The Golden age of JRPGs the PS1, are they worth going back into ? part 1

Over the years I have played many JRPGs, this and the PSP are probably the system that I played most with, using emulators of course, today I am going to talk about them, and tell about my personal history with those games.

So let's start with introducing myself and my relationship with, I was born in January of 2005 long after the PS1 era, but I was always found of retro gaming, in early 2020 I started playing JRPGs, coincidentally it was around the same time as the pandemic started, I hated watching online classes so I just started skipping them to play video games instead, which means I had a lot of time to play these JRPGs,that I felt in love with.

It's important to point it out that my relationship with those games are much different from most people who played them, because of the circumstance that I first played them are very different from people who played them in the 90's, specially with emulation features and the internet to help me play them.

I am going to talk about them from bottom to top and explain my reasons to rate them like I did, also if a JRPG is missing that's because I didn't play it.

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E Tier​

Goujin Senki​

If you look up this game on Google the first thing you will find is a reddit post made by me, a mini review of this game when it's fan translation just came out, and to quote myself from this review:

While I am glad it received a Fan translation, I personally think it's one of the worst PS1 RPG, with very few redeeming quality that are massively outweight by it's weakenes, do yourself a favour and stay away from this game.

I don't think I have to say any more than this, easly the worst game here, I might repost this review here if anyone is curious about it.

Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth​

If you look online in the list of worst PS1 JRPGs you will certainly find this game in those list, despite that I thought to myself "Nah this people are wrong, this game doesn't look that bad, I am going to play it myself" , but no these people are right you shouldn't play this game.

Firstly the battle system is painfully slow, not only because the animations are slow but also because you need to press X around 5 times for any actions, it's menus are clunky to use (but spoiler it's not the worst on this tierlist), the story is whatever and the music is simply embarrassing to listen, I remember when I was playing this game and my brother entered my room and listen to this game's music , and his reaction was like "What the hell are you playing ?" with a really weird out face.

the music in question was this one I believe

Arc the Lad 1​

All PS1 Arc the lad games came on the Arc the lad collection but I am rating this game and Arc the lad 3 separably, I really dislike this game, the story is poorly written with no character development and no reason to care about the world despite being a generic the world is dying plot, the game is really grinding despite being really short, because if the game wasn't gridy it would be only 5 hours long instead of 10.

This is why I skipped from Arc the lad 2 to Arc the lad 3 because I heard it's better than the original dualogy.

Guardian Cruseders​

This one is probaly unfair to put here because I only played it for 5 minutes, the reason why I played it for a small length of time is because the camera of this game was so terrible that gave me headache in the first 5 minutes of game, not a good first impression.

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D Tier​

Beyond the Beyond​

In the lower tiers we will find a lot of cookie cutter JRPGs that I don't remeber next to nothing about besides being mediocre, Beyond the Beyond is such the case, the only thing memorable about it is the title which is I find it funny but also stupid, what does Beyond the Beyond mean anyway? Beyond the Beyond feals more like a Si-fi thing, not fantasy medival.

Eternal Eyes​

Cookie cutter
Mediocre
Not memorable
but at least you have cute monsters

Thousand Arms​

Cookie cutter
Mediocre
Not memorable
but at least you have to date cute anime girls.

The Legend of Dragoon​

I know this one is going to be controversial, a lot of people have nostalgia for it, but I don't, Firstly I hate games that have mid battle QTE (With the exception of Shadow Hearts) , the story is very predicatable, and feels like something that I have already seen before, the english translation was also bad, and I hate the high encounter rate with inventory limit, I know there's a hack on the ripo that fix some of these issues, but if someone doesn't remove the QTEs I am not going to revit it.

Arc the Lad 3​

While it's true that this game is better than Arc the Lad 1 it's not better enough to be a good game, just slightly less bad, It feels like a poor mans Trails in the sky but in a post apocalyptic setting, the dinamic between the main characters feels a lot like the one between Stela and Joshua the difference being is that the writter didn't wrote characters, they wrote sterotypes in with a story that nothing signafic happens for 30 hours, the battle system is slow and adds nothing intersing to the RPG formula.

Wild Arms 1 and 2.​

I know this is also going to be controversial but I don't like these games , I tried to enjoy them I really did but they aren't for me, I found runnig and exploring in these games to be really annoying but worse is that I didn't like any of the characters or stories either, the Western setting feals like it was put there to make it different from other JRPG of the era because it doesn't add anything interesting to those games.

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C tier​

This one is going to be controversial.

Lunar Silver star​

Lunar is not a bad game, but I couldn't enjoy it like many other JRPG fans I am sorry, I just can't enjoy it, it doesn't do anything extreamly wrong, C tier is for games that I don't dislike but I don't enjoy them enought to I like them, Lunar represent that perfectly, it didn't anything for me to continue playing.

