest, with no one being who they appear to be as first seen, including the game's main protagonist Ashley Riot. Sydney Lossaret is quite possibly one of the most intriguing antagonist ever written in Matsuno's body of work and Ashley is a wonderful and complex figure who is second only to Fei Fong Wong of Xenogears in my book of well written main characters. The story is twisting and turning and the combat is intense and fun. I adore this game and feel sad that so few people have ever played it or even finished it cause this game deserves a sequel.



5. Suikoden I and II

suikoden_i.jpg QqIp9.jpg

Damn straight I'm going to cheat and list them both, partly because I like Suikoden I a little better despite being vastly inferior to its sequel but also because I feel Suikoden II loses its impact if you haven't played the first game because so many characters from Suikoden return for the sequel and this series works as a continuous story. Suikoden is a wonderful franchise that much like Breath of Fire, has been largely overshadowed by the big names of the genre, hell I would go so far as to say that even Breath of Fire has more of a fanbase than Suikoden. The series has done an excellent job of weaving both an intriguing mythology and wold for itself. Even though ech installment took place within it's own borders with a normally new cast of characters, the way each game impacts the other and seeing how places you've been to affect new lands you explore has always been the driving point of the series. A generally well written tale of politics also keeps the series unique from it's contemporaries. It has its fantasy elements and especially in the first entry, the series reads from the book of standard fantasy cliches but its the series focus on the politics and rebellion that makes it surpass its more unoriginal elements. Suikoden I is the typical rebels versus evil empire but even it finds ways to make it unique as it pits father and son, and the Emporer not being evil, just a victim of falling in love with the wrong person. Suikoden II takes it to a whole new level, with a tale of two friends finding themselves on opposite sides of a war with the goal of ending it. Watching Riou try to unite the dysfunctional City States of Jowston while fending off the maniacal psychopath Luca Blight is a sight to behold to say the least, but the series also has some great gameplay with a more methodical battle system that is more straight forward than other games, a wonderful town building system with the castles, and three multiple gameplay systems for switching between regular battles, duels, and war battles. The collecting of the 108 characters is also always enjoyable and often adds a puzzle aspect to the series. Its a great franchise and I always recommend it even if it does lack the flash of its contemporaries. I love McDohl's story of lost and fighting for his principles, he is easily one of the most tragic characters in a series full of tragic figures and seeing him return in Suikoden II is one of the biggest highlights for me, for Suikoden II, the overall political story is easily the best in the series with only Suikoden V matching its complexity.






4. Final Fantasy Tactics

psp-fftwotl.jpg

Thank you FFTactics, thank you you for washing out the taste of disappointment that FFVII left behind in my mouth when I finished it. Now that that is over, I can simply say this game may be Matsuno's finest work, granted I haven't played Tactics Ogre yet but for the titles he's made that I have played, FFTactics is easily my favorite. It is the darkest, most mature, and complex entry in the series, with a story that spans a huge wealth of political and occult intrigue and its all packaged with the biggest and best upgrade to the Job Class system. I really love the story of Ramza and Delita and watching the two paths diverge despite sharing the same goal and I don't feel a game has ever given a more cautionary tale than FFTactics. Ivalice works because its presented to the player in such a realistic manner, taking cues from real history but merging it with the mythology of the Final Fantasy series. It may have some pacing and mechanics issues but overall I really love FFTactics and its one of the few SRPGs that gets me back into this sub-genre.



