Valkyria Chronicles, and the FF7 saga.

Xenogears

Lost odyssey or Tales of symphonia. Maybe even xenogears though it didn't get to finish completely episode 3 was still a good ending imo.

Super Mario RPG.


No seriously... it took Square to give us the first Mario game where Bowser isn't the main bad guy and the story doesn't revolve around rescuing Princess Toadstool for the millionth time.

I can't disagree with you. There are lot of games that crossed my mind when I read the thread title, but Lost Odyssey certainly stands out. They really did an excellent job with the characters. The thosand years dreams were exceptionally well written. Also, it was great to play a RPG that wasn't a "kids save the world" story.

Ahh yes ff10 as well.

Persona 4 though I will admit that it's more the incredible and down to earth characterization of the characters that I love than the plot, though that is well done, too.

The world ends with you, then again, that's the only JRPG I really fell in love with, I really like Xenoblade and crisis core and have tried playing older final fantasies like 6 7 and 4 (of which i liked 4 the most, but it was that psp remake). Guess i'm just not a traditional JRPG person, I love the art style it those types of games though, only reason i'm playing ff13 atm, I really hope i can find an JRPG to love someday.

Tough choice, I really like both FFX (my fave game) and FFXII's story.

Xenogears, I'd say. It's convoluted, but at least it's self-contained and can be figured out. It's not missing any important pieces. The only problem is how the plot was more ambitious than what Square-Enix could realistically pull off at the time, so some of the storytelling in the game (I'm looking at you, disc 2) is less than ideal.

It's far better than Xenosaga. I still can't wrap my head around Xenosaga... not really because it's convoluted, but rather because it's somehow much more ridiculous.

Xenoblade's plot is comparatively simple, though the ending is quite the curve ball. I'm still not sure what I feel about the ending, but the plot as a whole gets massive points for the game world alone. And actually delivering on the potential of its world.

Nothing really holds a candle to Xenogears, plot-wise, although there are still plenty of JRPGs with great storylines. And it's not like Xenogears has the best gameplay of any PS1 RPG (Grandia for life).