JRPG Hierarchy

[FMW]

Okay, so what are the most consistently good JRPGs?  By franchise, my list goes Dragon Quest > Shin Megami Tensei > Golden Sun.  Would anyone disagree with that top three?

 

Here's why these three brands are great:

 

Dragon Quest continues to be the very best at whatever it chooses to do.  DQ VII is the biggest JRPG.  DQ VIII is the prettiest/most polished JRPG.  DQ IX is JRPG that finally figured out how to integrate multiplayer effectively into the genre.  The games push boundaries without ever abandoning the basic town/overworld map/dungeon formula that established the genre in the first place.  Also:  instead of angsty melodrama or complicated plots, Dragon Quest keeps storytelling simple direct and optimistic.

 

Shin Megami Tensei eschews the fantasy/medieval crap and applies JRPG mechanics to a variety of modern/post apocalyptic settings.  The game mechanics are varied and some of the most consistently well designed in the field.  The storytelling isn't always there, but even when it doesn't work in one particular game it's at least unlike anything else in the JRPG space.  And I'll take the borderline nonsense philosophical symbolism of the Digital Devil Saga finale over the borderline nonsense power of friendship/true love crap that powers the rest of the genre.  The weird genre bending and musical shifts that can happen in a SMT game are always grounded by rock solid (and usually tough as nails) turn based mechanics.

 

Golden Sun actually takes the space the player moves through and dedicates honest to goodness level design to it.  The story is... okay.  The combat is straightforward.  It gets the basic JRPG town/overworld/dungeon formula down just fine.  It's inoffensive.  But Golden Sun location designs are filled with traversal puzzles and the player acquires a ton of powers to interact with the world in different ways.  There is absolutely no reason that JRPG settings need to be so sterile.  They're either linear, insultingly simple, or entirely devoid of player interaction.  There's no reason for this!  There's no reason that the JRPG formula can't allow for interesting mechanics outside of the special little combat zone.  Golden Sun, for having better level design than any other JRPG franchise period, gets third slot.

 

 

 

As for the obvious picks that I passed over:

 

There's been an awful lot of crap published under the Final Fantasy brand name.  That brand guarantees neither quality nor any specific tone nor even genre.  Though there are some good Final Fantasy games, there are just as many crummy ones.

 

Fire Emblem doesn't count as a JRPG.  The most recent one basically is, but that's not historically representative so it didn't make it onto the list.

 

Pokemon has a bad habit of releasing bad games half the time.  By my score Gen I, II, and V were good JRPGs under the pokemon brand.  But Gen III, IV, and VI were basically not.  No accolades for batting 50%.

 

Xeno games at least have ambition.  Most JRPGs don't.  I wanted to put them on the list just because they're consistently looking to actually advance the genre.  But inevitably they release incomplete or with some part of the game messed up or both.  Again, no accolades for failing to release titles of consistent quality.

 

...and now it's 4:15 AM.  Jesus Christ insomnia sucks.

[Mister Jack]

I'm gonna go with Persona since it actually goes old school all the way with its combat and yet still finds a way to make it not suck.  I mean, it's a turn-based RPG series about high school kids in Japan.  And it's also a dating sim sometimes.  You can't get more JRPG than that, but everyone loves it.

[Mal]

Someday I got to get to Persona and SMT by extension. I also can't say that I can agree or disagree due to me not having played any of those series. I think I touched Dragon quest before but a kid only have so much money.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Final Fantasy. Not as a marketing term. The series. A series so consistent that people lose their shit when a game is simply mediocre.

Also the only good Golden Sun was the first one. That series quickly became bereft of ideas.

[Baconrath]

I really liked Final Fantasy Legends I, II and III but they were SaGa games with Final Fantasy slapped on the box and I don't know if the following SaGa titles were any good :/

[Strangelove]

I still remember Saga Frontier as being the first JRPG I Played that sucked. Like a lot of people, ff7 was my first ever RPG when it came out, after that I tried a lot of jrpgs. Saga Frontier was just something else. I dare say it was worse than Azure Dreams, which I also have bad memories of.

 

Anyways, my favorite jrpg series has always been Breath Of Fire. I never got around to Dragon Quarter, but the other 4 are solid to great. Specifically BoF3 and BoF4. I love those games more than any FF game.

 

I also really loved the original Pokemon games. But I can't say for the quality of the overall series since I've only played Red and Firered. For better or worse, they seem to mostly be the same apart from a few new mechanics in each new game. Yeah, there's been a lot of stuff added and alterations, but the basics are still the same. I just feel like I'm playing the same exact game, so I gave up on that series.

[toxicitizen]

Final Fantasy. Not as a marketing term. The series. A series so consistent that people lose their shit when a game is simply mediocre.

Yeah, the name has had some shit attached to it but I feel like the mainline series actually always brings a certain standard of quality. Of course, I actually liked FFXIII so I think most people would probably call me crazy.