What's the best JRPG of the last decade?

Oh that's not bad. Why isn't Valkyria Chronicles on this list btw?

Dunno, probs because there's some form of "action" in the game? idk lol

grats on the 1k tho!

Persona 3/4 and any other answers are wrong answer and you'll cast to weeaboo hell to fend off randy tentacle monsters for all eternity.

You really should add an "other" as an option.

I'd say Lost Odyssey.

Persona 3 sucked.

Poll needs an 'other' option. Some of the choices on there are questionable. if we are going by the last decade Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn kills Awakening. Persona fans like to tell me that 4 is better then 3 in pretty much every way. Bravely Default fell apart in the second half, and should be left off for something like SMT 4/Devil Survivor 1.

Anyways, my choice would be Radiant Historia. Atlus managed to pull a masterpiece out of nowhere. Forcing enemies to move around a grid, and then using attacks to wipe out the whole bunched up group felt very satisfying. The story was really well done too, Stocke is probably my favorite JRPG protagonist ever.

Edit: I didn't overly like the original Xenoblade. There was a setup for a nice story there from the 5 hours I played. But it was brought down by everything else. The combat brought down the experience in a large way. Leave MMO combat to MMOs please. Then there is the quest system. Too. Many. Quests. As a completionist it would take me 200 hours to finish the game just because of the sheer amount of pointless quests.

If the things I listed don't bother you, then it looks to be a fantastic game. Otherwise don't bother and just buy something else depending on what you are looking for.

@n64dd: :'(

Not Persona 4.

Easily Dragon Quest 8: Journey of the King, so many great hours with that Game

There's no difference between Chaz and drunk Chaz.

As much as i want to give it to Persona 3 or 4, Dragon Quest is like an old school JRPG, so that's my vote.

Played quite a bit of Xenoblade.

Okay, fine, I am a believer now.

..... My vote is for Lost Odyssey. Its the real Final Fantasy of gen 7. But since I can't vote for it I vote for Xenoblade Chronicles. Its a shame that NOA didn't have enough faith in that game. And still refuse to release it on the Wii U eshop.

I'm voting Dragon Quest although I really mean SMT: Nocturne.

It seems that Xenoblade Chronicles has caught up with Dragon Quest VII in the voting.

At least it's on 3DS, I guess.

Which reminds me, I am playing the NA version of the game, and I am surprised that NoA didn't even make the effort to change some of the more minor things- words like humor are still spelled with the u, recognize is spelled with an s, and so on. I don't mind, as the British spellings are what I am more used to anyway, but it is a bit jarring.

Yeah its pretty surprising. I think that NOA finally gave in because this game was forcing people to do things to their systems to get rid of the region lock. There were even sites that showed you how to do it.

Persona 4. Although I like the plot of Persona 3 more, Persona 4 has it solidly beat on gameplay and level design.

If Fire Emblem as a SRPG is up there, Valkyria Chronicles definitely ought be up there as well.

Don't understand the popularity of Xenoblade Chronicles. Tried getting into the game three times, and got bored every time very quickly. It feels very much like a MMORPG without the MMO, or a Dragon Age Inquisition with clunkier combat and even more throwaway side quests with less detail than starting zone WoW quests at launch. I suppose the game earned its fame through its main storyline.

DEMON'S SOULS

I've voted FF XII, Sorry Char :)

If you already have the Wii version, then **** me if i understand why you bought this mediocre port. Unlike the portable versions of Persona 3/4, Xenoblade 3D is significantly worse than the Wii version and is just not a game designed for a portable system. Yes it functions well and isn't a bad port, but it's still foul compared to the original version.

Xenoblade impressed me, but it took me a long ass time to finish. I clocked in 67 hours in the span of... around half a year. I avoided most side quests and just followed the main story. Now i'm on New Game+ digesting the content i missed, suffice to say that i personally think that this game is not only the best JRPG released in the last decade, but the best JRPG ever made.

Well, I'll be honest, I really get into JRPGs on handhelds- with few exceptions (usually games from established franchises), I prefer playing them on the go, in bed, or whatever. That's basically what seems to have happened here- I got into Xenoblade once I finally got to play it on a format that suits my style of playing the genre more.

