Community RPG Codex Top 55 JRPGs

[Alex]

however on the other hand we got total storyfaggot non-games like Suikoden 2 or Chrono Trigger

Dude...
You're defending FF7 inclusion is which even worse in that regard

(snip...)

How so? FF7 certainly has a focus on telling a story, but you still have the whole thing of building your character with materia and whatnot. And some of these materias actually allow for some pretty fun combos.

 

[user]

Terranigma one of the top? Nice!

 

[DJOGamer PT]

How so?

From what I remember, the game was far more focused in its storytelling than anything else.

 

[Falksi]

Oddly over-represented Sega games, especially compared to their Japanese market share which wasn't all that big aside Genesis...

May be something to do with the fact that SEGA are the main company who are driving to keep turn based games relevant?

Whilst Square continue to butcher Final Fantasy by trying to morph it into an action game with the likes of FF15, FF7R & FF16 on the horizon, SEGA are taking action based games like Yakuza and giving them a turn-based future with the likes of Like A Dragon.

Throw in the likes of Persona 5 & Valkeryia Chronicles, and if you want turn-based JRPGs, the company which is giving us more of them is SEGA.

 

[orcinator]

Those of you crying about Chrono Trigger's ranking can probably thank me for that. It came in first place in the original poll, so when we did the better poll I made sure to remind everyone that it is in fact a piece of shit game. Those of you who don't believe me should go back and replay it. It's fucking trash. The only people who think it's good are going off memories they made when they were still wetting the bed or they are literally retarded. That or they haven't played enough JRPGs to even be commenting on the subject.

Thank you for your service.
But your quest will never succeed until the nostalgiafags who still praise Chrono Trigger are forced to play more than 5 JRPGs.

 

[Roguey]

But your quest will never succeed until the nostalgiafags who still praise Chrono Trigger are forced to play more than 5 JRPGs.

I have played a good number of jrpgs and CT remains one of my favorites. I don't play them for challenge.

 

[Falksi]

Chrono Trigger is gay for sure. Never got the hype.

Well, Chrono Trigger has some good qualities. Unfortunately most of them adjacent to gameplay. Its graphics looked pretty good for the time (for a JRPG, at least) for instance. Its music was pretty good and catchy as well. Perhaps most surprisingly, its story isn't a big steaming pile of shitty Japanese pornographic cartoons crap, something that the people who made Chrono Cross were sure to fix thoroughly.

The gameplay isn't much worse than the average JRPG. You get a damage system with 4 different elements (with the shadow element usually being the result of combining the others), besides physical damage you get from normal attacks and some physical based special ones. Each character in the game gets exactly 8 abilities (some of these being spells and some not, depending on the character). While this number is low, most (all but one) characters also get three combination abilities with each other character, giving an extra bit of tactical depth when choosing your party. Some combinations might give you access to an elemental damage that you would otherwise lack, or give you some good defensive ability, or a cheap ability that heals everyone, etc.

I think the most aggravating part of CT is that it has a whole system set up for positioning in the battlefield to matter. When you encounter monsters, a combat begins, with both your characters and the monsters being placed in specific positions on the map. Various skills work on some kind of area, usually circles (around the character using them or around the target) and lines (between the character and a target or with a pre-set angle, such as horizontal). Ranged characters, when attacking an enemy that is near them, will switch to a melee attack as well (I believe that is weaker, although I am not sure if that is because ranged characters have lower strength or because the ranged weapon itself has a different damage value for melee). Despite all this, this hardly matter, especially later on in the game. Spells that affect the entire battlefield appear in the mid-game. And while they are at least expensive in mp, you eventually find an accessory that lower the mp price of all abilities by 3/4 of the total cost. Furthermore, while ranged characters switch attacks when the enemy is near, melee characters can attack any enemy at any time no matter how far it is from him. They just jump or walk to the enemy no matter the distance. And while monsters are shown to be moving around or playing or even sleeping in the stage while you are exploring, once you touch them, they will be positioned according to pre-select positions instead of letting you take advantage of whatever position they have. Finally, you don't even get the option to position your own characters. Not when the battle start, and not after it; the only way your characters will change its position in the battlefield is if some enemy ability moves him.

Still, despite being lacklustre in this aspect, and despite this huge missed opportunity, the game can be fun to play, doesn't take very long to finish and can get you excited with its simple but fun story. So I can see why people would remember it fondly, especially when you are comparing it to other JRPGs.

