You no nothing of the Mass Effect Series if you think 99.5% of it was great. The game was severely flawed and had massive plot holes and continuity errors not mention one hub world, auto dialogue, destruction of character arcs, the signal mini game, shelving most characters from Mass Effect 2, and that's all before you get to ending. I did like Tuchunka and Ranoch

To the bold:

Cloud comes across as a moper to me and I just don't like it. I haven't played FFVII itself but I have played pretty much everything else he was in and I actually felt little character development happened with him. He kept getting these chances and then refusing to accept them because he was this supposedly great warrior or he felt he had failed in some way and wasn't worth. Just didn't like this at all in him.

As to Sephiroth's devotion, having played Crisis Core I must say his complete devotion has a rather weak background story. He finds out he is a Shinra Experiment for the perfect SOLDIER, finds his "mother" and then decides he is going to continue her original plan to destroy the world.... Wait? At what point did he become so attached to his "mother" that he had to destroy the whole world for her?

Besides ranking Final fantasy VIII and IX so low, the fact that Diablo 3 made the top 100 list at all invalidates it for me.
That game was a cheap cash in compared to its glorious predecessors.

Oh man, I totally can't see a whole bunch of VII fanboys going through and voting for everything VII "just because it was the first big JRPG that most North Americans of a certain age played."

Consider me an impartial observer, since I've played neither VI nor VII (and believe me, I mean to amend that), but I have had both my ears talked off about VII, and suffice to say I don't buy into the hype. Everything about it sounds horrendously clichéd -- and for those of you who will tell me "It invented those clichés," no, definitely not. It was just YOUR first experience with those clichés because you were "a certain age."

You know how I know I'm going to like VI more than VII when I finally get around to playing them? When people rave about VI, they talk first about the GAME. When people talk about VII, they start going on and on about all this JRPG story bull I don't care about. No one has EVER raved about the GAME to me, only the story. And I already know the whole story -- remember when I said both my ears had been talked off? Not an exaggeration.

On-topic, did I see TWEWY at #62 in there? Another I've yet to play, for the record. Still seems off to me.

Final Fantasy 9 only at #88. Ok now i've lost it.

Well, maybe the reason why people talk about the STORY of a JRPG is, because that IS the main point of a JRPG. You expect a game which tells a complex story and shows how the different characters react, feel and think.

If you extract the story from a game, you take away the depth of the game. Thats the main weakness of WRPGS for me. You might have the choice to make decisions and alter the game ending.... but you sacrifice the quality of storytelling.

WRPGs often feel like a sidequests-festival where you got lots of content but its always more of the same. Fetch this, kill that and return. Repeat this 500 times and you got 100 hours of timesink without depth.

You should actually play VII. Very little justice done otherwise in anything outside the main title.

I was under the impression that Chrono Trigger, widely considered one of the greatest JRPGs of all time and one of the most critically acclaimed video games of all time regardless of genre, has multiple endings depending on how you play the game. Surely you're not suggesting that the quality of the storytelling in Chrono Trigger was sacrificed in this way.

Don't make this about WRPGs. I'm comparing two games in the same series. FFVI has a great story, too, from what I've heard -- but everything I've heard about the game isn't how great its story is. All anyone talks about with FFVII is the story, and what I've heard of the story (which is a lot) doesn't sound that amazing.

And no, story is NOT "the main point" of JRPGs. If it was, I wouldn't be playing any. I'd just be watching playthroughs on youtube.

Sure, a JRPG can put more emphasis on story, but if it doesn't have strong gameplay mechanics, it's a lackluster game no matter HOW good its story is. If the game focuses a LOT on story to the point of making gameplay scarce, it's a visual novel, not a JRPG (and that's fine too, for what it's worth).

But it's a moot point, because as I've mentioned, nothing about the story in FFVII makes me think it would be worth playing for 40 hours just to experience something I could read on wikipedia in 10 minutes. Hell, I've aleady spent multiple hours listening to all the ins and outs of FFVII's story explained to me. When I finally play it, that game had better have some damn good mechanics or I'm going to get bored with it before Aerith even dies.

I really hope skyrim isn't anywhere near the top, boring setting and characters, weak story and repetitive gameplay should not make it one of the best rpgs of all time.

Well, i must admit that Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger were initially not released for the SNES in Europe. I have played both games only after they were re-released on the handhelds.

Chrono Trigger had only 1 ending for the first playhtrough. You could only see the other endings on New game +... so the whole story was created as a linear story for the first playthrough.

I don't think that reading a summary of a story is comparable to playing the game. The summary only gives you a brief idea of what is going on, but you miss many things not covered in the summary.

For me, the great JRPGs make you think about a moral dilemma and the characters are there for oyu to see different points of view. Western stories often have a black and white scheme and do not want to make you think about what is going on. They are just more than simple entertainment. Like a theater play they want to change the way you think about moral dilemmas.

Final Fantasy VII For example made you think about environmental problems. Final Fantasy X made you think about the consequences of blind belief. Final Fantasy XII made you think about the impact of powerful weapons like the use of atomic bombs. Final Fantasy XIII made you think about the effects of Propanda...

They all share deep and complex moral dilemmas that you are not confronted with in "normal games". Sophistiacted JRPGs even left the hero vs. villain scheme and tried to deliver characters of equal importance. And the villains are not just pure evil, they all have their own motivations. Also games like Grandia or Suikoden have their own focuses on moral topics.

If you reduce these games to the simple gameplay mechanics, you lose a lot of what they are meant to be. Sure, if the gameplay is atrocious, you would probably stop playing. Thinking about what is going on or why certain characters are acting like they do is just part of the fun. Maybe that is why modern JRPGs like Final Fantasy XII or Final Fantasy XIII are often criticised for their stories... because you can't just passively watch them. You have to put in some thinking and memorizing.

It is just a matter of preference. For me Oblivion was the most boring RPG that I have ever played. You have the gameplay and you have the content, but without a good main story the whole game felt like a waste of time. I was missing something that wanted me to keep playing. I want to see what will happen next... In Oblivion the "next" thing is just a stupid sidequest or a randomly generated dungeon because the main story was just uninspired and boring.

Well, perhaps you should just avoid FF7. You already made your mind about the game and I don't think that you will enjoy it properly. The Materia system was interesting, but Final Fantasy games are seldom a real challenge. Most FFs have a good combo that makes the whole game all too easy... but as I said the story is the real focus of a good JRPG.