Recommend me a good JRPG that ISN'T Final Fantasy

[MerlinCross]

Skies of Arcadia.

I was going to be greatly ashamed of the Escapist if someone didn't put this.

Others have mentioned games I'd already say so lemme dig out something else from my RPG list.

Grandia

I love this game so much and wished it did better. Cool story about a teenager wanting to be an adventurer, which he actually goes out and does it. Great music, good characters, sure it has some tropes but what doesn't and is a solid game to boot(even if it can easily be broken).

 

[Zeras]

I'm going to recommend Lost Odyssey (360/PS3), made by Mystwalker (bunch of guys who broke away from Square-Enix); the story is good, the characters are fleshed out, and the text-only "Memories" can be just as or more poignant than anything else you'll ever read.

 

[Cidward]

Gotta co-sign the recommendations for Chrono Trigger. Not just my favorite JRPG of all time, in the running for my favorite video game period.

 

[balladbird]

Xenogears. It's the best RPG, period.

I would agree, well, the game would be very high in my personal top 10, if they hadn't run out of budget in the middle of production and shamelessly rushed the second half, dropping several interesting plot points and side quests. As it stands I have a hard time playing it without seeing the lost potential. 10 stars for ambition, though.


On topic, I'm a shameless SMT fanboy, so my opinion may or may not be reliable, but I find the games hella fun and engaging.

Other good series I've played include:

Wild ARMs
Valkyrie profiles
Shining Force
Atelier Iris
mostly stuff other people have said.

 

[Olrod]

Considering every Final Fantasy game is different, I don't quite get what your "Isn't Final Fantasy" is supposed to mean.

Every Final Fantasy game "isn't" Final Fantasy, compared to the one before it.

 

[Zeraki]

-Grandia & Grandia 2
-Lunar Silver Star Story Complete/Silver Star Harmony(Harmony is the PSP remake)
-Xenogears
-Chrono Trigger
-The Persona series

Out of that list the ones I'd recommend the most are the first two Grandia games. They can be a bit cheesy and the visuals for 2 haven't aged very well, but they're still some of my all time favorite JRPGs. They've also got what I consider to be the best turned based combat system in any JRPG I've every played(especially Grandia 2).

If you got a 3DS, Xenoblade Chronicle is going to be ported onto that portable console!

It's coming out on the new "New" 3DS, which really isn't worth getting at the moment if you've already got a 3DS as far as I'm concerned.

 

[cdemares]

Grandia

I love this game so much and wished it did better. Cool story about a teenager wanting to be an adventurer, which he actually goes out and does it. Great music, good characters, sure it has some tropes but what doesn't and is a solid game to boot(even if it can easily be broken).

So glad somebody mentioned Grandia. This game is close to my heart. So is Breath of Fire 3.
Everything mentioned is good or great.

If you have a 3DS, Etrian Odyssey IV is pretty awesome. The map-making is fun and the party/class strategy makes the battles interesting.

Take a look at Penny Arcade: OtRSPoD: Episode 3. It has a class system with pretty clever classes.

Then there's the Disgaea series. If you like FF: Tactics, this is similar but with more gameplay ideas and mechanics. Things get crazy in those games.

 

[DBLT4P]

I agree with everything that's been suggested so far (Skies of Arcadia, Tales of series, Golden Sun and Golden Sun Lost Age, Star Ocean, Radiata stories, Chrono Trigger, Bravely default etc)

If you are into SRPGs then I highly recommend:
-Final Fantasy Tactics and FFT Advanced (I like advanced better overall but both are excellent)

-Fire Emblem games (Awakening for the 3DS and the GBA ones are my favorites, Awakening has a casual mode that gets rid of character perma-death if constant resetting isn't your thing, but the GBA ones can be easily emulated, and you can even find translation patches for first one (the one with Roy from SSBM in it) that wasn't released outside Japan.)

-Disgaea Games (I love these and think they are hilarious, not everyone's cup of tea, but I think they're great. They are very 4th wall heavy deconstructions of many JRPG tropes were everything always gets turned up to 11. Max Level is 9999, max stats are in the tens of millions, and no one has found the damage cap, the current record is in the QUADRILLIONS.)

FFTA, Golden Sun 1&2, and Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, Blazing Sword/Rekka no Ken (just Fire Emblem outside Japan), and The Sacred Stones are all easily emulated GBA games.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Hyperdimension Neptunia (except for the first game on PS3, go for the remake on Vita or PC instead)

It's quirky and upbeat, tons of fun, and has very entertaining characters and situations. It's not exactly an epic, story heavy game, but it's just so fun.

Was my first thought as well because I'm actively playing it currently. Definitely worth a look. I went out of my way to buy a controller for my PC just to play this and I'm having an absolute blast.

