What's yall's favorite PS1 RPG

[Lokii]

The buds have been going through Shadow Tower on the weekly stream and I was thinking about what an incongruous and strange game it is. It's gritty and uncompromising, but not without interesting and rewarding design. Like any Fromsoft, it's a cool experience, but you got to put the work in. A hidden gem, but one that's probably easier to appreciate in this day and age of From's ascendency than when first released.

It must have been a strange experience to localize and promote in the US. Surely Agetec knew it had niche appeal and wouldn't see large profit, but those days were the wild west. The US experienced a wealth of titles that most likely wouldn't've seen localization had not FFVII kicked off a sort of gold rush. Additionally, 3D gaming was coming into its own and there was a lot of experimentation of how to translate the RPG experience into 3D presentation. And lastly, the increased functionality of the PS1 and the space that CD media provided meant that even traditionally styled RPGs could indulge in size and ambition that would have been impossible on previous consoles. All this leads to the PS1 having a RPG library that is large, vast in scope and style, and bursting with oddities and earnest experiments. At the same time it is not overwhelmingly huge like today's digital distribution services with their thousands of games in every genre. Here is a collection where Final Fantasy VII and Xenogears stand hand to hand with Vandal Hearts and Guardian's Crusade.

I still have a lot of fondness for the PS1 RPG library, a large part of that is nostalgia for sure, but also it is such a vital and experimental collection of games that in some ways it is to me Peak-RPG. It contains two games I personally consider the best RPG, both the citizen kane of the genre. But it also contains a dozen more that are in the close running.

But let's be honest I just want to roll around in nostalgia like a pig in shit. We're almost 30 years away from the PS1, and I'm curious as to where yall's opinions lie. Does the majority of affection still fall in FFVII's lap, or has its star faded? Are King's Field and Shadow Tower now considered the choice of true aficionados? Crono Cross used to be considered one of the best on the system but these days is fairly reviled. Meanwhile, DQVII seems to have found its audience and is better remembered in hindsight. So where yall at? How do you feel about PS1 RPGs in 2023, and what's your current most fondly remembered game? Get cookin with those takes oink oink I want to wallow.

 

[Dracula]

Shamefully admitting that the only PS1 RPGs I've really played are the three main Final Fantasys, Breath of Fire III, and Breath of Fire IV (which I never finished). Unless you want to count Super Robot Wars as an RPG, in which case I can add most of one more game to the list.

So how do I feel about PS1 RPGs in 2023? I would like to play them. I want to replay the ones I have played (it's been 10+ years for all) and I want to at least play the Suikodens and Crono Cross.

 

[Sarge]

There's so many good ones to pick from, but for me, it has to be Valkyrie Profile. Just a really unique game mechanically and some great storytelling.

Breath of Fire IV is so good. Loved that game. Weirdly, I don't share the love for BoFIII, which I thought was fine but didn't really set my world on fire. And my thoughts on that one are pretty recent, as I finally finished it a couple of years ago.

Chrono Cross is good. Not as a sequel to Chrono Trigger, mind you, but as a game, it does a lot of things right. And the soundtrack is sublime.

FFVII disappointed me. It's still good, but the wonky translation and coming off the high of Chrono Trigger, plus years of build-up on my own part (didn't play until Christmas of '99!) meant it would never live up to my expectations.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

PS1 RPGs are great: super creative, willing to try anything and, for the most part, free of the incredible bloating the genre took on from the PS2 era. Personally, I might have to give the nod to Parasite Eve, a game which combines great atmosphere with fun, action-y mechanics and a story that is just nonsensical enough to be super fun. And the whole thing only takes like 15 hours to play*! Every year I think to myself "it's time to replay PE" - maybe this will be the year?

*Under no circumstances should anyone ever attempt to Chrysler building postgame. Not Even Once.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

Depends on how I'm feeling.

Suikoden II. Hands down is my default answer. It might be the greatest game ever made, it's definitely the best PS1 RPG for sure.

Xenogears though holds a very special place in my heart. I was a Nintendo fanboy as a kid, and was gifted an unwanted PS1 in the xmas of 1998. I despised it, but thought might as well get some use out of it. I played FF7 and really enjoyed that experience. But that's a game I could have technically played on PC at the time, so it's not like it being on PS1 was all that special. Then I gave Xenogears a random try - pulling it off the shelf because it had a cool anime cover and was by the same company. And that game was an utterly magical experience for a preteen. When I finished Xenogears, I was like, "Ok... maybe there's something to this PlayStation after all..."

