Xbox 360 RPGs you should play!

[storino03]

Here's my list of Xbox 360 RPGs you guys should play! Who would have known they had any? It wasn't just the PS3. :P

NOTE: I left out a few like The Last Remnant and Mass Effect series (isn't really RPG in nature). I hear the PC version of Last Remnant is better balanced.

Lost Odyssey:
Released 2008
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...s=lost+odyssey

This is a 4-Disc jRPG by Mist Walker (former President of Square/Squaresoft). It was released exclusively on the Xbox 360 and tells the story of Kaim and his 'immortality' for 1000 years. The story is definitely a unique one and the other cast members all get equal screen time. Sound/Music impressed me a lot. Graphics are great, being built with the Unreal Engine 3, it's no slouch. Facial animations and character models are quite detailed and help immerse you into the game's world. There are a lot of cutscenes, hence the 4 discs, but I knew what I was getting into, and knew it was going to be a great game!

Grade: A

Blue Dragon:
Released 2007
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ds=blue+dragon

This is a 2-Disc jRPG by (again) Mist Walker. The graphics are fantastic! They all have an anime-inspired look, from the chibi characters, to the cutscenes that make it look like a Pixar Animation film. I absolutely loved the music in this game! Some people find the story to be generic, but it was exactly what I was looking for. The world is huge and it's fully realized (you can travel on it)! The storyline follows a young boy named Shu on his quest to find out why his hometown was attacked by a metal shark. Sounds amazing, doesn't it? MUSIC. IS. AMAZING.

Though some people don't like the boss theme. It grows on you. It's like a heavy metal vocal song, sung in English.

Grade: B+

Infinite Undiscovery:
Released 2008
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...te+undiscovery

Another 2-Disc RPG by Tri-Ace and Square Enix. This one reminds me more of a mmorpg because of the way you have multiple characters fighting alongside. Graphics are okay for a current-gen title (not for very long lol), and the music is good, but the storyline I felt was very generic and the end boss was stupid--reminded me of the Star Ocean end bosses.

Grade: B

Magna Carta 2:
Released 2009
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=magna+carta+2

This is a korean-developed RPG by Namco Bandai. Much better than the original PS2 Magna Carta game, which was I think technically the second game to come out, but the only other one in English. Also plays like a mmorpg, but offline. Expansive environments and the graphics are excellent. The battle system is like Final Fantasy XII's on the PS2, where you see enemies on the field and can engage them. Storyline is great, music is slightly ambient-sounding, but I didn't get bored of it.

Grade: A

Tales of Vesperia:
Released 2008
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...es+of+vesperia

What is there not to love? It's a Tales game by Namco Bandai and exclusive to the Xbox 360 (in English!). I thoroughly enjoyed this game. I think I even like it better than Tales of Xillia which I am playing through now. The art style in Vesperia stand out more and there's an actual world map, something that Xillia streamlined and is more akin to Star Ocean: Til the End of Time where you transition from fields to towns, to caverns, etc.

Storyline is awesome and you truly feel like a badass as the main character does some justifiable things throughout the game. Theme song is great too!

Grade: A

Star Ocean Last Hope:
Released 2009
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...cean+last+hope

Great game! I don't know where all the hate was. Granted, I'm basing this review off of the PS3 International Version. I loved every bit of it! The storyline was interesting and kept up with the Star Ocean motive of crashing on an alien planet and having directives not to engage the people of the planet or not show advanced technology to them, etc. Music was great, battle system is typical running around arena-style circles with minimal obstacles. Storyline was great from creating cause and effect on different planets. Highly recommend the PS3 version though.

Grade: B+

[almighty]

Ahhh. Ex Lax three sheety. Sorry excuse for a game system gave me the RRD early on, and I only used it to play Blue Dragon (finished it), and Lost Odyssey (stopped playing it on disk 4). The rest of the time I used it to watch one of many Asian serials from my collection on it (even those I don't think I've watched that many before getting the dreaded RRD). It wouldn't surprise me one bit if XBone does the same thing as it's big brother did.

[storino03]

That's why I wait a few years for a console to work out the problems. My Xbox 360 Slim is still purring, but I don't use it much these days. My PS3 is more of my Netflix box than anything else.

[vicireland]

Blue Dragon and Vesperia are the standouts for me.

[ramzastrife]

Vesperia is my 2nd favorite Tales game, and is very good. I still need to pick up Magna Carta 2. Lost Odyssey is great from what I have played; I just need to finish it. I haven't played Blue Dragon since they added that difficulty patch. Before they added that, the game was pretty meh. Blue Dragon and Mass effect were the 2 games that I bought my 360 for originally.

