10 Most Ambitious JRPGs on the PS2

Ambition and JRPGs tend to go hand-in-hand. The genre is well documented in its decades-long effort to produce dramatic stories that are coupled with engaging battle systems, something that felt like a weekly occurrence on the PlayStation 2 back in the day. Indeed, the PS2 may be the greatest console of all time when it comes to its JRPG library.

A big part of what made PS2 JRPGs so ambitious was the PS2's massive leap over the PS1. The limitations of the PS1 became a non-issue, as the PS2 was able to start utilizing things like 3D environments, an enhanced sound chip known as the SPU2 and even voice acting. Nothing seemed impossible anymore.

Looking back, it's easy to talk about how good this era was for JRPGs, but it's the technical wizardry that went on to make these games possible that's so astounding to me. A lot of these titles were focused both on improving trends from the previous generation, and creating brand-new ones that would go on to influence an insane amount of games in the future.

10 Dark Cloud

Fight and Construct

Dark Cloud often feels like the PS2 game that never got its due for what it accomplished. It certainly has a cult following today, and is also the very first game developed by Level-5, a studio that would go on to become one of the most pre-eminent JRPG developers in the world.

What Dark Cloud offers is a mix of two distinct genres, the first of which being dungeon crawling through environments that were procedural generated. It was fairly unique on the PS2, but the real ambition of Dark Cloud is how it combines that with other elements.

Dungeon crawling grants materials that allow you to customize and rebuild the world outside, thus creating a hugely complex game with tons of systems in place at any given moment. Dark Cloud's combination of dungeon crawling and city construction was incredibly addictive, and Level-5 would make many attempts to perfect this style of game in the future.

9 Rogue Galaxy

A Big Budget Blockbuster

Today, Level-5 is mostly known for games like Ni No Kuni and the Professor Layton series, but there was a time during the sixth-generation of consoles when they were looking to take a big swing. Rogue Galaxy was their attempt to challenge the JRPG throne, as it was the largest, most ambitious project they'd ever worked on to that point.

Rogue Galaxy was Level-5's big budget attempt to take on the likes of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. It had their biggest team to date, and Sony poured an extensive amount of money into it in order to make it work. It was designed to feel like a seamless, open-ended experience, which was quite bold even with the advanced PS2 hardware.

Even all these years later, you can really feel just how big Level-5 wanted Rogue Galaxy to be. The scale is astounding, and it all looks and feels incredibly impressive.

8 Kingdom Hearts

Expensive Fan Fiction

The mere concept of Kingdom Hearts sounds like something that would get laughed out of a boardroom due to the intense licensing nightmares it would present. Merging the worlds of Final Fantasy and Disney sounds utterly insane, but Square and Tetsuya Nomura were undeterred by the harsh realities of money and budgets.

With a team of one-hundred developers and the power of Disney behind it, Kingdom Hearts set out to create a one-of-a-kind game. And they certainly did just that, as the gamble proved to be a good one. Kingdom Hearts has gone on to become one of the biggest franchises in the world, and it all started here.

Recreating the iconic worlds of Disney in a 3D game is still so impressive to me. It runs the gamut from Neverland to Halloween Town, all while crafting one of the most intricate stories that Square has ever put together.

7 Radiata Stories

Over 150 Party Members

Developer tri-Ace has gained quite a reputation in the JRPG department, as their work on the Star Ocean franchise has positioned it as a worthy alternative to the bigger names in the genre. One of their most overlooked contributions, however, is Radiata Stories on the PS2.

Featuring over 150 possible party members, Radiata Stories is a game with one of the most believable, realistic worlds I've ever seen. Each NPC you can recruit has their own daily schedule and unique history. It's insanely impressive, and you'll have to complete the game multiple times in order to find everybody.

Creating lived-in worlds was one of the hallmarks of the PS2 era, as so many developers were committed to functional, honest environments that felt like real life. Radiata Stories is one of the best examples of that, as this hugely complex game is in dire need of a new entry.

6 Drakengard

A Yoko Taro Classic

Ambition is perhaps the best word to describe the multiple works of Yoko Taro. Each game he has worked on has been one with an obsessive attention to detail, both when it comes to world design and the narratives.

