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[Kiriku]

When I think back, Final Fantasy X ranks surprisingly high for me. The highest of all actually, well...

...along with Dark Cloud 2 and Disgaea, both great games in their own ways. But similar in that they're very immersive and massive in size and possibilites.
EDIT: Damn, forgot about Dragon Quarter, it's up there with the best too. Awesome atmosphere and gameplay.

Suikoden III follows. I consider Suikoden II one of the best RPG's ever, and Suikoden III was a letdown. Not bad, I really liked the atmosphere and the potential the game had, but it just never fully developed into something memorable.

Wild Arms 3 is at the same level as Suikoden III.

EDIT: Forgot about Xenosaga too. It's at the same level as Wild Arms 3 and Suikoden III IMO. Not nearly as good as Xenogears though.

Arc the Lad is quite cliché in its characters and story, but I can stand a cliché game every now and then. A nice little game, and the music, especially in battles, was cool.

Final Fantasy X-2 seemed to be interesting at first, but it's frustrating in that it's basically a lot of small stories and sub-quests tied into a full game. It feels unfocused, like some kind of playground for Final Fantasy X lovers. A cool ability system and fast battle system, so it was still decent fun.

 

[isamu]

Why not wait for Star Ocean 3 and FF 12? These are obviously gonna be the two best RPGs the PS2 and seen to date, and they're what....a couple or so months away?

 

[Semjaza Azazel]

FFXII is far more than a couple of months away for English release.

The best RPGs the PS2 are going to see to date, in my opinion, are the two SMT games and Dragon Quest VIII. I couldn't care less about Star Ocean 3 anymore due to all the delays and while I'm really interested in FFXII due to those involved, I'm still apprehensive. I didn't like the last few games. I'm more interested in Shadow Hearts 2 than both of those, personally.

My favorite ones are probably Dark Cloud II and Disgaea.

 

[totoro'd]

Why not wait for Star Ocean 3 and FF 12? These are obviously gonna be the two best RPGs the PS2 and seen to date, and they're what....a couple or so months away?

I thought SO3 was coming out the end of this month actually.

For me, i'd say Final Fantasy X. Loved everything about it-battle system, atmosphere, characters (Tidus bugged me at times though).

 

[seismologist]

Favorite ones I've played are FF:XI and Front Mission 4.

I just-love Square's polish they put into their games.

 

[Acosta]

Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne

 

[Diomedeskun]

Regarding Gunstar's question about epic battles in Front Mission 4:

In part 3 you only had 4 units you could use in a battle chosen from 8. In part 4, you get up to 6 permanent characters per side and you actually get 5 backup units chosen from 12 that means that you can actually control up to 11 (as far as I've played). It is a great game, and I think the battles play much better than 3, as there is some actual challenge and strategy, but I miss the internet from 3. That reminds me, I must finish my review. I put it down for Symphonia and was about to go back when I got Disaster Report cheap from one of Amazon's sellers.

Dragon Quarter: It has one of the finest blends of Strategy and RPG gameplay with survival elements I have ever played, but it feels very different from a typical RPG. I love it, but it also feels like work much of the time, especially since you start out so much weaker than the enemies.

Xenosaga: Only play if you loved Xenogears' story and are patient enough to wait years for the complete story. I actually liked the gameplay quite a bit too, but the mecha was not nearly as fun as it used to be.

Final Fantasy X: Great characters, gameplay, story, summons, music, and more. My only real gripe is that the equipment customization is terrible and the Sphere grid does not allow most players much freedom until the time when most players will be on the verge of completing the game. I wish it had International's sphere grid instead, at least for replays.

Final Fantasy X-2: Story alternates between good and excessively bubbly, but it starts out with great gameplay and features a great adaptation of the Job/Skill system from FF5 and Tactics. I much prefer picking one skill in advance and learning it over getting points and buying skills.