[perrandy]

Here's my list of Xbox 360 RPGs you guys should play! Who would have known they had any? It wasn't just the PS3. :P

NOTE: I left out a few like The Last Remnant and Mass Effect series (isn't really RPG in nature). I hear the PC version of Last Remnant is better balanced.

Lost Odyssey:
Released 2008
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...s=lost+odyssey

This is a 4-Disc jRPG by Mist Walker (former President of Square/Squaresoft). It was released exclusively on the Xbox 360 and tells the story of Kaim and his 'immortality' for 1000 years. The story is definitely a unique one and the other cast members all get equal screen time. Sound/Music impressed me a lot. Graphics are great, being built with the Unreal Engine 3, it's no slouch. Facial animations and character models are quite detailed and help immerse you into the game's world. There are a lot of cutscenes, hence the 4 discs, but I knew what I was getting into, and knew it was going to be a great game!

Grade: A

Blue Dragon:
Released 2007
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ds=blue+dragon

This is a 2-Disc jRPG by (again) Mist Walker. The graphics are fantastic! They all have an anime-inspired look, from the chibi characters, to the cutscenes that make it look like a Pixar Animation film. I absolutely loved the music in this game! Some people find the story to be generic, but it was exactly what I was looking for. The world is huge and it's fully realized (you can travel on it)! The storyline follows a young boy named Shu on his quest to find out why his hometown was attacked by a metal shark. Sounds amazing, doesn't it? MUSIC. IS. AMAZING.

Though some people don't like the boss theme. It grows on you. It's like a heavy metal vocal song, sung in English.

Grade: B+

Infinite Undiscovery:
Released 2008
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...te+undiscovery

Another 2-Disc RPG by Tri-Ace and Square Enix. This one reminds me more of a mmorpg because of the way you have multiple characters fighting alongside. Graphics are okay for a current-gen title (not for very long lol), and the music is good, but the storyline I felt was very generic and the end boss was stupid--reminded me of the Star Ocean end bosses.

Grade: B

Magna Carta 2:
Released 2009
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=magna+carta+2

This is a korean-developed RPG by Namco Bandai. Much better than the original PS2 Magna Carta game, which was I think technically the second game to come out, but the only other one in English. Also plays like a mmorpg, but offline. Expansive environments and the graphics are excellent. The battle system is like Final Fantasy XII's on the PS2, where you see enemies on the field and can engage them. Storyline is great, music is slightly ambient-sounding, but I didn't get bored of it.

Grade: A

Tales of Vesperia:
Released 2008
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...es+of+vesperia

What is there not to love? It's a Tales game by Namco Bandai and exclusive to the Xbox 360 (in English!). I thoroughly enjoyed this game. I think I even like it better than Tales of Xillia which I am playing through now. The art style in Vesperia stand out more and there's an actual world map, something that Xillia streamlined and is more akin to Star Ocean: Til the End of Time where you transition from fields to towns, to caverns, etc.

Storyline is awesome and you truly feel like a badass as the main character does some justifiable things throughout the game. Theme song is great too!

Grade: A

Star Ocean Last Hope:
Released 2009
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...cean+last+hope

Great game! I don't know where all the hate was. Granted, I'm basing this review off of the PS3 International Version. I loved every bit of it! The storyline was interesting and kept up with the Star Ocean motive of crashing on an alien planet and having directives not to engage the people of the planet or not show advanced technology to them, etc. Music was great, battle system is typical running around arena-style circles with minimal obstacles. Storyline was great from creating cause and effect on different planets. Highly recommend the PS3 version though.

Grade: B+

i was agreeing with everything till you gave star ocean a b+ muahahhaha....are you really serious?that game was atrocious from voices thru gameplay.it was so terrible that i'd give it and F hmmokay?

btw, you forgot enchanted arms.that game was kinda good if it weren't for a certain character....

[almighty]

i was agreeing with everything till you gave star ocean a b+ muahahhaha....are you really serious?that game was atrocious from voices thru gameplay.it was so terrible that i'd give it and F hmmokay?

btw, you forgot enchanted arms.that game was kinda good if it weren't for a certain character....

Thanks for reminding me of that one although I'm a little fuzzy at this point as to which system I played that on, suffice it to say that I no longer have that game. And yeah, that game could have certainly left that character out and it could have been all for the better imho.

[perrandy]

Thanks for reminding me of that one although I'm a little fuzzy at this point as to which system I played that on, suffice it to say that I no longer have that game. And yeah, that game could have certainly left that character out and it could have been all for the better imho.

i played it on xbox360 and later had to replay it on the ps3 because my 360 had the red light of death on me

[zborgerd]

Good post.

