Reviewing every single JRPG from the Top 55 JRPGs from the Codex.

[Capybara]

The JRPG sub-forum is pretty dead, so let's give it some love. I'll review every single game from the top 55 JRPGs list from the Codex that @Gastrick did, starting from the last game.

► Show Spoiler

I'll replay those games I've played in the past too, always prioritizing the latest re-release because as much as I like the original Persona 4, 90% of the people have played the Golden release. For some games that had localizations that changed the whole story, I plan to play both the JP original and the EN translation, yes, I'm talking about Working Designs.

First game on the list it's Valkyria Chronicles

► Review

Developed by Sega, with veteran members who worked in franchises like Sakura Wars or Skies of Arcadia (some of the characters from the latter are playable units) Valkyria Chronicles is a real-time tactic RPG. The game's setting is notWorldWarII, in which we control a small quad from a little country called Gallia that's in the middle of the war between two behemoths The Atlantic Federation (western Europe) and the Empire in the west (a mix of Nazi Germany and the URSS).

The game is separated into chapters, each of them has a battle of two and then a story segment. During battles, you move your units around the battlefield looking to capture the flag of the enemy camp, except for a few maps that play more like a puzzle game. Units are divided into multiple classes but you're going to usually use the scout to rush to the enemy flag and finish the map as fast as possible because the game's rank system prioritizes how fast you finish a map above everything else, which makes scouts completely break the game as they have the most AP (action points) to reach the enemy flag.

The story is nothing to write home about, it's the typical story about defeating the big bad empire, with some "racism bad" against not Jews called "Darksen" liberating a concentration camp along the way. But because you've cute anime girls doing cute poses after killing the enemy or Selvaria flapping her massive tits around, it's hard to take its themes about "war bad" seriously.

The original PS3 release was a commercial failure, going as far as never patching trophies for it. The game's popularity took off once the remastered version was released on PS4 and later in 2016 on PC via Steam.

The translation makes seem Alicia a bit more bitchy than she is, probably because localizers think that a strong female character has to be mean to be strong I guess, but besides that the Western release it's okay.

Despite the scout rush thing, it's a game worth playing because there's nothing like it out there that manages to mix fantasy, guns, and real-time tactics as Valkyria Chronicles does.

The next game is Suikoden 3. I've never played a Suikoden game so this will be my first time playing something from that series.

[Oyster Sauce]

Are you beating these games? Looking forward to your final review in 2038.
Hey wait, you're not Anon!

[Vergil]

I appreciate the effort and desire to add some meaty content to the forum but beating all 55 of these feels like a lot more than you can chew unless you're like a turbo NEET.

[Anon]

Are you beating these games? Looking forward to your final review in 2038.
Hey wait, you're not Anon!

Imagine assuming I'd do something this useful for the forum

[Oyster Sauce]

I appreciate the effort and desire to add some meaty content to the forum but beating all 55 of these feels like a lot more than you can chew unless you're like a turbo NEET.

At long last it's the Oriental Adventurer's Guild time to shine.

[Capybara]

There's no time limit so I don't feel like I need to rush it, it will take me around 5 years or so. I'm worried about DQ VII, Persona games and Monster Hunter.

[rusty_shackleford]

Add Anachronox, @Gastrick wouldn't allow it to be on the list

[Capybara]

I am currently extremely busy with work, so I will have to postpone the game review. I haven't even started playing Suikoden III, but I plan to complete the game in about a month.

[BobT]

Suikoden 1 was a lovely game, too.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The next game is Suikoden 3. I've never played a Suikoden game so this will be my first time playing something from that series.

I would not recommend playing Suikoden 3 by itself.

