Hardcore Gamer: And there you have it, folks: the top 20 games of the 2000s you never played. It's been a long ride, and we appreciate you sticking with us through all four parts of this feature.
Get ready to embark on a journey filled with monsters, magic, and overpowered haircuts, because this list features the best JRPGs on the PS3.
There wasn't that many. Thanks to the west's criticism. It was definitely lacking compared to every other ps system. Dont get me wrong there were a few good ones i know that.
Nier, Valkyrie Chronciles, Tales games , Ni No Kuni, Resonance of Fate, FF13’s, Ys8 just a few off the top of my head and there were a lot more.
Not nearly to the degree of PS1 and PS2.
@shinoff2183 makes a good point that around the PS3/Xbox 360 gen is when the genre wasn’t as prevalent and began to shy away from turn-based. There’s some standouts for sure, but look at the PS1 and PS2 JRPG library and then compare that to the PS3 and PS4’s.
Theres definitely a decline in a selection of titles. Even worse was the quality seemed to take a massive hit as well. I think Lost Odyssey was a huge standout for that gen when you look at production values, then you look at something like Fairy Fencer on the PS3 and it’s kind of depressing.
But by that generation there was a shift from western developed games overtaking Japanese developed games. Back from the NES to PS2 Japanese games were the cream of the crop… I don’t know what happened but like midway into the PS3/360 life-time they became less so.
Compared to the ps1 ps2 and he'll even ps4 ps3 doesn't hold a candle to either imo. It's also when turn based damn near disappeared. Again thanks to the west's criticism
Crimson I'd put money on the west being at fault, guys like Phil phish, and numerous others at that time were attacking jrpg and Japanese games in general pretty hard.
Ni no kuni was probably my fav jrpg back then , and the blue dragon
Tales got kinda lucky here. When they took a chance and finally brought tales of graces f over west it sold like 250k lmao a lot of jrpgs did 500k or below. Disgaea was worse i think. Bamco decided to keep bringing more games over though.
Demon's Souls, Dark Souls and Dark Souls II were the best RPGs on PS3 made by Japanese developers. Everything else just fell short always. Ni No Kuni was a full package, an okayish game as well. Nier and Drakengard III had superb writing, setting and voice acting, however, the performance was a real drag on the gameplay. Traditional RPG-wise I'd actually say 360 had better JRPGs, and think that Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon were the best traditional JRPGs of the era. PS3 Valkyria Chronicles was okay, but it is closer to an SRPG.
Ryu Ga Gotoku games were also solid, they were still finding their footing and breaking new ground with new cities and formats.
PS3 was the era that almost made me quit gaming and I started playing on PC because I could not find good performance nor games on the system. PS4 got me back into it, and now PS5 is a mix in and between, I just play my PS4 library on the PS5 and rest on PC, just like during the PS3 era. The only new exclusive Sony JRPG is pretty much FFXVI and it is so streamlined and simplified from the normal RPG experience that I can't fit it into the genre anymore. Dragon Quest XII hopefully remedies all of this, but it is just one game.
These new games will all be on PC (while it does take 2-3 years to wait, and 6-12 months from launch to have them patched + fixed by modders) and they perform better on it. The only point in owning a PS5 is to play games a couple of years earlier, but for a hard-working family man like me, the quality of the experience is more important than playing it as soon as possible. And I can't do modern games at 30fps 720p after playing 120fps at 4K. For older games, that's okay.
PSX and PS2 though, those were the days...Still have a massive collections of classic RPGs in CD and DVD format and a phat PS3 to play them!
It's kinda like that, the PS3 generation was a bad time for JRPGs, especially with the Japanese feeling the need to westernize their games, shooters dominating that gen, the racism from western game journalists (it was bad, between G4, Phill Fish, and a slew of others), and the higher development costs...
It really made me miss the PS1/PS2 days of JRPGs, even the quality of half of those games during the 7th gen weren't as good. The 360 tried, but Microsoft's consoles weren't popular in Japan and no body in the West bought a Xbox for JRPGs (despite Xbox having Vesperia, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey).
" It's kinda like that, the PS3 generation was a bad time for JRPGs, especially with the Japanese feeling the need to westernize their games "
This is when everything fall down and games looks not fun to play anymore except for few games like demon and dark souls for example
Nah. It's a bad trilogy of games
The only reason XIII-2 stands out is because XIII was so bad
When the bar is so low, anything after feels better.
Watching the credits roll on ff16 now it is good but , I'd really like to re try ff13 least it's turn based and would fill that gap for me.
They got better after the first one in the trilogy, not outstanding game though.
Honestly, I played FFXIII a few years after release and maybe because it was after the hype cycle and I knew the flaws of the game, it actually became my favorite FF after VII.
I took off the mini map and never used auto battle and the stuff that mattered to me in an FF was just so well done.
The art and graphics were insane at the time
The music is still special
The story still lingers in memory more than a decade later
The RPG systems were decent
I never really got the hate for it, still have a soft spot for that game inside me.
Only gripe I have with Ar Tonelico 3 is that Saki is annoying as hell whether English or in Japanese. Then Saki's English voice actor became Ionasal on Ar Nosurge she was a little annoying but not as bad. Johnny Young Bosch voicing Tatsumi I thought he did a great job. And Akiko Shikata with her vocals and the music from the games just went hand and hand.
As consoles go, the Gamecube is pretty underrated, so it stands to reason that a lot of its games are too.
Without doubt for me it would be Eternal Darkness, one of the best videogames ever made IMO.
Eternal darkness was phenomenal. I remember panicking when I got an error code pop up and then it looked like all my saves had wiped off my memory card. That game would play with your mind.
Yeah loved it to, getting it all and getting the purple rune was great never felt like a chore. The only other game that I really enjoyed as much was starfox adventures. Great game
Paper Mario Thousand Year Door is just incredible, I really hope Nintendo will do a remaster or remake of it.
Big fan of Gotcha Force. A true hidden gem that rarely gets mentioned. It played a lot like Federation Vs. Zeon which is one or my favorite PS2 games.
No Paper Mario, Geist, or Eternal Darkness is surprising. Games like Second Sight can at least be played on other platforms, but some of those games are exceedingly expensive (should you want to play them on original hardware). I've got a handful of them, but Gotcha Force will sadly never end up in my collection at $700 for a CIB copy.
These JRPGs stand up on their own.
the only game on there i have played and herd of is Condemned.
Think Outtrigger is the only game I owned on that list. Great game but couldn't get into it as it was one of the frist 3rd person shooters I had played and playing them on a joypad after playing FPS on PCs using mouse/keyboard made it feel like a bit of a joke.
Yea Phantom Dust was awesome game on the xbox!
And Folklore! That game was so underrated! It was one of the best RPG games i have ever played. Fantastic music, lovely atmosphere, great story, unique gameplay and fighting style.
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
just look how pathetic so called "gaming" journalist are (scroll down): http://www.metacritic.com/g...
This game was released when the anti PS campaign was full force, any exclusive game at that time it will be bashed automatically And because of their idiotic fanboysim against a console, Great game like Folklore sold 0.26m copies.
"gaming" journalist are destroying graet games, they only hype mindless games like COD!
Panzer Dragoon Orta
(Xbox, 2003 | Sega & Smilebit)
My God! 10 years since that game came out! I remember getting that and being really excited because I loved the originals on the Saturn. Where does the time go!
Edit: Also PNO3 in 2003 and Killer 7 in 2005! My god it just feels like yesterday I bought and played these games!
I've been meaning to play Baten Kaitos... I probably should now because I think it's been increasing in price lately