8 JRPGs Better Than Final Fantasy 7

[TT Kairen]

I bet number one in FFVI...yep, same joke for more than a decade now. Never a different Final Fantasy, like Tactics. Always VI. Which puts me in a weird position, since I'm the one person that doesn't actually like that game.

Besides the list doesn't include Rhapsody a Musical Adventure, and is thus invalid.

You're not alone my friend, you are not alone. I legitimately think FFVI is a bad game (yes, I said it, not trolling, not flaming, not anything. It's overrated tripe). Our number is few, but we must stand strong!

 

[Ocelano]

So much console, so little PC.

Is there any really good JRPG that a PC gamer can get (without needing to use emulation, which is pretty dicey both technically and legally)? I've always been an RPG fan, from the old D&D games to the likes of "Fallout" and "Elder Scrolls". JRPGs are something that's missing from my experience.

Actually a few of the final fantasy games have made their way to steam and from there you can find some more fine examples in the more like this section

 

[Ocelano]

2 Questions 1. Why is Disgaea a tag when it is not mentioned anywhere in your article? 2. Why the hell Is Disgaea not in your list Persona 4 proves you weren't worried about going forward a generation and no o0ther game I've played has the gamelength value of just grinding in the item world making uberninja's

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

I would replace Chrono Cross with Star Ocean: The Second Story. Chrono Cross is not a bad game, mind you; gorgeous graphics, incredible soundtrack, and an interesting mechanic with switching between the two different worlds. The story, however, leaves a lot to be desired and really only serves to undermine the story of the first game almost entirely. Star Ocean may not have been as pretty or had as varied of a score, but the plot was a lot more enjoyable since it wasn't tripping over it's own feet in order to be complicated and the combat was a lot of fun, even if the final boss was hard as balls.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that FFVII was overrated during it's era, even though most of the games listed were superior, but I do have a hard time wrapping my head around why people still love it so much since I found nearly everything in VII was done better in VI. When I ask people what they like about VII they generally talk about Aerith or Sephiroth, which again escapes me because I didn't care for either of them and I'm constantly surprised by just how much people love Sephiroth. Frankly, I think a lot of it is nostalgia, which hey, you can't discount nostalgia, but I'll always personally see it as another mediocre entry in the series - good, but not great. Tactics came out around the same time and was far superior on all fronts.

My only real problem with VII is how Square Enix latched on to fans' nostalgia for it by releasing a series of incredibly crappy games that shove even more story and villains into the game's already messy plot (Dirge of Cerberus's ending teased even MORE story to come, but thankfully it was quietly swept under the rug) and then also made a movie to serve as a sequel to the game... a movie that emphasized a 'style-over-substance' approach that Final Fantasy as a whole has embraced to this day. Plus, they wanted me to laugh at Reno, who had for some reason been turned into a goofball, likely in the hopes that we'd forget about how he'd murdered millions of people in the original game.

 

[Second World]

Wow. Whats with the FFVII hate?

Half those games owe their success to FFVII's success in making JRPGs mainstream.

If I remember correctly, JRPGs were already mainstream thus making the heavy investment on SquareEnix's part worth the risk.

Originally, Dragon Quest made them mainstream in Japan.
In the west, I believe Final Fantasy IV is the title that started making them mainsteam. 1990-1991 marks the point in which the west began to heavily adopt JRPGs for localization (rather than sticking to only the most heavily adopted games from Japan.) It was also at this point that competition began to appear in that market. (Phantasy Star IV, of all games, was able to sell at two-and-half times the price of any other Sega game when it was released in the retail market in 1995. Not to mention that Mario had an RPG game made by Square one year prior to the release of Final Fantasy VII.)

Final Fantasy VII was released during a significant peak in popularity for JRPGs (1997) and was therefore well-timed for the first 3D release in the franchise. 3D being unusual at the time, the game was bought up in droves.

The game its-self is extremely common and is given an unnecessary amount of credence. So much so that the game cannot simply be enjoyed as-is anymore and must instead be scrutinized by anyone adopting it beyond the time in which it was hailed simply for graphics and playtime.

Unfortunately, scrutiny is incredibly easy for a game that is flawed and dated. And since its graphics can no longer be gawked at and it can never again be labeled with ...and I quote from the back of the box "'[This game] Towers over the competition in terms of graphics, sounds, story, and playability'" (in-fact everything that isn't a cut-scene is murky and ugly,) and since its stretched out playtime can no longer be appreciated (decent games are now as cheaply and freely available as water) it really doesn't need to be mentioned positively or negatively and should merely be considered yet another game in a franchise that has gone from being at the peak of popularity at key times for JRPG fans to a series that is now just another one of many AAAs that looks nice, but hardly stands out from a crowd like it did when competition was minimal and banal..

 

[Spearmaster]

All of the games in this list are indeed great but when placed under the same microscope FFVII has been under the last 15 years they each have 8 games better than them and each of those games have 8 better than them and so on and so forth.

I would say that just due to the shear amount of attention FFVII has gotten and still gets that it is in fact the greatest JRPG ever. If it wasn't would we still be talking about it?