If you liked Final Fantasy VII then one of the best RPG's is on the PSP. Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core. This game completely spoiled me for gaming for a while because nothing else looked promising afterwards. While the battle system isn't terrific the story is absolutely top notch. I have never cried while playing a game, but this one had me crying and cursing Square Enix when it ended, and just hearing the music afterwards made me feel sad. It was great! :P



Oh me too! I love Tales games. Symphonia was such a sweet little rip off of FFX in the beginning but developed into a really great game. I haven't gotten the sequel yet though.

The first RPG I played was Dragon Warrior. I wouldn't say I was hooked until Final Fantasy though, which was a far more complicated and fun experience (the PSX port remains one of my favorite games. Sure it's basic, but there are so many different ways to go through the game!).

I'm currently playing Star Ocean: Second Evolution, which is a fairly nice upgraded port from the PSX version (which happened to be my favorite PSX RPG other than maybe Valkyrie Profile). My most recently finished RPG was Ar Tonelico II, which other than the completely awful localization was totally awesome.

I'm sort of torn though because I don't know if I should pick up a Nintendo DS or an Xbox 360 first (I'm missing so many awesome RPGs. Sure the PSP has some good ones like hopefully the Growlanser port in the future, but there are so many good ones I can't play yet due to not getting more into the current generation of systems). /sigh

To this day, the Lunar series (Lunar Silver Star Story and Lunar Eternal Blue... along with all of the terrible remakes released since lol) remain my favorite games of all time. Technically these are very subpar RPGs but the story remains one of the best that I've played through.

I miss getting into RPGs, I picked up the Star Ocean series at one point but never got around to actually finishing it.

How was Star Ocean? I have wanted to try that one for a while but never got around to it.

The first one's fairly basic. It's only around 25 hours (more like 15 if you ignore optional content). The plot's pretty poor compared to comparable SNES games and while the remake does add a few interesting tidbits, it isn't a huge leap up. The combat system is rather nice, but because the game is so easy that you won't appreciate it too much (although there is a set of saves from a fan that unlocks two additional difficulties).

Some people seem to like it a lot though, so I'm not sure what they liked in it compared to the sequels (I much preferred the second and third to it in that order).

So it's more like a FF/Xenosaga style game play?

I got about halfway through Star Ocean IV and found the game to be a very enjoyable experience. Most of the cut scenes are noticably less than perfect but in terms of story, game play, music, etc it was well worth my time.

The battle is real time using various button combos to unleash your various special attacks (which you will become increasingly dependent on naturally). I found this to be a bit of a bother since when I'm battling a boss the last thing I want to be thinking about is making sure I'm hitting the right button pattern at the right split second to dodge that fatal boss offensive. Unfortunately my exp with next gen RPGs is limited so I can't find a proper comparison.

Yes and no. Yes in that the remakes and recent titles take up a narrative style similar to Xenosaga (though to a much smaller scale). No in that the battle system is most similar to the Tales of series (it's a little bit less active than the Tales of series but is quite similar).

Im getting a Nintendo DS this week just for a few RPG's on it namely the release of the new Suikoden on DS this month i have beaten all the Suikoden's in the series and i don't plan on missing one.

Also Fallout 3 has taken a good chunk out of my life i have beaten that game 6 times now and my current character has over 100+ hrs played.

And Stefanie did you know there releasing FF XIII on 360 its no longer a PS3 exclusive and that was one of the only games currently that made me want to buy a PS3 but i already have a 360 and now i don't see the point lol.

While this is true, Versus is still just for PS3 and so far looks more promising from what little has been shown. Besides, I have a feeling FF XIII is going to be like a 6 DVD game or something...

Having said that, I know that with the announcement there isn't really something that makes me want to get a PS3 beyond the Blu-ray compatibility, at least for now.