Tho it's important to meantion I first play it with the unworking desing patch because someone recomended me to play this game with it, so I had a very different first impression than most people.

Vagrant Story​

As I said I don't games with QTE in mid combat and this game has that, not only that but as you will se soon I am not a fan of Ivalice games, or Yasumi Matsuno style of writting too, and this game has a lot of things that I generally don't like, but I can see a lot of love was put into it, and I can see why some love it.

Final Fantasy Tatics and Tatics Ogree​

I am going to put them tougher because they share a lot, including my issues with them, The story has a lot of interisting stuff going on but I don't like how they present themself and how they are paced, they just throw a bunch of complex in world terminoly and expect you to undertand them, Final Fantasy Tatics in special, it's hard to undertand the story when the game doesn't explain the world to you and just throw you in the middle of the plot what is worst is that the game devolves into a fantasy slop in the final chapters instead of staying in it's political drama plot.

but what kills it for me is the gameplay, I dislike SRPG that are based around level grind and class, it doesn't fit the SRPG Genre, because it's battles are slower than regular RPG, and having to fight a lot of non important fights in SRPG is just tiresome, at this point is not a game about strategy but a game of power grind and numbers, which at this point why not just make it a regular JRPG ?

This is the reason why all SRPG on the higher tier either have limted to no grind or are just easy games where the gameplay is secondary.

Langrisser 4​

This is a Japan only game that got a fan translation, I don't remeber much about it, besides thinking it's alright but not enjoying it enough to play more than a few chapter and disliking how many units were on screen.

Front Mission 3​

I just don't like mech games, I know there's a mech SRPG higher in the list but when we get there I will explain why, in the case of Front mission 3 and the Front mission series in general, there's a lot of good stuff about them, I love the music and stories of the series, but gameplay is king for me and in the case of Front mission I just don't like their battle system, it's just a game of equiping your mech with the right equipament for the mission and slowly shooting everything on your path, I get the plea but this kind of SRPG is just not for me, I just wish I like this game more because outside of the gameplay I really like them, Hell I even like that wierd Left Alive spin-off and no one else does.

Kartia​

I know it might seem like I have a thing against SRPG, and honestly depeading on how you look at it, this might be true, but I just belive that many SRPG made in the 90's and early 00's are mediocre, specially because of slow animations, with that said I also think SRPG should be desing around not being able to grind, which exclude game that are inspired by FFT or Disgea like games, this includes many SRPG but I still like the Genre because of Fire Embleam and games like it.

Long tangent aside, Kartia has a lot of good things going for it, an interesting story, Great art style , intersting gaming mechanics, and it doesn't allow for Grind like I rant about above but there's one single thing that ruins the game for me, that being it's menues , it's just painfull to use, it feals more backward to use than NES games somehow, what's worst is that it could be easily a Great game otherwise.

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B Tier​

I know there was a lot of negativity in the other tier but from now on, only good games will appear, they might not be for everyone but games from B and above I can recomend to anyone interested into playing these games.

Final Fantasy Viii​

The game is a mess (So much for being positve only 2 lines above) but I like it, outside of the OST, which is amezing, everything about it is something that I simultaneously like but also dislike.

What I mean about that is that while I do the story of the first disk having a lot of interesting world building, and political drama, while the other disk having batshit insane story that I love for how insane it's, like the love scene in space, I dislike how the story goes from interesting and somewhat belivable into a bunch of nonsense, that while fun to watch makes no sense and feals like a wasted potencial.

Same applyes to the gameplay I love that it tried something different, but I hate how unpolished and unbalanced it is, at the very least it's fun to see how people break the game on disk one.

Star ocean 2​

I like it's story and characters even if they are somewhat tipical for a JRPG, I also really like how the game looks, but the reason why it's not higher is because I hate it's battle system, I hate the semi-automatic system in early Tales of and Star ocean games, It just feal horrible to play and I can't discribe why, maybe the remake fixed that but I never tried it.

Ecsaform​

This is another Japan only games that got fan translation around 2 years ago, similary to Goujin Senki, I also made a review of it on Reddit when the translation came out and here is the important parts from it, tho I might repost it here if there's any interest.

"The Gameplay is definitively the best thing about it"
"Everything is extemly undercooked, scenes that should have being at least 5 minuts long are just 2 text boxes, which makes for a very poor plot"
"While I enjoy my time, I wouldn't recommend it to most people, it flaws make this a very unmemorable game, that was forgotten for a reason, but if you feel like playing a short(only 17 hours long) and easy SRPG or feel like playing a new PS1 JRPG that you hadn't played before, you might enjoy it."

