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The 11 best JRPGs on PC in 2024The party line
The party line
Image credit:Square Enix / Atlus / Sega
Image credit:Square Enix / Atlus / Sega
Can you believe we didn’t have a best JRPG list until now? Baffling. To be fair we did once tackle this topic with a preliminaryblast of recommendationsfor those completely new to the genre. We also have a few familiar fantasys in our list of the50 best RPGs on PC. But until now we haven’t addressed the genre in its own right. In an act of contrition, we offer you this: our list of the best JRPGs you can play on PC this year, according to our own tastes.
Our interpretation of the JRPG is fairly open-ended. On this list you’ll find games not made in Japan, and others that stretch the conventions to fit the modern world, far from the fantasy battlers of yore. But that’s okay, even the genre’s own label isnot beyond interrogation.
In other words, we make up the rules here! And for now those rules go as follows: only one game per franchise. For example, you’ll only find oneFinal Fantasyon the list (what!) despite it being the most dominant name in the genre (besides,we have those covered). Another rule I’ve decided to follow is not to include the game you love the most. I am sorry. It is number 12.
The best JRPGs on PC
Here’s our list in short. The links summarised here are in alphabetical order, but the list itself is ranked because we suspect you love the suspense of scrolling to see what’s number 1. If you truly can’t stand to wait, no worries. Just click a title below to be directed straight to that game.
11. Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom
What else should I play if I like this?The Kingdom Hearts series has some similar wistfulness
You know how it is. One minute you’re being chauffeured along the highway as President of your country, reflecting on your many years of civil wisdom, when - BAM! The nuke hits your motorcade and all your particles dissolve across dimensions, seeping into a fantasy realm where you inhabit the body of a dapper, younger version of yourself. Yes,Ni No Kuni IIbegins with a traditionally daft isekai moment, but soon that whole setup is thrown away in favour of ushering in a new kingdom. It’s a colourful mash-up of gamey ingredients: part role-playing game, part city management, part real-time-strategy. The story of Evan, the cat-eared boy king, is ultimately a little forgettable. But the moment-to-moment dialogue is excellently localised, with lots of Geordie and Welsh accents appearing to add variety to the animal folk of its fairytale world.
10. Octopath Traveler 2
What else should I play if I like this?Live A Live is the inspiration for the Octopath Traveler series, andhas seen a modern re-release
9. Tales Of Arise
What else should I play if I like this?Anything else in the series, including the previous games, Tales of Vesperia and Tales of Berseria
Tales Of games have a habit of starting on the wrong foot. They throw you into their fantasy worlds with brisk and unflattering introductions to their characters and it’s usually only after a couple of hours that it dawns on you: oh no, I like this idiot.Tales Of Ariseis no exception. One of your heroes is an ancient maiden with a rail gun, a both literally and figuratively thorny person (she has a hereditary curse that covers her body in spikes). The other is a classic do-gooding amnesiac with a sword and a curse of his own - he cannot feel pain. They are both unapproachable dorks. And yet… and yet… Tales Of Arise is simply the best-looking and best-feeling of these slash-first-ask-questions-later misadventures. Its world is more interesting to explore than that ofTales of Beseria, and its character-swapping combo-biffing is more involved thanTales of Vesperia, which makes it a good entry point for anybody desirous of the series' popcorn-munching anime silliness.
8. Disgaea 5
Image credit:NIS America
What else should I play if I like this?All the other Disgaeas, I guess?
7. Sea Of Stars
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Sabotage Studio
What else should I play if I like this?Eastward and Chained Echoes are two other western homages to JRPGs of old
People sometimes use the term “homage” with an implied sneer. As if the artwork that shows its inspirations openly has not earned its own identity.Sea Of Starsis a pleasant reminder that a respectful love for the tropes of a genre can inspire something that happily stands apart. This is a clean, concise, and lip-pursingly handsome pixel art recreation of a JRPG from the era of Chrono Trigger, with many of yesteryear’s bugbears surgically removed. There’s no grind, for example, no random battles. It is so frictionless even the characters glide gracefully off the walls when they walk too close - a simple touch that will make you realise how clunky and grid-locked those old games often were. This is a JRPG for those who want to venture back to a simpler time, but don’t want to surrender the quality-of-life luxuries that modern gaming affords.
6. Dragon Quest XI: Echoes Of An Elusive Age
What else should I play if I like this?Other Dragon Quests are available, but maybe tryGranblue Fantasy: Relink
Some like it slow. The pace of adult life demands that many of us are afraid to invest in a large-scale, long term beast of a JRPG. Especially if it sticks unbendingly to the traditions of turn-taking and tiki-taka levelling up. Yet for anyone with the patience and time to re-establish the peaceful days of trekking over thundering landscapes inFinal Fantasy X, or exploring every possible side story inChrono Trigger, this current generation game is perfect.Dragon Questis something of a tentpole in the genre, and the PC has been neglected when it comes to this staunchly conservative series of fantasy walkabout. But now you can see what all the fuss is about. Take your time. The rest of these games aren’t going anywhere.
5. Undertale
What else should I play if I like this?A wealth of similar games - Omori, Space Funeral, Rakuen, Lisa: The Painful
An old-school RPG with a weird Simpsons-looking dweeb as the protagonist has no right to be this moving. But it is.Undertaleis about a human child who grows up around monsters. It is likeWhere The Wild Things Are, if that children’s book grew pixels, told a joke, and then punched you in the gut while you were laughing. Some might nitpick and complain that Undertale doesn’t count as a JRPG, but that seems unfair when you observe how much jestering love it shows the genre. It has a deep understanding of JRPG rhythm and tone, from the musically memorable way it introduces its friends and foes, to its whimsical battle menus. It is dense with gags. There are laugh-out-loud ones, little wry smilers, punchy bark-provokers, snorters, guffaw-eliciters, nose-exhalers, every small subset of human comedy (and tragicomedy) is covered in the 10 hours or so it’ll take you to get through the story. This is a game full of humour and feeling, and it understands equally the foibles and fun of JRPG games like a child understands and forgives the overbearing quirks of a loving mum.
4. Chrono Trigger
What else should I play if I like this?Final Fantasy VI came out the year before this, so it’d be fun to compare notes
3. Final Fantasy VII: Remake
What else should I play if I like this?Go back and play the original Final Fantasy VII? I don’t know, it’s your life, buddy.
A conundrum: do we recommend the blocky and time-honouredFinal Fantasy VIIof 1997, or the flashy and significantly altered Remake of 2020? To recommend the former is to stick to conventional wisdom. To recommend the latter is to introduce a new conventional wisdom with better graphics. Either way, we are going to upset everyone on planet earth. I’ve decided to go with the modern Remake, since it allows us to embrace both recency bias and our rose-tinted glasses at the same time. Remarkable! The story of CloudStrifeand his merry band of environmentalist freedom fighters is probably one of the most written-about tales in video game history. Here we’re seeing that tale adapted and built-upon, morphing in sometimes unpredictable ways. The re-telling of a story long carved in immovable JRPG stone. In many ways, Final Fantasy VII is a story about loss, and Square Enix are threatening to upend that bucket of grief into a pool of safe and fizzy nostalgia. This alone makes the ongoing modernisation of Cloud’s strife worth following. In 1997, gamers were forced to process the loss of a character to the point of acceptance. Over twenty years later, we are being handed a chance to dive head-first back into denial. That’s kinda neat!
2. Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Sega
What else should I play if I like this?Other Yakuza games, inthe right order
1. Persona 5 Royal
Image credit:Sega
What else should I play if I like this?Persona 4 Golden or the series' demonic cousin Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance
