A long time ago JRPG's used to use a simple formula, which consisted of epic and unique stories with interesting and strategic battle systems, optional hard bosses and mini games, it was a guaranteed success. But now the JRPG developers have ignored these formulas and the genre is having some trouble on consoles.
Honourable mentions:
12. Secret of Mana
11. Dark Cloud 1 & 2
10. Shadow Hearts 1 or 2: Shadow Hearts 1 is scarier, its one of the best horror themed RPG's I played. It had an interesting ring based battle system which was quite fun. I miss this series. The company that made it is now defunct| Metacritic-critic & user rating:85,91 (Shadow Hearts 2)
9. Suikoden 1 or 2: good story about geopolitics, conquest and war. Although the game had 2d graphics which kind of let it down. But it didnt stop me from enjoying the game| Metacritic-critic & user rating:82,98
8. Tales of Symphonia: my first tales game, highly addictive battle system, quite of number of side quests and very difficult optional bosses. The story was average and was quite cliche| metacritic-critic & user rating:86,90
7. Chrono Trigger: epic and addicting battle system, excellent story, just 1 optional boss in the original, I wanted more. The music in the game isn't better than FF 6, 7, 9 or 10| Gamerankings (snes):95.1%
6. Final Fantasy IX: has the magic FF formula that always works=good turn based atb gameplay + mini games + hard secret bosses + epic stories=WIN, Square Enix seems to have forgotten this formula. Maybe if they played this game they would go "oh damn, thats why our games used to be great"| Metacritic-critic & user rating:94,91
5. Persona 4: the gameplay is ok & much better in the hard mode of the game. But what stood out is the amazing story, it has quite a lot of plot twists. I have not seen a JRPG with plot twists as good as this game| Meta-critc & user rating:90,91
4. Final Fantasy 6: this game possibly has the best story of all the FF games. I didnt think it was as good as FF7 or FF10 though, because it didnt have that many mini games, hard bosses (except the dragons, czar dragon was missing which was a shame) and this game has a few serious bugs. If you used the "sketch" ability it could potentially crash the game depending on who you used it on, and what their status effects was when you used it| Meta-critic & user rating:92,94 (gba ver)
3. Kingdom Hearts 1: what i loved most about this game is the gameplay & difficult secret bosses, this game should not be judged based on face value. Just because it has Disney characters in it, does not mean its an easy or rubbish game | Meta-critic & user rating:85,89
2. Final Fantasy VII: everything about this game is "cool", when I first played this, it was 1 or 2 years after the PS2 came out, the graphics did not put me off. The game has a deep story, excellent gameplay, mouth watering CGI (for its time) and bad ass characters | Meta-critic & user rating:92,89
1. Final Fantasy X: This was my first FF & JRPG, so there maybe some bias here. But even then you can't deny that FF 10 is an epic game with an excellent story, wide variety of customization and beautiful cut scenes. Not to forget the excellent emotion extracting music. Just listen to 1 tune below. If only Square Enix made FF games like FF10 and those before it again...but we know that will probably never happen| Meta-critic & user rating:92,87. This is 1 of many awesome tunes from FF10: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xRCjjiTR7I
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
Final Fantasy IX is def my favorite FF. Also, like the 10 to 1 list, people usually feel the need to start with 1.
FF10 as #1? Gotta disagree there, but I suppose I did grow up with a lot of cRPGs in the '90s so perhaps my RPG preferences are colored. All the games on the list are ace, of course. No disagreements there.
Most of those are Square-Soft games, SMH now like at them.
Chrono Trigger and Persona 4 are amazing, I think Dragon Quest: Journy Of The Cursed King should be on the list though, what a game.
Notice how all those game look about the same aesthetically, that's why jrpgs aren't doing so well.