Grandia 1​

It was a game that I played in early 2020 for the first time, I played it in the begin of the pandemic, while I enjoyed my time with it, the game has terrible pace and it feals like it takes forever to beat, the gameplay is really fun to mess around with specially the magic system which is really fun to grind for, and the story is cute, but after playing so many better games I can't place it higher.

Xenosaga​

This was actually the first game that I played in 2020, when the pandemic was an thing only affecting Asia, It's undeniable that it does a lot of things right, but why isn't it an S tier game ?

First, while the story is well writen disk 1 feals too slow for me, while I am ok with Human battle besides having to memorise late game elemental attacks, I hate Mech battles and I hate how they become so much important in the late game, not to meantion that platform tower on disc 1 and the entirity of Disc 2.

Vandal Hearts 2​

I also don't remeber much about it besides it's interesting story about nobility and war, and the battle system haivng the simultaneous moviment thing, which while a good idea I don't think it works on pratice, but I also don't felt compaled to play this game to the end, like the first game.

Breath of Fire 3​

The minigames, like the desert one and the one trying to get a thing in a watering hole kill this game for me, the story is good and the battle system is alright buy BOF 4 does it better, I know a lot of people love this game but I just like it.

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This post got too big LOL, and I have to divide it into 2 parts, see you again soon.​

Next post will be Tiers A to S and the conclusion.

 

[DeeboDeebo's icon]

0/10 dogshit taste.

Okay I didn’t initially want to reply to this simultaneously mild and nasty remark, but I’m kind of dying over the fact this user joined Valentine’s Day of this year and had posted NOTHING until this.

But be nice! Okay? Being a hater is a big responsibility and you still have a lot to learn

 

[Ain_Gamer]

Yes FF tactics is a bit annoying my problem is the story like in other FF games you spend more time with charcters you walk around towns speak with people etc , the game removes a lot of that element so the story falls a bit shorter than what it should , on the "chapter 4 goes full Fantasy slop" the game has FANTASY in its name bro like come on.... I would have liked to see more of delita and more of mustadio.

I should had made it clear that my issue with FFT story is not that it is fantasy slop but rather that it becomes one half way in to the game, if it was one from the start I wouldn't have issues with this if it was "fantasy slop" from the start in fact it might be a better game if it was like that.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

I should had made it clear that my issue with FFT story is not that it is fantasy slop but rather that it becomes one half way in to the game, if it was one from the start I wouldn't have issues with this if it was "fantasy slop" from the start in fact it might be a better game if it was like that.

I actually understand that part....the game was slowly building up to the fantasy stuff or so i saw at least

 

[Strategist's iconStrategist]

I should had made it clear that my issue with FFT story is not that it is fantasy slop but rather that it becomes one half way in to the game, if it was one from the start I wouldn't have issues with this if it was "fantasy slop" from the start in fact it might be a better game if it was like that.

I disagree with the fantasy slop characterization and that's where the element of time comes in. At the time the story of Final Fantasy Tactics wasn't as played out as it was nowadays. A plot from the church to revive evil gods wasn't as commonplace. Actually, I'd say it still isn't that common to portray the Church as the antagonists in video games. And regardless, from the beginning the Church is being set up as the antagonist and the force behind the throne. The zodiac stones are established early on, the subtitle of the game is the "zodiac brave story" so to say it comes out of nowhere is misleading. Maybe the payoff is a bit underwhelming but it doesn't change that most of the journey was great. And the post credits scene is one of the greatest scenes in all of video games, IMO.

 

[MemeAlert]

I would move Final Fantasy Tactics up the list, also they're action commands not QTEs. Why is Racing Lagoon on this list, its a racing game?

 

[CG4R12I4N]

>Born past the golden era of JRPG
>make controversial tierlist that oppose the actual PSX JRPG era grewups
Placing Vandal Hearts above Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre and Front Mission 3 alone is already a heresy of the highest order, I don't even need to see any more.
This list is clearly for people who prefer graphics and artstyle over everything else.

Also not that related to the post, but I'm tired of people who diss some JRPGs with the excuse of "muh QTE slop", guarantee 9/10 those people never actually played them in the first place. Action Commands are very much different from Quick Time Events, AC basically force you to press the buttons to be more like pseudo-rhythm games as they integrate into the gameplay and if you miss it you suffer quite a penalty in the system, while QTE only happened in event cutscenes separate from gameplay and usually missing it gives little to no repercussions whatsoever because they're not much tied to the gameplay in the first place.
Like, The Legend of Dragoon actually has a very lenient rhythm timing almost similiar to Mario RPGs (they're made by the same combat designer) for most of the attacks I'd say they're even easier to learn than Shadow Hearts randomspeed ring system.

