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4y ago

Hexbear Recommends

What are the best Turn Based RPGs ever made?

Decades:

70s , 80s , 90s , 00s , 10s

Genres:

2D Platformers

Bullet Hell / 2D Shooters

First Person Shooters

Welcome back. This part of the series will be primarily focusing on genres. So far I have [Action RPG, Board Game, Tabletop RPG, Arcade Game, Third person shooter, MMO, Action, 4X (Civilization-like), 3D Platformer, Dungeon Crawler, Card Game, Point and click, Indie, Text dungeon, Souls-like, Stealth, Rhythm, Horror, Metroidvania, Survival, Sandbox, Shoot/beat 'em up, City Builder, Adventure, Simulation, Puzzle, Fighting, MOBA, Turn Based Strategy, Real Time Tactics, Grand Strategy, Mobile Phone, Walking simulator, Tower Defense, Sports, Idle, Trivia, Miscellaneous, and Casual] as available genres. Let me know if I missed something, and I will try to get it added.

This is eventually all going to get compiled into one megathread for people who want gaming recommendations from Chapos specifically. Other consoles and genres will come in sporadic subsequent threads. Please contribute to previous threads if you missed them. This is meant to be an exhaustive list.

Expanding on your choice(s) is definitely a plus. Not everyone knows about or has played non-mainstream titles.

82 comments

Chrono Trigger still holds the crown for best of all time for me. The first half of Chrono Cross is excellent as well.
- chrono cross has my favorite score on the ps1 probably. one of my top fav of all time regardless. Introduced me to 9th chords.

Fallout 1 and 2 are so good.

Shining Force 2
Final Fantasy VI
Persona 5
Legend of Dragoon
Wild Arms
Shadowrun: Dragonfall
Divinity: Original Sin
Dunno if it fits but
Valkyria Chronicles
- Shadowrun Dragonfall is soooo good
  Hong Kong is great too
  
  Agreed, I would also recommend some mods of Hong Kong. The Caldecott Caper and Calfree in Chains are really good mods. There's also the Antumbra saga for Dragonfall, which is good as well, same creator as the other two, just less polished.
- What makes you like DOS1 more than 2?
  
  Not played 2 yet, it's on The List™

Dungeons and Dragons

Would Disco Elysium count here? Avadon: The Black Fortress Shadowrun: Hong Kong

Super paper mario - underrated as hell
- It's a good game but it's not turn-based, right?

I'm assuming turn based strategy will be a later one, I'll dump tactical RPGs there, since it's probably my favorite subgenre. Also I've realised I really don't like a lot of RPGs that I really enjoyed when I was younger cause the combat generally no longer does it for me, so most of this is about if the story can make up for it.
Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals is probably my GOAT. It's got it all, Zelda style puzzle dungeons, monster raising, decent degree of character customization, a 99 floor randomly generated Roguelike style dungeon AND a good story. This game is like, crazy good and doesn't get nearly the praise it deserves.
The rest are classics that I'm sure others will post
Mother 3
Earthbound
Chrono Trigger
Final Fantasy 6
Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga
And since I don't really know where else to put it, Tales of Symphonic. It's a turn based RPG in all ways except it isn't turn based. Battles play like a 2d fighting game with the x plane changing based on which enemy is being targeted. You can set party AI as well as pausing to make them cast spells when need be. The story starts off pretty typical anime (and stays super anime) but it twists hard around the 1/4 point. Character building is unique and interesting. It's also really really long, like took me about 70 hours to beat the first time through and I missed a lot
- I got to play Tales of Symphonia with some friends on gamecube was alot of fun, I loved the monk guy who was chained.
  
  Oh yeah, forgot to mention the multiplayer angle. Monk guy is like the Jeff Bezos of that world but waddaya do?

XCOM series and Xenonauts.
Not really RPGs these are like the only turn based games I liked :(
Maybe add a turn based strategy genre?
- Maybe add a turn based strategy genre?
  Whoops, missed that one

Pathfinder kingmaker released a turn based mode in an update a while back that was pretty good.

It's only part turn-based, and it's not like the best by far, but the Might and Magic series is extremely fun even today (especially MM6, MM7, and MM8).

Everyone has pretty much already stated my favorites but i wanted to add:
ff9 is the best final fantasy, dont @ me.
and also I really like Super Mario Bros RPG but it may have aged a little poorly/some of the more recent mario rpgs may do the job better.
- Super Mario Bros RPG was my life as a kid
  
  i've probably beat it more than any other game lol at least 8 times
- Mario RPG on SNES is my favorite. Its worth an emulated play.

pokemon gen 4 (specifically HGSS)
persona 5
shin megami tensei devil survivor overclocked for the nintendo 3ds
Divinity Original Sin 2
mother 3 is maybe the GOAT?

Mother 3 - Art

Darkest Dungeon. Brutally fun game. Once you figure out how mitigate what most people called RNG and disliked about it, it's a very rewarding game. Also you can play as safe or as greedy as you personally want, which is very nice when you're feeling confident or need to earn some quick cash in the early game and don't care about your Leper getting 2 different diseases and crazy quirks cause you're gonna just dismiss them anyways. The art is one of the best I've ever seen in a game. The NARRATOR ABSOLUTELY KILLS IT in this game, Wayne June has a voice of a god. Good progression system, interesting game play and most of all: it's hard af but in a good way. I like games with strategy like DD, figuring out when to stress heal, when to go all in, when to play super defensive, knowing who to kill first or last. The boss and mini boss fights are usually pretty unique for the game. I loved the idea of "the collector" randomly showing up if you're playing super greedy—something you need to be aware of if you're playing fast and loose. Oh and the ending made me well up a little bit ngl (houndmaster ending!!!!!!)