3. Shin Megami Tensei Persona 3: FES

persona-3.jpg

This game blindsided me. I was not exactly thinking that a game whose main premise was a paraphrase of the Sailor Moon theme, "Fighting Shadows at moonlight, winning friendship by daylight" would be so damn appealing. The gameplay is one part dungeon crawler utilizing a streamlined and simplified version of SMT3's Press Turn Battle System, the other half of the game is living the day to day life of your protoganist making choices in life and making friends with various people to form social links which in turn give him XP bonuses during fusion for Persona Arcana associated with said Social Link, bringing these personas you create with you when you visit your friends, raises your chances of deepening you freidnship with them so the whole system kind of feeds into itself which is nice. The true strength of the game is probably the thing that will deter most players which is the pacing. The game is played in "days" with you waking up each morning, going to school, choosing what to do with after school (clubs, hang out with friends, go on a date, or study, then proceeds into your evenings (visit other friends, walk the dog, study, or fight shadows) before you go to sleep and repeat it all again the next day. As you can imagine this slows the pace of the story significantly but it has the benefit of giving you a sense of natural progression with character development, and you get to watch as the world changes around you slowly if you pay attention. For instance all the nameless NPCs have their own ongoing stories that you can learn about if you talk to them from time and this inadvertly endears you to them better because they are not just "random girl" or "older guy", instead (If you played the game you'll know what I'm talking about) they're the stalker pair, the boy wanting to adopt a cat, the Taxi Driver who hates making small talk, the nosy reporter, and the girl who is obssessed with fortune telling. The social links themselves are small mini-stories with you meeting new people and seeing their stories ranging from the mundane tale of jock hiding his injuries, to more bizarre ones like the student who plans to run away and marry his homeroom teacher, or the dying man writing the most depressing children's story ever written. Each of the social link stories are pretty well written and exapnd the world and make the world feel larger than just what's happening with your own party. The day system also helps to highlight the impact of major story events. When Aerith died, you get a nice funeral scene and a disc change later the party is resolved to hunt down Sephiroth, in P3 after a major traumatic moment (and there are many) the party just stops functioning, they don't want to hang out after school, they sure as hell don't want to visit Tarturus and fight Shadwos and instead they just sit around the lounge of thedorm trying to cope with the events of the game. It may sound somewhat annoying but it is such a perfect example of utilizing gameplay and story together as you the player also feel the despair of the story as your options become restricted and your firends are largely devastated by the events, forcing the player to come to terms with it as well.

P3 ultimately creates a world that the player will come to care for and I feel the slow pace and day to day set-up actually immerses you into thinking of the characters in the story and your own party members as not just cool characters in a game but as actual people. The main story itself though slow to begin with as the game introduces the casts and world eventually transforms into a rolloercoaster ride of awesome with you panicking when you get to Novemeber and realize you only have so many days to reach the top of Tarturus or finish some Social Links. The game is overall brillaint and touching, and FES as the director's cut adds so much more content such as weapon crafting, extra story scenes, extra personas and the ability to date the wonderfully bizarre and awesome Elizabeth. It also gives us the powerful epilogue epsidoe The Answer which is a hard sale due to gameplay (its a pure dungeon crawler with a lobotmized Persona customization system) but its storyline is incredible and I feel really settles the aftermath of P3's ending.



2. Final Fantasy VI

box-snes-jp-1.jpg

This was originally my number four, but after writing out the retrospective, I realized this game truly deserved to be higher and it wasn't just nostalgia keeping it high on the list. FFVI will always hold an important place in my heart because its the game that showed me that games could be more than just saving princesses and getting the high score. It has also aged better than most games from its era even if things like its customization system are pretty juvenile and simplistic by today's standards. Still I don't feel there is a game before FFVI that tried to innovate the genre more than it did, VI combined a powerful story and ensemble cast with heavy emphasis on gameplay and it's all packaged together with some gorgeous 16-bit graphics and Nobuo Uematsu's best musical score. I still love the pacing, the idea of making each character unique and even have some interactive gameplay elements like Slot and Blitz, I like that every few hours, I know I'll be experiencing something different than just wandering dungeons and fighting. Instead I'm building teams to defend Banon from Imperial soldiers in a faux RTS stlye set-up, or plunging down the Serpent Trench with only a few seconds to decide which direction I'm going into, choosing which of three scenarios to play through ina party split, having to perform an opera, answering questions to win fabulous prizes from the Emperor, and just stepping into the more puzzle heavy emphasis of the game's dungeons. This title keeps you on your toes more than most entries and I feel the designers did a great job of just trying to keep things mixed up for the player and keep the player involved. This comes down to the games second half where the world is devastated and you have free reign to explore it in any order you wish with more puzzles, sidequests and optional bosses. I feel VI empowers the player more than any other entry in the franchise.