Good summary.

One of the worst things about CT for me is it's predictability. First playthrough? Fine, no probs. But repeated playthroughs see you fight the same enemies in the same place every time. Using time gates is a ridiculously repetitive affair, as you literally fight the same low-level fight over & over at each gate. It's dull.

Almost 0 character development from everyone apart from Frog after they first join up until late game side-quests really makes me wonder how "story" can be so highly regarded too. Throw in the fact that the overworld is just cheaply recycled and becomes very over-familiar with replays, and the fact that if you step away from the game for a short break it can be very easy to lose your way due to all the gate-hopping, and to me there's no surprise that PC gamers warm to some of the other games on that list more.

Those of you crying about Chrono Trigger's ranking can probably thank me for that. It came in first place in the original poll, so when we did the better poll I made sure to remind everyone that it is in fact a piece of shit game. Those of you who don't believe me should go back and replay it. It's fucking trash. The only people who think it's good are going off memories they made when they were still wetting the bed or they are literally retarded. That or they haven't played enough JRPGs to even be commenting on the subject.

Thank you for your service.
But your quest will never succeed until the nostalgiafags who still praise Chrono Trigger are forced to play more than 5 JRPGs.

I genuinely think that's part of the problem. Some of the claims made by some CT fans are just bollocks, and you can tell they've not really played many JRPGs, or even games from the 80's/90's in general.

"CT invented NG+!" - Nope, I think Zelda 2 did. It certainly had NG+

"CT invented multiple endings!" - Nope, games from the 80's had nailed that long before, my earliest memory of them being Phantasy Star 3.

"CT invented cross-class combos!" - Nope, again my earliest memory of them was Phantasy Star 4

etc.

It's almost like a weird cult. Metroid fans are similar. The amount of times I hear "Metroid INVENTED Metroidvania games! Hence the name!" When in reality SOTN popularized the term, but games like Citadel on the BBC Micro were out years before Metroid.

 

[Dadd]

Replayability is not a relevant standard for story driven JRPGs. Is it good the first time you play it? is what matters. Oh no the food I ate yesterday I regurgitated it today and it doesn't taste as good worst food ever oh no

 

[Falksi]

I'm just saying there's no conspiracy there.

Not quite honest here. The OP himself shared this image of the most played games in the poll:

Chrono Trigger and other games where one of the most played. Yet they obviously didn't end on the list because they have legions of brainlet haters who are going to always give them bad ratings (case on point: that guy above). This causes that votes from people who likes them and negative votes to null each other out, giving these games a mediocre position.

But the same doesn't apply to lesser known games, since less people known them, they have less haters. And basically end up in the top positions by default and not because they are the most loved.

Or the people who played it just didn't enjoy it that much?

I didn't rate CT highly, because even though I liked it on my first playthrough I found subsequent ones really dull. That's not a conspiracy, it's a genuine opinion.

SMT3 & Warsong has a much better challenge, Phantasy Star 4 has way better presentation and character development, Final Fantasy X has a much deeper story etc. Chrono Trigger can't touch a lot of the games on that list in various areas.

Replayability is not a relevant standard for story driven JRPGs. Is it good the first time you play it? is what matters. Oh no the food I ate yesterday I regurgitated it today and it doesn't taste as good worst food ever oh no

For you maybe, not for me. Like I've already said, Shining Force 2 is one of my fave JRPGs because it's got multiple difficulties and a large roster of PCs (some with different career paths) which you can experiment with on replays. Phantasy Star 3 I really enjoyed replaying because you get to see events unfold from different sides of the conflict (which requires replays).

The food analogy is wank.

 

[Raghar]

Chrono Trigger has decent story, and likeable characters. Also, it's funny when certain things are theirs faults.

Also you can do cat getting game. You'd end with horde of cats and your mother is taking care about them. C'mon... And it also had one of most wacky trial in history of games.

 

[Ereshkigal]

Popular bad
Obscure good

 

[Young_Hollow]

Popular bad
Obscure good

In a world with how many genders is Persona 4 obscure?

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

Have many people actually played Panzer Dragoon Saga? I remeber paying $115 for it in 2000 for the Saturn. I sold it in 2015 for like $300 but I hear its more now and i don't think Saturn emulation ever became good.

 

[Grimlorn]

Imagine defending bad design like this. The devs are the retarded ones for putting an unskippable battle in a spot you have to revisit multiple times.

