10 PS2 JRPGs You Should Avoid

2 hours ago 2

Published May 23, 2026, 12:30 PM EDT

Adam Braunstein is a Staff Writer at DualShockers who has been covering games professionally since 2019. He primarily writes lists and features, with a focus on RPGs, JRPGs, action-adventure games, VR, long-running franchises, nostalgia, and the broader state of the gaming industry.

Before joining DualShockers, Adam contributed to gaming outlets including Venture 4th, GameSkinny, The Nerd Stash, Attack of the Fanboy, and Daily Gamer. He has also interviewed developers, written occasional guides and news articles, and reviewed games for previous publications. Adam holds a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing.

Coming out of the 1990s, the JRPG world was on fire, with tons of companies firing on all cylinders to create the next big thing in the genre. While there were plenty of great JRPGs on the PS2, there were far more that were just misguided, rough attempts at recapturing the magic that the PS1 had with the genre.

I think the issues stemmed from sequels trying to go bigger and more ambitious, losing what made the series special to begin with. There was also a loss of uniqueness in the graphics, as making everything 3D caused many JRPGs to lose any sense of identity.

We're going to check out a bunch of JRPGs from the PS2 era that just got it wrong.

10 Final Fantasy X-2

Not My Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy X-2 was incredibly polarizing when it came out, and I sat on the negative end of things. While the game does look great and has a cool, outfit-based Job combat system, this just is not what I come for when it comes to Final Fantasy. The story was mediocre, the writing not much better, and this bastardization of Yuna as a character was just not something I was interested in seeing. There are also several retcons throughout the story that lessen the impact of the damn near perfect Final Fantasy 10, which makes it an even more frustrating title to play.

Most Final Fantasy games have that really cool moment that hooks you into the experience from the start, and here, it's a pop concert. I'm just not sure who Square Enix thought was playing their games at this point in the gaming world, but I can assure you, it was not Britney Spears fans. This was just a misguided attempt to spin off a story that should've been left alone, and was the beginning of Square Enix starting to lose their way.

9 Unlimited Saga

Made For a Very Specific Type of Person

I'm not going to say Unlimited Saga is a bad game, but it's one that is so niche that I don't even think a category exists for it 20+ years later. You have 7 different stories to choose from, and each character ends up interacting with the others in some way, and it all takes place in a kind of scene-by-scene style of exploration. The art style is amazing, and the color here is just beautiful to behold, but once the actual gameplay starts, it's a baffling experience.

Literally nothing is explained to you in this game, from the slot machine-style combat system to where you're supposed to go, to really anything that might be helpful. You're just lost to figure everything out on your own, and while some might like that aspect, it gives the feeling that the game was unfinished. Square Enix was a monster in the gaming world at this point, so they thought they could get away with anything, and this is definitely one of their most ambitious attempts, but it was a massive flop because of everything I listed above.

8 Drakengard

A Sick Experience

Drakengard is a game that I think is best viewed from afar. Story-wise, it is mesmerizing, throwing every type of atrocity at you that you can imagine. Cannibalism is the 4th worst thing you'll witness while playing this game, and that stuff isn't being done by your enemies, it's being done by your allies. It's a slice of hell in gaming form, unlike anything you've ever seen, and unfortunately, the gameplay reflects it. Whether it's the painfully bad soundtrack, the empty-looking levels, or the waves and waves of uninteresting enemies you'll be fighting, Drakengard plays like a Dynasty Warriors game with no drive.

The combos are repetitive as can be, and as far as level design goes, it's one of the ugliest games I've ever seen. Playing this game is not fun, in any way, shape, or form. Even the dragon combat, which was its calling card, was mediocre as can be. But this is still a game you need to experience. Watch a YouTube video of the story, and see where NieR was born. Just don't play it, because you're going to have a bad time.

7 Legaia 2: Duel Saga

A Poor Sequel

Legaia 2: Duel Saga is a sequel to Legend of Legaia, which was an absolute gem of a JRPG on the PS1 that had an innovative combat system, great graphics for the time, a cool game world to explore, and one of the best soundtracks the genre has seen. The sequel had the good graphics and combat, but forgot to add everything else. The first game had this unique, almost melancholy tone to it. The story was dark and mysterious, the characters felt mature and well-written, and the journey just felt very mature as well.

Legaia 2: Duel Saga just became a generic-as-can-be JRPG. It felt like the series, like some others on this list, went full-on anime for the sequel, making things feel less serious, more over the top, and more colorful, but losing the soul of what the series was supposed to be in the process. The combat was bigger and flashier, but it lost some of the cool discovery aspects that made the original so interesting to play. It's a prime example of bigger isn't always better in the gaming world.

6 Shadow Hearts: From The New World

Lost The Darkness

Shadow Hearts: From the New World

Plenty of video game series have their jump-the-shark moment throughout the course of their longevity, and for Shadow Hearts, that moment came with its third entry, Shadow Hearts: From the New World. For some reason, following the success of Shadow Hearts: Covenant, Nautilus (then Sacnoth) decided to ditch the dark, gothic aesthetic for something that was bursting with color and was more light-hearted, and while it was a decent enough time, it sure as hell wasn't Shadow Hearts.

