My Top 5 Most Meaningful JRPGs

I only first played Xenogears a few years ago and am still shocked by how impactful it is. As an adult, I didn't even know I could still be affected by games like that. Crazy

I'm religious, and I'm really fortunate that my parents encouraged me to ask questions and grow better understanding. I'm glad you were able to start figuring that out at a young age.

For me, Phantasy Star 4, Shining Force 2, Persona 2 Innocent Sin (ps1), Lunar 1 and probably Parasite Eve. PS4 showed me serious tones, death, grief and processing that and characters decided what’s a bigger priority. SF2 was my first SRPG which I loved finding the hidden characters and promotions and everything. Very feel good but not hard. Persona and Parasite Eve were exposures to modern day settings that had were amazing to see. Lunar 1 (ps1) was just a fun feel good RPG that had some amazing collector items to them. It made it easy to learn Luna’s boat song rather just using the same save file. :)

I played a lot of the old PS1 JRPGs later in life for the first time and those all meant a lot to me. A lot of them were when I was unemployed or going through some bad times. FF8-10, FF Tactics, Xenogears, Chrono Cross, Wild Arms, Suikoden 2. Great memories playing those all day long.

This video was very sweet. I we definitely need another 5!

I saw Fei and Elly and immediately clicked! I cant wait to experience everything Xenogears has to offer soon this year 😄 All the Xenoblade games have a special place in my heart for different reasons. Fire Emblem Awakening also basically changed my life by introducing me to the genre. The one video game that made me who I am though is Ocarina of Time ❤

Wow, you're good at playing piano 😮 Anyway, since my first console was PS2, so FFX is my most meaningful JRPG, it's the first game that moved me into tears (that ending 🥲). #2 probably Shadow Hearts, usually I don't play horror-themed game (until now), so I push my limit and feel really satisfied when I finished the game..😁 #3. Lost Odyssey. I played this game back in 2018/19. I thought I was done playing game, but this gem made me realize that I really like game with good story 🤩 Thank you for sharing your experience, Branden 🙂

I don’t know if many folks have told you, but you are able to describe how JRPGs can hit you deep in your heart in a way I’ve never heard before. This was an excellent video. Thank you for sharing.

Grandpa here. FF6 is the best to me. Two of my most important games is Shining in the Darkness (my first rpg). So I definitely need to get around to playing Shining Force. My other would be Street Fighter 2 which was the game that got my son into gaming and now it’s something we enjoy together.

I’m glad I stumbled across your channel, great video and your fit ❤

Thanks for this video. This is the kind of content that gets me really pumped to go out and play an old game that I never heard about or actually played at a friend's house once as a kid and havent thought about it since. The feeling of getting back to that time and just experiencing these games for the first time is such a strong one

The musical interlude was spot on, nailed it 👌👍

Awesome list Branden, 5 JRPGs that mean the most to me - Final Fantasy X (The first JRPG i ever played, Sonic 2 was the first game I ever played, Tekken 3 was the first game I owned, But Final Fantasy X was the first time a game made me realize video games can be works of art, I felt the emotions and themes in the story & characters for what Final Fantasy X offered. So Final Fantasy X made me a gamer for life and fall in love with JRPGs… I didn’t think any game could change my life as much as FF X until…⬇️) - Kingdom Hearts Xehanort Saga (With Final Fantasy X in PAL territories for the PS2 where I grew up it came with a disc called ‘Beyond Final Fantasy’ and on that disc was trailers for other SquareSoft projects and Kingdom Hearts 1 trailer at TGS 2001 being one of them, I go to a random game shop in the town over, I see it the holigraphic PS2 cover on the shelf and remember the cashier telling me “You are going to love this game.” I was more intrigued to see if the idea of Disney X Square could be pulled off in a JRPG setting because I had A LOT of questions about that peanut butter jelly concept 😂 but Kingdom Hearts become my favourite series of all time and apart of who I am as a person today, my number 1 favourite gaming anything, many tears shed, I was the same age as Sora when the game came out, I grew up practically near a seaside town in the UK, my everything) - Persona 3 FES (Persona 3 FES literally saved my life, was not in a good place mentally and didn’t really value life, the only thing that kept me going was Persona 3 FES and somehow healed my pain, while not my favourite game of all time, probably the most important as in saving myself from self destruction) - Tales of the Abyss (I played Tales of the Abyss on the PS2 for the first time in 2014, at the time Myself and my wife (GF at the time) were in different countries and did the long distance thing, so this game was my sanctuary for holding on to hope during that tough period and gave me the single tear at the end of the game, what I adore about Tales of the Abyss is that many games like KH or Trails, or Xenosaga, .Hack etc. rely on multiple entries while TOTA manages the stuff so much lore and narrative wealth in one entry which is incredibly impressive and it felt really cool playing a US region PS2 game in the UK because it never got a PAL release) - Xenogears (My top 100 video games of all time are all 10/10s in my book for one different reason or another and you have covered Xenogears really well and its importance which I concur with, I would add to that in regards to Xenogears, Xenogears along with Breath of the Wild was my covid game, My covid JRPG, got the copy on eBay from Hawaii arrived to me in NY and once again, providing a lot of post apocalyptic drama while giving me hope for the real world during the credits)