Suikoden 3: It has many flaws, but it is my favorite RPG for the system. The story is amazing, but it makes you repeat too much of the game. The Trinity Sights is too repetitive. The politics will thrill any fan of Tactics style intrigue, but you need to play Suikoden 1 and 2 (Suikogaiden 1 and 2 also help immensely) to get the full impact of the game. It had many other problems, but it made me love the series more and created a unifying element that the series is (or at least was) working towards. While I doubt it was the original intent, go back and watch Suikoden 1's intro movie after winning 3 and it will now make perfect sense.

Kingdom Hearts: I loved everything about the game, except for the wretched level design. The main problem was that it tried to be a platformer in an engine better suited to a Secret of Mana game. The last two levels were nicely designed, and there were parts where the platforming was fun, but it overall felt wrong. Other than that, it had everything that you would expect out of a Square game and the redesigned Final Fantasy characters were awesome. Oddly, my favorite part was visiting the Hundred Acre Wood and meeting Pooh and his friends. I guess that just brought back too many memories from my childhood.

I played the DC version of Grandia 2, and it was a rather decent, if not great RPG. I liked the main character more than Justin from part 1, but I liked everything else better in the original. The story had some good characters, but it was too typical a story for a Japanese RPG. It was also too easy.


I am a little less jazzed up about Star Ocean 3 after playing Tales of Symphonia so recently, but Star Ocean 2 had some of the best customization I have ever played and my favorite battle system ever. It is a pity that it seems that 3 will lack the freedom that 2 had for much of the game.

 

[Gruco]

Suikoden bores me nowadays.

Never thought I'd see the day...

Dragon Quarter sure seems to have done a good job establshing itself. The game grew on me eventually, but I still say the battles were way too tedious. The repetition in the attacks was tiring, especially when so many fight are either over or damn close by the time the enemies move.

 

[Neutron Night]

Dark Cloud 2 - The best RPG of this gen.

Also good are:

Disgaea
Suikoden 3
Final Fantasy X

Xenosaga and Kingdom Hearts are flawed, but definately have their moments. Go for it. Wild Arms 3 isn't too bad. FFX-2, eh, this game does some good things but it still leaves a sour taste in my mouth. The whole idea of the same-world sequel just never got me excited.

BOF5? Yuck. I mean, ugh. Stay away, in my opinion. I buy most RPG's but I still wasn't willing to buy this when I saw it at EB for $15. It's just....no. I don't see the appeal for this game.

Most Underrated Game: Jade Cocoon 2. Kicks ass. Even you're even remotely interested in the idea of raising monsters, go for it. The graphics are quite good considering this game was released in 2001. Also pick up the original Jade Cocoon if you have the chance. I'm probably the only one anticipating a Jade Cocoon 3, I just love what Genki did with this series.

Just because Grandia also only appealed to the niche (heck, it was only played by a handful) doesn't mean it's any less than best-game-of-all-time to me.

Wow, finally someone who agrees that Grandia is the best RPG ever. It's about damn time. You shouldn't be recommending the Saturn version though, unless you speak Japanese. Besides, the PS version did have some improvments, like transpariencies.

 

[Greenpanda]

Man, I didn't see this thread until it was already up to a page 2! Fortunately, plenty of other people have already voted for BoF: DQ in my place. Although FFX-2 is right up there too ... I don't know that I could really choose between them because they excel in different ways.

 

[Alias03]

Xenosaga

 

[SolidSnakex]

Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne

Another month and it'll have that crown.

Shadow Hearts for now though. Very underrated game. It'd be my choice for best RPG this gen.

 

[Triumph]

Dragon Quarter, easily.

 

[djtiesto]

I need to give BOF5ragon Quarter a try... the Blockbuster my brother works at has a copy of the game, but it's always out I've heard a lot of good things on this forum about the game, but I dunno if I'd be all too thrilled with constantly having to restart my game from scratch. Oh well, at least Capcom tried something different with the series, instead of padding it with 50 hours of the most retarded fetch quests ever in an RPG.

I really really liked Dark Cloud 2... the dungeons are drawn out and boring, but the game has all these fun things you can do in it - take pictures and use them to invent stuff, play a Golf-based minigame, go fishing, build up your weapons in 1 of 8 categories, build up towns and stuff... There are some annoying parts of the game (like, the boring dungeons that take forever and a story that doesn't really go anywhere), but the graphics and music are very nice, and there's so much you can do. Took me about 55 hours to beat and I didn't even bother with the secret bonus level (I'm gonna play this eventually I think).