Now I will admit, if Nintendo of America had just put the Wii version on the eShop, like seems to be the case with all other regions, I would have just bought that on the Wii U and played that, instead of buying the 3DS port- I'd still be able to play it on a 'handheld' in that case. As it stands, I ended up just buying it on the 3DS, and I have to admit, it's really not a bad port. The texture quality took a massive hit, but just about everything else is pretty great.

It's just not the same, one of Xenoblade's strengths lies in its massive scope, and that's gimped on that tiny, cluttered screen; neither is the UI tuned for the handheld.. But ok, at least you're giving it another try.

Be warned though, it's long. I personally took week/month breaks because of fatigue until i finally finished the beast. I mean, life isn't that short, you can take breaks wen you're burned out, man, it's not hard to jump back in where you left off. But yeah, all in all, it did impress me. Which is why i changed my 2pac/hiphop avatar/sig after 7 years.

Yeah, I'm definitely appreciating the scope- the game just feels epic, and I know that that would have been something else entirely on the big screen. But eh, I'll take the hit and at least have a shot at finishing the game, as opposed to maintaining the scope, but never actually playing the damn thing. I don't think the UI is bad, though, it actually seems to be well optimized, and they're making good use of the dual screens.

Did you ever get around to Persona 4, or are you still on Persona 3?

@silversix_: He didn't say the hardest ever.

Wasn't just hard, amazing as well.

Demon's Souls

Well i'm doing the same playstyle with Persona 3, taking breaks from time to time, so it's gonna take a wile. Apart from some exceptions like Undertale, i'm extremely slow with the games i decide to play. I've got almost no free time, so i just stick with games that truly grab my attention, and are worth experiencing. I usually just end up replaying those games to refresh my memories, and pass on the majority that seem like a waste of time.

But yeah, Persona 4 is on my radar. I'm completely determined to get myself a modded PS2 Slim in a nice condition for the Xenosaga trilogy and Persona 4 in december.

@charizard1605: were is the "other" option.

My vote would be for "lost odyssey"

1. Persona 4 Golden
2. Fire Emblem: Awakening {I don't consider this jrpg myself though)
3. Persona 3 FES
4. Pokémon HG/SS
5. Tales of Vesperia
6. Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
7. Persona Q (super biased for this one)

Yeah it was the combat in that game that prevented me from enjoying it. It seemed needlessly convoluted and awkward. Everything else was excellent.

Personally, if the souls games count, it's absolutely no competition. They are the best. Otherwise I'd probably go with Dragon Quest VIII or IX.

I voted Fire Emblem Awakening. Persona 4 is my very close second place. Still gotta find time to try Xenoblade. I hear so many good things about it.

Truth had to be told.

Demon's Souls or Bloodborne.

Persona 3!

Well looks like xenoblade wins

Persona 4 or Xenoblade, I don't think you can go wrong. It also says much of the state of JRPGs in general for the past decade.

This poll sucks, it doesn't include Lost Odyssey!

People don't like putting the Souls games into the JRPG caterogory, yet I'm going to count them anyways.

I havent played as many as you, but mine would be Lost Odyssey.

@TheShadowLord07: I think cause its more action adventure rpg.

Hmmm I'd have to say it's a toss up between Tales of Zestiria and Fire Emblem Awakening. Although Once Xenoblade Chronicles X comes out that will probably take the jrpg crown for me.

Honorable mentions

• Persona 4 golden
• Persona 3
• Tales of Vesperia
• FF12

Ok now Final Fantasy 12 has the same score as Dragon Quest 8. That's not right yo.

Persona 4 sucked man. To the point I didnt even want to touch Persona 3. Good thing I still gave Nocturne a chance afterwards.

