Top 10 Best PS2 jRPGs (Also, Why jRPGs Died)
The Playstation 2 (PS2) era was a decently strong one for jRPGs. Not nearly as strong as SNES or, especially, PS1. The quality of jRPGs was beginning to decline over the course of this time period due to a variety of reasons, and as a result, they were becoming less popular and less numerous.
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One of the contributing factors included the increased expectation for graphical fidelity, which made jRPGs, heavily reliant on epic stories and huge worlds, lower their scope to accommodate players’ expectations for graphics.
Another of the contributing factors was a surge in popularity of handheld devices in Japan, which led many jRPG developers to migrate to developing for handhelds, where the graphical expectations were still low.
Finally, the Japanese recession and dwindling popularity of jRPGs in the U.S. caused many midlevel developers to adopt a ‘Japan-only’ development policy, leading not only to fewer games available to Western audiences, but also many midlevel games becoming more and more anime-centric and more and more appealing specifically to the sensibilities of Japanese teens.
All that said, let’s get into the list of the best jRPGs for PS2.
10. Wild ARMs 3
Wild ARMs 3 would never have made it close to a top 10 jRPG list if it was released on PS1, but because jRPG quality started to massively decline during this time period, it squeaks into the top 10 jRPGs for PS2. It was a decent, if slightly generic, game that was interestingly set in a fantasy version of the Wild West, as were its predecessors. The main draw of the game was its ARMs system, wherein players could upgrade each of the protagonists’ unique weapons.
9. Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne is a widely praised game that I’m not entirely sure deserves it. It is well-made and stylish, featuring a ton of different personas to collect and upgrade, but its plot is very sparse and its length is heavily padding by inconvenient irritation. Not difficulty, but things like constant backtracking, grinding, monotonous dungeons. I thought about swapping it out for Kingdom Hearts here, but it’s a choice between an overrated jRPG and a game that barely qualifies as being a jRPG.
8. Dragon Quest VIII – Best PS2 jRPGs
You might be surprised that I’m putting Dragon Quest VIII so low on this list, but it genuinely wasn’t as good as anything higher up. Don’t get me wrong, Dragon Quest VIII was a very good game, and probably the first Dragon Quest to really penetrate the Western market. It’s Dragon Quest, so the monster designs are great. I mean, they’re exactly the same monster designs that were in the first 7 Dragon Quests, but they looked great being in 3d for the first time. It was a very solid paint-by-numbers jRPG experience (like Wild ARMs was, but better), but it was no Xenogears. It wasn’t even the best DQ game at that point (which was DQ6).
7. Radiata Stories
Radiata Stories was a genuinely great game that didn’t get the notoriety it deserved. I’m almost certain the majority of even hardcore jRPG fans didn’t get the memo about this game, which was an attempt at starting a new IP by the tri-Ace team responsible for the Star Ocean series. There are two things that are particularly notable about Radiata Stories. The first is the plot branches early on and gives you the ability to pick between siding with the humans, or the… I forget what they’re called. Not humans. Demihumans, I think. The second is that if you do pick the humans, the game has a hugely expansive recruitment system that has you stalking characters through their daily routines in order to figure out how to recruit them. Recruiting the characters in this game and essentially climbing the ladder of each of the four guilds in the human town in order to recruit the leader of each guild was a real treat.
6. Suikoden 3 – Best PS2 jRPGs
Suikoden 3 was a step down from Suikoden 2, but it was still overall a great game. It featured 3 main characters and a split POV story structure that allowed you to experience the military conflict from 6 different points of view: the ‘good guys’, the ‘bad guys’, a third party, a dog, someone totally uninvolved, and (spoilers) the secret antagonist. Like with all Suikoden games, it was a requirement to build up a home base by collecting 108 different characters. It delivered all of what players had come to expect from the Suikoden series, while also adding a very interesting skills system that added some variety to the best characters beyond Suikoden 2, where rune slots were all that really mattered.
5. Persona 4
Persona 4 was the first Persona game that really put Persona on the map. It was already a successful series, but this is the game that catapulted it into a premiere jRPG series, which is still is today. It featured a very interesting murder-mystery plot and incorporated dating sim mechanics into the gameplay, which worked together seamlessly, and delivered a memorable cast of characters that people liked so much they went back for a second serving with Persona 4: Golden. Definitely one of the top 10 best jRPGs on PS2.
