JRPG's With the Best Plots

Yup they're a duology so it's IS first, then EP.

Sticker Star is unfortunately not awesome.

I'd say that Sticker Star has the best music of any Mario game I've ever played, but the gameplay is pretty mediocre. :/

As for suggestions, I cannot suggest the SMT: Digital Devil Saga series enough. Holy crap, the combination of mythological references, meaning of life stuff, mystery, and the ways it plays with characterizations, I love it.

Naturally, everyone nominates the games that try and buck JRPG tradition. And for good reason too.

I'm throwing my weight behind The World Ends With You. Certifiably unique, that's for sure. Easily the best thing Square Enix has created in the last... Long while.

Likewise anything in the SMT franchise including Persona and anything by Nippon Ichi. They take very different approaches to the same endgoal; creating an RPG plot you have never experienced before.

edited 29th Apr '13 3:40:53 AM by ShirowShirow

Persona 4.

^^Yeah, The World Ends With You is only game where I have learned something from the aesop of sorts

the neat thing about symphonia, is that not only does lloyd grow up and learn from his mistakes, but he has a really nice parallel in the big bad, mithos, who was basically a determinator where lloyd wasnt, being unable to accept his mistakes and give up on the particular path he chose, and instead find another.

a lot of plots just slap the determinator trait on their main characters as if it could only be a good thing, so its nice when the major difference between them and the big bad is simply that they know when to quit.

also seconding digital devil saga.

i personally dont think persona 3 and 4's plots are that good (upper side of average in p3's case, lower end of above average in p4's), with the strengths lying elsewhere. persona 2 however, does, as a whole, or as a part, have a really good story. its just a shame EP psp didnt get released stateside. its gonna take fucking forever to learn enough japanese to actually play it.

i'd consider adding radiant historia, but at the same time...some of the plot elements in that kind of...baffle me.

edited 29th Apr '13 4:07:45 AM by Tarsen

It's got a better aesop than Final Fantasy Tactics Advance at least. Or Final Fantasy VII, which inspired me to be an environmentalist when I was younger. Yeah.

Gotta give them credit though, when Square hits it they hit it hard.

edited 29th Apr '13 4:09:24 AM by ShirowShirow

Indeed. That's why I loved the game so much.

For a non-rpg, I did like Twilight Princess' JRPG-style plot. It wasn't perfect, due to the non-talking protagonist, and felt kind of forced sometimes, but giving him a potential love life was neat. Same with the really cool Midna characterization.

wasnt ffta's aesop basically "escapism is nice n all, but you gotta stop running away from your life just because its not great"?

edited 29th Apr '13 4:11:13 AM by Tarsen

Matsuno's tactical RPG have some of the nicest mixes of political intrigue and fantasy elements, so I'll go with Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre.

edited 29th Apr '13 4:23:38 AM by lu127

Yes.

JRPGs with good stories, well, everybody's mentioned the games I had in mind. I'd probably add Parasite Eve, simply for having survival horror elements, and the Mario & Luigi series, whose stories are chock full of charm.

I'd like to nominate Devil Survivor as well, though I suppose that all the SMT games are getting a little overrepresented here.

Does Sweet Home on the Famicom count? On the one hand, it doesn't really have a "plot" in the sense of a cohesive narrative, but it sure tells one hell of a story to people who rummage the scene for pieces of lore.

I second Devil Survivor and The World Ends With You, both have great stories and gameplay that lasts for hours.

edited 29th Apr '13 5:20:31 AM by Kiefen

• Chrono Trigger
• Tales of the Abyss
• Tales of Symphonia
• Terranigma
• Skies Of Arcadia

edited 29th Apr '13 6:02:37 AM by KingZeal

I haven't played many JRP Gs, but Kingdom Hearts Chain Of Memories and Birth By Sleep were awesome.

Even though I already knew Birth By Sleep would have a sad ending, it still made me cry. It's just... I really like the characters in that one.

