Overall: Skies of Arcadia - it offers a beautiful world with lots of interesting places to travel and people to meet. Lots of treasure to hunt, and discoveries to be made. Atmospherically, it is like a heavily expanded Kingdom of Zeal from Chrono Trigger.

ATB - Final Fantasy 8, offers an incredible variety of Steam and Cyber punk locals - MANY great towns and places, maybe as many or more than FF4, 6, 7, and 10 combined. A character advancement system with lots of variety - and many different paths and options to take. Also, linking level and skill advancement to GFs fixed the age old problem of worrying about which characters to develop xp-wise.

Turn based - Dragon Quest 5, this was difficult because I love Earthbound so much too. DQ7 starts you off as a 6 year old kid. You follow his life through until adult years, choosing a wife, and then having kids of your own who you can take out as party members to Fight with.

Strategy - Fire Emblem DS, three stories with many different options. It has a great story overall, and the makings of a great strategy game.

Action - Terranigma, I like this one best because it doesn't sell out the RPG component to make the game's appeal based on action elements like many US developed RPGs nowadays. You essentially rebuild the world from ruin, go through the evolution of animals, and then civilization; build up hamlets to thriving cities by completing various quests. This game is a clear winner in the action RPG genre, in my opinion.

I have 3 favorites

Console: Lunar Silver Star Story + Lunar Eternal Blue (PSX version for both)

Computer: Baldurs Gate 2, why did the story have to end??? That game was the best.

It annoys me game arts remade Lunar 1 for the PSP but they didnt remade Lunar 2. Lunar 2 is my favorite one. :(

There is but one true answer to that question

MASS EFFECT

Altough Dragon Age is worth mentioning

vagrant story

There are way too many fantastic RPGs to pick just one on from just the PS1

Final Fantasy Tactics, Saga Frontier, Legend of Mana, Front Mission 3, Breath of Fire 3, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Wild Arms 2, Star Ocean 2, Threads of Fate, Jade Cacoon, Parasite Eve, Azure Dreams, Guardian's Crusade, Tales of Destiny 2, Legend of Dragoon, Chocobo's Dungeon, Grandia, etc.

Throw in SNES, PS2, PSP, and PC libraries and you will be sifting for weeks trying to figure out which one seems better than the other, but they are all so different... so on and so forth.

I do think I would be amazing if a developer took the best elements from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Ragnarok Online, and Torchlight 2 and made the best RPG ever imaginable! :D

Xenogears is the greatest RPG ever thought of. It has the greatest story I've ever experienced in a game period, and THREE battle systems!

I love Pokemon!! That and Skyrim. Those are all I play anymore.

well, it's not the ultimate rpg, but I've been playing Two Worlds 2 lately and it is not that bad. The voice-acting, in french, is really bad sometimes but aside from that, I am having fun.

Chrono Trigger.
Every place feels alive, even though most of them have feel people. Every character is memorable. Battle system is awesome.

Oh and the soundtrack. By God, the soundtrack. Is there a single wasted song in that game? I think not.