 

[Strategist's iconStrategist]

>Born past the golden era of JRPG
>make controversial tierlist that oppose the actual PSX JRPG era grewups
Placing Vandal Hearts above Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre and Front Mission 3 alone is already a heresy of the highest order, I don't even need to see any more.
This list is clearly for people who prefer graphics and artstyle over everything else.

Also not that related to the post, but I'm tired of people who diss some JRPGs with the excuse of "muh QTE slop", guarantee 9/10 those people never actually played them in the first place. Action Commands are very much different from Quick Time Events, AC basically force you to press the buttons to be more like pseudo-rhythm games as they integrate into the gameplay and if you miss it you suffer quite a penalty in the system, while QTE only happened in event cutscenes separate from gameplay and usually missing it gives little to no repercussions whatsoever because they're not much tied to the gameplay in the first place.
Like, The Legend of Dragoon actually has a very lenient rhythm timing almost similiar to Mario RPGs (they're made by the same combat designer) for most of the attacks I'd say they're even easier to learn than Shadow Hearts randomspeed ring system.

Even saying QTE equals bad is lazy. I agree that a game filled with QTE's can be bad or having QTE's interrupt dramatic cutscenes is annoying, but they also can be used in positive ways.

 

[Ain_Gamer]

I would move Final Fantasy Tactics up the list, also they're action commands not QTEs. Why is Racing Lagoon on this list, its a racing game?

Racing Lagoon is a Racing RPG hybrid

Post automatically merged: Today at 1:35 AM

This list is clearly for people who prefer graphics and artstyle over everything else

Suikoden 1 is in S tier and it's one of the ugliest PS1 JRPGs

If you read the actual post you also know that I praised everything about FM 3 expect the gameplay which is the most important thing for me.

Vagarant Story is one of the most beautiful PS1 games ever yet is on C tier

I love the art style of Xenogears yet is on C tier

Placing Vandal Hearts above Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre and Front Mission 3 alone is already a heresy of the highest order, I don't even need to see any more.

Again if you read the post you would understand why

I also think SRPG should be desing around not being able to grind, which exclude game that are inspired by FFT or Disgea like games, this includes many SRPG but I still like the Genre because of Fire Embleam and games like it.

I just don't like the Design philosophy of those games, I think complex class system don't mix well with SRPG, I prefer them to have tighter design like fire emblem where you can't grind and you have a small selection of units to use, this is of course my personal preference.

very lenient rhythm timing

My issue is not whether they are hard or not, my issue is that they make the battle system feel slow, I don't like rhythm games, why would I want to play them in JRPGs, it's all personal taste and if you like them, that's great but it won't stop me from enjoying less games that have it.

 

[CG4R12I4N]

Graphics and artstyle are pretty much personal preferences yes.
You'd be surprised at how many dislike Vagrant Story and Xenogears back in the day due to the two above reasons, they think the game looked bad and didn't conform visually to most JRPGs of the time.

>Vandal Hearts
>Not designed around grinding
>While the skills and stats mostly increased from replaying stages
Bro...
Grinding is always optional in SRPG one way or other.
You should've known if you actually play FFT, aka "leveled up too much and got destroyed by Red Chocobo's Meteor from Mandalia Plains random encounter; thank you for playing" the game due to rubberbanding enemy to average party levels. You can even ignore most classes and abilities and stick to only 2-3 to beat the game.
Heck, Disgaea is pretty much the only outlier to most RPG due to upping the cliches so hard but it's not on PSX plus even the fact that its level cap is 9999 is there to kinda dissuade you from grinding much.
And it's kinda disingenuous as well when you also mentioned Tear Ring Saga and early Fire Emblem games as your favorites while those games also have optional grinding way, aka the Colosseum trick.
The only tilebased SRPG series that I can think of which didn't have any grinding at that time is only SRW series, and they made it up by being hard as sin difficulty wise that you literally forced to upgrade and use specific units and characters only or else get destroyed like a baby that had their candy taken.

Action Command RPGs are literally just normal turn-based with easy extra button pressings, in no way they're comparable to proper rhythm games unless you're a hack like Yoko Taro who added many actual other game genres to his games.
Also if you consider TLoTD's battle pacing that slow just by the button pressing, then Koudelka and Shadow Hearts were literally even much worse lmao.
The insanely high encounter rate that plagues many JRPGs is much more of the underlying issue than their gameplay designs, so you probably should put both Breath of Fire games, Parasite Eve 1 and Koudelka to D~E instead because oh god oh fuck the loading times and/or encounter rates are literally unbearable.

Honestly this article might be better placed as a normal discussion thread IMHO, it would spark too many debates and not being actually informative all along, that's my 2 cents.