Final Fantasy 7 was the very first RPG that captivated me. I had never been great at video games a child - I was terrible at shooters, sports games, fighting games - I just wasnt very competitive or I had terrible reflexes and I would always play at my friends and so I never had a console at home. I remember clear as day first playing the game at Kmart (I was 12) when they had PSone consoles and the store attendant let me play....from the bombing mission I was transfixed. I couldnt buy the game at the time because I didnt have a PSone and my parents were pretty poor...so I used to play it at Kmart from the beginning over and over. It eventually motivated me to get a job and save all my money to finally buy the game. My parents then surprised me with a PSone - something that was so much money for them. From there everything began.

Xenogears is always gonna be "that game" for me, and to a bit of a lesser extent Xenosaga for many of the same reasons. I played it when it first came out and I was 16 I think? Even with its vaguely janky translation and rushed second disc I was absolutely blown away by the story. Heck, here we are 25ish years later and I'm still obsessed. I could even point to Xenogears as a small part of getting my psych degree. As a fellow old, I gotta go with 7 over 6, even though I don't consider 7 my fave FF. It was just so *big*.

Awesome journey! That’s great you have so many personal stories with these games.

Awesome video man, love your Number 1 choice. Also appreciate your thoughts and stories associated with the game, very interesting stuff.

Your story about playing FFVII on PC was almost to the letter what my experience was back then as well. Even down to buying that exact same voodoo2 graphics card for our family PC! So cool to hear you talk about that. Another bonus of going through all the trouble was that the game ended up looking so much better than it did on my friend's PS1 (who had convinced me to buy the game in the first place ^^;)

For me it's Final Fantasy III (OG USA version) and Chrono Trigger. My little brother picked up a copy of FF III when I was in college and I'd hang out in his room watching him play when I was home for break. I quickly fell in love with the story and really enjoyed playing it when he'd let me take a crack at it. Some time later he asked me to give him a ride to Funcoland to get a copy of Chrono Trigger. I had not heard of it just yet. But he said it was awesome, so I was like cool. Big sis will give you a ride and we can hang out a bit. And just like with FF III I hung out with him as he played. And over summer break I finally got my crack at it too. Needless to say I can honestly say that I am the gamer that I am today thanks to my little brother introducing me to some of the greatest JRPG's of all time. I even have the ringtone for my little brother set to an OC Remix version of Terra's Theme (Terra in Black - go look it up as it's great). These games give me happy vibes of back before we launched into our own lives. My little brother and I are still close and will occasionally share a good game between us. But I'm glad it was these two that started it.

Probably dating my age here, but Kingdom Hearts hit me so hard emotionally as a preteen that I can still quote some of the most memorable lines. The parts where Sora sacrificed himself to bring Kairi back, and the “I’m always with you too, I’ll come back for you, I promise!” left me in shambles. Sora’s unwavering dedication to his friends has shaped me in more ways than I can express.