I had this realization today. Thinking through the uncountable number of RPGs I've played, I cannot come up with a single one i've played through to completion. One or two I have gotten to the last area/boss/whatever, but I have never actually played an RPG the whole way through. Crono Trigger & FF8 are the 2 games I can think off of the top of my head where i've actually got to the final boss, but never actually finished. (I'm talking about JRPGs specifically, I have seen through things like Mass Effect and Neverwinter)

I think the reason is, while I get attached to a game, once you get to the endgame, a lot of the charm has gone and it begins to feel like a job, and I just stop playing. I still enjoy the games, and i've always had fun playing them, but I guess i've never really put the time commitment into actually finishing one.

So I ask you this, if there is one RPG I should play through, what should it be? I'm currently about 10 hours into The Last Story, and i've got the feeling that it's kind of short, so that may be a contender for the first RPG I actually finish, which would be disappointing, as it's an incredibly cliche'd story and I don't want my first RPG ending to be a disappointment.

I'd say to look for Shadow Hearts 2: Covenant (PS). Still the best Jrpg I've played so far. Amazing gameplay it has and the story is quite good (Shadow hearts 3: from the new world has even better gameplay but the story is kinda balls).

tales of graces f is really good bro. Hell any tales games be good cause well they are just fun to play! or beat FF7

Some tales game are kinda hard and annoying and have that grindy aspect, but one I'd recommend is Tales of Eternia for the PS1. (Might be called destiny 2 depending on what version you get, but it's officially Eternia). Some of the slickest and fun battle systems around with one hell of a story with shittons of extras.

Personally, I'd say FF9 is a good intro to RPG-ness, since it's widely considered to be the best 'essence' of final fantasy, according to at least the FF creator and the famous composer (Nobue Uematsu)

I actually recommend Playing alter a.i.l.a.: beginning on terrinos (?), and then going to the database and changing all their HP to 1 (It's made on rpg maker 2k3) and just play through and only fight bosses. It's sorta grindy, but has one of the most interesting plots ever, but you have to replay through it a bit to get all the endings (the final ending is freaking amazing). Alter aila genesis is also freaking amazing since it's a remake of the first game, but it has a good chunk of rpg grind that'll take up time.

Final fantasy 4. It's really easy to get into, and fun.

lol tales games hard? i never had to grind in a tales game ever! and yeah tales of enterina is pretty good. i has it on my psp... though it might be harder to find and costly if your going to do it the legal way

I guess hard by his standards: something that doesn't feel grindy.
Fuque tales of abyss. That was so annoying.

I am seriously considering FF9, it's sitting there on the PSN, so it appeals to my laziness too.

I guess when I refer to grinding, I just really don't enjoy it when you end up running in circles on a map doing encounter after encounter in order to progress. I don't mind having the option in, in FF8 I spent a long time drawing ultima from everything I could find, but I don't like the jRPGs where it's be designed to require you to wander aimlessly in order to progress.

I'm going to see if I can pick up tales of graces cheap, I think I saw it floating around on play asia quite cheap recently (yay for region-free!).

I hate grinding with a passion.

FF9 is a good choice ... You can beat the last boss without ever really grinding much. Battle system feels dated (because, well, it's an older game). But the areas change up enough, and you don't have to do much backtracking or anything. Also that one had my favorite Chocobo miniquests (apart from FFVII's breeding/racing).

A person who doesn't like grinding should just AVOID the "Tales of" games. Sorry Megaflare.

The Skies of Arcadia re-release on the GameCube (also plays on Wii) is still one of my favorites.
(Technically, I played its original release on Dreamcast, but that version had a notoriously nasty pop-rate for random encounters ... The GameCube version fixed it though.)
The story is really great, and it also gives you the benefit of building your own base & ship after act II or III, which gives you much more incentive to keep going.

FFVI is worth it to beat, as it has one of the best endings that any game ever has ever had, ever. But it's old (SNES), and you WILL grind in it, especially towards the beginning-middle. However, like I said, the ending is -WORTH IT-. (And not worth it to just YouTube, as you won't have the emotional connection to all the characters they're summing up.)

Fallout 2 (PC only) is also one of the finest RPGs of all time (though it's not Japanese). It's very old, so the movement/battle system feels a might clunky, but the story and writing are just GREEEAT. I was satisfied as shit when I beat that thing. Also, if you beat it, you'll know why people were so pissy about Fallout 3 (but relieved about NV).
(Don't bother with Fallout 1 ... It's even clunkier, and the writing's not worth it in that one.)

If you couldn't muscle through to the end on Chrono Trigger though -- one of the best jRPGs of all time -- it will probably be hard for you to do it now!

Especially if you're an adult ... I've noticed that I have just SO MUCH LESS PATIENCE now that I'm a working adult than when I was younger.

I dont get why people think tales games are grindy :x ive beat every single one ive played without grinding once! ALSO ff6 is a huige grind fest... not at the start... once the world goes boom thats a grind fest... you need like multple trained partys to get though the last boss place its annyoing as fuck.

ive played 2 tales games and i have never had to grind. That being said, I still dont think their great games x;

Dark Cloud 2 is kind of grindey but it keeps things interesting with village building and a slew of weird but really neat features

FF12. Obv you arent going for the story on this one but this is one of my favorite RPGs simply because i like the gameplay. The plot might not be great but the world is, imo, super interesting. It has one of the best bestiary logs i have ever seen in a game. It also has more side stuff than you an shake a stick at. It definitely is something that takes a while to pick up though (about halfway through) but once you get to that point idg how you could not somewhat enjoy it.
That being said, if you are looking for a shitty story but great gameplay ff-X2 is great. And when I mean shitty its about three girls pretty much running around doing nothing x;.

