October 3, 2007 - A melancholic piano sighs under the backdrop of sea-blown wind. As you meander along the paths of Doolin village, your steps color the scene with murder, suspicion and knowledge of the many realms of the Netherworld. This surreal and often-times haunted journey is the journey of Folklore - and this is one great reason to own a PlayStation 3.
Final Score 9.0
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.
These JRPGs stand up on their own.
Could you get rich by investing in PS3 games? Almost definitely not. Can you make a few bucks by flipping PS3 games over the years? Yeah, sure! It wouldn’t even be that difficult. But let’s face it: Once these games are in your collection, you’re probably keeping them forever.
After a game's multiple generations old, and can't be had new at a reasonable price, that's when I see nothing wrong with emulation.
What's the point of paying someone scalper prices when the dev/publisher isn't even benefiting from it?
I paid $30 for SH Downpour on PS3 now it's around $70-$85 Canadian Lolipop Chainsaw I paid $15 and it has really gone up in price. I wonder if Transformers War and Fall of Cybertron will go up in price two of the best Transformers games every made.
In 5 years time all those games will be worth at least $150 to $200 that you listed
Ever since Sony announced that they would shut down PS3 store these prices have skyrocketed and even though Sony backtracked now most gamers realize that it's a matter of time before the PlayStation 3 store is shut down. If you want these games get them while you can even if digital because once that story shut down the physical prices will just go crazy high we saw that already
And many of these games did not sell like crazy amounts so they are limited number of copies available for sale at any given time
Folklore is a game I've always really wanted to play, but I got a PS3 late in the generation, and it was already really expensive to find, being it didn't exactly sell well, therefore was already kind of a collector's item.
Kept hoping I'd find a cheap copy randomly at stores and flea markets, but never happened.
It was available at GameStop for a while for under $20. Don't know har happened but GameStop started to sell their used games based on ebay prices it seems
You can still find it for around $60-70 and which in my opinion is a good price for a game that will be worth double if not triple that in next 5 years
Have you considered modding your PS3? Neither Sony or the dev would be getting money from that Folklore purchase. Kind of a victimless crime at that point.
@neutral
Honestly, I just want to actually give the experience a try. I'm not someone who would buy it at a premium just to potentially rip someone off down the road.
I mean, there are collectors out there and if paying a couple hundred dollars is worth it to them then more power to them, but I'm not one to be on either end of that exchange.
I know it's taboo, but I might dig in and see the state of PS3 emulation on PC. I have a good PC, so it might be able to power through the often times poor performance, being PS3 is known to be hard to emulate.
I've never emulated anything past the PS2/Dreamcast but, as I said in my first post, I don't see anything wrong with emulation if the game you want to play can only be had used, with no money going to the creators.
wahh wahh wahh??!?! sleeper hitt???
Tremendous score. Visally it certainly is beautiful, in a similar way to Bioshock, its the art direction that shines. Music is great also. Looking forward even more than before.
Don't trust reviews anymore after halo
...this came out of nowhere! so many games, so little $$$ XD
PLAY B3YOND
this is atop my gamefly account, and if I like it that much i will buy it at a discounted price! WOOT! THe demo was a blast.