I'll take 1 or 2 bad encounters with everything being hand crafted over random battles every 5 to 10 steps. You're an absolute retarded dumbfuck mongoloid. Let's scrap hand crafted content because there's 1 encounter you have to repeat. You repeat random battles multiple times with the same units in every JRPG over and over you fucking moron.

Dude...
You're defending FF7 inclusion is which even worse in that regard

That's exactly my point. They praise games that are just as easy as Chrono Trigger but whine about CT. It's absurd. FFVI for example you can just auto attack everything until the end of the game. Like I said earlier these people are just hipsters. Imagine hating CT so much that you praise random battles as superior to hand crafted encounters. Might as well praise level scaling enemies as well.

One of the worst things about CT for me is it's predictability. First playthrough? Fine, no probs. But repeated playthroughs see you fight the same enemies in the same place every time. Using time gates is a ridiculously repetitive affair, as you literally fight the same low-level fight over & over at each gate. It's dull.

You fight the same enemies in the same places in every JRPG. Every JRPG is programmed with the same 5 encounters in every area back on NES and SNES. You people are retarded.

Final Fantasy X has a much deeper story etc

lol no

 

[HeatEXTEND]

I watched a part of a video playthrough of rance [sic] so I can begin to question it absolutely

Any and all opinions thoroughly discarded.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

luj1 What's your problem with Lufia II?

 

[Lord_Potato]

Who even plays jrpgs, lol

 

[Falksi]

One of the worst things about CT for me is it's predictability. First playthrough? Fine, no probs. But repeated playthroughs see you fight the same enemies in the same place every time. Using time gates is a ridiculously repetitive affair, as you literally fight the same low-level fight over & over at each gate. It's dull.

You fight the same enemies in the same places in every JRPG. Every JRPG is programmed with the same 5 encounters in every area back on NES and SNES. You people are retarded.

Final Fantasy X has a much deeper story etc

lol no

WTF?!?

No you don't, random battles vary who, when and where you fight different enemies. CT sees you fight the exact same fights in the exact same place every time, and you backtrack over those same areas constantly. Each time you enter some of the warp gates you have to fight the exact same guardians lol. Just WTF?!? lol

And again...WTF?!? lol. Please, tell me how Chrono Trigger's story is deeper than FFX's. Like the cast don't even talk to each other for 90% of the game.

You've jumped the shark into putting yourself on display as a retard symbol.

 

[Grauken]

Imagine dying on the Chrono Trigger hill. It's even in the name, that game is triggering

 

[Grimlorn]

One of the worst things about CT for me is it's predictability. First playthrough? Fine, no probs. But repeated playthroughs see you fight the same enemies in the same place every time. Using time gates is a ridiculously repetitive affair, as you literally fight the same low-level fight over & over at each gate. It's dull.

You fight the same enemies in the same places in every JRPG. Every JRPG is programmed with the same 5 encounters in every area back on NES and SNES. You people are retarded.

Final Fantasy X has a much deeper story etc

lol no

WTF?!?

No you don't, random battles vary who & when you fight different enemies. CT sees you fight the exact same fights in the exact same place every time, and you backtrack over tose same areas constantly. Each time you enter some of the warp gates you have to fight the exact same guardians lol. Just WTF?!? lol

And again...WTF?!? lol. Please, tell me how Chrono Trigger's story is deeper than FFX's. Like the cast don't even talk to each other for 90% of the game.

You've jumped the shark into putting yourself on display as a retard symbol.

Yeah I guess games like Knights of the Chalice are terrible because they have the exact same encounters when replaying. Not like JRPGs where when you replay it and get into the exact same fight, you're 2 steps over to the left.

FFX is shit and so are its characters. Shit characters interacting with each other more often are still shit characters.

You've jumped the shark into putting yourself on display as a retard symbol.

You're projecting.

 

[Falksi]

One of the worst things about CT for me is it's predictability. First playthrough? Fine, no probs. But repeated playthroughs see you fight the same enemies in the same place every time. Using time gates is a ridiculously repetitive affair, as you literally fight the same low-level fight over & over at each gate. It's dull.

You fight the same enemies in the same places in every JRPG. Every JRPG is programmed with the same 5 encounters in every area back on NES and SNES. You people are retarded.

Final Fantasy X has a much deeper story etc

lol no

WTF?!?