4. Final Fantasy 12 – Best PS2 jRPGs
Final Fantasy 12 was the last great Final Fantasy (unless, knock on wood, FF7R turns out to be good), and it was an alarming step down in quality from Final Fantasy X. Its plot was meandering and esoteric while also feeling strangely small-scale and pointless. Its cast felt formulaic – both Penelo and Fran were basically unnecessary tagalongs. The battle system was satisfying once you got used to it, but it always felt a bit experimental. That all said, especially with the International release and the Zodiac Age version, FF12 was a very good game. Balthier and Basch were both great characters, the job system was a compelling mixture of FFX’s sphere grid and the medieval Final Fantasy’s job system. Hunts were a decent enough minigame, and the graphics and environments were incredible for the time. The voice acting, as well, was a standout.
3. Star Ocean 3
Star Ocean 3, like FF12, was the last great game in its series as well. The Star Ocean series continued to limp along with a 4th and 5th entry, but they paled in comparison to Star Ocean 3 or any of the games before it. Even Star Ocean 3 felt vastly scaled down in terms of scope; where Star Ocean 1 and 2 featured full worlds (multiple full worlds in the case of Star Ocean 2), Star Ocean 3 takes place in just a few sections of a single planet and towards the end veers off into a decently interesting plot twist, but not an entirely new planet or anything approaching that. The crafting system that Star Ocean was famous for was also dramatically curtailed, but it was still a pretty engaging system. The cast of characters was very strong. Star Ocean 4 felt like a lifeless retread of Star Ocean 3, and Star Ocean 5 felt like a corporate obligation being fulfilled more than a game anyone wanted to make. So, as far as I’m concerned, the Star Ocean series ended strong with Star Ocean 3 on PS2.
2. Xenosaga Episode 3
Xenosaga was meant to be a similar but legally distinct retelling of the story of Xenogears (which was supposed to be part 5 in the grand plan the designer had laid out). This is going to be a very confusing sentence: Xenosaga was supposed to tell the first episode of the Xenogears story across six episodes. Unfortunately, and I realize I’m harping on this a lot, but unfortunately, because of the graphical and technological expectations of games, 3 full games came about as close to the first 1/4th of Xenogears in terms of actual content. The 6 episode plan never finished. This is probably intuitive to most people, but the audience dropped off significantly with each installment, and no one started Xenosaga on Episode 3 (why would you?). Oddly Final Fantasy 7 Remake is pursuing exactly the same failed business model for exactly the same reasons (scope exceeded what a game could be given the requirements for graphical and technological sophistication), but they’ll definitely finish it because Square Enix will go totally bankrupt if they don’t. I realize I haven’t reviewed Xenosaga 3 at all yet, so I’ll keep it short: they were really hitting their stride in Episode 3, it was just starting to get good, then it ended because the budget ran out.
1. Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy X was a fantastic entry and a strong contender for the #3 best Final Fantasy of all-time. The cast of characters was very memorable, it was full to the brim with interesting minigames, the sphere grid system was inventive and fun, the graphics were excellent, I personally thought Blitzball was the 2nd best Final Fantasy minigame after Triple Triad though many people disagree with that. It had an interesting setting. The story was good, though not as good as Final Fantasy 6 or 7. The biggest negative thing I can say about FFX is that Tidus has the weirdest goddamn costume design ever with his asymmetrical fishnet shorts. Other than that, it was a great game. Just not as great as FF7 or 6.
That about does it for the top 10 best jRPGs on PS2. It’s really more like top 6 games which are truly excellent and 4 games that make it onto the list by default. While the PS1 era had at least another 6 or 7 solidly exceptional games that made it hard to whittle it down to a top 10, PS2 had just a handful of truly great games that made it difficult to expand to 10.
This genre, which I grew up loving, really began to peter out around this time period. I thought it would come roaring back, but it never did. I even tried to pursue a career of designing and writing these kinds of games, only to discover that by the time I grew up, such a job didn’t really exist, only a bastardized version of it, either going to Japan and making formulaic phone RPGs or jRPGs that felt like generic anime; or by staying in the US and trying to explain to an industry that focuses on FPS, Western style D&D RPGs and eSports what a jRPG is and that there’s a market for it.
You might be wondering where Shadow Hearts or the PS2 era Tales games are. They… didn’t quite make the best PS2 jRPGs list. My condolences. They were alright though. Worth playing, especially Shadow Hearts. To be honest I’d put Romancing SaGa on this list before I’d put a Tales game on it.
Anyway, that (really) does it for the top 10 best jRPGs on PS2. Be sure to check out the Games Section for more content like this.