Suikoden was one of the first JRPG series to have an ongoing continuity (pretty much the precursor to the current Trails series with its focus on local geopolitical conflicts), with characters from one gaming showing up in the next. The chronology is Suikoden 1 > 2 > Suikogaiden > 3. Suikogaiden begins setting up an overarching storyline (a civil war is brewing within the Harmonian Empire, plot about the Church and shenagains going on with Lord Hikusaak and an incoming nothingness/apocalypse that is due to the existence of the 27 True Runes) that continues in 3, but is never concluded as the creator of the series, Murayama, left Konami and the Suikoden team was disbanded. 4 and 5 are in name only sequels made by a completely different dev team, set in far away lands and in different time periods and do not advance the story, and eventually that team just started doing completely different games with the Suikoden name slapped onto it that weren't even set in the same world.

Suikoden 3 also suffers from FF12 syndrome, in that you get an awesome first 40 hours that is shaping up to be the most ambitious game in the series yet, and then the creator leaves halfway through development and then the game hastily wraps up. You have a 40 hour long prologue with rotating POVs and with different protagonists fighting each other, and then you finally get your castle and your army and you're ready to embark on a long epic war just like in the first two games... and then the game just ends 10 hours later.

The gameplay of Suikoden 3 is not very enjoyable compared to the first two games. First of all, the battles take too long. There is also no world map to traverse, and instead you have to run through long corridor levels to get anywhere. The game was unfinished, so there aren't many locations, so you're backtracking through the same corridors a lot and getting accosted by long random encounters. This is compounded by the multiple PoVs thing so you're running through the same levels dozens of times. The actual combat and character building does not have depth like the later Trails games. Suikoden 3 introduces a skill system which promises you the idea of character customization, but it isn't actually there and the sequels never fix that. Unless a character has an A rank in evade, they will never become a good parry tank. Suikoden 3 is particularly disappointing in this regard, as if you pick a certain character to get the big True Rune of the game, she sucks at using it because her magic skill for that school of magic is too low and can never be raised enough to make more worthwhile than having her basic attack with her sword. Pretty disappointing given how awesome the heroes' True Runes of the prior two games were to use.

This was also the first Suikoden game not to be scored by Miki Hagishino, and it shows. I cannot recall any songs from Suikoden 3 (or 4). The music gets a little better again in 5 but still nowhere near the quality of the franchise had from S1 through Suikogaiden. The game also does not look aesthetically rich like the 2D Suikodens.




So what you're left with is a game that you're mainly playing for the merits of its story, which is again very interesting but you will be more invested if you had played the prior games first.

Suikoden 1 was a lovely game, too.

S1 is my favorite of the series. It's 20 hours and it is fun for almost the entire duration. There is a high number amount of major character deaths, so by the end you feel like you've been through a harrowing war. I know that S2 is the golden cow of the JRPG fandom, but to me the game was too light on casualties and diluted across a 40 hour runtime, and paradoxically not only began to outstay its welcome, but also felt rushed (the counterattack push into Highland is skimmed over in a matter of an hour).


@Capybara if you finished VC1 and enjoyed it, I would recommend that you check out Sakura Wars 5 and VC4. You get more of the same interesting battle system and level design. VC4 remedies VC1's flaws by making scout rushing much more difficult (the road to enemy bases is defends by lots of heavy assault units, and the new grenadier class that can provide indirect fire with their mortars). The amount of heavily armed enemies you face forces you to rely much more on your assault troops to push, as well as your vehicles to provide cover to hide behind.

[Oyster Sauce]

@Val the Moofia Boss how are the PSP Valkyria Chronicles? I'm planning on hitting them before 4,but nobody ever talks about them.

[Capybara]

The next game is Suikoden 3. I've never played a Suikoden game so this will be my first time playing something from that series.

I would not recommend playing Suikoden 3 by itself.

Suikoden was one of the first JRPG series to have an ongoing continuity (pretty much the precursor to the current Trails series with its focus on local geopolitical conflicts), with characters from one gaming showing up in the next. The chronology is Suikoden 1 > 2 > Suikogaiden > 3. Suikogaiden begins setting up an overarching storyline (a civil war is brewing within the Harmonian Empire, plot about the Church and shenagains going on with Lord Hikusaak and an incoming nothingness/apocalypse that is due to the existence of the 27 True Runes) that continues in 3, but is never concluded as the creator of the series, Murayama, left Konami and the Suikoden team was disbanded. 4 and 5 are in name only sequels made by a completely different dev team, set in far away lands and in different time periods and do not advance the story, and eventually that team just started doing completely different games with the Suikoden name slapped onto it that weren't even set in the same world.

