Good Sci-Fi JRPGs

[MarathonGuy1337]

I'm looking for any underrated Sci-Fi JRPGs, mainly for research into the field of JRPGs and because I really like Sci-Fi games and wanted to see what Japan had in the offering for deep role playing experiences set to the backdrop of a sci-fi universe.

I know of a few titles that fit the definition, Xenogears, Chrono Trigger, some of the Final Fantasy Games, Phantasy Star and even more obscure tittles like Valkyrie Chronicles and Rouge Galaxy but as a country with a rich history of science fiction works from Mobile Suit Gundam, Space Battleship Yamato and Legend of the Galactic Heroes I'm hoping to find out about more.

(Me thinking about the lack of Sci-Fi JRPGs)

So anything Apocalyptic, Post-Apocalyptic, Military science fiction, Cyberpunk, Space opera, Dystopian Fiction, Space Western, Alternate History, Time Travel, Mecha and so on you get the idea.

Also whilst I mentioned JRPGs other Japaneses games that are narrative heavy like visual novels or point and click adventure games will just as easily work for me.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Valkyrie Chronicles

You'll want to check out Sakura Wars then. Visual novel/SRPG hybrids made by the same team and was the precursor to VC's battle system. SW5 has very similar level/mission design. You play as a young man who joins a team of girls who are a theater troupe by day, and by night they pilot magitek/steampunk mechas and go fight against demons and their armies of demon possessed clockwork robots. Wacky cool designs. Music by Kohei Tanaka.

Trails of Cold Steel also has playable mechas, and the latter Cold Steel games and new Kuro no Kiseki games begin leaning into a futuristic sci fi aesthetic.

Final Fantasy XIII and latter Final Fantasy XIV have futuristic sci fi aesthetics.

Muv-Luv Alternative is a VN (no combat) about a mech pilot fighting an alien invasion on Earth.

I haven't played it yet, but the Stella of the End visual novel has futuristic sci fi aesthetics.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Seventh Saga? I haven't played all through it, but it's got a robot character and seemed to fall in that 'post apocalypse medieval fantasy' category. I think the setting/lore is very thin in that one.

SaGa Frontier has some scifi stuff as well, robots, mutants and space ships and such, both in the form of ancient ruins and modern construction. Honestly the world is so thinly fleshed out that it's more or less a total mystery what the history of the setting is, which seems to be distributed across many planets.

Star Ocean series would probably be the most sci-fi, especially some of the later ones. The early ones are more of a 'space cadet is stranded on primitive world' genre.

Front Mission is a tactical rpg series in the vein of FFT with giant robots. Again, more 'near future/alternate history' than space age/cyberpunk scifi.

 

[Thalstarion]

Rogue Galaxy.

It has a combination of sci-fi and fantasy elements to it.

There's the Star Ocean games as well which are also a combination of sci-fi and fantasy.

 

[MarathonGuy1337]

Valkyrie Chronicles

You'll want to check out Sakura Wars then. Visual novel/SRPG hybrids made by the same team and was the precursor to VC's battle system. SW5 has very similar level/mission design. You play as a young man who joins a team of girls who are a theater troupe by day, and by night they pilot magitek/steampunk mechas and go fight against demons and their armies of demon possessed clockwork robots. Wacky cool designs. Music by Kohei Tanaka.

Trails of Cold Steel also has playable mechas, and the latter Cold Steel games and new Kuro no Kiseki games begin leaning into a futuristic sci fi aesthetic.

Final Fantasy XIII and latter Final Fantasy XIV have futuristic sci fi aesthetics.

Sakura Wars is a little challenging due to the localisation issues (I.E. no official English release for some of the older titles) but did completely forget about the Trails series, so thanks for putting that on my radar again, I've been meaning to check out Ys and Trials for quiet sometime now as I've heard mostly positive things about the games and its developer Falcom.

Seventh Saga? I haven't played all through it, but it's got a robot character and seemed to fall in that 'post apocalypse medieval fantasy' category. I think the setting/lore is very thin in that one.

SaGa Frontier has some scifi stuff as well, robots, mutants and space ships and such, both in the form of ancient ruins and modern construction. Honestly the world is so thinly fleshed out that it's more or less a total mystery what the history of the setting is, which seems to be distributed across many planets.

Star Ocean series would probably be the most sci-fi, especially some of the later ones. The early ones are more of a 'space cadet is stranded on primitive world' genre.

Front Mission is a tactical rpg series in the vein of FFT with giant robots. Again, more 'near future/alternate history' than space age/cyberpunk scifi.

I have heard of Front Mission before but never SaGa Frontier and Seventh Saga both sound pretty interesting so gonna check them out.

Rogue Galaxy.

It has a combination of sci-fi and fantasy elements to it.

There's the Star Ocean games as well which are also a combination of sci-fi and fantasy.

Yeah I haven't played Rouge Galaxy yet or Star Ocean both do look pretty good, I known Rouge Galaxy is by the guys behind Dragon Quest VII so that's pretty good track record to be fair.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I'm looking for any underrated Sci-Fi JRPGs, mainly for research into the field of JRPGs and because I really like Sci-Fi games and wanted to see what Japan had in the offering for deep role playing experiences set to the backdrop of a sci-fi universe.
...some of the Final Fantasy Games...

Final Fantasy VI is steampunk, VII is nukepunk, and VIII is somewhat futuristic (so more properly SF than the previous two). X is post-apocalyptic, with a highly advanced technological civilization having been destroyed. XIII and XV could also be considered SF settings but they're terrible games, especially XIII.