Both South Park games are really well made. One is more party turn based (The Stick of Truth) and the other is more of a tactics turn-based game (The Fractured But Whole)
If you're into the humor (particularly nostalgia if you watched South Park growing up) they honestly took a really careful approach to both games to making sure the gameplay is fun and rewarding. And there's no microtransactions or any other bullshit that you might expect from something based off of a television show.
- I've only played the first one, but goddamn is it a fun game. Barely any over the top CHUDy shit, jokes almost as funny as Book of Mormon, and a surprisingly decent combat / exploration system that didn't make me want to put a nail in my forehead.
- The second one feels a bit rushed in the second half gameplay wise. Story and cutscenes stay consistent though

Best turn-based RPG of all time: Lisa the Painful.
It's funny as hell, decently hard, and the gameplay and story integrate seamlessly in a way that most turn-based RPGs completely fail to do. It's got a dark and memorable story about addiction, violence, and mental iillness. It's even got Terry Hintz (CW: Terry is extremely handsome)!

The Phantasy Star games take kind of a backseat to Final Fantasy, but they're still pretty great. Phantasy Star IV is probably the best in the series.

The Etrian Odyssey games are amazing especially the 3Ds ones. They do rely heavily on having two screens though and i am not sure if they can be emulated. They are first person dungeon crawlers that can be brutally difficult. You create your own party with 5 members from like 15 different classes, order them in front row and back row and go. i would recommend the fourth entry to start.
Else I would recommend the pkmn mystery dungeon games, especially explorers of sky. Those can easily be emulated.

They aren't THE best of all time, but Shin Megami Tensei 4 and SMT4 Apocalypse are both really good (I tend to view them as a package deal). Never got into Nocturne, though, and that's supposed to be SMT's high point (for anyone who didn't know, they're remaking Nocturne for the Switch)
- Holy shit they're remaking nocturne?! Fuck yeah!

Bravely Default was one of my all time favourite RPGs. A GOAT soundtrack (@ me, I dare you), solid writing with minimal anime tropes, and characters that are all distinct and likeable. The tension is tangible but not all encompassing and the Brave Point system is one of the best innovations in Turnbased RPGs and 8Path Traveler's variation on it just isn't as good. Point Debt is good actually.
Bravely Second wasn't as good. They changed composers dropping the lietmotifs in the transition. The writing also took a bit of a dive, the Ba'al Busters could have been called anything else. Also nothing has ripped me out of a moment faster than when they turned the camera on. My disbelief was suspended you fucks, don't show me my face in that moment.

There are so many that I'll probably forget some, but:
Final fantasy 4,6,7,9,15
Chrono Trigger
Bravely Default
SMT 1,2, 3 and Strange Journey
Persona 3,4,5
Earthbound
Mother 3
Pokemon
Xenoblade Chronicles
Some of the Mario ones are pretty rad too.

Bravely Default and Bravely Second!! Those are my favorite battle systems

Pokemon, c'mon Jack.

so i really love the disgaea series purely on my love of watching numbers get bigger and bigger but it is more of a turn based strategy rpg mix, on pure rpg
ni no kuni is just a lovely rpg with ghibli studio animation and it rules i love it
yakuza 7 is basically a dragon quest game but you are a yakuza
shin megami tensei games are good they are bit weird but it is fine don't worry about it, just bribe monsters, it is fine.

What are the best Turn Based RPGs ~~ever made~~ on the PS1?
Chrono Cross - Successor in name only to the extremely top-shelf old Chrono Trigger, but still a very good game in its own right
Suikoden II - The first was OK. The second is not to be missed (it also lets you walk diagonally!!)
Parasite Eve - Lack of Ｓｙｓｔｅｍｓ may be considered a plus or a minus, but it's got style & has held up well
Persona I & II - MegaTen debuted in America on the PS1 and it's good (but also grindy)
Vandal Hearts - Konami's game that did the SRPG pixels+polygons thing before FFT. Simple, with great sound. (The second was v bad.)
Star Ocean : Second Story - Good story, good systems, good combat, atrocious English dub.
Wild Arms - Overall good, but the bad combat CG might push it over the edge into 'heads only'
Kartia - Good Fatlus SRPG.
Working Designs was in high dudgeon, even if most of their PS1 stuff was 16-bit ports.
Obvs any Final Fantasy game on this system is good.
- I loved Suikoden 1 and 2. I bought the first one in the bargin bin when I was like 12 and it was the first JRPG i ever played and took months to finish but it was badass. I got super into JRPGs thanks to that game. Pretty okay story but great characters, awesome music and I liked the way it looked. Collecting all the stars of destiny (characters that can be added to your party/castle) was a lot of fun.
  
  Yeah watching the janky old castle get fancied up as you gather your crew was extremely good. Combined with the mass battles with that different combat system between story arcs, it just made the game feel so huge. The first one also might've been the very last title ever where the American publisher tried to conceal the game's Japanese-ness with a thick layer of 1970s Boris Vallejo/Franz Frazetta promo art.

Big fans of the Shadowrun Returns games (Returns, Dragonfall, and Hong Kong). If it counts, Pathfinder: Kingmaker is pretty fun (it can be turn based or real time with pause). I very much enjoyed Expiditions: Viking, Conquistador is okay but less good. If Darkest Dungeon or Mordheim: City of the Damned count those are both good (very different). Also: Warsaw, which is similar to Darkest Dungeon but the polish resistance.

BG2 or planescape torment for me.

Heroscape

Yo where are the flash games in this thread? Mardek and the Epic Battle Fantasy series were both classics and top notch. Fucking love the both of them and I was really hoping someone else would bring them up here