Suikoden 3 also suffers from FF12 syndrome, in that you get an awesome first 40 hours that is shaping up to be the most ambitious game in the series yet, and then the creator leaves halfway through development and then the game hastily wraps up. You have a 40 hour long prologue with rotating POVs and with different protagonists fighting each other, and then you finally get your castle and your army and you're ready to embark on a long epic war just like in the first two games... and then the game just ends 10 hours later.

The gameplay of Suikoden 3 is not very enjoyable compared to the first two games. First of all, the battles take too long. There is also no world map to traverse, and instead you have to run through long corridor levels to get anywhere. The game was unfinished, so there aren't many locations, so you're backtracking through the same corridors a lot and getting accosted by long random encounters. This is compounded by the multiple PoVs thing so you're running through the same levels dozens of times. The actual combat and character building does not have depth like the later Trails games. Suikoden 3 introduces a skill system which promises you the idea of character customization, but it isn't actually there and the sequels never fix that. Unless a character has an A rank in evade, they will never become a good parry tank. Suikoden 3 is particularly disappointing in this regard, as if you pick a certain character to get the big True Rune of the game, she sucks at using it because her magic skill for that school of magic is too low and can never be raised enough to make more worthwhile than having her basic attack with her sword. Pretty disappointing given how awesome the heroes' True Runes of the prior two games were to use.

This was also the first Suikoden game not to be scored by Miki Hagishino, and it shows. I cannot recall any songs from Suikoden 3 (or 4). The music gets a little better again in 5 but still nowhere near the quality of the franchise had from S1 through Suikogaiden. The game also does not look aesthetically rich like the 2D Suikodens.




So what you're left with is a game that you're mainly playing for the merits of its story, which is again very interesting but you will be more invested if you had played the prior games first.

Suikoden 1 was a lovely game, too.

S1 is my favorite of the series. It's 20 hours and it is fun for almost the entire duration. There is a high number amount of major character deaths, so by the end you feel like you've been through a harrowing war. I know that S2 is the golden cow of the JRPG fandom, but to me the game was too light on casualties and diluted across a 40 hour runtime, and paradoxically not only began to outstay its welcome, but also felt rushed (the counterattack push into Highland is skimmed over in a matter of an hour).


@Capybara if you finished VC1 and enjoyed it, I would recommend that you check out Sakura Wars 5 and VC4. You get more of the same interesting battle system and level design. VC4 remedies VC1's flaws by making scout rushing much more difficult (the road to enemy bases is defends by lots of heavy assault units, and the new grenadier class that can provide indirect fire with their mortars). The amount of heavily armed enemies you face forces you to rely much more on your assault troops to push, as well as your vehicles to provide cover to hide behind.

Maybe it wouldn't be fair to review Suikoden III until I play Suikoden I and II. I isn't on the list, so I'll play Suikoden II and III back to back instead of reviewing them in a vacuum. It'd be like playing Trails of Cold Steel 4 as your first game in the series.

I'll skip Suikoden III for now and go back to it once I play the rest of the games.

@Capybara if you finished VC1 and enjoyed it, I would recommend that you check out Sakura Wars 5 and VC4. You get more of the same interesting battle system and level design. VC4 remedies VC1's flaws by making scout rushing much more difficult (the road to enemy bases is defends by lots of heavy assault units, and the new grenadier class that can provide indirect fire with their mortars). The amount of heavily armed enemies you face forces you to rely much more on your assault troops to push, as well as your vehicles to provide cover to hide behind.

I dropped 4 halfway through, but because it's on the list I'll eventually go back to finish it.

