0:00 Intro 0:46 Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed (PS3, PS4, PSvita, PC) 2:51 Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars (3DS, PsVita, PC) 4:58 Spectrobes: Origins (Wii) 6:50 Shadow Hearts: From the New World (PS2) 8:56 Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier (NDS) 11:32 Tokyo Xanadu eX+ (PS4, PC) 14:11 Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon (PS4, PsVita, PC) 16:05 Valkyria Chronicles II (PSP) 18:05 Fire Emblem Fates (3DS) 19:51 Atelier... 22:36 In Next Video: ^_^

The Atelier games are kinda like "Slice of life: The RPG". No huge world-ending threat, no evil villain, mostly just about a girl trying to get by with her alchemy skills while pursuing more humble objectives in her life. Definitely not for everyone, but not a necessarily wrong concept either.

Tokyo Xanadu had an amazing story imo. The only thing that bothered me was it's translation... I quote: "guess I'm taking an L here aren't I"

If I make an RPG, I’m going to call it “Teenage Students and Magical Girls who Fight Evil Monsters” just so you know what you are getting from the plot without any doubt.

I would imagine the next video is the opposite: RPGs with Good story and Bad gameplay.

Fire Emblem Fates the video.

Just because it has cliche storyline or characters doesn't mean it is automaticaly bad.

My favorite bad story/great gameplay JRPG is without a doubt FFX-2. I loved FFX and thought it ended masterfully. The hard left they took with FFX-2 was imho, misguided, but that gameplay *chef’s kiss*.

I did enjoy Tokyo Xanadu despite its tropes. It does start off that way but it starts having its own identity somewhere quite early. If you get it during steam sales, the content is worth the buy.

I don't remember Akiba's Strip ever taking itself seriously,

Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE has a bad story too, but the gameplay is great.

lol Erick just can't get over his hatred of idols. It's why I expected Tokyo Mirage Sessions to be on this list. Both it and FE Fates are games that I happen to like.

Tokyo Xanadu's story is not bad imo. It's bad for falcom standard but average in general. But I respect your opinion.

I'd add Final Fantasy X-2. I remember really loving the battle system for being so fast-paced and fun, but the story really dropped the ball.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions is missing xD One of the best and most fun combats in a JRPG but the story is soooooo bad, definitely a must for JRPG fans if you like both SMT and FE though

I wouldn't go as far as to say that the story of Tokyo Xanadu is bad. Sure - it's cheesy and gets somewhat convoluted by the end, but the latter is true for many other Falcom games as well, to a certain degree. As long as you suspend your disbelief enough to accept the ridiculous premise it actually is quite engaging. Besides, it doesn't take itself seriously. Yuuki is constantly breaking the 4th wall, other characters complain that events that are transpiring remind them of D-tier anime plot, and so on. The game even takes friendly jabs at RPG fans and otakus at various points. What I'm getting at is that you're not supposed to take the story at face value. All the tropes and stereotypes are there mostly for the self-parody purposes. I think it adds to the charm.

Cries in Tokyo Xanadu fan, lol

Number 1 rule for me when playing Jrpg is for the story,Number 2 is gameplay,Number 3 is the grapic LOL

I am currently in chapter 6 of Xanadu. The story is nothing mind blowing, but I would not call it bad and there are some pretty cool moments. Ironically the dungeon crawling is the least attractive aspect of it for me.

As an atelier fan I have to say that I totally agree with the series being first place, maybe the Mana Khemia story was not so bad, but it may be my memory playing me tricks. Great video.

Fire Emblem Fates, one of the biggest bruh moments on the 3DS. Probably the only good things to come out of it are the gameplay, music, and female Corrin.

I'm really surprised that the entire Pokémon series is not on this list. It's got a very complex metagame for the PvP crowd, but the stories are very barebones and disjointed, even considering the target audience. Like, Black & White are generally lauded as probably having the best story in the series by a decent margin and it revealed the fact that the evil looking leader of the people who were making a decent point about the treatment of Pokémon was actually a bad guy either right before or right after the first Gym. It would be hard to argue that its story even deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as something like like Ni no Kuni's story, despite it also being an All Ages monster collecting RPG that was on the Nintendo DS.

disagree heavily on the atelier one, big time. your last statement was right, you were hoping for the wrong thing. they're slice of life set-pieces, not epic adventures. they explicitly eschew the savior of the world tropes, and many of them don't even have antagonists at all, or at least for the majority of the plot. the point was never to craft a typical monomyth arc, but to provide a day-to-day life of an alchemist that happens to get wrapped up in one thing or another as they strive to become better at their crafts... that's it. if you expect final fantasy plotlines, it's an inappropriate expectation. shoulda picked ffx-2 instead. there's one with a disastrous plot but an awesome battle system.

