Throughout the history of games, we tend to look back on some highly rated games with rose-colored glasses and don’t exactly see the issues that some of them had that we overlooked at the time.
JRPGs are a genre that gets away with this time and time again, as the adventures are so epic, we often ignore the glaring problems that a more objective view would probably catch.
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As much as these JRPGs were highly regarded back in their time, not every old is gold.
I’m a lifelong lover of the genre and have played all the best, but even I can admit that some of these games are a bit more beloved than they probably deserve.
We’re going to check out a bunch of JRPGs which, while great, are probably a bit overrated for the scores they received for various reasons.
10
Octopath Traveler 2
No Sense Of Pacing
Octopath Traveler 2 is a big improvement over the first game in a lot of ways, but despite the overwhelming positivity of the game, it commits one cardinal sin.
The pacing is terrible. Any way you slice it, the way each of the 8 stories go is, the second you’re finally starting to pick up momentum in the story, you’re forced to start someone else’s story.
Generally, this is like if halfway through your favorite JRPG, the game goes “Hey, I bet you’re bored. Here’s an identical and slightly less fun version of what you were playing!” and expects you to love it.
Any momentum you gain from story to story is just derailed when the next one starts. I think the big issue is that there is very little organic overlap here where the characters come into each other’s stories in a seamless way.
I get that’s the appeal of Octopath Traveler 2, but the disjointed feeling of it just takes away any interest I have in the individual stories because it’s just so haphazard how the team eventually comes together.
9
Bravely Default
Can’t Hold A Candle To The Classics
Bravely Default came along at a time when JRPGs were fully out of ammo and the gaming world had comfortably left them behind in the previous generation.
I think that’s part of where the glowing praise for this game came from. It was the nostalgia blast that Square Enix so desperately tried to achieve with it after the disaster trilogy of Final Fantasy 13.
Enter Bravely Default, the horrendously named original JRPG series from Square Enix and developed by Silicon Studio.
There is a lot of good here. The battle system is top-notch and very creative, offering a fresh spin on the turn-based battle system by adding a smart risk vs reward system. The story was also pretty interesting, but the characters were incredibly one-note, and it’s a big disappointment considering JRPGs have spawned some of gaming’s best characters.
The worst feature of the game, though, is the fact you have to repeat Chapter 5, five times. Fight the same bosses, explore the same areas, etc. It’s a baffling decision that lasts far too long and derails the momentum completely and then throws this game into 70s territory ratings-wise. And yet, it was almost universally beloved when released.
Also, as a side note, there are bikini costumes available for characters who are teenagers and look like 5-year-olds. Fan service can be fine if done the right way, but this is absolutely not it.
I’m sick of this genre that I love doing things as gross as this. Brave? Not so much. Clean it the hell up. Moving on.
Struggles To Make You Care
Metaphor: Refantazio was on many people’s Game of the Year card in 2024 and, while I found it to be a pretty good time for the most part, it’s one of the highest-rated JRPGs of all time and I cannot understand why.
The most important part of any JRPG for me is the story and, in that aspect, I think Metaphor failed, plain and simple.
I just didn’t care one iota about the contest to become king. I also didn’t care about saving some prince, or a king that got killed in the opening cutscene.
The game gave me zero reason to care. The characters are all defined by weird monikers like Traveling Boy or Grizzled Soldier, and they are about as interesting as their monikers would suggest.
The style of writing in this game suggests that exposition equals intrigue and, unfortunately, that’s not how it works. Metaphor takes an hour to deliver information that can be given in minutes, and it abuses this power over and over throughout its absurd 80+ hour run time.
Now I’m not saying it’s a bad game, because it’s not. It’s got great combat and a slick visual style that may be a bit much for some, but it works.
There is also a well-implemented social system which works pretty well too. Overall, it’s still a damn good time, just not close to being as good as ratings would suggest.
7
Tales Of Arise
We Thought You Were The Chosen One
Tales of Arise was really a breath of fresh air when it released and picked up several Game of the Year awards from various outlets.
I think that happened less because the game was utterly incredible and more because of the state JRPGs were in when it released.
It was a bit of a wasteland when it came to big-budget JRPGs, so everyone clinging to nostalgia decided to name this game their new god.
What they ignore, however, is painfully repetitive combat due to the enormous damage sponge enemies that roam this world. More health does not equal more fun, but nobody told Bandai Namco this. Normal enemies and especially bosses were outrageously long fights that didn’t earn the right to be that.
Then there is the messy story, which starts intriguingly with a somewhat grounded story about races of people being oppressed and enslaved by their fellow man, and then goes so far off the rails that we’re dealing with aliens in space and all sorts of insanity that it barely makes sense by the end of it all.
It’s a game that suffers from simply being too long. There are many times when you’re sure you’re at the final battle, only for some other wild plot reveal to happen and whisk you off to 20 more hours of the same nonsense.
6
Persona 5
High School Is Boring
Yup, some of your favorites are going to be taken to the woodshed in this list, and Persona 5 is on the block just like the others.
I think Persona 5’s disrespect of your time is what makes it so overrated. Yes, the visuals are great, the story gets good around the 15-hour mark, and the combat is endlessly customizable, but to get there, you have to wade through endless menial tasks and dialogue at the start of the game.
