10 PS4 JRPGs that Had Very Ambitious Design

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Published Apr 29, 2026, 5:30 PM EDT

Adam is a lifelong gamer who enjoys RPGs, action adventure games and a healthy helping of VR to boot. He has written for countless sites in the gaming medium, and you can find him playing the newest souls-like or JRPG.

There was a period of time from around the mid 2000s to the mid 2010s where the JRPG genre was just dead in the water. As a representative of the JRPG-loving community, it's no secret that the genre seemed gone for good for this period of time. It felt lost, afraid to use the turn-based systems of old, and the result felt like something uninspired and afraid to be itself.

collage of 3 jrpgs; Final Fantasy 13, Persona 5 Royal and DQ11

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However, a few years after the PS4 came out, things started to turn around, ambition hit the JRPG world once again, and while not all of these games hit the level of scope they were going for, it felt like passion and energy for the genre were at least back.

We're going to check out some PS4 JRPGs that shot for the moon, and some that actually reached it.

10 Final Fantasy XV

A Decade in the Making

Final Fantasy XV was about as ambitious as you can possibly be. A decade in the making, a franchise that was without a major hit single-player title in ages, people started to wonder if the series had lost its luster. Then the release came, and the result was a bit mixed, but mostly positive. The reason for the mixed reaction was the ambition. An open-world Final Fantasy game was a crazy idea, but one that should've worked. And it did, in some ways at least.

The road trip aspect of the game was excellent, and some of the boss fights and set pieces were as good as the series had ever seen. But the story had a massive scope that just was never fully finished. There were multiple media releases for the game, including a movie and a web series that came along with it, and were really required viewing to understand the whole story. The result was a really good game that just felt unfinished, despite 10 years in the making. They somehow rushed it out, and while I do love the Royal Edition with all the DLC bells and whistles attached, the initial version definitely felt swallowed by the ambition the game had in development.

9 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

An Anime Whirlwind

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is an experience more than it is a video game. It's one of the best stories in the genre with some interesting combat, and it has a visual style that absolutely stands the test of time. What starts out as a seemingly simple slice-of-life anime mecha story quickly turns into a mind-bending journey from multiple perspectives that reshape the entire context of the narrative.

Gameplay-wise, it's definitely not the most innovative, but visually, the battlefields and the various environments have a unique feel to them that can't be mistaken for any other game. The ambition was impressive; to create a story that goes back and forth through time, with everything managing to make perfect sense in the end, is a feat that most movies and TV shows fail to pay off properly, let alone a video game. Yet, Vanillaware hit a home run here, doing exactly what the game set out to do. It's a title unlike any other and a must-play for fans of JRPGs or anime.

8 Code Vein

Anime Souls

Code Vein took the gameplay loop of the Soulslike and injected it with a healthy dose of JRPG insanity to create one of the best hybrid-style games in the genre. It felt like a perfect marriage of the genres, with some incredible combat that has a ton of mechanics at play that make the experience deeper than it has any right to be.

It also has co-op, making the experience completely playable with a friend. The ambition here was clear: make a Soulslike with JRPG flair and a story that is consistently told to you throughout. The result was a bit mixed, though, as that story was a bit too predictable, and it lacked any real gripping characters, aiming instead to mimic as many anime tropes as possible instead of putting together a series of well-written characters to carry what is a very intriguing vampire tale. It's still a good experience, and while the sequel didn't really live up to the original's potential, it's still worth checking out one of the more ambitious titles on the PS4.

7 Persona 5

Fifth Time's the Charm

Persona 5 is one of the flag bearers for the second golden era of JRPGs. In 2016, the genre was rather uninspired, and then a game from a series that had been niche for years came out, a series that never quite broke that glass ceiling into the mainstream of gaming. That all changed with the gargantuan journey that Persona 5 puts you on. From the thrilling opening segment to the absolutely crazy-looking bosses you'll encounter mixed with the in-depth social elements, it's a game that has something for pretty much every kind of JRPG fan out there.

It's also one of the longest games the genre has ever had to offer, and Atlus must've really had a lot of faith in their product to put out a big-budget, 100-hour JRPG in 2016 because, at the time, it wasn't exactly a genre that promised big-time returns. Luckily, their gamble paid off, launching a new wave of JRPG-hungry gamers who have been fed quite well over the decade since.

6 NieR: Automata

Making the Name Matter

How do you make a video game name matter? Usually, it's by having that first game be a big hit, with an iconic character driving a great story. The first Nier had some of these elements, but it lacked many others. So the sequel, NieR: Automata, decided to go bigger and weirder, and the result was a masterpiece. The ambition of NieR: Automata was enormous. It was fusing a ton of different genres into a story spanning 1000s of years, with wild ideas like making the true ending of the game trapped behind multiple playthroughs, with each one introducing new elements to the story along the way.

It was an unheard-of idea, unless of course, you already knew about Nier. But many didn't, so giving us a triple-A quality title with that level of crazy ideas was just something you don't see that often. It worked so well that the game became an instant classic, with tons to this day pining for a sequel that has fallen on deaf ears. But it doesn't take away from how incredible the game is, from the addictive combat to the amazing world and impressive set of gripping characters as well. It's a game that shot for the moon and landed successfully, setting the bar for action-focused JRPGs that haven't been reached in the decade since.