 

[Reinhardt]

another eden from masato kato. time travels, from dinosaurs to post-apocalypse where humans abandoned planet surface and living on flying isles. parallel worlds, lots of cats. you can fight train.

 

[Dark Souls II]

 

[sser]

I played this game called "Infinite Space" on DS that was really good. Weirdly engaging, given the constraints of the platform. Only drawback is there was no in-game quest tracker, so if you put the game down and came back later it was hard to figure out what the fuck you were even doing and it might take a LOT of time to get back on track because there's so many places.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Let's see, things that haven't been mentioned yet...

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
I think some/all of the Shin Megami Tensei games fit this bill.
Xenosaga trilogy
Xenoblade games (think these are all locked to Nintendo platforms)
Resonance of Fate

Soul Hackers 2 (do they *have* to be good?)

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

Not an RPG, much less in the JRPG subgenre.

 

[Rincewind]

I never completed this, only dicked around for 10-20 hours right after it came out in 1999. But the world building and general atmosphere captivated me, it's top notch stuff. I fired it up a couple of times on my real hardware Win 98 rig last year and the magic is still there, so I'll give it a go some day.

Btw, it's kind of a Western dev team's idea of what a jRPG should be or something. This retrospective of one of the original dev's is interesting:

https://twilighttangents.com/septerracore-legacy-of-the-game-part-01/

 

[TwoEdge]

If post-apocalyptic sci-fi is on the table, then grab the Metal Max series. Turn-based JRPG where you customize and pilot battle vehicles, kind of a Japanese spin on Mad Max (if the title wasn't enough of a giveaway). I'd say start with Metal Max Returns on the SNES (it's a remake of the first one) and go from there, it has an expert fan translation and is probably one of the best in the franchise.

 

[I eat frozen vegetables]

If post-apocalyptic sci-fi is on the table, then grab the Metal Max series. Turn-based JRPG where you customize and pilot battle vehicles, kind of a Japanese spin on Mad Max (if the title wasn't enough of a giveaway) I'd say start with Metal Max Returns on the SNES (it's a remake of the first one) and go from there, it has an expert fan translation and is probably one of the best in the franchise.

I second the Metal Max series wholeheartedly. The original also has a fan translation, alongside the sequel, the sequel's remake, and the third game. I know that the fourth game is getting translated as we speak.

I played this game called "Infinite Space" on DS that was really good. Weirdly engaging, given the constraints of the platform. Only drawback is there was no in-game quest tracker, so if you put the game down and came back later it was hard to figure out what the fuck you were even doing and it might take a LOT of time to get back on track because there's so many places.

I second Infinite Space, and would like to add Endless Frontier, along with the rest of the Super Robot Wars series (hope you know Japanese, because the majority of the games lack any sort of translation whatsoever.

Let's see, things that haven't been mentioned yet...

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
I think some/all of the Shin Megami Tensei games fit this bill.
Xenosaga trilogy
Xenoblade games (think these are all locked to Nintendo platforms)
Resonance of Fate

Soul Hackers 2 (do they *have* to be good?)

All the Xenoblade games are indeed locked to Nintendo platforms, but you can get the entire series on the Switch. I also recommend the Xenosaga trilogy and would also add Xenogears to the list as well. I also recommend Resonance of Fate (it's on PC). Shin Megami Tensei is an absolute given.

Seventh Saga? I haven't played all through it, but it's got a robot character and seemed to fall in that 'post apocalypse medieval fantasy' category. I think the setting/lore is very thin in that one.

SaGa Frontier has some scifi stuff as well, robots, mutants and space ships and such, both in the form of ancient ruins and modern construction. Honestly the world is so thinly fleshed out that it's more or less a total mystery what the history of the setting is, which seems to be distributed across many planets.

Star Ocean series would probably be the most sci-fi, especially some of the later ones. The early ones are more of a 'space cadet is stranded on primitive world' genre.

Front Mission is a tactical rpg series in the vein of FFT with giant robots. Again, more 'near future/alternate history' than space age/cyberpunk scifi.

I would recommend getting the patch to remove the bullshit difficulty increase that was put in the localization of 7th Saga. Absolutely torpedoed a good game by doing so.
For my own recommendations, I am putting down Shadow Brain, a cyberpunk blobber for the Famicom/NES. The Phantasy Star series is also known for being a sci-fi RPG.

 

[Nutmeg]

If OP is OK with SRPGs then SRW OG 1 and 2 on the GBA or their compilation remake SRW OGs on the PS2 are a great choice.

 

[mediocrepoet]

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

Not an RPG, much less in the JRPG subgenre.

More of an RPG than Disco Elysium, less of a JRPG than Planescape: Torment.

 

[Elttharion]

Scarlet Nexus

 

[KafkaBot]

Terranigma

A phenomenal game released at the very end of the SNES's lifespan. It is an action RPG, so maybe some purists will think I'm forcing it a bit by calling it a JRPG, but it definitely belongs among the greats - and it is also one of the most beautiful SNES games ever made.

 

[I eat frozen vegetables]

Terranigma

A phenomenal game released at the very end of the SNES's lifespan. It is an action RPG, so maybe some purists will think I'm forcing it a bit by calling it a JRPG, but it definitely belongs among the greats - and it is also one of the most beautiful SNES games ever made.

How the hell did I forget about this game? Just make sure to get the patch it so the PAL ROM runs at 60 FPS and the patch to change the font. Both can be found here.