I'll skip Suikoden III for now and move on to Parasite Eve which is next on the list.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

how are the PSP Valkyria Chronicles? I'm planning on hitting them before 4,but nobody ever talks about them.

I haven't played them. From what I've heard, VC2 and VC3 are very different in tone from VC1 and VC4, to the point that the feel like different games with the VC name slapped on. Very outlandish character designs. VC2 is set at a high school. VC3 does not have an official English translation. There might be a fan translation patch that you would have to dig around for.

[Goldsnivy1]

Dragon Quest III and V definitely deserve to be on that list, but VII? Seems an odd choice to me.

[Lord of Riva]

@Val the Moofia Boss how are the PSP Valkyria Chronicles? I'm planning on hitting them before 4,but nobody ever talks about them.

They are fine gameplay wise, the maps are really small and broken up into multiple regions, it becomes really grindy and the story is kinda shit (but that is true for the whole series).

Some cool new classes have been brought in and the existing ones have been broken up in more useful ways (there is class changes now into different classes) IIRC.

It's fun enough, got it on my Vita (what a shit console, on which I have basically only psp and PS1 games)

[J1M]

Must have been a wild algorithm to land on this ranking. Terranigma is number 2, lol.

[Kowe]

Gonna skip a few games ahead as they are the ones I finished.

Persona 5
Decent story, but its combat is weaker all-around than 4 and 5. It has some pleasant changes compared to them however, like how the characters all level up at the same time even if not in the party. Maybe I remember wrong there, but feel free to correct this.
Persona 5 Royal is also a welcome addition, since it adds more end-game content and allows to be able to play two companions longer, one being new to the game. Imo, these two are the best characters out of the playable ones.
That it is lower rated than Persona 4 is no surprise since their cast is written better. As in they are more of a band of friends than the Persona 5 cast. What 4 does better than 5 is also the scope of the story. P5 and P5R are a bit too much with what the Phantom Thieves can do with people's minds. There is probably already some description for it but let's call it the world-saving-syndrome.
Some of the abilities you can unlock via Confidant rank-ups are also kind of mediocre to unnecessary. Ryuji's is definitely top-tier for leveling up in Mementos.
As for difficulty and length. Finished two play-throughs in total, one on normal, one on hard. On Royal. Haven't completed merciless as I was stuck on the second boss last time. Don't remember what the difficulty was on the normal P5 where I nearly finished the game too.
Anyway, despite its flaws, it is still a good game, but not great. And expect to invest a lot of time into it. It took me around 80-100 hours for the complete play-throughs, without skipping anything.

Persona 4
Go with the Golden edition. It is either available on PSVita or Steam. They made some changes between the versions. One being Chie's voice actor. Don't remember much else besides also having added a very important confidant. Who has played the game before should know whom I am talking about.
Have to revisit the game in the future to get a more precise look on its combat and how it holds up when comparing it to other titles, in- and outside of the series.
As has been mention in the previous paragraph, the game is all-around better. It has more phases of grind, however.

Chrono Trigger
Good game, not my favorite though. Has no random encounters which is quite the difference to lots of other RPGs, but a welcome one. Having lots of different endings is also a plus. The combat is decent, nothing to stand out, but it is above the average with its combinations if I remember correctly. Been years since I last played it. Story is more or less cohesive yet not as strong as other titles in the genre. Since it is an old game which had to work within its limitations, it is understandable. Will have to revisit at some point too, to see if it still gives the same impressions or if being able to compare it to more games changes the perspective on it.
The DS version is probably the best with its extra content. There is otherwise the original SNES one and two for PS1. For PS1 it should be stand-alone or as a two-game bundle with Final Fantasy 4, called Final Fantasy Chronicles.

Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver
Biased since I grew up with the first three generations and have stopped playing any of the Pokemon games after Emerald. These two are still the best, not as bloated with content and game-play additions as is the case with later gens. This is coming from having checked on some of the content via videos, like Wolfy's channel or whatever he is called. A top competitive player. Talking about its competitive scene, I only looked a bit into Smogon University or whatever it is called and spent time on other genres for that itch. From hearsay, Gen 5 as well as Gen 4 are also contenders to being the best in the series. The former more than the latter.

