what's the best jrpg on the wii?
-xenoblade
-arc rise
-last story
-pandora's tower
-tales of whatever
hipster option: baroque
or write in one i forgot
Xenoblade is objectively the better RPG on Wii. I enjoyed Arc Rise Fantasia a lot more, though, because I preferred the battle system and what the game did with its number of hour allotment if you wanted to 100% the game and finish off the postgame content. Xenoblade had a few problems regarding a few things, but it's a good game. I felt like I got my money's worth when I imported it. But out of the two, I personally prefer Arc Rise just because I like the systems a lot more. The state of the localized version is crappy, but that's the way the ball rolls.
The problem is that a lot of people tend to oversell Xenoblade
in spite of being a good game. I don't think it's the best RPG I played this generation because some balancing and battle system issues, but I think it's one of the best
presented RPGs I played this generation. However, since it's one of the stronger RPGs in a generation where the bar was set really really low, Xenoblade's fanbase tends to shout from the rooftops and shout down people who don't agree with them.
The Last Story has a lot of good ideas. The minigames are decent, the vocal song is decent, and Gears of RPG with positional attacks is a fascinating concept. However, a lot of its potential is wasted because some of the characterization isn't that great (particularly the leads), the entire game has like 3-4 colors, the rest of the soundtrack that isn't Toberu Mono is a snoozefest, and the game is so damn easy that it renders a lot of its concept of a battle system null and void. I like The Last Story, but even I have to admit that much of the game had some caveats.
Pandora's Tower is fairly average to me, but going by responses on message boards a lot of people either hate it or love it. I thought it was repetitive. It started out having some good ideas, but after a while you realize that the game sabotages itself from being a truly excellent game. It has a good premise and interacting with Elena was neat, but the combat controls needed some work, towards the end you felt like the towers were recycling content, etc. It is a notable title just because of its premise and because it does look pretty good for a Wii game, but it is still fairly average when you're evaluating it as a straight-up RPG. Also the localization has a game-breaking bug at the end which forces you restart the entire game. Oops.
Tales of Symphonia: Knight of Ratatosk (Dawn of the New World here) isn't a bad as a lot of people say it is and I've played far worse Tales games than that in the entire series (like, out of all the games in the Symphonia-Phantasia timeline, it's one of the better ones). The problem is that the main character is a gigantic wussy wiener voiced by the guy who only has a range of two voices, and the other main character is an annoying crazy person with a one-track mind of trying to get into the hero's pants voiced by Rise from Persona 4. Other than that, the battle system is a neat take on a cross between Abyss's and Chrono Cross's (getting an entire field one colour through skills used so you can capture monsters easily, I mean), and the monster raising system has a decent amount of depth to it. It's a bit easier than other Tales games too, imo.
Tales of Graces has a great ergonomic control scheme on the Wii and some awesome glitches to take advantage of (even though the first batch of Graces Wii had a critical bug), but you can get the enhanced version on PS3 anyway.
Baroque is a port of a game that I played on PS2. It's all right, but if you hate dungeon crawlers, it's very hard to recommend it to you.
Same with Sakura Wars, So Long My Love. I played it on PS2 as well. It's not one of my favourite Sakura Wars games by a long-shot, but I guess since it's one of the very few ST games that came out here, people could try it for its historical value as being part of the ST series.
FFCC: The Crystal Bearers is a love it or hate it game in general. I thought it was okay. I liked the protagonist. I think the combat camera needed a lot of work. The story's paced nicely enough.
Uh... you missed...
FFCC: Echoes of Time (didn't play)
FFCC: My Life as a King (didn't play)
FFCC: My Life as a Darklord (didn't play)
DQX (didn't play)
Earth Seeker (battle system isn't great, got bored!)
Ougon no Kizuna (load times suck, combat needs work. And if
Famitsu pans your game and gives you 17/40, you're in trouble)
FF4: The After Years (bad romhack and a plot that retreads everything you did in FF4 so why bother and Ceodore is a crappy character)
Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon (good OST, had a mixed reception but I thought it was fairly unique, and you have to go in with the mindset to get engrossed in the setting, the music, etc. The game part of the game isn't that great, but the rest of it is very good)
Opoona (very charming, lots of attention to detail, excellent OST)
didn't play the rune factory games on Wii, outside of Rune Factory Frontier for a little while, so can't comment on them
FF Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon (adorable, lots of good remixes of older music, job system is applied to the roguelike genre since Chocobo can change his class and get JP)
Shiren the Wanderer (stick with other Shiren games but it wouldn't hurt to try this one if you want to get into dungeon crawlers)
Takt of Magic (very import-friendly, decent pointer controls, pretty solid game overall but I haven't played it in years so maybe I might feel differently now)
Like I previously said, the Wii RPG catalog is a mixed bag. Some good stuff but you have to dig.