Lost Odyssey was the reason I bought the 360. I hadn't even heard of the game until I was sitting in the in an airport, on a business trip, and saw the commercial. Coincidentally, it had a Jefferson Airplane song (at the airport, get it?). I spent a few hours of downtime watching the gameplay trailers and then I knew I wanted a 360. Picked it up shortly after. Lost Odyssey is one of my favorite RPGs of this generation. For you Shadow Hearts fans, a lot of the Feelplus development team was made up of ex-Sacnoth/Nautlius/Aruze employees.

Best ever RPG commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-x12UEo-rs

I have Blue Dragon but haven't played it much yet. Mistwalker is one of my favorite companies of late, and I like Dragon Quest, so it seems like it will be fun. I also have Magna Cart 2, which I was lucky to score for about $15 mint recently, It saw a price spike about a year ago and I wasn't about to pay $30-$40 for it. It's settled down now that some new stock seems to have appeared out of nowhere.

Played everything else that you've listed.

Infinite Undiscovery gets a lot of bad press, but I thought it was excellent. I love Tri-Ace and Sakuraba. The game was full of cliches, but every Tri-Ace game is. I just thought it was fun to play and I enjoyed the character interaction. Seemed like a modern take on the old-school action / adventure genre. I think that the biggest problem that people had was the slow start. Once you get past the fortress invasion, the pace picks up and you start to meet more characters.

Star Ocean was also a fun game though it had its share of tedious parts. Of all of the games I've played on this list, it felt the weakest to me. Still, it's a good game and sticks well to its roots. It just never does anything to wrap up the series with any sort of "wow" factor. It's still worth a buy though, as it's a fun RPG.

Vesperia was one of the best in the series. The writing was good, acting is great, characters are well designed, and it's a blast to play. Matoi Sakuraba seems to dominate XBox 360 RPG soundtracks, having worked on 3 of thr 6 games you list (including this) and it's excellent as always. The game's cell shaded graphics were breathtaking.

Last Remnant is a boring RPG for SaGa fans. Those are the only people who will like it. I put a lot of time into this one - eat least 20-30 hours, and just really hated the level-up system. The story isn't bad and I like the grouped battles, but it's just too monotonous to stick with. Maybe it's because I did too many of the fetch-quests. In spite of the technical problems, the game runs pretty well if you install it on the hard drive. Considering that's a requirement for some new games, I don't think it's too much of an issue.


There are a few others:

Eternal Sonata - Overlooked by a lot of people, and full of cliches. It's fun to play and looks and sounds great (another Sakuraba soundtrack!). The game's linearity might be a turn-off to some. It's not a North American exclusive, but was released a year earlier than the PS3 version... So it kinda was an exclusive. Nobody really played the PS3 version anyway, since there were so many RPGs.

Resonance of Fate - Another Tri-Ace RPG, which of course was scored by Sakuraba. It's not an XBox 360 exclusive, but it's a good game. The game's biggest downfall is the tile system. It just becomes too annoying to grind to find them. Battle mechanics are interesting but the system loses its novelty pretty quickly.

Fallout III was the most overrated PC port I've ever played. It is probably great for someone that wants a post-apocalyptic version of Elder Scrolls... Which is exactly what it was.

I have a few bargain bin titles that I haven't even bothered to play yet. Two Worlds II. It looks like a typical PC-style RPG. Operation Darkness is a unique tactical title, but it got some rough reviews. You never know though. Some games that don't get great reviews but can still be worth a play if they are a bargain.


And, unfortunately, that's about where it ends on the XBox 360. It seemed like it would be a promising platform for RPGs early in its life, and it turned out to be fairly limited in the end. It started strong, but has been pretty poor for RPGs over the past few years.

[xelement5x]

Good post.
Eternal Sonata - Overlooked by a lot of people, and full of cliches. It's fun to play and looks and sounds great (another Sakuraba soundtrack!). The game's linearity might be a turn-off to some. It's not a North American exclusive, but was released a year earlier than the PS3 version... So it kinda was an exclusive. Nobody really played the PS3 version anyway, since there were so many RPGs.

This game, I'm so torn on it. The soundtrack was amazing, and the battle system was very fun, especially if you unlocked the last battle level in the extra dungeon. But the story, was just so loopy at the end. It's pretty good through most of the game, but the end was ugh. Not to mention that 30 minutes death scene on one character that they just kept flashing back to over and over and over again.