Thank you for this kind of vids. Keep it up!

Hey, Erick, just came to thank you for the talk about Tales of in one of your videos. I'm playing Berseria. Really loving it. Thanks a lot. After this video i'll try Nights of Azure 1 and 2. Thanks!

Man, can't believe that you brought up Spectrobes Origins. I love that game! Nobody ever talks about it, but it was a very entertaining action RPG. And it's under 5 dollars at Gamestop. Definitely worth a try!

I wouldn't call the Atelier series stories bad, merely serviceable. They don't really have much to them, but I would say the main story point would be the character stories you get while you advance their events, while the wider story is simply a driving force to get you to explore and learn.

Mitsuki in the thumbnail!

Xanadu Story bad, really? It was an amazing story, man this is hilarious

Last I played, Tokyoxanada had a pretty good story

Atelier games are supposed to be comfy, so it makes sense that the story isn't interesting. I love the characters and interactions, though. I've never been one for slice of life anime, but slice of life games sometimes hit just right.

Hello, Erick! Your English sounds like Portuguese in my ears. I'm a Brazilian guy and I'm not fluent in English. But I love hearing you speaking. I also love RPG!

I'm glad you acknowledged Spectrobes Origins in this (even though I did enjoy the story myself), i've been saying for years that the game is pretty much a hidden gem on the Wii and the fact that it didn't do that well will eternally sadden me. Fun fact, there's a glitch in this game that keeps you from changing your weapons. I believe it was the hammer weapon that you get from the card codes but once you switch to that, the game will always freeze when you try to change weapons again.

Gotta say Erick - this is my fav channel for JRPGs. I'm in the process of finishing up my own indie JRPG and these videos you make are enlightening for me. Thank you.

"Yeah classic plot with teenage students and magical girls fighting evil monsters. It's bad." I'm ashamed to admit that this summary is like half the JRPGs I've played...

Tokyo Mirage Sessions should be there as well.

Xanadu bad story? Bruh!

man why tokyo xanadu in the list.....

Love seeing valkyria chronicles 2 on here. It was a big step down from #1 in a lot of ways but added real time co-op with a friend and of course was on the psp. The new classes were pretty neat as well. The MC's laugh will haunt my dreams. One of my favorite games that just has a bad story and they even readily admit it is Grandia Extreme. It was pretty much Diablo done as a JRPG. Great looting and if you've never played the grandia battle system, it is one of my favorite turn based styles.

Tokyo Xanadu was really enjoyable. The game felt like persona with combat that is essentially Ys mixed with trails of cold steel. 100% recommend

That would be also my list of good gameplay Jrpgs great Video! Also Its true about Atelier series, even though I like the characters Interaction. But why didnt you put Tokyo Mirage for WiiU/Switch on the list? This game is my guilty plesure, when it comes to gameplay, but the Story is horrible.

Hey Erick, you are great as always, I am a big fan of the channel and I have watched and enjoyed every single video you have ever made (I haven't watched every single let's play video tbh), but... and don't take this the wrong way, I mean it as a friendly observation and I don't know if I am the only one who has noticed something like this: I think that your new spot for shooting is wrong. Something is wrong with the lights or the camera, I don't know, I have never done more than a handful of videos with a handicam and I am not an expert, but something on your new setting feels wrong to me. I feel like there is too much light hitting your face in a wrong angle and there is glaring on the top right corner of the crono poster and I dare say that the overall quality of the visuals (not of the content by any means) is lower than before. I don't know if this is only me and I mean everything I said in a good way. Keep up the good work, your content is amazing as always and I enjoyed the video overall!

Bro. I thought #8 was a fever dream! I remember playing that game.

Decent list but you put Atelier on here? :o but to be fair I guess I can understand when it comes to story. Most of its charm comes to the whole slice of life genre, I actually like watching all the little cutscene dialogues you have with all the characters throughout, but for the most part they are either about exploring ruins or becoming the best alchemist you can be with a super addictive alchemy crafting system. This is why Atelier is one of my favourite rpg franchises and I've played pretty much all of them. Some of the arcs have an overarching plot like the Dusk trilogy about exploring the wonders of their land and ruins of course and saving the world from running out of water in the end.