5 Scarlet Nexus

An Anime Original

Scarlet Nexus is a unique gem of a game because it's easy to get lost in the sea of JRPGs, and especially the anime-flavored ones. Scarlet Nexus had a new name, an awesome gameplay loop, and a very strange and non-cliché story that you can play through with two different characters to get the whole narrative.

A new game with this level of ambition is impressive. And it's also one that spurs the traditional JRPG combat for something that is a fusion of party-based combat and solo, DMC-style fare. It's a really cool system that feels like nothing else out there. That in itself means that ambition paid off, delivering a JRPG that was both lengthy and different than anything else out there. The sales might not have been there, but the reviews were solid, and I know there are plenty of fans.

4 Tales of Arise

Aiming for the Crown 30 Years Later

Alphen from Tales of Arise exploring the overworld.

Tales of Arise came at an important time in the gaming world. 2021 was a relatively light year for big titles, and this wasn't really expected to be one of them. The ambition was impressive, though, as the game looked to reshape the gameplay style that the series had been known for into something more digestible for a mainstream audience. The result was a game that looked better than the series had ever looked and had a combat system that combined all of the series' well-known systems into something that felt bigger and more interactive than ever before.

Every Tales Of Game, Ranked

A new tale to tell in every entry.

The issue is that with all that ambition came the lack of attention to detail. Enemy variety was very poor, and while the first half of the game is up there with some of my all-time favorite JRPGs, the second half, in my opinion, crumbles under the weight of that ambition. We go fully off the rails after the initial, somewhat grounded story. Suddenly, we're in space, and there are aliens, and it's like a totally different game at that point.

Add TEMU Sephiroth to the equation as an underwhelming villain, and this game came so close to greatness if it just believed in itself instead of trying a kitchen sink approach that made many call it quits before seeing it through to the end. It's still a fine JRPG on the system, but one whose ambition kept it from the pantheon.

3 Yakuza: Like a Dragon

The Adult JRPG

Taking a franchise that had always been an action brawler and turning it into a JRPG game is ambitious as heck, and while a lot turned a quizzical eye to the move at first, it ended up being a fantastic move. The shift to semi-real-time/ turn-based combat by Yakuza: Like a Dragon was an immediate hit, and all the weird and over-the-top moves from the Yakuza games were here in more fantastical form. The story even has JRPG running through its blood, with the main character Ichiban making countless references to classics of the genre.

You still get the city exploration that you know and love from the Yakuza games, but the story this time is told through the eyes of a wannabe, not the rule-of-cool hero Kiryu, that had been starring in most of the previous games. The party mechanic allows you to see multiple other fighting styles with some awesome and hilarious finishing moves to go along with that. Realistic graphics with turn-based combat hadn't really been done before this game, and it marked a turning point for the series that has only paid off since.

2 Kingdom Hearts 3

Impossible to Wrap Up

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Kingdom Hearts 3 was, for all intents and purposes, supposed to wrap up the series in a neat and comprehensible way. But how does one do that with a series spanning almost 2 decades, with tons of spinoffs, retcons, re-retcons, and everything in between? Well, you can't really, and that was exactly what happened with the game. While the combat was as good as ever with deep mechanics, epic summon attacks, and more party interactivity than before, and graphically, it's a dazzling title to experience even 7 years later, the story was as convoluted and confusing as ever.

New characters get introduced, crazy twists pop out all over the place, and while there is something of an ending for Sora's journey, it is crystal clear that Square Enix isn't done with this franchise, as the whispers of Kingdom Hearts 4 are never too far from your nearest gaming rumor portal. It was supposed to be the game to finish the franchise, but instead, it left enough threads that maybe an entire new franchise can be spawned from this seemingly never-ending story. The ambition was grand in this game, and while it wasn't the sparkling 10/10 Square Enix probably was looking forward to, it's in many ways the most complete experience in the franchise.

1 Final Fantasy 7 Remake

Remaking a Legend

There are good games, there are great games, there are all-time great games, and then there is Final Fantasy 7. It wouldn't be a stretch to say Final Fantasy 7 is the most important video game ever made, as it's the one that really made the world understand the possibilities of gaming as a legit form of media. So to take a game so revered, and to remake it into an action-based JRPG split into three separate titles, well, the ambition is unheard of. But that was Square Enix's mission here, and they largely succeeded. The hype was out of control, but expectations had to be tempered simply because this was just going to be the Midgar segment of the game.

As long as everything was remade 1:1, they'd have no issue, but limiting themselves is something Square Enix doesn't know how to do. So instead, Final Fantasy 7 Remake implemented the idea of remaking something into the original story of Final Fantasy 7, and the result was something that not everyone gelled with. It felt a bit forced in areas, and for those experiencing the game for the first time, it was incredibly confusing to understand what was supposed to happen vs what actually happens in the game.

The gameplay was great, though, and the graphics were simply mind-blowing, adding more gravity than ever to epic sequences like the dropping of the plate or the various Mako Reactor missions. It left a lot on the bone in terms of content, and the side quests were just there to be there, but as a lifelong Final Fantasy fan, I can appreciate the ambition here and hope the third game in the trilogy can make it all pay off.