Having just completed Persona 4, I'll probably be looking for a new RPG soon. There appears to be a ton of JRPGs on the PS2 that I never played, but I know very little about them, so I'm not sure which ones are good.

I loved Persona 4 (and Persona 3, for that matter) so anything similar to them would be good.

I tried Digital Devil Saga and hated it, because the number of random encounters was utterly out of control. Which was really too bad, because the rest of the game seemed quite sweet (especially the skill system).

Anyway, here's kind of what I'm looking for:

(1) Party-based. No solo RPGs like Oblivion.

(2) Turn-based combat. I like having time to think out my moves--I hate the pressure of real time.

(3) No random encounters every five steps. Because that's annoying as hell. I really like how Persona 3 and Persona 4 handled this because you can actually see the monsters instead of having battles just dropped on you.

(4) Minimal annoying mini-games. You know, like the irritating one that pops up in Mass Effect everytime you try and pick a lock. Thank God there was a bug that allowed you to minimize that or I probably would have thrown my controller through my monitor.

(5) Character customization. Yeah, I know most JRPGs don't let you alter your character to the extent of, say, Neverwinter Nights 2, but I would still like something similar to Persona 4 where there is lots of cool loot with different powers to give your character as well as customizable spells.

(6) Japanese Voices. This one isn't a must, but I sure do like games that allow you to listen to the dialogue in Japanese instead of English (like Eternal Sonata and La Pucelle: Tactics). Let's face it, dubs invariably suck. Now, Persona 4 didn't have Japanese dialogue, but at least you could mercifully turn off (most of) the English dialogue and just deal with text.

Hmm, I think that's about it.

Any recommendations which meet the above criteria?

You might need a 360...

Disgaea.

I'm :confused:

What we need is for sony to release a new evercrack on ps3.....I would glady P2P if it had the same fun factor as the one on ps2

Final Fantasy XII meets most of your criteria. The dubbing is fine IMO.

Dragon Quest VIII I have heard from plenty of people is *the* best PS2 RPG. I've never played it, but I do know it has random battles. However unlike say Lost Odyssey which is a loady, slow mess, the battles are really fast and smooth.

If you have a DS, Chrono Trigger is obviously top tier in every way. Best of the best. Dragon Quest IV is also great. I actually prefer playing these games on my DS nowadays.

You might need a 360...

PS2 > 360 for JRPGs by a lot...

F
Dragon Quest VIII I have heard from plenty of people is *the* best PS2 RPG.

That claim is total rubbish! It's a freaking 16-bit RPG with Dragonball Z characters.

PS2 > 360 for JRPGs by a lot...

And, of course, since the OP discusses Mass Effect, I assume he has access to a 360 and is asking specifically about PS2 games.

Which, of course, begs the question--does the OP have a PS3 that is backwards compatible? Just to be safe...

I think there was a thread around here of a new game Atlus was releasing that I think was in the same series and the Persona games.

That claim is total rubbish! It's a freaking 16-bit RPG with Dragonball Z characters.

First of all, every DQ has Toriyama character designs. Second of all, what's wrong with 16-bit RPGs? They are great. Much better than slop like Lost Odyssey...

edit: btw, another good one is Valkyrie Profile 2.

I agree number1 and bassmonkee. I guess I spoke out of frustration because I would love a game that met the op's specifications, but there are not that many on the PS3. For some reason, I am still very reluctant to purchase games on my xbox. brand loyalty I guess.

First of all, every DQ has Toriyama character designs. Second of all, what's wrong with 16-bit RPGs? They are great.

I fumbled with my wording. What I meant there was Toriyama sucks and all of his designs look exactly the same.

Nothing's wrong with the old-school RPGs at all. They were great and I still play many of them repeatedly. But I want to see the genre progress and grow, not stagnate. If I want that classic old-school RPG I will play a classic old-school RPG. Look at the progression from something like Shining Force (awesome series) to Disgaea. Same basic mechanics, but a much broader, evolved experience. I don't want to play DQ2 with fancier graphics, I'd rather just play DQ2 than be coddled by a reskinning and new dialogue. I didn't play the PS2 DQ game very much because it felt like a million other RPGs I'd already played, while games like Disgaea or FFXII feel familiar but bring new things to the table.