In place of a brooding, often disturbing atmosphere was an anime-like world with a main character in Johnny Garland, who, compared to series mainstay Yuri, was just a ridiculous tonal shift. Speaking of anime, this game went from Seinen to Shonen in the blink of an eye and was all the worse for it. The stakes were lower, the dark humor was gone, the creepiness was gone, and with it, the calling card that made Shadow Hearts a unique JRPG series. Now? It was just another turn-based game with no real personality to latch on to. If you've played the first two in the series, leave this one behind.

5 Grandia 3

Third Time's Not The Charm

Yuki and the gang get attacked in Grandia 3 (1)

What is it with JRPG sequels in the PS2 era? So many of them just failed to live up to what came before, and a perfect example of that was Grandia 3. Grandia 2 is one of the all-time best JRPGs, with an awesome story, a great cast of characters, and a feeling of adventure that the first game established. Grandia 3 threw all of that out the window. Gone was the feeling of adventure, and instead, the experience felt so linear, from corridor to corridor. Gone were the great characters, replaced with a terrible main character who was consistently annoying as hell, and the rest of the cast wasn't much better.

The combat was better than ever, I'll give it that, but when has a JRPG ever been about just the combat? You need all the elements, the heart, the characters, the world. This was a combat-only experience in terms of what you'd actually be enjoying while playing the game. For me, that's a JRPG that I can't possibly recommend. This is a great series for sure, but the first two games are just far better in every possible way.

4 Magna Carta: Tears of Blood

Slow and Pretty

Magna Carta: Tears of Blood

Magna Carta: Tears of Blood will make you cry tears of blood while playing it. That's due to the simply outrageous encounter rate, which dwarfs any other game I can think of, and the nonstop grind required by the game doesn't make this ever let up. There is some great art and cool-looking graphics here, but all of it is overshadowed by obscure combat systems, terrible pacing, and a story that, while interesting and mature, doesn't do a lot with its dialogue to grip you in the moment.

A dark, politically focused fantasy is a really cool setting, but they forgot to surround it with compelling characters, fun combat, and interesting dungeons to support it. There are so many tutorials, so many systems, and nothing is explained particularly well here; compared to Magna Carta 2, it seems like a game dedicated to forcing you to endure it rather than something that is just fun from the start of the game.

3 .hack//G.U

In Between Genres, Doing Neither Justice

Haseo attacks an enemy in Dot Hack GU (1)

.hack//G.U. Vol. 1//Rebirth

The Dot Hack franchise seeks to do the impossible. Fuse the JRPG and MMO into one seamless genre, and while it's ambitious and has some cool combat features, it's an absolute mess of a game. It has its fans for sure, but for me, nothing this game exudes is what I'm looking for in a JRPG. It's got tons of unexplained systems, repetitive level design, boring enemy design, and it takes way too long for the combat to get going.

The MMO elements here are things like reading email from other players and taking quests from extremely lifeless NPCs. The idea is that you're trapped in an MMO, which might've been cool for the time, but now? It feels like you're trapped in a terrible MMO with poor gameplay to boot. Some of these environments are just painful to look at, even for the era. It's just a mediocre experience, and it doesn't matter which game in the series you play; you're going to get the same experience.

2 Okage: Shadow King

Baby's First JRPG

Okage: Shadow King is a JRPG that you could show to someone who's not all that familiar with JRPGs and maybe get a good response out of them. However, I'm talking to you, JRPG vets, I think I know what you're looking for in this genre, and while some charm is to be found with Okage, it's just not worth your time as a JRPG. It came in the early days of the PS2, and alongside a juggernaut like Final Fantasy X, this just felt like something made for little kids.

Which, to be fair, might've been exactly what it was going for. The visuals recall Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas, but nothing in the game matches that kind of ambition. The levels were bland, the combat was unimaginative and static throughout the game, and the visuals just didn't look much beyond a PS1 game, failing to show the world what the hype of the PS2 was about, despite being one of the only JRPGs available at the time.

1 Persona 3

A Journey of Repetition

Some consider this game a classic; however, for me, it's easily the worst in the franchise for one big reason. The dungeons. And by dungeons, I mean dungeon, because there is simply one in the entire game. Yes, the floors of the tower do change throughout the game, but it lacks the feeling of newness and adventure that you're supposed to feel when it comes to JRPGs. Others in the series do this very well, Persona 2, 4, and 5 all understood that assignment.

Persona 3, though, expects you to eat bland level design and eat it for 70 hours in the exact same spot. I'm all for innovation in this genre, but this was not it, and the remake didn't do much to alleviate that feeling. While the battle system is good and the story is interesting, it just doesn't overshadow that endlessly boring tower that you will find yourself traversing over and over and over again. They bet the house on one gimmick and for me, that gimmick ruined the game.