Yes you really should get on that. Since you can read Japanese you can likely get the second game for far cheaper than any of use could! Get on that, and if you play them be sure to write into Q&A!

I agree 100%, and this is one of the many reasons that I loved Final Fantasy X. There was a villain, but he wasn't essential to the story. The game instead focuses on the whole Jecht story obviously, but also spends a lot of time developing the world and the devastation that Sin causes. It was a different kind of story telling for the series, and it worked out for the better. So yes, Jecht, great antagonist, not a villain.

Excellent! This should be fun. As far as great Antagonists go in the Final Fantasy series, let's not forget about Final Fantasy Tactics, where the main character's old friend is often working against the player's goals, but certainly isn't what you would call a villain.

I love XIII but agree with you completely. The upside of this of course is the game instead spent that unused villain time heavily developing the cast and their struggles. The game really could have used a good antagonist, especially given that the main villain's motivations are poorly developed.

One of the countless reasons that IX is so good. Granted the game's plot has some issues, such as the completely random last boss. Still, this remains one of my all time favorites in the series.

I can't really argue with any of your points. Shinra should have stayed the main focus of the story in my opinion. Sure, they took the easy "evil corporation destroying the environment" route to make them an effective antagonist group, but it worked. Sephiroth being the spawn of some weird alien creature that spawned bosses when he threw her body parts at you never really worked for me. The part where Shinra becomes less of the focus is the part where I started to care less for VII's plot.

That's the thing though, just like the Joker in the Batman comics, Kefka never needs any sort of real background or character development. They're both crazyed psychos who just enjoy seeing the world burn. The difference of course, is that the Joker never has any real power beyond his crazy brilliance, whereas Kefka deftly steals the power of the statues and becomes a world destroying monster. One of the best moments in the game involving him is when you meet him for the final battle, and he randomly fires off beams destroying parts of the world just for giggles. If anyone ever wants a model to base a truly evil villain on, this is it right here.

I think they should go and look at Final Fantasy Tactics as well (since they can no longer just call on Matsuno to do writing). There's also some examples to be taken from their other great franchise, Dragon Quest. It has been way too long since we've had a good antagonist in a Final Fantasy title.

I know! I've been insanely busy of late, but I haven't forgotten it. I've got a good villain idea in mind and just need to find the time to sit down and type it up. I'll get it to you soon, I promise!

I didn't even really know what to say in response to that when I read it last week. Final Fantasy Adventure is an absolute classic, and I played the heck out of that game back in the Game Boy days. It's a shame the remake was so mediocre. Anyway, it was an amazing game and I can assure you it will never go in any of my bad lists. Don't forget it had a Chocobo as well! Also, you may not realize this, but the actual Japanese title was  Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden, which means all the little references to Final Fantasy in the game were intentional. You would be surprised how many people don't know this! Anyway, do not worry, at the very least your Q&A host is a huge fan of Final Fantasy Adventure. Just please don't force me to play the remake!

No problem! Thanks, as always, for writing in, and for the complement!

That's absolutely fine, you're more than welcome to like the games. Having little experience with the series I just thought it best to turn to someone who had played them much more extensively. I can tell you that I bought and quickly sold Agarest 2. Not because it was necessarily awful, I just didn't like the battle system. It reminded me too much of Cross Edge.

I'm sure it came from someone calling themselves an insider, but like I said last week, it is simply not a true story.

Excellent! I shall prepare by queuing up the series theme song as I get ready to respond to these. You know I'm a fan of the series!

I really want to play this game. I'm still sad that it never made it over to the US. I know it wouldn't have sold much if anything, but a man can dream, right? I enjoy the mystery dungeon games, and the idea of one tied into Dragon Quest VIII got me really excited. Oh well, I guess I'll have to hope some fans translate it?

You know that myself, and many here at RPGamer absolutely adore this title. It is a blast to play and the story is filled with some hilarious writing. It's a shame we never got the first one. It will be an even bigger shame if we never get its sequel. Everyone should play this game! It doesn't have that much replay value, but that one playthrough is amazing.

I didn't much care for the first Joker, so I was pleasantly surprised when the sequel was far better in just about every regard. It even had a somewhat interesting story, which you don't usually expect from this kind of game. Plus you can get the tank from Rocket Slime!

I've never really been able to get into this series outside of the mini game from Birth By Sleep that ripped it off, but there's no denying the appeal. I think if I had more people to play the games with, I would absolutely love this series. Shame we've only gotten the Mario one, and not this entry with all the Final Fantasy characters.

