Our Cup Runneth Over With Fantastic JRPGs That Happen to Be 20+ Years Old

I love RPGs. Modern western RPGs like anything post-Morrowind/Oblivion/Fallout 3, sure, but also JRPGs. I’m surprised how much that love is paying off in 2022, where I find myself swimming in fantastic RPGs. Most of them just happen to be two decades old.

Konami just announced remastered versions of Suikoden I and II, two of the best JRPGs released on the original PlayStation. That’s amazing and surprising news, partly because it’s always amazing when Konami actually releases a game, but also because Suikoden hasn’t seen any love since the PlayStation Portable.

They’re both fantastic games, and it looks like Konami is putting effort into making them look great on modern systems, with what look like improved sprites and more detailed backgrounds and effects. They actually look like a bigger step up from the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters.

Oh yeah, the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters also came out. Despite a few shaky bugs and the disappointing lack of the additional content found on the Game Boy Advance ports of Final Fantasy 4, 5, and 6, they look like the definitive way to play the first six Final Fantasy games. Final Fantasy 4 (2 in the US at the time) was the first JRPG I really played through, and Final Fantasy 6 (3 at the time; FF names were confusing here until 7 came out) was one of the first that genuinely got me hooked on the genre.

It goes further than that, though. Of all games, Live A Live saw a North American launch on the Nintendo Switch just a few months ago. That’s another incredible JRPG that was never officially released here. Square-Enix isn’t stopping with the Pixel Remasters and Live A Live, though. Front Mission 1st: Remake is coming out next month, offering a remade version of the mecha-based strategy RPG for the Switch, and the second and possibly third games in the series are coming out next year.

Final Fantasy 6 Pixel Remaster
(Credit: Square-Enix)

Even Chrono Cross got a remaster earlier this year. Chrono Cross! I played through it again, and you know what? Yes, it’s a huge bummer in terms of lore after Chrono Trigger, and yes, the overstuffed roster makes it difficult to find much characterization outside of goofy voices, but it’s still a fun game with an interesting story in itself. Why Square-Enix hasn’t made a Chrono Trigger Pixel Remaster is beyond me, but perhaps it’s on its list in the future.

This all proves the eighth console generation is the best for fifth-generation-and-before JRPGs. We have a wealth of classic games in the genre at our fingertips, improved and on modern hardware, that we can play without legally dubious emulation or dealing with most of the frustrating bugs that were in the original versions. Most of it is driven by Square-Enix, the amalgamation of the two companies that absolutely defined the JRPG genre with Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, but Konami and others are getting into it, too.

Octopath Traveler II
(Credit: Square-Enix)

This is about more than JRPGs that were released in the 90s, though. We’re also seeing a wave of new JRPGs inspired by the classics. Octopath Traveler II was just announced, and the spiritual successor to Suikoden, Eiyuden Chronicle(Opens in a new window), is coming out next year. The creators of Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts even recently announced a double Kickstarter campaign(Opens in a new window) for spiritual successor to those series (Shadow Hearts is technically sixth-generation, but it and especially Shadow Hearts: Covenant are fantastic and you should play them if you can. There’s Geppetto and a pro wrestling vampire and you fight Rasputin).

This is a great time for genre fans, and hopefully the trend will continue. These recent and upcoming remasters show that many of these old JRPGs still really hold up, and can stand alongside the modern, more action-focused RPGs like the upcoming Final Fantasy 16.