Favorite rpg you feel doesn't get the respect it deserves?

[Wolf Kanno]

Another one I thought of was Brave Fencer Musashi. Yes it suffers from being a semi-early 3D Platform/Action-RPG so it controls terribly at times and seems to have dungeons and puzzles designed around those problems, but it was also funny as hell, had some really cool ideas like stealing enemy abilities, and a really fun world design/cast. I sometimes feel like I was the only person who picked up the game for its own sake instead of just for the FFVIII Demo.

Lufia 2 is another one, while Lufia 2 is probably the holy grail of the series among the fanbase, it is largely unknown within the JRPG community. Graphically, it looks pretty unimpressive considering Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG had already come out by this point but it had a pretty solid cast and great gameplay, with a heavy focus on puzzles. You can tell that at least some people cared because both Wild ARMs and Golden Sun show influences from this series.

Battletech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception is another one I love but mostly lost in the annuls of time. It was an old PC game from back in the 80s with ugly graphics and some borked game mechanics, but it was super fun to go through it. I especially found it interesting that the game didn't bother with a big showdown with some boss, instead the final section of the game is trying to solve a huge puzzle to access to a cache of mechwarrior tech to help the rebels retake the planet, it may have been light on plot/characterization but it was back in the day when games asked more of the player to fill in the blanks and so my own version of that story is still epic in my head.

[Lyndis Highwind]

Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean.

I second this!

[The Last Ancient]

Probably Chrono Cross. That game barely even gets mentioned nowadays. With the amount of old games Square port to new platforms, you'd think they'd at least have talked about it once or twice.
Nearly everyone in the audience prefers Trigger so never brings up either. I personally like them both about equally.

Great point, Chrono Cross is a terrific game. And quite unique.

[escobert]

SaGa Frontier 1 & 2. Especially number 2.

[Rez09]

Can I just nominate the SaGa series as a whole?

[FFNut]

Secret of Evermore was a great game and very original. Loved playing through that game. It was difficult yet straight forward, plus having to find your ingredients to make magic happen was a rather new concept of the time. Worth a look for those who never played it.

[Vermachtnis]

Phantom Brave, it's my favorite NIS game. But it's not Disgaea and everyone seems to overlook it. The story and characters were really good and I loved the music. They don't even get that many cameos in other games. Castille shows up in Makai Kingdom, which is another overlooked game. And Ash and Marona show up in D2 as DLC and I think that's it.

[Rez09]

I bought Phantom Brave way back without knowing what it was, and it is one of the few PS2 games I still own a hard copy of. Soul Nomad was really great too.

[Vyk]

I'll give a second mention to Shining Force 2, which is one of my favorite classic SRPGs.

To give this suggestion some meat for those who haven't had the pleasure. Shining Force is a strategy RPG very similar to Fire Emblem in play style, with it's own weird and awesome story-book art style with anthropomorphic characters that don't embue your typical furry stylization.

The big draw for me was the fact that you could walk around towns and talk to NPCs and potentially do little side quests once in a while. Like in a real RPG

The sequel even goes so far as to let you traverse and overworld and enter towns and talk to NPCs and do little side quests once in a while. Like in a real RPG

No other SRPG series I'm aware of let you walk around and talk to NPCs like in a real RPG. That taken with the fact that the SRPG element is easy and fun. It's a really rewarding couple of games to dabble in

[Wolf Kanno]

No other SRPG series I'm aware of let you walk around and talk to NPCs like in a real RPG. That taken with the fact that the SRPG element is easy and fun. It's a really rewarding couple of games to dabble in

You may want to give the first three Arc the Lad games a spin if that's your thing. It was an early PlayStation SRPG series but didn't see release overseas until Working Design brought it over. I think it should be on PSN for cheap.

[Wolf Kanno]

W~POST!!!

On further reflection, and also partly because I picked it up again recently, Terra Battle is another really cool RPG I've been playing. What makes it unique is that it's a cell phone game yet, I can't think of another game where most of the elements are actually engaging and it doesn't quickly devolve into meta-game bulltrout like most other games I've tried. They added so many features since it first came out that's its turned into a more robust title than it's humble beginnings. Probably the closest I'll experience what an MMO must feel like after a few years of patches/expansions.

It's not a story/character driven masterpiece, but the cast are colorful and the story is interesting if a bit long-winded at times. The music is amazing thanks to Nobuo Uematsu and the battle system is pretty damn unique. It will be interesting to see how the console version will turn out.