Which JRPGs on Switch are the best in these categories?

[astro]

Firstly, I'd rather we stick to the traditional type of JRPGs here. I'm trying to figure out which I would like to play, and while some consider the genre to be broader than others do I'm only really interested in the Final Fantasy style games, ie: variety of party members, world to explore, towns, dungeons, grand plot, etc...

What are your favourites in the following categories?

Combat system
Characters
Story
World building
Aesthetics
Exploration
Enemy design
Overall best JRPG on the system

Games from any era and budget. Modern, remaster, retro, AAA, indie, etc...

 

[Spine Crawler]

fire emblem three houses

combat: tactical RPGs have the best combat systems in general imho.
characters: a lot of recruitable characters with personal backstory, romance options etc. etc.
story: fantasy politics story with four different paths you can choose. i felt the dimitri path to be exceptionally well realized but claude was good as well.
world building: in general the world is only shown in maps and they reused a lot of assets so that it didnt feel like a real continent. kind of a shame because they did so much better with radiant dawn/ path of radiance.
aesthetics: top notch designs.
exploration: limited
enemy design: among the best because the enemies are your recruitable characters

 

[Faiyaz]

The answer is always Dragon Quest XI regardless of the question.

 

[Tailzo]

Dragon Quest XI with Octopsath number 2 imo.

Dragon Quest wins for gameplay, graphics, world, lenght, characters, world building, exploration and story.

 

[astro]

I wanted to put Fire Emblem in the poll, asked a mod to switch it for Atelier so vote for that if you mean Three Houses.

 

[Master Chuuster]

Combat system - Xenoblade Chronicles 2 / Octopath Traveler
Characters - Dragon Quest 11
Story - Xenoblade Chronicles 1/2
World building - Xenoblade Chronicles 1/2
Aesthetics - Dragon Quest 11 / Octopath Traveler
Exploration - Dragon Quest 11
Enemy design - Dragon Quest 11
Overall best JRPG on the system - Dragon Quest 11

 

[Ryuelli]

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

I like the world of 1 more, but I adore the character and story of 2.

 

[Spine Crawler]

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

I like the world of 1 more, but I adore the character and story of 2.

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xenoblade 1 has one of the most emotional moments of any game in the early game. overall the story of 2 is stronger though.

funnily enough i think x also has a very underappreciated story which i love much more than the other two. its mainly because the story is not told in cutscenes but by the setting of the game and by exploration.

 

[Ryuelli]

xenoblade 1 has one of the most emotional moments of any game in the early game. overall the story of 2 is stronger though.

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If it's the moment I'm thinking of, I don't think it really "worked" for me because we barely got the know that character at that point. A certain moment near the very end of 2 was a lot more emotional for me,

Spoiler

although it was pretty much invalidated when that character returned 10 minutes later.

I found the characters in 1 extremely forgettable as a whole.

 

[astro]

What does Xenoblade 2 do better than DE with combat?

I really didn't like what I played of Dragon Quest on PC... I might need to try it again sometime.

 

[Apollo]

Combat system: Octopath Traveler
Characters: Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Story: Fire Emblem: Three Houses
World building: Xenoblade 2
Aesthetics: Octopath Traveler
Exploration: Xenoblade 2
Enemy design: Octopath Traveler
Overall best JRPG on the system: Octopath Traveler

Note that Octopath Traveler does not have a "grand plot", if that's a deal breaker. It has 8 small scale stories with personal stakes. I like them a lot. Some can't get over the fact that they're individual stories, which is valid, but I think those little stories punch far above their weight classes. Just a matter of taste. I think it's the best game on the console lol.

I included Three Houses per your post, but it also should be noted that it's not a traditional JRPG. Does not have dungeons or significant exploration (beyond exploring the school). Still a wonderful game.

I'll also add that I can safely recommend every game in this thread. The only one I don't really like is Xenoblade 1, but I'm in the minority and it's still worth a run through.

 

[Hogendaz85]

Xenoblade 1 and 2 are fun but even after I figured out the battle system of 2 I feel they sometimes last too long.

 

[Ryuelli]

What does Xenoblade 2 do better than DE with combat?

I really didn't like what I played of Dragon Quest on PC... I might need to try it again sometime.

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I think the best combat in the Xenoblade series is in Torna. I haven't played X, but out of the the ones I have played I'd say Torna > 2 > 1. 1's combat is just really slow and I found it pretty boring overall, although being able to switch between characters and each of them playing differently was kind of cool. It takes A LONG time for 2's combat to completely kick in, but once it "clicked" it almost felt like a rhythm game to me.