 

[Pajaro Pete]

Shamefully admitting that the only PS1 RPGs I've really played are the three main Final Fantasys, Breath of Fire III, and Breath of Fire IV (which I never finished). Unless you want to count Super Robot Wars as an RPG, in which case I can add most of one more game to the list.

So how do I feel about PS1 RPGs in 2023? I would like to play them. I want to replay the ones I have played (it's been 10+ years for all) and I want to at least play the Suikodens and Crono Cross.

There's never been a better time to purchase the Valkyrie Profile Lenneth game, or the Legend of Mana game, or the SaGa Frontier Remastered game. You can also look forward to the Star Ocean 2 Second Story R game.

 

[Falselogic]

I love a lot of PS1 rpgs. But I think the one that sticks with me most and the one I never beat is Vagrant Story. Nothing else on the system looked like this game, nothing else on the system played like it.

 

[Issun]

Final Fantasy Tactics and Suikoden II are probably the two best RPGs on the system, but Xenogears is, and will always be, my favorite. It helps that I was 20 when I played it, just the right age to buy nearly everything it was selling. Now I can obviously see how creaky its philosophical grandstanding is, but there's a hell of a story and some neat character work underneath all the badly translated dialogue and janky symbolism. I do think it's a more honest usage of the stuff than any given Dan Brown novel, at least.

 

[Mogri]

There's so many good ones to pick from, but for me, it has to be Valkyrie Profile. Just a really unique game mechanically and some great storytelling.

If Final Fantasy Tactics doesn't count, Valkyrie Profile takes my vote as well.

 

[Paul le Fou]

I have to give a nod to Tri-Ace when we talk about PS1 RPGs. Tales of Destiny was one of my favorites at the time; I don't know if it still holds up, but it was a rare game I played multiple times. Similarly, Star Ocean 2 was fantastic; I loved replaying to get the different characters and story routes and such. Weirdly, I never actually played Valkyrie Profile. D:

Xenogears has one of the best OSTs of all time, and some really cool anime shit going on.
FF9 just edged out FF7 for my favorite of the 3 PS1 FFs at the time. FF Tactics obviously gets a nod as well.

Grandia and the Lunar games weren't teeeechnically PS1 games, but Grandia at least was from the same generation so I'll count it.

 

[Sarge]

That's probably been my biggest knock on Xenogears, and more for Xenosaga - the religious terminology is mostly just window dressing to appear more complex than it is, and they don't even get a lot of it right. But Xenogears is a fantastic game regardless, even with the falling apart a bit on the second disc. I still remember it being the first game I ordered online, from GameStop, while I was doing a study abroad stint in England. I wasn't going to miss that reprint, dang it!

Heck yeah on Parasite Eve, Suikoden II, and Star Ocean 2. PE is incredibly well-paced, Suikoden II is near the top once it gets going, and Star Ocean 2 remains one of my favorite tri-Ace games.

I prefer Lunar: EB on Sega CD, but the PSX version is still good, and Grandia was a ton of fun after a slow start, too.

 

[Lokii]

FFT Lunar and Grandia all absolutely count

 

[Peklo]

Koudelka
SaGa Frontier
King's Field II
Vagrant Story
Suikoden
Parasite Eve
Shadow Tower
Persona
Breath of Fire III

Pretty standard pickings. I'm looking forward to diversifying over time--playing through the From catalogue just this year broadened the pool significantly, for a start.

 

[Violentvixen]

Legend of Mana. I bought a PSOne model to play it years after it came out.

 

[JBear]

God, what a time to be a kid. I played so many PS1 RPGs, and I love them all-- even the ones that everyone hates. (Even at the time, it was cool to hate Beyond the Beyond and Legend of Dragoon, and neither have had a redemption in the public consciousness, but I found both to be charming.) Of course I love the popular, well-loved games, but those have been presevered and remained culturally relevant such they no longer *feel* like PS1 games in a bizarre way. The PS1 era was about an embarrassment of RPG riches, when you could come home with weird shit that no one had heard of and discover a great time.

Anyone who remembers my old forum avatar or my old Let's Play will know that Vandal Hearts is one of my favourite games of all time, even outside of this much narrower scope, and I still think there's never been another game quite like it, with its relative inability to grind, promotion system, and varied creative combat scenarios and objectives, and there's a lot of other all-timers that are high on my list too (Suikoden 2, Star Ocean 2, Tales of Destiny 2 / Eternia), but when I think of the PS1 library and what most sparks joy and transports me back to another time in my life, two titles spring to mind.