Arc the Lad was pretty cool, I liked Darc's storyline a whole lot, it was a bit different from your average RPG story... but Kharg's story is pretty corny (up until about halfway through the game). There unfortunately wasn't any dungeons in the game, it was just linear stages with 2 or 3 random fights in it.. one of the things I didn't like about the game (especially since ATL2 had some cool dungeons). I like ATL2 a *LOT* better.

FFX was alright, but too linear and the characters weren't that great... I liked Wakka, but all the other guys were kinda dull. FFX2 was crap, IMO.

You can wait a month for Star Ocean 3 to come out, that's guaranteed to be like the best PS2 RPG ever! (well, best game ever, IMO, I was such a big fan of 1 and 2)

 

[adamma666]

Legaia 2 - Duel Saga
Wizardry - Tale of the Forsaken Land
Breath of Fire - Dragon Quarter

in this order.

 

[Gantz]

Disgaea
Front Mission 4
Suikoden III

Everything else sucks.

 

[Prine]

FF X

 

[Musashi Wins!]

I vote for Dark Cloud 2.

Haven't gotten into BOF yet. FFX I didn't care for at all though the graphics and cut-scenes were impressive <shrug>.

I think this year might be the best with Nocturne, um, that other Atlus RPG, and Phantom Brave. The buzz on SO3 doesn't sound very exciting.

 

[Tsubaki]

Wow, finally someone who agrees that Grandia is the best RPG ever. It's about damn time. You shouldn't be recommending the Saturn version though, unless you speak Japanese. Besides, the PS version did have some improvments, like transpariencies.

Yeah, but I personally do speak Japanese, and the Japanese all-star cast is one of the best aspects of the game. Anime fans would have a blast just hearing their favorites in the game.

True, the PSX version looked better in some ways, but overall you can really tell it wasn't made for the system. The framerate slows to a crawl, which irritates me to no end. Also, although the textures are much less pixelly than the SS ver, the Playstation-blur also destroys some of the detail.

 

[P90]

ShadowHearts and the Geddoe story ofSuikoden III.

 

[Belfast]

Dragon Quarter is a good game, an innovative one, but NOT the best. Its strategic, but highly defensive battling and at times can seem like a chore. As innovative as it may be, most people aren't going to be keen on being given a time limit and the likely possibility of having to restart the game. Interesting ideas, yes, but I agree with Gattsu - its still very niche, even among regular gamers. You almost have to want to be punished to play the game. Then again, I've played it and I still play FFXI....so I guess I'm a masochist. But I have enjoyed other RPGs this gen than Dragon Quarter.

What I do recommend:

Disgaea
Dark Cloud 2
Front Mission 4
Wild Arms III (more interesting and innovative than people give it credit for, plus there are a lot of dungeons with some fun, if not entirely hard puszzle solving)
FFXI (if you really have a lot of time on your hands....)

 

[Tabris]

Here is why I love my top 3 favorite PS2 RPG's.

01) Final Fantasy X - Ending. All about the ending. I also liked Tidus, because he wasn't your stereotypical hero. He had issues. I like characters with issues.

02) Xenosaga - Just the beginning of it all. This is a game you can spend hours creating theories about and how it links to Xenogears. I think half the fun was just in that.

03) Suikoden III - Now at first, I was slightly disappointed with this game, but then I came to realize a couple things about it. First of all, this isn't Hugo, Chris or Geddoe's story. It's Luc's, he's the hero of the game. When you think about that, the fact the characters never seemed to make any development in themselves, kinda makes sense. It wasn't about them developing and growing past their flaws. It was about Luc doing all of that. So when you re-play the game with that in mind, the story is actually really enjoyable. Still has the flaws of a kinda blah battle system, weird running animation and thomas' chapter sucked. If they just improved those 3 aspects, it may be a contender with the top 3.