While I’m not the world’s biggest JRPG fan, I have to admit that from time to time even I get the urge to experience an overly convoluted melodramatic story and engage in some mindlessly therapeutic level grinding. Precisely for those occasions, the editors at PC Gamer have put together this list of what they think are the best JRPGs you can play on PC. Here are a few examples:
Final Fantasy 9
Wes: No other RPG I’ve ever played has the consistent charm, whimsy, and characterful writing of Final Fantasy 9, Squaresoft’s Playstation swan song. At the time it was designed as a throwback to the earlier era of Final Fantasy, and even 15 years later it’s a lively game with genuinely touching moments and comic relief that’s actually funny. Zidane, for example, is still a refreshing protagonist compared to most stoic or emo JRPG heroes. He’s playful, occasionally an ass, and almost indomitably optimistic—but a few darker moments keep him from being one-note. As in many other JRPGs, the plot gets messy by the end, and the final boss is infamously out of left field, but FF9 is the rare occasion where those issues really don’t matter much. It really is about going on this journey with these characters and exploring every single nook and cranny of their world, because there’s always something there to reward you.
The PC version of FF9 isn’t drastically improved like FF12, and sadly its PS1-era pre-rendered backgrounds getting the up-res treatment can only go so far. Some of those backgrounds are video files thanks to moving elements, and they’re pretty blurry on a bigger screen. On the bright side, the port runs great even on a laptop’s integrated graphics, and the character models look nice and sharp with cleaned up textures true to the original art. There are also lots of little enhancements that make the game nicer to play: an easy UI option for challenging random NPCs to a game of cards, a fast-forward option, and cheat codes for skipping encounters, getting max money, etc. that can help you focus on the story. Final Fantasy 9’s greatest weakness was always a slow battle system that pushed the Playstation to its limits, and fast forwarding is a welcome fix.
If you’ve never played FF9, you have a chance to marvel at how they don’t make ’em like they used to. And to be honest, they barely made them like this, even back then.
Barkley: Shut Up and Jam Gaiden
James: I’m annoyed that Barkley: Shut Up and Jam Gaiden isn’t just a joke. Hold it up to any SNES JRPG and you’ll find that its world is as detailed, battle system as complex, and story as melodramatic as the rest. Shut Up and Jam Gaiden was made for laughs, but nothing within betrays its cyberpunk setting and rich, sprawling lore. That’s the whole point I suppose: it was created after the developers read Michael Jordan’s Wikipedia page and got stuck on a tidbit about the fan debate over whether the movie Space Jam is considered canon. It was unclear if the debate referenced the Looney Toons universe or Michael Jordan’s life, so they set out to make a game that melds real players from the NBA and a ‘post-cyberapocalyptic New New York’.
The world lives in fear of basketball, a game recently outlawed due to Charles Barkley’s reckless use of a Chaos Dunk that killed a stadium full of people. With all those lives and the death of a sport on his hands, Barkely leads a tortured life, so when another Chaos Dunk kills millions in Manhattan and he takes the blame, he sets out to find the truth. It sounds stupid, and it really is, but the long con—the real punchline—is finding out how much you care a dozen hours in.
South Park: The Stick of Truth
Andy K: It was clever of Ubisoft to get Obsidian on board for its South Park game. Without the Pillars of Eternity studio’s RPG chops, I don’t know if it would’ve been half as good. What I love about The Stick of Truth is that, as well as being a wonderfully authentic, interactive episode of the show, it’s a great RPG too. It’s more streamlined and accessible than Obsidian’s usual fare, but that makes it a perfect fit for a game like this.
Based heavily on the turn-based combat of Final Fantasy, it makes use of elemental magic, buffs, debuffs, and summons—albeit with a typically absurd or offensive twist. So instead of summoning Bahamut, you summon a gun-toting Jesus. And instead of inflicting poison, you inflict ‘grossed out’ and make enemies puke. It’s an entertaining combat system, brought to life by superb animation and an abundance of very silly jokes.
Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale
Lauren: In traditional JRPG fashion, Recettear stars a plucky teenage heroine up against preposterous odds. Unlike the hordes of heroes before her, Recette’s nemesis is a mountain of debt she can only pay off by managing her absent father’s floundering item shop. With the guidance of Tear, her loan shark turned business partner, Recette splits time between bartering with customers, arranging her shop, and diving into randomly-generated dungeons for marketable loot. Each day, Recette chooses what to do with the four time-slots between sunup and sundown while the calendar marches towards her next loan payment. Recette’s adorable naivete is explained no better than by her well-meaning catchphrase “Capitalism-ho!”
Recettear became the first Japanese indie game to release on Steam when it was translated and localized for Western audiences in 2010. Despite the two-man translation team and very conservative sales expectations, Recettear was well-received by critics and players, more than doubling the first month’s expected sales. Recettear offsets the repetitive burden of shop-ownership with the repetitive demands of dungeon crawling in just the right ratio to make both more engaging than they would have been alone. To its benefit, Recettear scrapes the surface of systems like party management that are often deeper in larger games without allowing them to weigh down the flow between activities. Despite its age, Recettear continues to spread by word-of-mouth and inspire new indie games like Moonlighter to emulate its management-meets-dungeon-crawler hook.
Jody: Recettear is a great way in if you’ve not played many JRPGs. It doesn’t take the more ridiculous cliches of the genre seriously, and it’s got a much better translation than 90% of other Japanese games, with actual jokes and relatable characters. It’s set in this weird pseudo-French fantasy land but everyone has motivations that make sense, from the drunk thief to the greedy fairy loan shark (don’t listen to Tear’s advice to start at 130% and haggle from there, that’s way too high). The whole thing is this bundle of sunshine and sweetness, even though it’s about being crushed by debt.
And if you’re someone who doesn’t play JRPGs too often but would like to broaden your horizons, you should probably direct your attention to the recently released Steam version of Chrono Trigger. Port issues aside, that game manages to avoid a lot of the usual JRPG pitfalls and as a result, in my opinion, offers an engrossing RPG experience everyone can enjoy.