I bought an N64 before I bought a PS1, thinking it would be *the* RPG system after the SNES and a very compelling FF tech demo, and boy did I bet on the wrong horse. I stubbornly stuck with my purchase despite the drought of RPGs compared to the PS1's flood, and that resolve lasted right up until the day that my buddy came over with his PS1 and a copy of Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete; I bought my PS1 the very next day and never looked back. To this day, I can sing the boat song and the intro song from memory, and find the latter still to be genuinely uplifting. It reminds me of a time in my life where I was full of optimism and naive innocence, and the only title that surpasses it in that is my current #1: Grandia.

Grandia just *feels* good. It makes me happy. It feels like the platonic ideal RPG: child answers hero's call. It's just suffused with that same optimism and innocence bursting out of every seam. It is a headspace that I want to inhabit, now more than ever. It's like slipping into a warm JRPG bath. Also, its battle system kind of kicks ass? That felt like the genre's best-kept secret at the time, but the Internet has since gotten the memo that turn chart manipulation kicks ass, and it's about time! I spent a lot of years wondering why no one was making games like that until suddenly everybody was (for my money, Star Renegades is the best modern implementation of this mechanic).

Y'know what, I should go replay Geandia right now! It's been far too long since I've hung out with those goofy kids.

 

[Pajaro Pete]

(Even at the time, it was cool to hate Beyond the Beyond and Legend of Dragoon, and neither have had a redemption in the public consciousness, but I found both to be charming.)

Beyond the Beyond found redemption when it was reincarnated as Golden Sun

 

[Issun]

Also, its battle system kind of kicks ass? That felt like the genre's best-kept secret at the time, but the Internet has since gotten the memo that turn chart manipulation kicks ass, and it's about time! I spent a lot of years wondering why no one was making games like that until suddenly everybody was (for my money, Star Renegades is the best modern implementation of this mechanic).

Trails in the Sky took the Grandia battle system and put a new spin on it back in 2004. NA and Europe didn't start getting the franchise until 2011 though, and I think the games' explosion in popularity over the last decade might be why this particular style of battle system has also taken off.

 

[Sarge]

I still want to take the time to learn PSX hacking and "fix" Beyond the Beyond. I'm convinced that a couple of changes would make it a lot more fun: halve the encounter rate, double the EXP and gold, and remove the pause before attacking in battle to speed things up. There's supposed to be some sort of timed hit thing for criticals in that period, but it was incredibly opaque and don't think it really served the game well at all.

 

[Olli]

Gotta be Metal Gear Solid or Final Fantasy 8. Both are great, really.

 

[FelixSH]

There are a lot, but the special ones for me:

Breath of Fire III: I always knew in some way what a JRPG was, and always wanted to play them. No idea why I knew about them, the only RPG I had played for most of my live was Sword of Hope, which is pretty different (thoug hit introduced me to turn-based combat, which I enjoyed a lot - hmm, I liked that game a lot, maybe it was from that one). I think I sometimes saw pictures of RPGs in magazines, and they looked amazing, in this delightful anime style.
BoF III was the first game that was a full-blown, well made JRPG. It looked amazing (and I think it still has great spritework), it had dragons, turn-based battles, I loved it so, so much. Haven't played it in ages, and I have wanted to replay it for a long, long time. Damn, I borrowed it from a friend, when I was in school, around 12, and had so much time to play it - and he sold it, when I was just in the middle of the game. The pain, man. There were other great games he borrowed me (Spyro 1 was the other favourite, what a great game). Anyway, BoF III is sort-of my platonic ideal of a RPG. I adore it.

Final Fantasy VII: This game has so much. Of all of the things. It is overly ambitious, it does so much fun stuff (those minigames), it included so much missable small stuff (some of it probably very expensive, like the FMV of that commercial, that you don't see, if you climb the stairs in Shinra tower), it had hidden characters and a whole continent you could ignore, if you wanted to. It has a story that is incredibly ambitious, and so, so much heart. It talked about real stuff, about a dying world, due to corporate greed. Shinra is still one of the most chilling antagonists in any RPG for me - the company in particular. It has so much in its world- and character-building, exploration of a corporate dystopia from so many angles, it's great. I adore it. And it does, in all its bleakness, have a sense of fun and wonder.