Tbh, Tokyo Xanadu EX+, Idk have You played all of it? Because, despite being a "Persona 5 Ripoff" Tokyo Xanadu came out BEFORE Persona 5, yes, very fun fact. & the Battle system & Dungeons will be Fun as Fuck, especially for anyone who's a fan of Ys, even though...unlike modern Trails...starting this game on Abyss, the Fights are INSANELY INSANELY tough, Bosses will KO you in 3 hits, but the difficulty & everything else makes it HELLA Fun. Now, the story, yes the J-Pop/K-Pop/Idol bs is Present, but it doesn't oversaturate the story, & Rion actually is & becomes a really interesting & good character. Its just that since she's part of Spika, you'll meet the other members, and there's a few concerts, but it by no means detracts from the story, a story which I would say is Good, I mean if You've played it to completion, there's alot of stuff going on & many parts are satisfying. So sure, the story isn't anything close to the Trails series, but it's Trails..but I'd highly recommend You Finish It. Tokyo Xanadu is 1 Hell of a hidden Gem💯

Everytime someone compares Tokyo Xanadu to Persona, I'm really a bit confused... and I mean really. Where is Persona in this? The gameplay is totally different as seen in the video, the plot hasn't much in common with any Persona title and the schedule and bonding isn't anything specific to Persona either. Sooo... is Final Fantasy Type-0 a Persona knock-off? How about the Cold Steel series? Like what you like, but this game hasn't much more in common with Persona than nearly every other JRPG with a modern setting. And the story is actually quite good... it's not very complex, it's even quite predictable to some extent (but with a few twists), but I would argue, that the way it is told actually surpasses every Persona game, yet (oh... and also... the idol stuff doesn't actually take a big part of the game). I, for sure, would put Tokyo Xanadu in the "hidden gem" category that only didn't find it's deserved success because of three reasons: 1. People THOUGH it was a Persona knock-off from glancing over the title (mainly screenshots and promo material) 2. Falcom itself put it in further competition with their own Cold Steel series and 3. it's name. You can't just use the name of the Xanadu series and make a totally different game for it. But the game itself? It's fine. It's not as "deep" as other Falcom titles from a story perspective, but it has a good story and all the bells and whistles you expect from Falcom (great music, good gameplay, much content, good writing...). I actually would love to have a sequel of this. It's like if Cold Steel and Ys had a baby. And I really enjoyed it. So while I see why this game is in this list for the gameplay, I don't think it deserves to be here for the story. That being said, I also don't think the Atelier series should be here for the same reasons. Yes, they are cliché and yes, they share quite a few ways to deliver their story, share a few trope characters... but they can stand their own ground. If you play only one game of the series, you will probably enjoy the story, if you play more than one you liked probably what you have played before and the games do their best to differ from each other while keeping their storytelling "structure". And I think this is fine.

Shadow Hearts 3 was great! All around IMO & that whole series is one of the best in rpg history to me

Lots to talk about in this video. I can certainly see the Neptunia games being here too and then I think about the fact that neither the story nor the gameplay I find awesome. I don't hate Nep games by any means, but depending on who you ask they could have been here too. Conception is one of the oddest concepts in JRPG history to me, and though I havent played it, it looks like it might be fun. Great Top 10!

A trope laden story isn't necessarily a bad one. Your hate for idols is extremely biased. Just realize it's a huge selling point for many players.

I want to nominate a SFC JRPG (Chou Mahou Tairiku Wozz (The Magical Land of Wozz)). I like the game a good deal despite there being almost no story/character growth. You were brought to the world of Wozz(where magic exists and psychic abilities are real) to stop (the villain) from using technology he stole from the human world to create "fear rain" or rain that turns all inhabitants into monsters. That's basically it for the most part! However the graphics and spell attacks are very well done for the SFC and music is decent as well. The battles are also done in a manner similar to or reminiscent of Suikodens battle system with how it looks. You can create items/robots as well. And it's pretty funny. If you havnt played it....give it a try!

Love that Shana artwork in the background

Cool Ophiuchus Shaina picture in the background

My favorite part of bad story games is you can just play as much as you like and not worry about missing out much

I just kept looking to this beautiful Shaina poster in the wall, didn't know u r a saint seiya fan.