Case in point, Drakengard on the PS2. To this day, it's hard to find anything with as much imagination and unique perspectives as this game. The way it combines three different styles of game play feels so effortless, and I've yet to find a title with dragon combat that's as good as this one.

Drakengard is fully committed to itself, and the huge, sprawling world it creates. Its dark, complex story goes to some absurdly weird and adult places, and I guarantee you've never experienced a game quite like this one.

5 Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga

The Most Fascinating Duology in Video Game History

Sometimes, you can feel a game physically bursting due to the hardware being outmatched by the game's massive scope. That's exactly how I feel when I think about Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga, a title that was designed as a two-part story with a gap between each game's date.

No SMT or Persona game has felt like this one. Digital Devil Saga is a truly unique entry in the franchise, with a development period that saw Atlus assign different teams to a specific area of the game. The end result is a game that has so much attention to detail.

Atlus hired writer Yu Godai to pen the story, but she ended up leaving the project due to health issues. Even without her input, you can still feel just how much time and effort was put into the huge, expansive story and complex world design.

4 Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter

Potentially Too Complex for Its Own Good

The first four Breath of Fire games were all 2D experiences, and each one aspired to be something unique in its own regard. With Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, however, Capcom created something that feels like no other JRPG I've ever played.

Dragon Quarter features an innovative system that requires multiple playthroughs, thanks in large part to the D-Counter. Keeping this low is important, as once it reaches one-hundred percent, the game requires you to restart, since you can't lower it in-game. It also makes you really appreciate your abilities, as using those can also increase the D-Counter.

Creating a game with this kind of unorthodox system is a bit of a gamble, and I suppose you can argue it didn't work out since Dragon Quarter was a financial and critical disappointment. That being said, I appreciate the effort to try something this outlandish, and it's the kind of system that could be quite enjoyable with more refinement.

3 RPG Maker II

Make the Game of Your Dreams

If you've ever spent any significant amount of time playing JRPGs, chances are that you've given some serious thought to making one yourself. RPG Maker was a series that debuted in the early 1990s before hitting the PS1 in 2000, and allowed for the creation of some pretty epic JRPG-style games.

With the power of the PS2, RPG Maker II took full advantage of the hardware that it was on. The original RPG Maker made use of 2D sprites and tilesets, but with RPG Maker II, games are fully 3D. It really was so impressive back in the day, and it likely jump started many careers of contemporary indie JRPG developers.

Thanks to its compatibility with the PS2 keyboard, writing out epic stories and cutscenes also comes far more naturally than it did on the PS1. Creation games were pretty innovative back then, but one that allowed for 3D JRPG creation felt like the ultimate fantasy come to life.

2 Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht

Put Your Controller Down

One of the biggest appeals of the PS2 hardware for developers was its ability to create longform, highly cinematic cutscenes that were like nothing you'd ever seen before. Certainly cutscenes in video games weren't new, but the consistency you could have from in-game action to a story sequence was a highly alluring proposition.

It's not surprising, then, that members of the team that worked on the story-heavy Xenogears would create their own team to continue their unique brand of JRPGs. MonolithSoft's Xenosaga trilogy got off to a tremendous start, carrying the torch from their PS1 days brilliantly. It had all the scope and space opera melodrama from before, but now with the raw strength of the PS2 behind it.

Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht is absolutely loaded with story and world building. Some of the cutscenes can last up to thirty minutes, which may sound like a lot, but the quality of the writing and voice acting is second-to-none.

1 Final Fantasy X

The Most Ambitious Final Fantasy to Date

After leaving the PS1 generation behind, Square was ready to leap into next-gen and see what the PS2 could do for Final Fantasy. With Final Fantasy X, Square poured mountains of money into its production and assigned over one-hundred employees to work on it. At the end of the day, you can really feel and see every bit of that.

It was the first Final Fantasy game to use voice acting, a practice that had already exploded thanks to the rise of CD-based gaming in the late 1990s. What really is impressive is the number of recorded lines that it uses, as most JRPGs of the time were still not fully-voiced in the way FFX was.

The use of 3D environments was also huge for the time. The world of Spira is enormous, and the way it expands so naturally as you make your way through it is so lovely. Final Fantasy would not be where it is today if it weren't for this game, as it set the standard that the franchise would aim to follow for quite a while afterward.