FF IX: Also kinda a platonic ideal of an RPG for me. I love the cast, I love the mood of this game, I love how soft the soundtrack makes it feel, I love the minigames, I love it all. It has a world that I want to dive in, that I want to visit. I don't want to walk around VIIs world, or Spira while it is attacked by Sin. Granted, I don't want to visit it during the days of their world-war, but it seems like a neat place to visit in most other times. Dunno, I love the cast, and just want to hang out there. It's cozy.

Xenogears: I only played this a few years ago (oh, right, at the end of 2019, into 2020). I made a thread about it, because it was so much of everything, even more than FF VII. It's so insanely ambitious in its storytelling, has these amazing sprites, a story with multiple layers and throws around symbols that look important, while not being that. The walrus captain is amazing, as is Chu Chu (crucified and not crucified, I love her, and her race, they are great and adorable). You have amazing storybeats of different kinds - regular amazing, goofy amazing (I'm thinking of the soylent green bit, and the bit where someone uses a special ability with a mobile suit, it kills the guy, and Doc is like "oops, forgot to mention that I created it that way"). I just love the ambition of this game, and how hard and genuinely it tried. How many characters and factions you see, and how many layers you get, before you finally got everything. It left a deep impression on me - it's a mess, but a so, so beautiful one. I love that this thing exists.

There are many more great games. BoF IV, FF VIII, Chrono Cross,... I'm forgetting others. But these four are my favourites, and from them, it's probably Xenogears that left me the fullest. I adore its ambition so much.

 

[jpfriction]

Final Fantasy VII. I’m a basic bitch.

Had a lot of fun with any action RPGs I came across too. Musashi and Alundra are the first ones that pop up.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Front Mission 3. The way Front Mission's combat works isn't as intricate and refined as FFT or Tactics Ogre. But it's streamlined and simplified in a way that I enjoy just as much.

So like, imagine FFT. But instead of D&D, it's Gundam and Patlabor. And instead of one storyline, you get TWO for the price of one, and they're both awesome. FM3 is actually incredible. I'm low key thrilled/terrified for the remake that's supposed to come out next year.

 

[muteKi]

*is zelda an rpg voice* is suzuki bakuhatsu an rpg

 

[Torzelbaum]

FFT

 

[WildcatJF]

Suikoden II here.

Suikoden II was worth the many years I had been hoping to find a means to be able to play it. Its scarcity made a physical copy nearly impossible to procure without a miniature fortune, and I’m not an emulating type (for PS1, at least), so I wasn’t sure if I’d ever have the chance. PSN teased the idea with the release of the original early on, but years passed before Konami and Sony finally issued the game in a digital format via PSN, which I immediately jumped on. In my opinion, there’s some things that paying full price for is well worth the investment, and supporting the re-release of rare games I’m interested in is something I’ll always support.

Anyway! The game itself was great! It’s in most respects a massive improvement over its predecessor, with more great characters, better visuals and music, a stronger and more diverse battle engine, a truly sadistic villain and some pleasant plot twists, more to do with your castle than the last game, and a lot less reliance on keeping certain characters around. I was able to rock my party of Hero, Nanami, Wakaba, Oulan, Tengarr and Eilie through most of it, and when I couldn’t I only had to swap out one to two of those in most cases. I didn’t care so much for the strategy portions (really really watered down Fire Emblem stuff), and that obsession with gambling to progress returned from the last game to spite me again (and it was even touchier here), but otherwise a really strong contender for one of the best RPGs ever made, and easily my choice for the best on the PS1.

Got a lot to catch up on the PS1, though, as I didn't have one as a teenager. Looking to this as a bit of a guide, haha.

 

[Issun]

Got a lot to catch up on the PS1, though, as I didn't have one as a teenager. Looking to this as a bit of a guide, haha.

I know the Switch alone currently has FF7/8/9, Grandia, SaGa Frontier, Legend of Mana and Chrono Cross, all of which are worth playing.

 

[WildcatJF]

I have most of those one way or another, haha. FF as a whole does very little for me, tho.

 

[LBD_Nytetrayn]

Does Mega Man Legends (and its ilk) count?

Because I'm like, 95% sure it's Mega Man Legends.

 

[4-So]

Almost certainly Xenogears or Lunar:SSSC. If we can expand "RPG" outward a bit, I might say Alundra. I like Alundra quite a bit. (I assume Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is not in the spirit of the question but, if so, that one. That one for sure.)

 

[Fyonn]

It's a bit more intensive to play than what I usually revisit, but it's Koudelka. The writing and performances more than make up for the less wieldy parts of the gameplay.