The SRPG genre has evolved a lot more than the "JRPG" genre. The JRPG genre has mostly been stuck in a rut since Final Fantasy VII. Chrono Trigger seriously feels fresh and new compared to Blue Dragon or Lost Odyssey and those games came out 10+ years later. Dragon Quest IV compares quite favorably to Lost Odyssey IMO... its smoother, faster, more refined, and far less pretentious. It's good. I'll take it.

Not that I don't like progressive JRPGs... I think FFXII is a brilliant game, so is The World Ends With You. But there aren't that many of them, even FFXIII seems to be ditching FFXII's advancements in favor of going back in time to FFX's battle mechanics. Bummer.

Valkyria Chronicles

DQVIII had its problems (repetitive, overlong), but it definitely had some excellent concepts and sub-plot stories. Yes, combat was a total throwback (some might even say it was "classic"), and nothing really changed for the last 50hrs of the game, and the music got old after 80hrs of the same 3-4 songs over and over and over again, and the stupid monster fighting minigame was lame, and yet another silent main character, and... Wait. What was I saying again?

Oh yeah, play FFXII. If you've played it already, play it again. Still the best RPG in the last and in the current gen. Sure, the story fell apart in the last couple of hours, but the game up to that point was beautiful.

I am not sure if this follows any of the rules of the OP, but Xenosaga was a game I liked. Their are 3 parts to it. It has robots so that is different.

Sure, the story fell apart in the last couple of hours, but the game up to that point was beautiful.

At least once the story fell apart there was a ton of sweet cinematics and you had toned your characters and AI streams into a well-oiled fighting machine. I barely did anything during the final boss fight, and it was awesome watching my team keep themselves alive and wreck havoc.

You might need a 360...

Oh, I have one. But it seems like there were a ton of cool PS2 RPGs that I missed over the years.

And, of course, since the OP discusses Mass Effect, I assume he has access to a 360 and is asking specifically about PS2 games.

Which, of course, begs the question--does the OP have a PS3 that is backwards compatible? Just to be safe...

I actually have a PS3 and a PS2, so I think I'm safe. :)

I think there was a thread around here of a new game Atlus was releasing that I think was in the same series and the Persona games.

Do you mean other than Persona 4, which just came out in, like, December? If so, please tell me more! :D

The SRPG genre has evolved a lot more than the "JRPG" genre. The JRPG genre has mostly been stuck in a rut since Final Fantasy VII. Chrono Trigger seriously feels fresh and new compared to Blue Dragon or Lost Odyssey and those games came out 10+ years later. Dragon Quest IV compares quite favorably to Lost Odyssey IMO... its smoother, faster, more refined, and far less pretentious. It's good. I'll take it.

Not that I don't like progressive JRPGs... I think FFXII is a brilliant game, so is The World Ends With You. But there aren't that many of them, even FFXIII seems to be ditching FFXII's advancements in favor of going back in time to FFX's battle mechanics. Bummer.

I don't know, I think that the Persona series is quite progressive with the way that they mix "high school sim" elements with the dungeon crawling.

I am not sure if this follows any of the rules of the OP, but Xenosaga was a game I liked. Their are 3 parts to it. It has robots so that is different.

Hmm, I think I tried that one. Isn't there, like, upteen zillion hours of FMV cut-scenes in it? I think I got tired of waiting for the actual game to start and gave up.

At least once the story fell apart there was a ton of sweet cinematics and you had toned your characters and AI streams into a well-oiled fighting machine. I barely did anything during the final boss fight, and it was awesome watching my team keep themselves alive and wreck havoc.

What are these "AI streams" that you speak of? Do you not have direct control over your characters, or something? :confused:

Oh, and barely doing anything during the final boss fight and still coming out on top sounds like a recipe for disappointment (for me, anway).

Yes, combat was a total throwback (some might even say it was "classic"),

They tried to change that for DQIX, but the Japanese internets exploded (Japanese because nobody else cares about this series), so they had to redesign the battle system.

IMO the fact that gamers just want more of the exact same stuff is part of why these games have "evolved" so little. TWEWY was a dud in Japan (big hit here).

What are these "AI streams" that you speak of? Do you not have direct control over your characters, or something?

FFXII lets you set up tiny scripts for character behavior in battles. For example, a simple one would be IF HP < 50% CAST HEAL. You gain these scripts over the course of the game. It sounds weird, but for example you said you want to think out your moves, well the game lets you do that outside of battles. Kind of strange but I dug it.