 

[HardkorSB]

Parasite Eve - a horror themed JRPG, really good stuff, i just beat it again a few months ago
Earthbound a.k.a. Mother 2 - really weird one of a kind game, the art design is very silly but the actual game has a lot of mature elements and is pretty well written, definitely a must-play for JRPG fans

 

[JayRPG]

Most of the Tales of series is fantastic, in Japan it is the 3rd most popular RPG series, only slightly behind Final Fantasy (Dragon Quest being the most popular).

Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Xillia are good starting points.

Xenoblade Chronicles - their is a N3DS remake releasing soon.

The Atelier series, most of the PS3/Vita entries are rather good.

I can also recommend (off the top of my head) Golden Sun, Baten Kaitos 1&2 (If you have access to a gamecube), Resonance of Fate, Eternal Sonata, Lost Odyssey, The Shin Megami Tensei series, and the Ys series.

 

[DOOM GUY]

Was my first thought as well because I'm actively playing it currently. Definitely worth a look. I went out of my way to buy a controller for my PC just to play this and I'm having an absolute blast.

Oh nice, I'm glad the PC version has gotten more people into the series.

The original game was very flawed, but the characters and setting were so great, and when mk2 came out I absolutely fell in love with the series. I gotta say, it's my favorite new series of the decade.

 

[jdogtwodolla]

Hey, I don't play a lot of RPGs so I can't really recommend you anything...

Spoiler: But this guy probably can:

 

[Lightspeaker]

Was my first thought as well because I'm actively playing it currently. Definitely worth a look. I went out of my way to buy a controller for my PC just to play this and I'm having an absolute blast.

Oh nice, I'm glad the PC version has gotten more people into the series.

The original game was very flawed, but the characters and setting were so great, and when mk2 came out I absolutely fell in love with the series. I gotta say, it's my favorite new series of the decade.

It had been on my "to buy" list for quite a while (I own a PS3 after all) but I didn't actually get it until I impulse bought it on Steam. I think it was reduced, most things I impulse buy on Steam are.

In many ways its lucky I actually picked it out to start playing. My backlog of RPGs alone(to say nothing of games generally) is...quite considerable. I've still got Eternal Sonata in its wrapping around here somewhere, had it for months; plus I'm only fifteen minutes into Persona 4 and about four hours into Bravely Default. So I'm glad I randomly decided to make the effort because its some of the most sheer "fun" I've had with a game in a while.

Though a fair warning to anyone considering it on Steam: if you don't have a controller to play it with you may end up wanting to chop your fingers off in frustration. It is very, very awkward to play with a keyboard. Do yourself a favour and get a controller.

 

[Dalisclock]

Mother 3-It's wonderful in so many ways....and legally not obtainable outside Japan. Something about Copyright issues. And possibly because the Japanese hate the rest of the world and decided we don't deserve to have Mother 3.

You can easily get it, of course. There's even a fan translation that's very well done.

Radiant Historia-It's basically a time travel game where you travel back and forth along your own timeline, trying to stop a war and prevent all life from going extinct(and it's implied and every timeline up until this point has lead to this occurring). There's a bunch of alternative "failure" endings based off of branching points, and half the fun is finding all of these.

 

[DOOM GUY]

...its some of the most sheer "fun" I've had with a game in a while.

Yeah, Neptunia is definitely one of the funnest series I've played in a very long time, and it just kinda reminds me why I love video games to begin with.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

Xeno-
Gears
Saga
Blade

All excellent games, if a bit hard to find. My personal favorite JRPGs used to come out of Tri-Ace - Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile are two excellent series. Some Tales games are pretty good too; but I've started all of them and only finished three. Abyss, Vesperia, and Xillia are the real gems of the Tales series, in my humble opinion.

Some Level 5 games are really good. Dark Cloud, Dark Cloud II, Rogue Galaxy, Dragon Warrior 8, and Fantasy Life are pretty fun, but avoid White Knight Chronicles. It's so slowly paced and not really worth it that it took me buying it three times to realize I was never going to care about finishing it.

Oh, and I know you said games that aren't Final Fantasy, but have you tried Final Fantasty Tactics? Tactics is one of the best games in the entire series, even if it's not numbered.

 

[Hawki]

Golden Sun. Played all 3, and while 3 doen't hold a candle to 1 and 2 IMO, all 3 are still worth playing.

While tactics based, Fire Emblem is also worth a look. Played Blazing Sword and Sacred Stones to completion, had fun with both. Played some of Sword of Seals. I'd stay clear of the remake of the first game though. Wish I could add Awakening to that list, but unfortunately don't have a 3DS.

 

[Bat Vader]

I'm sure it has already been mentioned but I am going to have to recommend Tales of Xillia and Tales o Xillia 2. I have always loved the Tales games because of how they don't use turn based combat.

 

[nightmare_gorilla]

There's a pretty good xbox 360 old JRPG called ENCHANTED ARMS that's pretty fun. I mean it's fairly standard JRPG but it does what it's supposed to do very well.