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Not everyone has the patience to play a game 15 hours before the fun starts, and yet Persona 5 seems obsessed with making you go to school or do chores for your uncle, and does that sound like what makes for a fun JRPG?
For some, maybe, but I always found Persona 5 far more social sim than a JRPG. The dungeons had a PS2 level quality to them that didn’t make them all that interesting to explore, and while the bosses were fun, we can all agree they peaked with Kamoshida.
It’s still a very good game, but I’d leave it somewhere in the 80s rather than the “best game ever” labels that surround it.
5
Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth
Unfocused
Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth improved in many ways upon the first in the remake series, but I think it dropped the ball in ways that reviews didn’t seem to mind all that much.
While the game is thrilling in parts, there is a horrific trend of destroying momentum when it comes to the story.
The reason is due to the horror that is the mini-games in Rebirth. There are an outrageous amount, and they’re implemented in ways that just don’t even make sense half the time.
Why am I playing carnival games to win bathing suits? Why am I throwing boxes into vats for an hour as Cait Sith in the most iconic location in Final Fantasy 7? Why am I forced to do yet more mini-games in the Black Temple when the tension should be at a fever pitch?
It just derailed every serious story moment, and I’m sorry, but I’m never forgiving Square Enix for what they did to Shinra Mansion.
That should’ve been the opportunity of a lifetime, with modern graphics and tech to make that place as creepy as possible. Instead, Cait Sith and nothing else. For shame.
4
Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 3
Legend Of Exposition And Bad Dungeons
The Legend of Heroes series is a daunting one to get into, but there are a handful of gems in there once you dig through them.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 3 is generally the most beloved game in the Cold Steel series, and while it certainly has some highs, I find it to be a bit overrated.
The reason is the insane amount of exposition you have to sit through in this game. It relies on you having played the previous games in the series, but even with that, characters talk for 20 minutes at a time and barely say anything of note in the process.
I’d chalk that up to bad writing, but people swear this is some of the best plot writing in JRPG history, so go figure.
Aside from that, the dungeon crawling is mind-numbing, with painfully plain-looking dungeons that are nothing more than connected square-shaped rooms with enemies wandering around haphazardly with no real structure or purpose to the area itself.
You can find a lot to love in the game, but the overwhelmingly positive reception it got always baffled me a bit.
3
Xenoblade Chronicles 2
The Game That Won’t Get Out Of The Way
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is looked at as the high point of the trilogy, but there are quite a few issues that keep it from claiming that moniker in my eyes.
While the game is clearly well-made, there is so much here that is just not fun from a gameplay perspective.
Let’s talk about the combat, for example, which is incredibly limited in the opening hours and then, all of a sudden, introduces a handful of systems all at once with some of the worst possible tutorials in a game to date.
It’s almost impossible to understand the depth of this system without a video guide of some kind.
Then there is the painful, Gatcha-style system for acquiring Blades, which fight alongside you. It’s completely RNG-based and is simply there to keep you grinding away in the hope you’ll get one you want. Who puts that in a premium JRPG?
Lastly, this is subjective for sure, but the character designs in this game showed off everything bad about JRPGs in a succinct package. It’s impossible to take half of these characters seriously because it’s clear the people designing them didn’t.
That’s all I’ll say on that front. Just look at some pictures from the game, and you can see for yourself.
2
Suikoden II
It Doesn’t Hold Up
Suikoden 2 is looked at as a classic of the JRPG genre, but when you compare it to its contemporaries of the time, what was the hype about?
It was released in 1998, and by that time, we’d already had Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 6, 7, 8 and Xenogears.
When Suikoden 2 came out, it just felt old. I get that that’s part of the appeal, but it felt old even for 1998.
Sure, it didn’t have the budget of the other big JRPGs of the time, but still the combat was so plain, the level design felt positively ancient, and the writing quality was not at all on par with its peers.
There is a reason that when the remastered version came out, it was barely a spec on the radar, and it’s likely because there was nothing all that novel about the game to begin with.
100 playable characters is great, but when they’re mostly as deep as a puddle and the villain is an over-the-top joke of a villain in most respects, there isn’t much of a reason to play long enough to collect them all.
1
Final Fantasy 12
Your Participation Is Optional
Final Fantasy 12 is a strange departure for the series and, while some love it, the play style is a bit of a culture shock to the big-time fans of the series.
While I do enjoy the game, the universal praise always seems to miss the key point that the game plays itself.
The gambit system makes it so you barely have to do anything when combat starts. It’s so hands-off that you’re basically watching the game.
I prefer to be a participant in my games, and Final Fantasy 12 wants us to be very passive in the experience.
You don’t have to use the gambit system, but without it, you are not going to be all that effective. It’s almost a requirement to beat some of the more difficult fights throughout the game.
I think this one aspect keeps a lot of players away from this otherwise very good game.
The other issue with the game is the story, which somehow lacks a main character. That aspect makes it somewhat hard to engage with the party, as we’re sold about 3 different main characters, but none of them have enough focus.
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10 Highly Reviewed JRPGs That Would Flop Today
Time heals all wounds, including those inflicted by outdated game designs.