The first Dragon Quest game I actually completed, and still one of my favorites. The individual stories and the way they connect together at the end make this a unique and compelling RPG. Of course I highly recommend the DS version over the original NES version.

Everyone should play this game, and I need say no more than that.

I really love just about everything from this game. From the visual style, to the touching stories in each of the games towns and cities, to the great job system, there's so much to enjoy here. Who would have thought one of the best games in the series could be compressed onto a tiny little DS cartridge. It was a bold move to make IX a portable title, and it worked out.

It is a crying shame that we've only ever gotten one of the Torneko Mystery Dungeon games. I don't know if I'd rate any of them up this high, but they are a blast, no doubt about it. Does this one have a fan translation?

Oh wow, the 100 hour opus. This game is amazing because it seems to be the only PS1 RPG to be spread across multiple discs not because it has a ton of cinematics, but because it's just that damn long. I wish the job system was available much earlier, but I can't deny I've enjoyed this game a lot despite not finishing it yet. The writing on many of the stories you experience as the game goes along is fantastic, with many of them being truly heart breaking. This game needs a nice graphical update.

I have given it plenty of consideration, thank you for putting it together! The images weren't showing in my e-mail at first, so I wasn't able to get them in here, but Tanto had screen shots and box arts for each of the games here. Anyway, Dragon Quest VIII is a brilliant and enthralling game, though not my favorite as I don't care for the skill system. This game needs an HD update in the worst way.

Excellent! I'm curious as to what other people will have on their lists. As long as their lists don't contain SaGa.

I have no problem with people hating the game, I get it. I would disagree about the reasons you hated it, but this is about an emotional reaction to a game. The overall story was a bit lacking, but I did love the development of the characters. As for flash vs substance, that certainly applied to the gorgeous FMVs that had little to do with the overall story. Anyway, you hated it, and that's fine. As long as you don't try and tell me it is an awful game, there are no problems here.

I have never played it due to its reputation of being horrible, so we can just leave it at that!

I prefer dubs, even mediocre ones, to listening to the original voices, but these are often worse than mediocre. Still, I do find this reason curious given the PS3 version has the Japanese voices as an option. Regardless, I understand where you're coming from with this one.

DQIX had tons of great stories in each of the locales you visit, which has always been the strongest story telling method in the series, so honestly I have no clue what you're talking about here.

It is not an altered version of FFXI's system in the slightest. Where is this comparison coming from? FFXII has parties, no job system, the ability to pause, insanely customizable AI, etc. The presentation of the battle was similar, but FFXII is more like Square Enix's take on a BioWare game. The story had issues yes, though based on rumors and the like we've heard Matsuno probably wasn't given as much freedom as he needed to make the story work. Unlike FFXIII, I don't get the hate or your reasoning here.

The reason we've seen more mediocre JRPGs is because we've, simply put, seen more JRPGs. You honestly think, had we been getting this many JRPGs in the SNES age that we wouldn't be seeing an almost equal amount of garbage? Come on now. We've become utterly spoiled. If you think there are only a few gems by the way, I've got an enormous list of games to point you to. Anyway, Growlanser IV is something worth getting very excited about. I've been very impressed with what I've seen of the series so far. The developer clearly doesn't have an enormous budget, so what they're able to accomplish is quite impressive.

I've heard this one is quite good, and I'll get to it as soon as I finish up Growlanser 2. I don't know if you can say it got little attention, being a Working Designs release and all. It comes up a lot as one of the reasons they were having trouble, as they were forced to bundle the two Growlanser games together. Not that it matters. It did not get massive amounts of attention and by the sound of it, it deserved that sort of attention.

Well I would say we are currently in the Atlus golden years, and this is solid proof of it. One of the best games on the DS, Radiant Historia is a masterpiece. The fact that they had to reprint it shows the sort of word of mouth it likely was getting. I look forward to whatever this team of developers work on next.

Well, before more new copies showed up widely online these two games commanded a high price, so at least some were aware of its quality. No doubt that it doesn't have near the popularity of the Persona series. A nice HD collection of the two games could fix that a big. Get on this Atlus!

Didn't this come out near the end of the PS1's life? I remember it getting a lot of mediocre reviews that seemed to focus primarily on the visuals, which didn't tell me much. I never got why this one never seemed to get much attention given the popularity of the first game. Oh well, this series never seemed to be able to capitalize on the attention the first game got, and seems to be in limbo as its developer works mostly on the Chaos Rings series.

I paid $125 for this game and did not regret a single penny. That about sums it up right? Thanks for the letter!