Final Fantasy VI. I’ve played that games at least dozen times I never got bored of the storyline. Kefka is one of the few bad guys that I truly enjoyed to hate and want to kill.
Zelda OoT, it was the greatest game of all time. and thats about it
Earthbound.
There hasn’t been an RPG like it since.
There’s a reason for that.
I’m just gonna say it because I like starting shit: Most of the games mentioned in this thread are <b><i>bad.</b></i> I possibly agree with XG, FFVII, Suikoden II, and SMRPG. Beyond that… just no.
Chrono Trigger is the Harry Potter of RPGs. Everyone loves it, but it’s just not “best RPG” material. It utterly fails to break onto that sacred plane.
FFT and KH have been mentioned. All I can say is… you guys are really bad at this -_-;; What if some unfortunate kid stumbles upon this thread while googling “Best RPG” and decides to buy KH on your recommendation? Some jokes just aren’t fucking funny, man.
Oh well, on the plus side, Chrono Cross hasn’t been mentioned.
You just did. 
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! I’m trying to evoke hostility!
Io capisco.
Battle System: FFT (I’m a strategy man)
Graphics: Will Be FFXII in a week…
Story: Xenogears
Characters: FFIV…Gotta Love Cecil…
Difficulty: Valkyrie Profile Two…and I’m not even done it yet. Damn Hard.
Overall: I like a game that pisses me off and VP2 Is doing that. If it keeps it up (It will) That will be the best for me. Other than that I liked FFIV
Ok, first off:
Zelda Ocarina of Time is not the best RPG of all time. First, it’s not even an RPG. Next, it’s not even the best Zelda game. So no. No, no no no no. No.
Earthbound, in all it’s quirky glory, is just way, way too quirky. I can see why people like it, I just don’t.
Ahh Hades. How can you say Chrono Trigger isn’t among the best RPGs, nay, games ever? This I gotta hear.
I really don’t classify games as best. I tend to just think of my favorites.
It wasn’t memorable. When you think of games like FFVI, there’s always a positive stigma attached to them. CT doesn’t have that.
It wasn’t a big enough, long enough, rich enough game to garner that kind of emotional attachment. It does the same thing a lot of bad fiction does that prevents the suspension of disbelief and thus doesn’t allow you to become part of the fictional world, or rather, allow the fictional world to become part of you.
Or I might be full of shit and wrong, but that’s not very likely.
I’m not without love for CT though. One of my favourite-ever scenes in any game is at the Death Peak Summit.
CT lacks power, its a good and fun game to play but it doesn’t have an impact. The Harry Potter comparison is appropritate, its nice, shallow and simple with replay value. XG and FFX have power and impact in addition to good gameplay.
As 984 said, trying to absolutely name a game “best” is quite foolish. You can (try to) make unbiased comparisons based on the most definite elements, but in most cases, that alone hardly sets in stone how much you are going to like the game in practice. As an example, FFX is very well done, yet I really don’t have any particular feelings towards it. On the other hand, I love Breath of Fire I even though I’ll be the first to admit it’s a very, very shitty game.
Or to be even more obvious: I’m still playing Nippon Ichi’s crap for reasons beyond my understanding.
CT could have definitely been made a bit longer. The elements are there, but far too compressed to have a full effect.
Entirely personal comment not to be taken too seriously: Ahahahaha XG has good gameplay ahahahahahaha
Hey guys! I’m switching my characters for the sixth time this random fight so everyone gets exp! Who am I?
Me? I did that, TD. But maybe that’s because I (was) neurotic about having characters as even as possible. At times I tried to even out their experience points exactly, which isn’t possible in FFX, so I counted the amount of spheres everyone had passed. At least, that’s how I used to be. Now I realize how uh… not fun that is.
I’m not nearly as neurotic anymore.
I can agree that Chrono Trigger lacks power and impact, but your correlation to FF6 doesn’t work for me, because it’s my least favorite game of the series and I haven’t even played halfway through it.
Long enough? Ok. Big and rich enough? Most definitly. The game took you to 5 playable time zones and featured characters from all of them, each with a rich and verbose history and reasons to come along. My best memory is the camp fire scene and Lucca going back in time to save her mother. Perhaps the flattest character in the game is Chrono.
Hades? Full of shit? Nooooo… couldn’t be!
OH SNAP! BURN!
Time periods… whatever.
IMO having 5 time periods to explore diminishes the effect of each individual period. I shouldn’t have said it wasn’t big enough, but I still think it wasn’t rich enough. The problem is that it was too diverse to be rich, I think.
Having 5 eras isn’t the same as having 5 overworlds. Each world map was small and pretty empty to begin with, and the number of unique places to explore wasn’t any greater than in other RPGs. The most interesting part was how the things you do in certain places at certain times actually had an effect on other places and people, but if the game isn’t rich enough to pull you in, it doesn’t matter. You can’t create a memorable experience with one innovative idea.
I think having many diverse worlds is a lot like having many diverse characters. You sacrifice detail for numbers. Some of my favourite games take place in a single city, sometimes even a single building (Diablo I). When a game is as diverse as Chrono Trigger, you end up taking little tidbits from each new place you goto, but never anything that makes the game personal.
I think what Chrono Trigger should have done is what I think SO3 did very well. Since you’re exploring many various landscapes in SO3, the focus was on the relationships between the characters, not on the culture or the land. CT neglects both to an extent, and that’s why it suffers as a complete unit.
That’s not to say SO3 is a good game. It REALLY fucked up one particular plot device. I’ve never seen the ball drop like SO3 dropped it. It had the potential to be my favourite game of all time, but I ended up not finishing it. It was THAT bad.
IMO the most developed characters in CT are Frog and Magus. The flattest is Lavos, which is sad. A game needs a good villain.
That’s not it, I think you’d have to be staff to really understand the insult.