Also kind of curious why there is no Persona 3 in the list. It is arguably the best of the 5 main-series installments. Oh and forgot to add it to the paragraphs: All games have memorable soundtracks, especially CT.

[Statesman]

Add Anachronox, @Gastrick wouldn't allow it to be on the list

Nice recommendation, but technically that isn't really a JRPG.

[rusty_shackleford]

Nice recommendation, but technically that isn't really a JRPG.

Then neither is Final Fantasy IX.

[Lord of Riva]

Must have been a wild algorithm to land on this ranking. Terranigma is number 2, lol.

Terranigma is amazing.

Aside from the terrible translation and a few shortcommings in its design that felt rushed towards the end it tells a very relevant story regarding life, humanity, spirituality while using both buddhist and judeo-christian aspects to create a world that is amazingly harmonious.

It's a very awesome game, well warranted on a high place on this list, the only reason why it's surprising is that a lot of americans have not played it.

I just finished Terranigma today together with my son on my SNES.

EDIT: What shoul be really irritating though is that Fire Emblen is on this list and so is Warsong but not Der Langrisser, how that works is beyond me.

[Statesman]

Nice recommendation, but technically that isn't really a JRPG.

Then neither is Final Fantasy IX.

Anachronox was developed by an American company and originally published by British company (until it was bought by Square Enix)...

[rusty_shackleford]

Nice recommendation, but technically that isn't really a JRPG.

Then neither is Final Fantasy IX.

Anachronox was developed by an American company and originally published by British company (until it was bought by Square Enix)...

Final Fantasy IX was made in Hawaii.

[Statesman]

Then neither is Final Fantasy IX.

Anachronox was developed by an American company and originally published by British company (until it was bought by Square Enix)...

Final Fantasy IX was made in Hawaii.

By a Japanese company, with a Japanese Director, Producer, Designer, Writer, Composer, etc.

[rusty_shackleford]

Anachronox was developed by an American company and originally published by British company (until it was bought by Square Enix)...

Final Fantasy IX was made in Hawaii.

By a Japanese company, with a Japanese Director, Producer, Designer, Writer, Composer, etc.

In America

[Statesman]

Final Fantasy IX was made in Hawaii.

By a Japanese company, with a Japanese Director, Producer, Designer, Writer, Composer, etc.

In America

Since when do games have birthright citizenship? lmao

[rusty_shackleford]

By a Japanese company, with a Japanese Director, Producer, Designer, Writer, Composer, etc.

In America

Since when do games have birthright citizenship? lmao

Fine, every JRPG is actually an American RPG because japan is a vassal state of America.

[Statesman]

In America

Since when do games have birthright citizenship? lmao

Fine, every JRPG is actually an American RPG because japan is a vassal state of America.

Completely valid, specially when anime-influenced, I mean JRPG-like "WRPGs" are not uncommon. If anything, I'd rather everyone used descriptive sub-genres over stylistic acronyms.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

From hearsay, Gen 5 as well as Gen 4 are also contenders to being the best in the series. The former more than the latter.

Black and White are good. However, they are when the first symptoms of the franchise's decline appears. No more exploration, no world with routes that loop in on themselves. The world is a straight corridor you go down. Hardly any need for HMs besides surf. The feeling of bushwhacking your way through an untamed wilderness begins to disappear here, though it's not completely absent like in XY onwards. Also, you get exp share for your whole party, so there is no more picking and choosing which Pokemon to focus on developing for a particular leg of your journey. There is also no side activity to progress through like Pokemon Contests. However, there is still a lot of fun to be had. The regular NPC trainers are overall more difficult than in prior gens, and the final level was pretty tough and left me sweating. The story is also well written, with likeable characters and threatening villains and some good climaxes, but doesn't get too up its own ass or trap you in overly long cutscenes like the following gens.