I only wish they let you set up more than 12 scripts per character, and merge them so you could do something if two criteria were met. Man, that would've been sweeet.

You set up scripts for all three people in your party, but you are always in control of one of them and can switch between them. I had Ashe stay back and do healing/buffs on the other two; Fran was aggressive and always attacking but had some counter-status spells set up in case Ashe got hit with something stupid like poison or slow, and I just sort of hovered between them and picked up the slack. Yes, I rolled with the two chicks. And yes, I was Balthier, because he was easily the coolest character in the game even before the big twist about his character.

Finding new AI commands and learning skills on the grid sphere was awesome. The music was fanastic, the visuals were great... it's such a good game. My only real beefs with it are the story falling apart at the end, Quickenings getting really old/annoying early on, and the fact that they didn't take the battle system as far as they could've. I'd complain about the main character being a twerp, but you don't even have to take him with you so whatever. Great great game. And only $12 at Gamestop right now.

The thing I always said about FFXII was it was the first JRPG I could really remember that really wowed me with its game mechanics. It's just really, really well done. The Quickenings seem a bit tacked on, like they put them in to appease the people that play these games for flashy/annoying spell animations, I could've done without them and just make the combat that much more tactical without a "win" button. But other than that, I can play FFXII and almost "ignore" the story the same way I ignore the story in an FPS or whatever. The mechanics are just that good. I really wish FFXIII was refining FFXII's game systems instead of retreating to FFX/earlier but again, people don't want new.

The World Ends With You is much the same way (but much more obtuse), I really can't say enough about that one either.

What about Star Ocean?

Radiata Stories was well worth the 80 hours I put in to it.

Do you mean other than Persona 4, which just came out in, like, December? If so, please tell me more! :D

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1113718

Disgaea.

Agreed.

Here's a few games I've not yet heard mentioned:

First, there's the Shadow Hearts series. The second game, SH: Covenant, is one of the best games I've ever played in terms of both story and gameplay. The stories all take place between 1910 and 1930 and are set in an alternate-reality where monsters prowl the earth. You can play Covenant without playing SH:I and not lose much, even though the story is a continuation. The third game, From the New World, is definitely inferior to either of the others, though it does have a higher dose of fan service. (That's not to say there isn't fan service in the other installments, especially if you like busty females or gay vampires.) It's hard to find any RPGs with wittier scripts than the Shadow Hearts series. (Ratchet & Clank is the closest I've found in the hilarity department, though it's obviously not an RPG.)

The other game I'll mention was created for the PS1, but it's still one of my favorite games of all time. That game is Chrono Cross. Though it was denigrated by Chrono Trigger fans expecting a true sequel, if taken on its own terms Chrono Cross is one of the most beautiful and innovative RPGs every made. This game played fine on my PS1 and PS2 consoles, but crashes my PS3 around the time when you fight the Beebas and the Wingapede. I'm planning on trying again with firmware 2.60, but I'm not optimistic. Otherwise I'm buying a used PS1 just to play this game!

As for games already mentioned, I couldn't get more than an hour or so into Dragon Quest VIII before becoming bored stiff, but I'm not a big fan of games with faux-medieval settings. Xenosaga I is quite a good game, and III is pretty decent as well. The producers took some wrong turns with Xenosaga II that they corrected in the finale. The original story was designed to span seven games, so the decision to limit it to three installments means the ending is rather rushed.

If you dislike random encounters, both Chrono Cross and Xenosaga display all the enemies on screen. You can avoid some of them if you're careful. I also dislike games with too many random encounters; it's my one major complaint about Final Fantasy VI. If I were designing games, I'd make sure that you can obtain a reduced-encounter-rate item somewhere about the midpoint.

My daughter and I recently shared playing a rental copy of Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga. I liked what we saw better than in Nocturne; we're planning on buying a copy to keep even though it's a bit pricey for an older PS2 game.

Right now, though, I'm about to work my way through Kefka's tower in Final Fantasy Vi. This is the game I think most deserves a re-release for a modern platform. It's so refreshing to play an RPG where the characters are nearly all adults.

As for Star Ocean, I bought III and was really disappointed. Here I thought I was going to be playing a space opera, and I found myself spending forever running around in more faux-medieval worlds. Plus I hated the battle system; I'd often play the healing character and let the AI run the rest of my party.