Its cast and story are also no slouch, breaking away from the standard emphasis on high fantasy of previous games and creating a world with a darker tone, a Victorian setting, breathtaking and eary backdrops, and locations like the Phantom Forest, Magitek Factory, and Zozo. Its set in a world where science is key and magic is a myth. Magic and science are being combined with devastating effect by the empire and they are steamrolling other countries with magic powered mecha, and genticially engineered super soldiers. The cast features one of the series most tragic if not most endearing, from the funny and adventurous Locke who hides his tragic past behind his smile and determination, the stoic and old fashioned Cyan whose family is murdered before his eyes, the fan favorite twin Figaro Bros. who are still sorting out their estrangment, the mysterious Shadow and his surprising connection to one of the parties youngest members, the melancholic Celes who hides her soft feminent side behind a icy cold soldier mentality, or the mysterious and tragic Terra, who has been a pawn of the empire since she was a baby coming to grips with her identity and her heritage. The game has one if not a half a dozen characters that anyone can find appealing and the game does a farily decent job of keeping every one relevant. The game's major antagonist is portrayed as a bumbling henchmen until he takes power for himself, and even he is a draker contast from past villains, by being a more akin to soicopath who takes pleasure in murder and suffering as opposed to previous and even later villains who simply saw such things as a means to an end. The game just overall was a really ambitious and mostly well executed game.



1. Chrono Trigger

Chrono-Trigger-SNES-Box-Art.jpg

I have a really hard time talking about my thoughts on Chrono Trigger without sounding like a gushing fanboy that I often despise. To me Chrono Trigger is the closest thing to a perfect game you'll see for the RPG genre. It's story sis simple and charming enough to be enjoyed by a child but has deeper menaing and elements going on that an adult can find just as enjoyable and thought provoking. Its gameplay is an amazing, utilizing a battle system centered around party dynamics, party placement, and utilziing the game's signature Dual and Triple techs, creating anatural incentive to actually use every character as opposed to just sticking to who you like. Like VI, CT has a tendnecy to keep you moving through the game and introducing new gameplay mechanics and unique dungeon design, whether you're using stealth to escape from a castle's dungeon, racing a cyborg in the future on a motorcycle or trying to restore a dungeon by hopping back and forth through time to get the right people working on it. The time travel mechanic is beautifully implemented as you manipulate time in sidequests like changing a greedy rich man into a more humble and altruistic fellow, learning the location of a hidden treasure by meeting the long dead adventurer who discovered it, even giving advice and making certain choices will affect certain parts of the game and open up new quests and events. The game is paced beautifully with the ambituous idea of removing random encounters and making most enemies seen on the field and have the dungeon serve as the battlefield, an idea the game's main designers would revisit in games like FFXII and The Last Story.

I love the cast of characters, everyone is distinct from each other in both personality visuals, and gameplay style and I feel each character gets their own touching moment and point in the story, the most surprising being silent protagonist Crono himself who had a far greater shocking moment than you would expect. Lavos itslef is an intriguing antagonist that is more force of nature than conniving, world domination evil and I feel it changes the dynamic of the conflict with it since you are literally trapped in a battle for survival with a world eating eldritch abomination. His impact on the timeline and humanity creates some of the most profound elements of the plot that are further explored in the games on again off again sequel Chrono Cross, but the impact is still there in the main game. I absolutely love how each time line has its own unique story and discovering as the overall story unfolds that everything is interconnected. In fact I feel Chrono Trigger is probably one of the most cohesive games with almost every aspect working into each other from the story to the gameplay. Its a well thought out masterpiece that could only be created by combining the best minds of Square and Enix.



Keeping the dream alive...



Honorable Mentions: Battle Ogre: March of the Black Queen; Battletech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception; Wild ARMS 2nd Ignition; Lunar 1 and 2; Suikoden III and V; Final Fantasy V, IX, and XII; Xenosaga Episode III: Thus Sprake Zarathustra, Persona 2 Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment; Xenoblade Chronicles; Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep; Secret of Mana; Legend of Mana; Star Ocean: The Second Story; Chrono Cross; Pokemon Red and Blue; Breath of Fire 2, 4, and 5; The Last Story; and Dragon Quest III and V.

[nirojan]

I got a nice mix of WRPGs and JRPGs, Action and turn-based, across multiple platforms.
My list:
10.Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Xbox 360)
9. Valyria Chronicles (PS3)
8. Final Fantasy Tactics (PSP)
7. Skyrim (Xbox 360)
6. SMT: Persona 3 & Persona 4 (PSP & PS Vita)
5. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (PC)
4. Final Fantasy VI (PSone)
3. Chrono Trigger (PSone)
2. Dark Souls & Demon Souls (PS3)
1. Final Fantasy VII (PSone)

[Pumpkin]

1. Final Fantasy IX
2. Final Fantasy Tactics
3. Suikoden 2
4. Suikoden
5. Suikoden V
6. Dark Cloud II
7. Xenosaga Ep. III
8. Xenosaga Ep. I
9. Xenogears
10. Dark Cloud