This was a great video, also couldn't agree more on Tokyo Xanadu, as I played it recently. I believe you nailed its strengths and weaknesses spot on.

Hola Erick, tus tops son muy buenos. ¿Has pensado en hacer uno de los mejores soundtrack de jrpgs? Aunque quizá los juegos de Falcom dominarían la lista 😂

Talking about Fates map design being clever when Zola's snow shoveling extrvaganza and Fuga's wild ride exist seems like a stretch.

Tokyo Xanadu is a great game, regardless of the bad plot. You nailed it! It's all about the gameplay and the music.

No Dragons Dogma? That is quintessential bad story but amazing game play. Good list nonetheless

Conception 2 is being advertised in Akiba Strip

Mana Khemia is one of my favorite games. I wish they would make a sequel.

I remember how in Shadow Hearts 3, Al Capone says, "I think it's time Las Vegas had some peace." What a strange thing for Al freaking Capone to say.

100 percent agree on From the New World. Best gameplay in the series but man do none of your party members have any chemistry with eachother.

Im gonna disagree with saying the more traditional Atelier games have meh stories. The main ones I personally enjoyed were Ayesha, Totori, firis, Meruru mainly for time limits in those specific games enhances the impact of the big story moments but I will agree there is bit more fluff than necessary at times but I personally enjoy it. I will agree characters can feel tropey but I don't think its bad tropey and they do with said tropes is usually well exucuted with a occasional dud for me. One other thing that Atelier does which I think it does better than other rpgs is showing how time passes from each game and how different it feels for example going from Rorona to Totori and seeing how somethings changed like the Adventuring Licenses being required in Totori because it became a organizational clusterfuck to keep all the adventures in order. Thats my opinion at least though I appreciate the honestly.

I know Tokyo Xanadu story may mimic persona 4 but that really doesn't bug me, the main reason I like Tokyo Xanadu is for the sound track and combat is enough for me to overlook the story, thanks for a great list of games I need to try 👍

For me, Great gameplay evens out bad story... nice vid Erick!

While I think both are important, it’s easier for good gameplay to make up for bad story, then it is for a good story to make up for bad gameplay. A bad story will make you not care about it but you can still have fun playing it. Bad gameplay though? Makes it an absolute chore.

Dude I wanted so much a review for Conception 2, I never finish it on 3ds and found a port in steam the other day so I was deciding to pick it again. But now I think is the opposite, the dating sim elements are the only thing I found appealing since the random dungeons made the game too slow and the position weakness makes the enemies too easy. I mix random starkids on teams and they sweep the levels like nothing, maybe they are overpowered because I max every heroine affection? I don't know

I love everything about Tokyo Xanadu eX+, so I can't agree with that one, but to each their own it's definitely one of my all time favourite action RPGs. the story, the music, the characters, the gameplay, love it

I will say that I love the Atelier stories because they are some slice of life stories. They are very different from the usual RPG stories. I love the more relaxed nature of them, but you have the right to dislike the stories.

Imo Tokyo Xanadu's story really isn't bad, I'd argue it's still much more engaging than persona 'cause Falcom way of doing storytelling alone. But overall the major problem is that the game creates far too much expectations with it's first half, for what we get for the second half, the amount of Deus Ex Machina moments also doesn't help, nor does the fact that quite literally nobody dies despite the plot providing A LOT of situations where the most normal thing, would be for people to die, which really destroys pretty much the entire tension in the story. Using 'cliche' elements in a game isn't the problem, it's about HOW the game makes use of them into it's narrative. If you took it seriously enough, you could break any character in any media into an "anime trope", they all start off with an archetype, then get developed after it.

You're charming dude and have quite good choices, invest the effort into better quality videos and I think you'll do much better my man. Try to become like Mistychronexia except for anime games, gives you use for repeating the game titles in different context.