Valkryia Chronicles: Its a hybrid shooter/RPG with a pretty good story and really interesting gameplay. Its also somewhat challenging because their is so much variety in the game. Each battle usually has a totally different objective. I think its really fun and definitely worth a playthrough.

Ill think of more later g8trs

Also I cant stand slower battle systems like ff1 or ff7
i just cant.

You should definitely go for Final Fantasy IX or X, my two favourite RPG's of all time (And games of all time...), with IX you don't have to worry about grinding since every boss can be beaten without the need to, although obviously if you want to make life easier then you can grind... with X you'll have to grind for SOME of the bosses (Sinspawn Gui made me rage so much the first time because I didn't grind enough for it, so god damn annoying! but every playthrough after that it became SO easy, lol) I also think they've both got the best storylines of any of the Final Fantasy games (A lot of people will probably disagree with me here though) and IX has the best setting of the series too, which really does make the game more fun to play through, just to see all the gorgeous locations (The game still looks amazing thanks to the art style they went with, and I personally love pre rendered backgrounds to anything we have now... they should bring 'em back!)

If you're wanting a fun battle system, I'd say go for Final Fantasy XIII too, I don't care what people say about the game, I thought it was brilliant, the battle system really was fun and very fast paced, and being able to switch between jobs on the fly was great for strategy too... I also thought the story was really well done too, and you definitely end up with an emotional attachment to some of the characters by the end, the only "problem" with the game is that it's EXTREMELY linear, literally... like a good 60% or so of the game is corridors that have you running in a straight line with only a FEW turn offs and such, it didn't bother me at all though since I was just playing the game for the story, which I thought was a great trade off (Run in a straight line for most of the game, but in return you get a pretty great story...), besides, I prefer linear games, I can't stand open world games for the most part, especially like Oblivion or Skyrim, they just give you TOO MUCH choice and it's easy to get lost and forget what you're supposed to be doing, and by the time you remember what you're meant to be doing, you've forgot the main storyline anyway! (Or that happened with me, lol), yeah, I really dislike open world RPG's, they're just not really for me... (Mainly Bethesda and Obsidian games, they're a tad overrated methinks)

World 1 doesn't need any grinding at all, and if you directly go the the dinosaur forest after the world says boom you can be level 70+ in just 1 or 2 hours. lvl 70+ with ultima is all you need to finish the game.

If there's a single FF that isn't grinding heavy it's VI.

FF5 FF2 and FF1 and FF6 imo are the only FF games that are grindy... if you played the oringal ORINGAL ff1 its grindy as fuck.... go to 2nd town all weapons costl ike 2k... and you only have like 200bucks -.-

Well no comment about 1,2 and 5 (especially 5 is grindy as fuck) but 6 has nearly no grinding at all (unless you want economizers of course).

How? That final boss has an attack that drops your whole party to 1HP, and inflicts pretty much every single status ailment in the game!

idk ... it's been a while since i played it last, but man i remember just having the easiest time ever with that fight

none of my information on rpgs is probably terribly accurate ... Been too long since I've played most of them to truly recall them correctly.

this is true! the attack that does random status effects on all... its not that you need to grind to beat it you just need to like have some luck on your side

i never used too finish games any games, and rpg's especially. I play them out too fast. When a game is hard is when it's most interesting for me. i get frustrated with a seemingly impossible boss or puzzle to the point where i wanna break the game but i always pick the tossed controlled back up and try again. Although when i get to a certain point (and this happens in rpg's the most) where i'm practically unbeatable from over grinding i get bored because i feel like the game play has regressed and then i lose interest. unless im really into the story or in love with the setting. like people call me crazy but i was really into xenosaga and FFX of course. never beat 10 but that was because of some personal things and i just never got back into it.

that's kinda of the reason why i dont bye many new games any more. But my lil brother says its because i'm just afraid to see the game end after putting in so much hard work into it. lol i think his explanation might be more likely. it's in my character to not finish what i start. idk.

Hey man. I've played almost every Final Fantasy and only completed 7 and 8. I just don't like them to finish. Like, if I go and beat the final boss, decend into the Northern Crater, or whatever, I can't do anything else again and that's the game over, and to me that makes an RPG suck!

If there's one you should beat, though this is purely my opinion since everyone else hates the crap out of it, it's Final Fantasy VIII, as it has the best ending ever (not the ending ending, but the ending gameplay). I thought it was great.

good for you. it means your sane.

OMFG you should so play Fallout 1. Its a pretty short game (comapred to FO2 onwards), but the it is story packed, and can be completed in a number of ways. (If you know the game inside out, and make a diplomatic character, you can actually complete the game legally in about half an hour, including defeating the last boss with discussion.)

I guess if you started a bunch of RPGs and never finished one, it's just not your genre. Or, you liked it a lot, but the games weren't varying enough to keep you playing (which is a very common thing in RPGs). In either case, if you're looking for suggestions, I'd try some lightweight RPGs such as the Zelda series (I know some people are going to call it action adventures, but you know what - I don't give a shit, and neither does the game), or less story-oriented and otherwise very smartly gameplay-designed ones, such as Golden Sun or Lufia 2.