No you don't, random battles vary who & when you fight different enemies. CT sees you fight the exact same fights in the exact same place every time, and you backtrack over tose same areas constantly. Each time you enter some of the warp gates you have to fight the exact same guardians lol. Just WTF?!? lol

And again...WTF?!? lol. Please, tell me how Chrono Trigger's story is deeper than FFX's. Like the cast don't even talk to each other for 90% of the game.

You've jumped the shark into putting yourself on display as a retard symbol.

Yeah I guess games like Knights of the Chalice are terrible because they have the exact same encounters when replaying. Not like JRPGs where when you replay it and get into the exact same fight, you're 2 steps over to the left.

FFX is shit and so are its characters. Shit characters interacting with each other more often are still shit characters.

You've jumped the shark into putting yourself on display as a retard symbol.

You're projecting.

You're simpler than Chrono Trigger. Which takes some doing.

 

[Grimlorn]

One of the worst things about CT for me is it's predictability. First playthrough? Fine, no probs. But repeated playthroughs see you fight the same enemies in the same place every time. Using time gates is a ridiculously repetitive affair, as you literally fight the same low-level fight over & over at each gate. It's dull.

You fight the same enemies in the same places in every JRPG. Every JRPG is programmed with the same 5 encounters in every area back on NES and SNES. You people are retarded.

Final Fantasy X has a much deeper story etc

lol no

WTF?!?

No you don't, random battles vary who & when you fight different enemies. CT sees you fight the exact same fights in the exact same place every time, and you backtrack over tose same areas constantly. Each time you enter some of the warp gates you have to fight the exact same guardians lol. Just WTF?!? lol

And again...WTF?!? lol. Please, tell me how Chrono Trigger's story is deeper than FFX's. Like the cast don't even talk to each other for 90% of the game.

You've jumped the shark into putting yourself on display as a retard symbol.

Yeah I guess games like Knights of the Chalice are terrible because they have the exact same encounters when replaying. Not like JRPGs where when you replay it and get into the exact same fight, you're 2 steps over to the left.

FFX is shit and so are its characters. Shit characters interacting with each other more often are still shit characters.

You've jumped the shark into putting yourself on display as a retard symbol.

You're projecting.

You're simpler than Chrono Trigger. Which takes some doing.

Yeah you're a dumbfuck who's arguing that random encounters are superior to hand crafted encounters. You're projecting.

 

[Falksi]

One of the worst things about CT for me is it's predictability. First playthrough? Fine, no probs. But repeated playthroughs see you fight the same enemies in the same place every time. Using time gates is a ridiculously repetitive affair, as you literally fight the same low-level fight over & over at each gate. It's dull.

You fight the same enemies in the same places in every JRPG. Every JRPG is programmed with the same 5 encounters in every area back on NES and SNES. You people are retarded.

Final Fantasy X has a much deeper story etc

lol no

WTF?!?

No you don't, random battles vary who & when you fight different enemies. CT sees you fight the exact same fights in the exact same place every time, and you backtrack over tose same areas constantly. Each time you enter some of the warp gates you have to fight the exact same guardians lol. Just WTF?!? lol

And again...WTF?!? lol. Please, tell me how Chrono Trigger's story is deeper than FFX's. Like the cast don't even talk to each other for 90% of the game.

You've jumped the shark into putting yourself on display as a retard symbol.

Yeah I guess games like Knights of the Chalice are terrible because they have the exact same encounters when replaying. Not like JRPGs where when you replay it and get into the exact same fight, you're 2 steps over to the left.

FFX is shit and so are its characters. Shit characters interacting with each other more often are still shit characters.

You've jumped the shark into putting yourself on display as a retard symbol.

You're projecting.

You're simpler than Chrono Trigger. Which takes some doing.

Yeah you're a dumbfuck who's arguing that random encounters are superior to hand crafted encounters. You're projecting.

They are for replays. Variety is way better than repetition. It's not rocket science, but then again if you love Chrono Trigger you're certainly no rocket scientist.

I think the reason a lot of Codexers dislike Chrono Trigger so much is because you have to be Grimlorn-dumb to enjoy it.

 

[harhar!]

Chrono Trigger had a cool frog. Also, the characters look like they are straight from DBZ, which is also pretty cool. Triple attacks are also cool.

Btw. Golden Sun was robbed as well. It had the coolest special attacks in the genre. What else do you want from a JRPG?

 

[GhostCow]

The butthurt in this thread is everything I had hoped for. Even better, not a single codexer that I respect has defended Chrono Trigger