 

[Spine Crawler]

If it's the moment I'm thinking of, I don't think it really "worked" for me because we barely got the know that character at that point. A certain moment near the very end of 2 was a lot more emotional for me,

Spoiler

although it was pretty much invalidated when that character returned 10 minutes later.

I found the characters in 1 extremely forgettable as a whole.

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well eight is really not forgettable. especially later in the story. I also love dunban as a character. such a bro.

Spoiler

fiorung was clearly into shulk and shulk was clearly into her and it really looked like this comedic jrpg love story is going to unfold and then the story says "nah".

 

[julia crawford]

I wanted to put Fire Emblem in the poll, asked a mod to switch it for Atelier so vote for that if you mean Three Houses.

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Wow that was a hard play.

 

[Tibarn]

Combat system : Xc2 (specially the Torna expansion)/Octopath/BD II
Characters: Xc2/ XC DE (leaning towards 2)
Story: XC DE/ Xc2 (leaning towards DE)
World building: XC DE/ Xc2 (leaning towards DE)
Aesthetics: Xc2/XC DE
Exploration: XC DE
Enemy design: Octopath/BD II for the bosses, XC 2 and DE for the regular enemies
Music (really important for an JRPG IMO): Xc2 (XC DE, Octopath and BD II have also killer soundtracks)
Overall best JRPG on the system: XC DE. I prefer the characters and story of Xc2, but XC DE is a more polished and consistent game

Note that I never played Ryza or any Atelier games, and while I played DQ XI on PC I found it a really boring and forgettable experience, so it's not close to being the best on any cathegory (maybe tech, but I don't know how it runs on the Switch).

 

[Spine Crawler]

What does Xenoblade 2 do better than DE with combat?

I really didn't like what I played of Dragon Quest on PC... I might need to try it again sometime.

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well on the surface 1 and 2 combat looks similar but 1 is basically autoattack and selecting skills. you have some positioning you have to take into account but thats pretty much it.

2 has this but adds a lot of elements like being able to press buttons to choose your skills at certain periods of time during your auto attack combo to fill up your skill guage faster. at a certain point you can then use skills that inflict elemental damage and then you can stack that onto the enemy and burst the elemental damages in one swoop giving you ridiculous damage potential.

 

[astro]

I think the best combat in the Xenoblade series is in Torna. I haven't played X, but out of the the ones I have played I'd say Torna > 2 > 1. 1's combat is just really slow and I found it pretty boring overall, although being able to switch between characters and each of them playing differently was kind of cool. It takes A LONG time for 2's combat to completely kick in, but once it "clicked" it almost felt like a rhythm game to me.

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X is a lot faster than DE. Being able to run and jump (to an actually helpful height too, lol...) in combat makes it feel more fluid, and the markers for positioning are much easier to read.

I'm quite enjoying DE combat, though. I find it feels pretty snappy, and is still very fluid. Playing under levelled on expert mode or it would be far too easy, though.

I actually prefer games where you have to grind a bit to be powerful enough to continue at times. Just running around exploring and grinding is one of my favourite things in these games, but it's kinda rare you get to do it without becoming ridiculously OP and ruining the difficulty....

 

[Comic Obsessed]

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is always the right answer.

 

[astro]

well on the surface 1 and 2 combat looks similar but 1 is basically autoattack and selecting skills. you have some positioning you have to take into account but thats pretty much it.

2 has this but adds a lot of elements like being able to press buttons to choose your skills at certain periods of time during your auto attack combo to fill up your skill guage faster. at a certain point you can then use skills that inflict elemental damage and then you can stack that onto the enemy and burst the elemental damages in one swoop giving you ridiculous damage potential.

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That sounds good.

Is it more challenging? That's the biggest downside of DE right now, even if I am able to make it harder with Expert mode.

 

[Comic Obsessed]

I wish more people mentioned Tokyo Mirage Sessions. The story might not be anything special but damn, does it have one of the best turn-based combat systems I've experienced.

 

[Jane]

I've played 3/5 games on this poll (both Xenoblades and Octopath) so I can only speak for those:

Combat: Xenoblade 2 is the clear best. Really great combination of action and strategy. Octopath's battle system is alright, but in normal battles it revolves heavily around "try every move type until you discover their weakness, then keep hitting them with their weakness" which I find pretty tedious. I didn't really like Xenoblade 1's combat much at all.

Characters: Xenoblade 2 wins for me. 1 probably not far behind. Octopath's characters are fine, but they hardly interact with each other, or really do anything outside of their own stories, so there was a lot of missed potential.

Story: Xenoblade 1 by far. The story is tightly paced, and you constantly want to see what happens next. To date it's the only game I've ever played that made me both want to stay up late and wake up early because I couldn't put it down. As for Xenoblade 2, it's very... hit and miss. It has a lot of great ideas, but it's also weighed down by shoddy voice acting, reliance on anime tropes, and some cringeworthy "humorous" scenes in the early game. I would say it's more good than bad but there's a fair bit you have to tolerate. As for Octopath, I didn't finish it so I'll refrain from commenting.

World building: Xenoblade 1 wins here. 2's worldbuilding is ambitious, but maybe a bit too complex - it throws a lot of concepts at you and relies on some less-than-seamless exposition scenes to get it all across. Octopath is much more generic.

Aesthetics: I dunno. Why don't you look at some screenshots and decide for yourself?

Exploration: Xenoblade 2 by far. In fact I'd say it has the best exploration of any game I've played. Xenoblade 1 is similar but not as good as 2. Octopath, being a 2D game, is much more limited and exploration has a relatively smaller focus.

Enemy design: Xenoblade's enemies are generally just fantasy animals. There's not much to say about it. I can't remember anything about Octopath enemies.

Overall best JRPG: Xenoblade 2. Xenoblade 1 is pretty good as well. I really don't think Octopath is that good.

 

[WestEgg]

What does Xenoblade 2 do better than DE with combat?

I really didn't like what I played of Dragon Quest on PC... I might need to try it again sometime.

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1 is pretty straight forward, and plays most like an MMO. It's focus is on attacks with varying status effects, primarily you're looking to put the enemy into a staggered state to interrupt attacks and then also building a meter for a team attack which makes up the real damage later in the game. There's also a mechanic that will warn you of strong upcoming attacks, giving you time to plan a counter attack.

2 on the other hand is basically all about building combos, and almost has a rhythmic like flow. Your basic attacks charge abilities called arts, which deal more damage and have special effects. Some of these are used to build a similar stagger combo to 1, but the attacks also have an elemental effect, and building up sequentially more powerful elemental combos creates bigger potential attacks. Pulling off one of those elemental combos tags the enemy with an orb, and when you initiate the team attacks similar to the first game, attacking the orbs allows you to burst them for huge damage and extends the team attack. If you combine the elemental combos and the stagger combo, you get fusion combos, which deal even more damage. The game opens up very gradually to not overwhelm you.

 

[HOTSPUR]

XENOBLADE DE. For all of them

 

[SuperFakerBros]

Out of all of those, I'd say Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition is my favorite but my personal favorite is Fire Emblem: Three Houses. The demo for Dragon Quest XI just didn't do anything for me and, while Octopath Traveler has great music and combat, the characters fell VERY flat as well as the locations. Then you have something like Tokyo Mirage Sessions, which is pop idol as fuck and has pretty boring characters but has a really fun combat system that has a nice sense of flow

 

[LazyLain]

Combat system - Tokyo Mirage Sessions
Characters - Dragon Quest XI / Fire Emblem Three Houses
Story - Dragon Quest XI
World building - Dragon Quest XI
Aesthetics - For me, it's too close to call between Dragon Quest XI and Octopath Traveler... I guess it'll depend on whether you like Toriyama's style or not. Also, I think Tokyo Mirage Sessions is quite underrated in this department and deserves an honorable mention.
Exploration - Dragon Quest XI
Enemy design - Dragon Quest XI
Overall best JRPG on the system - Dragon Quest XI

 

[the magical kitsune]

Bravely Default 2 has been out for a week. I think some time should probably pass for it to have a fair shot at these categories, once more people have played it and the dust has settled on its reception.

Best overall jrpg on the system for me would be Dragon Quest 11, probably my favorite role playing game in the last decade. But if you didn't like or don't like DQ in general, it's not going to do much for you.

 

[Truno]

Dragon Quest XI S and Xenoblade DE are great picks. When it comes to Xenoblade 2 I say this with as much honesty as possible: depending on how you feel on anime tropes and pretty much anime as a whole, you'll either love the game or you'll dislike it heavily.

Story, world building, towns, soundtrack, exploration, etc. XDE checks all of those marks. It is, in my opinion, one of the most unique and beautiful worlds ever created in gaming

 

[Mudo]

It's absolutely Dragon Quest 11 based on the OP. Amazing game and very traditional.

 

[Onix555]

XB2.

Played through DQ11 but I don't really have strong feelings for it. Thought it was quite bland in most areas.

 

[astro]

Remade poll, not that it will make much difference.