JRPGs epic in scope

Xenoblade Chronicles 2!

Huge scope in an amazingly realized world.

It's got a lot of flaws (story is awful) but XC2 is a huge game with a twisty story and a ton of plot. Sounds exactly like what you want.

Legend of Heroes franchise basically focuses in that particular aspect.

Xenogears so much!

Xenogears was the definition of epic back in the late 90's.

Grandia, Breath of Fire 3. Apart from the languages, though there is a smidgen of that.

Dragon Quest 7 could give you more of what you're looking for. The entire game is made up of "vignettes" where you and your party travel through time across a vast world full of islands, each with their own culture and way of speaking.

Trails in the Sky/Cold Steel are essentially a proper realization of the "Several-Game JRPG Epic" that Xenogears/Saga were supposed to be - And better yet the Trails games are absolutely full of Xenogears references.

The series is basically having its Infinity War-moment right now to be precise.

If you put the two games together Trails in the Sky FC & SC. You go from a trainee peacekeeper/oddjob woman to being directly involved in national crises.

strangerinthealps said:

Dragon Quest 7 could give you more of what you're looking for. The entire game is made up of "vignettes" where you and your party travel through time across a vast world full of islands, each with their own culture and way of speaking.

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The way of speaking was made up by the localisers afaik. wasn't in the original game, and I found them pretty obnoxious at times. All the DS/3DS DQ games have that, often at inappropriate times.

Terranigma for a 16 bit game.

Xenoblade X is all about exploring massive continents and meeting a variety of alien species with their own unique cultures.

Final Fantasy IX was quite good in differentiating its continents and making you feel you've stepped into another world once you leave the Mist Continent.

Xenoblade 1 feels like you travel a long distance, but less emphasis on different cultures (only two of them felt fleshed out).
Xenoblade 2 has lots of unique cultures with their own customs and history and you get to visit many places.
Xenoblade X has lots of alien species but almost everyone lives in the same city. The rest of the planet is mostly wilderness.

The Xenoblade series is really great at this. They're full of large environments with their own creatures and towns full of different cultures. Xenoblade 2 even gives each of it's regions different accents to help differentiate them more.

You should really, really play Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky.

Phantasy Star, as a series. You fight an ancient Lovecraftian evil across a three planet solar system, and tens of thousands of years. III is the dark horse but it's like three generations in that game alone.

Also xenogears. The lore in that game is astounding. Covers literally millennia upon millennia

The Legend of Heroes (Trails in the Sky, Trails of Cold Steel, Zero no Kiseki/Ao no Kiseki) has been the most successful in realizing its ambitions without its story ending prematurely due to developer infighting and/or commercial failure, which was what happened to Xenosaga.

For something older, you can try Xenogears.

Grandia, Terranigma, Illusion of Gaia or Breath of Fire 4 (and 3) come to my mind. Also Suikoden III with more presence of Sindar ruins or Xenoblade are great examples too.

Xenogears is the definition of epic.

Xenogears is the first game that comes to mind.

Also the Trails games as people have mentioned.

Xenoblade 2 the thread.

Seconding the Trails mentions, world is very fleshed out and unlike some JRPGs the writing is actually decent.

Terranigma has great world building.

Tengai makyo manjimaru, provided you like goofy medieval Japan.

i thought Radiata Stories was epic.

DQVIII as well,

Ni No Kuni 1 is grand-ish.

Final Fantasy XII. It was in some ways too big for its own good, but still an excellent game nonetheless. It takes true talent to almost have a game collapse in its size but still manage to be THAT game.

FF12 has it, it really feels like a continent with various cultures in it.

Grandia was made as an epic too

jschreier said:

You should really, really play Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky.

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Trails in the Sky is among my favorite RPGs, but I don't see how it fits what the OP has in mind. They're asking for an RPG with an epic scope spanning entire continents. Trails in the Sky is almost the complete opposite of that: It's a rather laid back and slow adventure that takes place entirely in a single, relatively small-ish country.

I generally don't really agree with the Trails mentions, honestly. Yes, the series is unique in the way each saga continues the story of a continent from the point of view a different country. However, the individual games are always rather small in scope and slow-paced. I don't think playing Trails really feels like the kind of "epic" OP had in mind.

In my opinion the two RPG's from the last decade that best satisfy the OP's requirements for an expansive, epic quest are Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii) and Dragon Quest 8 (PS2).

Those two games really nail the sweet spot of scale and production values. They feel like they match or exceed the scale of the all-time JRPG classics that came before them but with the visual polish and QoL improvements of the tail end of the pre-HD era of game development.

FF12 is also expansive and polished, but I found it to be a bit dry in terms of story and pacing compared to those other two.

Islands? Continents?

You explore different planets in Star Ocean games.

blonded said:

I haven't played too many JRPGs but what I particularly loved about the Golden Sun series (well, 1 and 2) compared to other JRPGs I've played like Persona 3/4, FF7/10 was the sheer scope of game in terms of exploring continents, visiting and finding out about different cultures and their languages. The actual feeling of having travelled long distances.

Any other great JRPGs scratch this particular itch?

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Xenoblade 1-2 and Xenoblade X. Trails in the Sky 1-2. Trails of cold Steel. 1-... The trails series should be a blast for you. Especially Trails in the Sky is about wanderlust, it has some lenghts but is a gem if you don't mind reading much.

Persona 5 gets craaaazy huge by the end of the game. Almost bordered on ridiculous of how insane in scope the game suddenly got.

Grandia and Skies of Arcadia are two of the best in this regard, true adventure jrpgs

Ooh, and don't sleep on Skies of Arcadia if you have the means to play it. That's a real sprawling adventure of a game that has you visiting different cultures spanning across various continents.

Grandia 1. Just do it, Skies of Arcadia is good as well. Also if you want epic but not in one game I suggest the The Legend of Heroes series and Suikoden.

Suikoden 3

Chrono Trigger, and it's not a bajillion hours long either.

double posted

Xenoblade may not be the biggest one but it feels like it when you climb up the bionis leg and jump off and how connected the stages feel.

DQIII and PS series

shnitzel said:

Xenogears so much!

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Stand tall and shake the heavens.

Xenoblade X. The game world is probably bigger than our real world and strangely even more difficult to survive in.

shnitzel said:

Xenogears so much!

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It's this.

Xenoblade series

Give DQ11 a chance. I don't think I had this feeling you describe for this gen in any other JRPG. Maybe Octopath but not really and people might think I'm crazy when I say for very similar reasons as that game Xenoblade 2 didn't trigger this for me either.
Honestly the only other game I would give it to this gen isn't a JRPG and it would be the witcher 3.

Part of me wants to say the trails games but honestly it never hits home for me until I've been through a particular arc.
Musing about it, it's a combination of having to travel to places and getting a sense of change when revisiting them or progressing through those places throughout the game. That's kinda what invokes for me the feeling of having an epic journey of having traveled long distances. Just having a lot of big space or cities that feel static isn't cutting it for me.

Dragon quest VIII: The title screen of the game is finaly shown when you get to the boat (some 15-20 hours later if i recall correctly).

FFXII: huge huge huge game

SUIKODEN 3: 3 heroes, 3 perspectives, 1 huge adventure.

Dragon Quest VIII
Final Fantasy XII
Xenoblade Chronicles


These are what you need OP.

PSone JRPGs tend to capture epic scope/scale the best. Like people have said, Xenogears. I think FFIX is another great one. Even something like The Legend of Dragoon.