Also, Chain of Memories! Goodness, I love that game, it's plot is brilliant! The way they deconstruct Mary Sue is just awesome, and none of the characters (with the possible exception of Lexeaus and Larxene) feel like they're 'tacked on' - plus, Namine is shown possessing an actual personality and motivations and the relationship between her and Sora is way more fleshed out and interesting, unlike Kairi, who wasn't exactly 'interesting' in any of the games I'd played. o_O;

Seconding Final Fantasy Tactics and Xenogears.

Final Fantasy VII isn't a very popular choice these days among people who want to show they have RPG cred, since it's become a cash cow with a terrible, terrible fandom, but I think the story still stands with the best out there, it's just been obscured by other games copying it ad nauseam.

The second is still usually seen as the crown of the series, but I've got to give the space to Suikoden III here. Especially if you've had the chance to see his motivation building across the previous games, I think the Big Bad has an incredible character arc, as a not-nice, but essentially good person who departs from the protagonists over an intractable conflict over what's right without becoming a Fallen Hero and losing his faith or conviction in what he's fighting for. Also, unlike most games where the Big Bad is unthwartable and unassailable for most of the story, the Big Bad struggles and suffers setbacks as much as protagonists, but refuses to give up the fight for what he believes in. Plus, I think it does a better job than the other Suikoden games (and most games period) at weaving together the political and cosmological elements of the plot.

havent played suikoden 3 yet, but 5 was my absolute favourite in the series, and i definately thought the plot was good...although,

the villains of the story sadly kind of...fell apart if you thought about their actions.

everything they did was so poorly timed and thought out that at some point you have to wonder if the godwins were ever actually trying to be a threat to anyone but the commoners.

i also thought tierkreis, though it doesnt follow the series tradition to any significant degree, had a pretty good story to go with some amazing music and likable characters.

edited 29th Apr '13 7:14:07 AM by Tarsen

Nothing against fans of either series. But, I don't like the way those writers pace their plots or handle characterization. They're plot-driven narratives, while I prefer character-driven ones.

I also don't like when a million separate plot complexities exist simply for the sake of symbolism, although that's more of a "Xeno" thing.

Mmm, I'd say Xenogears was fairly character driven throughout the minor arcs it was composed of, but the grand scheme of the story was plot driven. Tactics is definitely more plot driven than character driven, barring a few characters who're not part of the protagonists' party.

V was a big step up from IV, but in both III and V, the villains are really driving the plot, and in III they're pretty brilliant, whereas in V they're just kind of witless. I definitely recommend checking III out.

edited 1st May '13 9:28:22 PM by Desertopa

II's still the best, yo.

Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door has already been mentioned, but I'll mention it again. The game is really, really funny. The beginning in Rogueport does kinda drag, but once you get to the first stage, the game gets a lot more charming. One of my favorite parts is a sequence with some stereotypical Sicilian mobsters, and it's hard to believe that the entire sequence was not only a translation, but a translation of a very different gangster stereotype.

For fascinating narratives, there is Dark Souls. It is not a game I'd recommend to those looking for a story; the game instead presents its mythos in a very minimalist way. Npc dialogue reveals only a little at a time, and you'll often feel aimless as you wander around in the big, scary world of Lordran. What is great about Dark Souls is that the mythology is deep and filled with little ambiguities that turn the basic plot structure on its head. Instead of being a character the plot revolves around, you are an outsider reconstructing the past of a dying world. The npcs usually don't tell you the plot or their motivations right away because you're not important to them or relevant to their goals. When one finally does spill the beans and call you a prophecied hero, you'll feel very relieved, yet at the same time you can't help but be suspicious... What's in it for him?

edited 29th Apr '13 8:22:54 AM by Scardoll

That's actually a really fascinating way of looking at it.

That makes me look at it from a whole new light.

Just because Dark Souls is an RPG from Japan doesn't really make it a JRPG...