So I was bored today and decided to embark on making a tier list of what I think are the best JRPG series and which ones are in one YouTube video's words are,

"...An evil virus of Satan." -History of the World, Bill Wurst.

So in a desending list starting from F to S. The rules are games I either played or have strong opinions about and have to be RPGs in the traditional sense. So no actiony bits. Game series' that started out traditional and then became more actiony are the exceptions. So here we go...

F Tier

Kingdom Hearts, Quest 64

Starting with the worst is Kingdom Hearts. Simply put you don't need to explain a plot in 12 games that you can with three. Also you don't need a character design to have more than 2 zippers or 1 belt. In order to understand the eldritch monstrosity that the Kingdom Hearts lore, you have to own every console made between 2000 and now, as well as a flip phone and a YouTube video of an orchestra playing. The games are organized in such a batshit way, that its hard to grasp which ones happen first. Also I bet I can make a less complicated, simpler, and easier to understand game with Hanna-Barbera characters with a quarter of the budget of SpongeEnix Squarenuts had...in RPG Maker...2003.

Quest 64 had the potential to be the JRPG that sells the Nintendo 64 and prove that Nintendo ninten-does what Sony could. Sadly this was not the case...

D Tier

Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy is a step above F tier because a lot of the games are good. But I'm sick of people pretending that Final Fantasy VII is best thing since sliced bread, the light bulb, the steam locomotive, automobile, and Jesus Christ. That and also Final Fantasy X has voice acting that puts it on par with the Sega CD games. But I do agree that VII and X are awesome games, just with some minor faults. But because Sqaure wanted to complicate things during the PS2 era and beyond, things like Final Fantasy VIII and XIII being good are nothing more than a fantasy (pun intended). Another gripe I have with Final Fantasy is that it stopped being all fantasy and more Sci-Fi, I swear I thought Final Fantasy XV was a game about the Top Gear Grand Tour presenters going on a tour of Anime Land. But Final Fantasy doesn't have the balls to go full on Sci-Fi with lasers and spaceships and interplanetary travel which will be a reason a certain SEGA series is a higher tier. Really Final Fantasy could have been in a higher tier BUT need some consistency with itself and its enviroments and to stop the Johnstown cult of FFVII.

C Tier

Paper Mario, Bravely Default, Grandia

Paper Mario is a good RPG series, until it became a platformer in the third game, and became a Action Puzzle game from Sticker Star onward. But its really just Shigeru Miyamoto being a Japanese Ferdinand Porche and messing about with the Paper Mario dev team like how Ferdinand Porche fucked up what would be some pretty reasonable German tanks.

Bravely Default is middle tier because I'm bravely neutral about this series. Same goes for Grandia and I heard that the second game is a good reason to own a Dreamcast beside the same three homebrew games getting released, re-released, updated and then being re-released (Seriously, If I heard DUX is getting another update, I shall vomit profusely).

B Tier

Octopath Traveler, Pokemon, Breath of Fire

I like Octopath Traveler very much and it came out at a time when the Switch barely had any good JRPGs at the time. Love the graphics, sound, plot and game progression that totally doesn't rely on heavy grinding (no siree).

Pokemon is odd because I considered it to be a tier lower due to Junichi Masuda not understanding what fans want and likes to pretend the Pokemon community doesn't exist and thus Sword and Shield came out the way it did and arguably every Pokemon game is seriously flawed in some fashion. But I am a fan of serious from Gen 1 and beyond with the only ones I hate with a passion is Sun and Moon. So here it is, middle of the road. Nothing great, but nothing seriously shite either. Also HG/SS and White 2/Black 2 are the best ones hands down.

Breath of Fire is a good JRPG series I found with my Nintendo Switch Online subscription with the SNES games app and I like to say its pretty good and I'd play it until they put Earthbound on the service.

A Tier

Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest

Chrono Trigger is what happens when you ask SquareSoft if they could put Final Fantasy and Back to the Future together and unlike Kingdom Hearts turned out to be something that is easy to grasp and only has two games in the entire series. Everything about this game is great, even having the dude who does the artwork for Dragon Ball working on it (which is aa theme do to which games are in this tier). The presentation and plot are all great.

Dragon Quest has the one thing Final Fantasy does not: Fundamentals and consistency. For one thing, Dragon Quest has never left its medieval fantasy realm never to fiddle with Orwellian corporations or having three dudes faff around with four wheels self propelled vehicles. That and Square can barely put 1/4 of the first disc of Final Fantasy VIII on a 50 GB dual layer Blu-Ray disc on PS4 whilst the Enix half of Square Enix (The reason why its not one word is due to how different each half is) managed to put Dragon Quest XII with extra content and a revamped soundtrack on an itty bitty Nintendo Switch game card. That and only the Yandere Simulator Dev would make barely make one game in six years and thus probably had a hand in the FFVII remake's development.

Honorable Mentions:

Skies of Arcadia because I never got interested in it.

Undertale is an honorable mention but didn't get included because of the battle system being more skill based than strategy (like how all turn based JRPG should be).

Romancing Saga isn't included because I didn't want to complain about the leveling up worked.

Brony Quest and Legend of ZUN because it would be biased to put my own games in this list.

Hyperdimension Neptunia, I didn't want to talk about a JRPG series that I have no strong feelings and already have enough waifu material with the Touhou Project series and thus was already satisfied.

Harvest Moon and Stardust Valley are in the Honorable Mentions because they are more like Life Simulators than they are JRPGs, same goes with Animal Crossing.

Skyrim and Fallout because they're more action based and this list is meant for JRPGs and so no Westerners allowed.

(I'm writting this one because I forgot all about it whilst writting the S Tier, but Persona and Shin Megami Tenshi are in the honorable mentions as well, if I cared I'd put them in S tier as well).

...And finally

S Tier

Phantasy Star, Lunar: The Silver Star, and MOTHER

SEGA does what Square'nt because they went balls to the wall with a Sci-Fi JRPG series that featured laser guns, spaceships, interplanetary travel, space satelites and robots and androids. Phantasy Star was the first to feature a female protagonist (beating Metroid by several months) and was the first to blatantly feature a female protagonist right on the title screen (Metroid had Samus Aran's gender as secret that was unlocked at the end). That and it proved that the Master System and the Genesis were capable JRPG machines that sadly got used for action games. For Square to make a good RPG series this good will take them...AGES. But the fun doesn't stop with SEGA because...

Lunar: The Silver Star and its sequel are THE reason to own a Sega CD besides Sonic CD and Night Trap and a few others. The gameplay is tight, the music is awesome, the plot is pretty good and features voice acting that isn't as awkward as Final Fantasy X's. In fact I'll say its voice acting is better. And if you can't afford a Sega CD it got released a whole bunch of times.

And finally...last but not least...

MOTHER (The Earthbound series). The MOTHER series went one step beyond Phantasy Star and Final Fantasy by setting the series in Suburban (later rural) America. Giving it a ultra realistic setting and a very well thought out battle system in the second and third games, and having a quirky fun personality...Perhaps a Persona? The only bad thing I have to say is that Earthbound is the world's most overrated hidden gem and thus should be upgraded to an exposed gem cause It ain't hidden anymore! I just love this series in general and what Shigesato Itoi had to provide humanity.

So that concludes the tier list. Please remember this is only my opinion and thus you shouldn't feel salty to the point of telling me that I'm more wrong than a Fox News presenter. I also have not biased about Square games as I feel they made some pretty good games and probably should reboot Rad Racer, I just have some strong opinions about them like a Fox News presenter.

Cheers!