Though horribly enough once you've played so many RPGs for the PS2 it almost becomes hard to recommend one. Information overload.

Disgaea is one of the best strategy RPGs ever. Disgaea 2 is also very worthwhile, though I'd start with the first one. If you're into those games after playing them, Nippon Ichi put about four other ones out for the PS2.

Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land is, in my opinion, the best PS2 RPG that no one ever played, and has the best random combat of any RPG. It's an old school dungeon crawler in the style of (but not in the series of) the old Wizardry PC games. I fucking love it, but it's esoteric. And hard to get a hold of.

FFXII is a fucking fantastic game, in my opinion, and can be either psuedo-real time or pseudo-turn based. FFX is also there, and most people seem to like that more, but most people are wrong.

Atelier Iris I'd put pretty low on the list. It's a low budget 2D JRPG whose main gameplay hook is crafting. If that lights your bulb, you might want to try it out, because it does do crafting well. Remember: low budget. Not a masterpiece. If you like that game, there are about 8 between the three series that run on the same engine, the other series being Mana Khemia and Ar Tonelico.

Dragon Quest VIII is a pretty solid and fun title, though you can expect to do some grinding. If you're a fan of Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball art) or the original on the NES, it'll tickle your memory in a fun way. If not... not.

Grandia is a good series with fun gameplay but perhaps less than stellar writing, dialog, and plot (when is that not the case for a JRPG?). I recommend it pretty highly. There are three games for the system, and I think I'd start with 2? Maybe 3? 2 was on the Dreamcast, so it's a little dated on the PS2.

Magna Carta is an absolutely horrible fucking game whose main draw is tits that look like gigantic balloons bolted onto the tiny frames of pretty women. If the pretty woman doesn't have absurd titties, she's probably actually a guy. Avoid at all costs.

Persona 4 is one of the best turn-based titles on the system, and is a very unique RPG title. It's a modern day murder mystery with some surrealist twists. Highly recommended. There's at least one other Persona game for the system, too.

Shin Megami Tensei, made by the same company with the same engine, on the other hand, I do not recommend at all. Unless you're a masochist who's really into old school RPGs with modern day absurd surrealist settings. These games (there are five?) may sound similar to Persona 4, and in a lot of ways they are. A lot of ways. But there's a crucial difference in that the SMTs will have you slogging through some really long dungeons, and random encounters may or may not instakill you, undoing the last hour of dungeon crawling you just did. Very, very frustrating.

Shadow Hearts: Covenant is a pretty fun and bizarre little RPG. It's intentionally absurd in a fashion that is akin to a parody; I mean, you trade gay pornography to homosexual French twins in order to have them craft dresses for your living marionette (see link). You have a Mexican-wrestling vampire bat with dreadlocks in your party. That said, despite its tendencies toward parody, the game takes itself entire too seriously and somehow manages to delve into cliche, too. I was ultimately disappointed. There are two other games in the series on the PS2, as well.

Stella Deus is a pretty bad strategy RPG. Do not recommend.

Suikoden comes in two primary flavors, III, IV, and V, and Tactics. I've tried III and Tactics, and didn't make it halfway through either. Maybe not even a quarter of the way through. They're pretty low budget, in a fashion that's obvious. More so than with the Atelier Iris games. Like certain areas just plain not having music. Not for mood, but because it probably wasn't in the budget. They are fairly different games in ways - there's a cast of 108 playable characters in the numbered ones, and III has you witness the same conflict from three viewpoints. That said, the game still sucked, in my opinion.


If you want a short list, I'd go with, roughly in order, FFXII, Disgaea, Persona 4, Dragon Quest VIII, Wizardry, Grandia 3. If you want to open it up to non-turn based, I can recommend many more games. If there's anything you're wondering about that I haven't mentioned, let me know. I may not have played it, but I own it (no, seriously).