Best story-wise JRPG?

[kupomogli]

You're not going to find too much last gen that's had good story. For games released last gen with decent writing for the storylines, I'd say the Atelier games and Tales of Graces F. White Knight Chronicles 2 also wasn't really boring, but nothing special. The Neptunia games have so so, about half/half. Some games that had mediocre, boring, or poorly written storylines would be Ni No Kuni, Final Fantasy 13, Dragon's Dogma, Dragon's Crown, and Star Ocean the Last Hope.

None of this is based on gameplay though. While the Atelier games might have some good character development, the gameplay is less RPG like and more time management, so you might not even like the game. The Neptunia games aren't good, so whatever enjoyment you get out of the games will come from some of the character dialogue here and there, but certainly not the gameplay. Dragon's Crown and Dragon's Dogma are good, but the storyline and writing is so boring it would put you to sleep. Thankfully the story on Dragon's Crown and extremely short and it's mostly gameplay.

Games this gen, Persona 4(and a previous gen) is less gameplay mostly story and character development, SMT4 is less story, more gameplay. SMT4 has a great storyline though and some of the best writing and character development in a video game. Soul Sacrifice which only has RPG elements, has a lot of text but a ridiculously poor and extremely boring storyline, especially in execution.

In gens prior to last, I think there are a lot of JRPGs with good story and gameplay though. Xenogears, Xenosaga 1 and 3, Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling Together, and Final Fantasy Tactics are a few of the very best storylines in JRPGs. But other games with good stories are the Suikoden series, Wild ARMs series, Legend of Legaia and Legaia 2, Tales series, etc.

Most PSX JRPGs had good storylines, a good portion of PS2, SNES, Genesis, Sega CD, and all versions of Gameboy as well.