About Atelier series: in ps2 I've played Atelier Iris and Mana Khemia. Both great games and good plot, sad they didn't followed that path

I unironically love Tokyo Xanadu. Not any masterpiece in terms of story, dialogue, or gameplay, but the characters, however trope-y, are fun to watch in all their interactions. It's why I ended up buying both the Vita and PS4 copy (the CE for the latter) xd

I did not buy the third Spectrobes game and I wish I had. This series is a guilty pleasure for me. Also, Komainu is adorable.

lol the story in trails of cold steel is like " look there is a leaf on the ground , now let's hear all 10 members of class 7 opinion on it"

I am surprised that tokyo xanadu is on this list, cuz the atory was really good in my opinion, given that the game was developed by the "new guys" at Falcom, meaning that even though it's not up to Falcom's standards it is still a pretty good story. And you also said that you like Asuka the most, and for me she was probably the most boring of the girls (I hate the loner aspect in any character) And frankly I enjoyed the idol arc because their music was pretty cool. Edit: did you just say that Shio is op? I am so surprised to hear that, given that I can't go using him for two seconds without taking damage with how slow both his movement and attacks are, I loved his character but in battle he was so unusable in my opinion (The most broken one in my opinion is Yuuki with a good magic boosting set)

I entirely disagree with your Atelier review. System is awesome and I love the stories.

11:35 LOL currently playing this. Got on PSN sale for $12. What they're saying about this game, I got that vibe within the first few minutes lmao.....

Glad to see the comments. Yeah, Tokyo Xanadu ftw!!!

Now you should do a video about RPGs with GOOD STORY but Awful Gameplay. In that case, the original NieR would fit perfectly.

I would definitely put Tales of Zestiria and Shining Resonance refrain here

Disgaea 5 fits the bill IMO.

I fully agree on Tokyo Xanadu, it's pretty overlooked. I don't think the story is BAD but it's certainly pretty... meh. It's serviceable. The only interesting character is Asuka, she kept me intrigued.

The ateliers series is indeed somewhat bland on the story side. But yeah... The Atelier Iris 1-3 were pretty good (from memory, I'd need to replay them). Mana Khemia was pretty amazing though, for another school simulator of those years.

I may catch some flak for this but I would put Legend of Dragoon up on this list too. Similar to shadow hearts (not sure if same developers or company) the gameplay is great. I also like the ability for most party members to transform using sailor moon like henshins. The story is not BAD on paper (drawing inspiration from Sumerian creation myth) but i feel it's not told in the best way and suffers from a few unsatisfactory JRPG tropes. (IE childhood friend love interest ends up being the catalyst for destruction etc.)

The 6 MegaMan battle network games kinda are definitions of this top. I mean, 2's and 6's stories are kinda decent, and 3 had an actually great end-game and conclusion... but even then, most of them feel like nothing relevant happens, and they waste the characters tremedously, so they only serve as bossfights, and the vilians are just servants of Dr.Wily that are forgotten until the boss rush. It's a shame because the world and thecnology is really interesting in concept. But the battle system is actually amazing, despite it's RNG factor. And most of them have really intense bossfights. Thankfully the MegaMan StarForce trilogy managed to get actually good stories and world building (tough I've heard 2 feels like filler).

Yeah I have some of these. I like to collect the B level RPGs just to have them.

Akiba Strip 2 actually has a godlike cover art tho it's glorious

Lightning Returns: FF13. Good gameplay, horrible story

Surprised not to see Grandia Xtreme (or for some people Grandia III) on this list, which was the first thing that came to mind for me. Has that best in class Grandia combat.....and an Xtremely generic story that runs out of plot points so they just have you run the same dungeons repeatedly to grind materials. I played the first Atelier game back when it was new and I liked it, but it felt really generic so I was surprised when I started paying attention ten years later to see it had spawned this huge franchise. I should catch up on it.....

I mean... Grandia 3 feels like an obvious choice for this list. I remember you also saying how much you loved the gameplay in the past too.

Yabooooooooi!. Not gonna lie, you had me there.

I'm not entirely sure but I think Akiba's Strip #1 is getting a remake on PS4, and getting localized as well.

Top 1 for me is Disgaea 5. The worst Disgaea in terms of characters, humor and one of the worst in terms of overall plot and delivery but OMG it is so damn good in terms of gameplay. I'd say a masterpiece easily!

Glad I'm not the only one who hated that fire emblem story. "killing is wrong!" Proceeds to go to war

I've been waiting for this video

damn i love the gameplay of shadow hearts 3. so awesome tactical, being able to win every fight without taking damage, or even the enemy not getting a turn. (except maybe 2 boss battles) . even onehitting bosses, if you know what you are doing. (surge, entrance, magic minds eye,...)

I actually played OG Saga And you are completely right The story is so dumb That it will melt your frontal cortex Trying to make sense of the story And the gameplay is awesome And as a fan of fanservice Sometimes there can be a little too much And this game has a little too much

tbh i enjoyed conception 2 also i appreciate it not taking itself too seriously for the most part.