1. One battle soundtrack in the entire game (aside from bosses).
2. Very poor party customization.
3. Lack of challenging mechanics, interesting boss fights.
4. HP bloat on some bosses.
5. Social Links: They were completely isolated events, with absolutely no impact on the outside world and with the outside world having no impact on them.
6. Social Links: Nearly all of them concerned themselves with dealing with people's insecurity problems.
7. Social Links: Because of how they were structured, there would almost always be one objectively best choice, as that one gives more points than the rest. No ability to shape how your friendship turns out outside of lover (only determined at rank 8 or so). Which means that for most of the part, you will say what gets you the most points instead of what you would say in that situation.
8. Social Links: Because I am not an ass kisser.
9. Protagonist is a complete idiot, as is the rest of the crew. Had I been in there, the game would have been at least 6 months shorter.
10. Cast is mostly 2 dimensional, with a lot these character's shtick getting old less than halfway through the game.
11. Same 10 enemy models or so repeated throughout the entire fucking game. How many tables, dice, orbs with tounges, and police officers do we need to face? The massive reskinning in this game just made the game feel very lazily made.
12. Terrible level design, running through samey randomly generated corridors for hours gets tedious beyond belief.
13. The SP system was horribly made. It encourages massive conservation of SP, resulting that the default attacks is something you will do a lot. If you want to see this system done right, look at the Labyrinth of Touhou series. Infinitely more well thought out than Persona.

I can see why people like Persona. But everything about persona 4 just turned me off so massively.

Demon's Souls. it's a japanese rpg :(

Fire Emblem is a SRPG.

Now I know not to take this seriously

They are 2 dimensional though (unless you count them learning a life lesson at the end character development). The characters barely saw any development, at most they tended to accept a side of them they have denied and overcame their insecurities. Of course, accepting their flaws was a good thing, and fitted well with the themes of the game (searching for and accepting the truth), but I feel they could have done a lot more than that.

Maybe they should have had more of something to actually demonstrate the character change over time. But having characters only develop towards the end of the social link did not make for compelling storytelling, far from it, as a matter of fact, it makes for terribly paced storytelling. The whole thing was also so instanced, so that any character development in there had no impact on the overall story and they couldn't let outside events impact social linking either at the risk of causing dissonance. But I say **** that, Fallout: New Vegas had storytelling segments heavily interconnect WITHOUT any dissonance whatsoever, and New Vegas's story is far superior to Persona 4's. Arcade Gannon, had a character that could be molded in multiple ways, all of them felt far more organic and felt more detailed than anything in Persona 4.

How does Chie develop throughout the storyline? If I remember correctly, the entire game she was the kung fu lover, meat eater, terrible cook, who wanted to protect her friends. All I remembre was a bit at the end which implied she started accepting her more feminine side (and iirc, we saw the exact same development with Naoto)... and that's it. Pretty lousy character development, I'm sorry but the character development in P4 was puny.

Especially compared to other characters in better games where characters can go so far to change their ideologies or motives while still remaining true to themselves.

No, they are not two dimensional, and there is a whole lot of growth in each of their characters. I have a feeling that either you did not see the game (and/or the social links) through to the end, or you have not played it through in a while, because each character sees a hell of a lot of growth over the course of the story. Using reductionist logic and reasoning does not somehow change that.

Your complaint about pacing with the Social Links is also nonsensical, because you decided the pace yourself. If the pace was terrible, you were to blame for it yourself. I do agree that the Social Links weren't integrated into the story well enough, but that never introduced dissonance with the main narrative outside of some random instances (your chosen romantic partner not responding to Rise's incessant flirting with you, for instance), because assuming you are playing through the game organically, your social links will progress in tandem with the progression of the main story itself.

And you remember wrong about Chie, and you remember a highly simplified resolution for Naoto.

Seriously, like I said- either you did not complete the game, or if you did, it's been years, and I mean years, since you did, and your memory is foggy.

The characters and character development in Persona 4 are literally among its greatest strengths- there are a lot of legitimate criticisms for the game that you could have chosen to make, you can criticize the simplified battle system, if you would want to, you could criticize the terrible dungeon designs, but you chose to attack the characters. That's rich. What's next, criticizing the game's soundtrack?

@charizard1605 Can we deduce that Xenoblade won this round?