>beat all the childhood games I had set out to
>got nothing lined up on the backlog

Anon, I need your retro turn based JRPG recommendations, but only the ones that really sell the genre. Best of the best if possible. Now that I've got nothing lined up it'll have my undivided attention to really delve in and hopefully finally appreciate the genre.

>>11871153 (OP)
Phantasy Star IV

front mission
fire emblem 4/5

>>11871153 (OP)
>best of the best
It would be helpful to know the best of the best you've already played
While not the very best, I would say Herakles no Eikou IV. It's very good and on the shorter side.

>>11871153 (OP)
P.s. holy fucking kino cover art. Based Artdink.

>>11871482
>>11871612
>>11872048
Downloading all of em.
>>11872183
Not many at all FF7 way back in 2001, but never beat it or got terribly far. Golden Sun. That's about it.
>>11872189
Bought all the Lunatic Dawn games on the summer sale specifically because of that cover art. It's literally perfect and I have yet to see anything I like more.

What finally got me into JRPG's was to not use a guide. I feel like modern gaming has us wanting to have direction, you also get the fomo with collectibles and missable quests in older games, but using a guide completely destroys the experience. A big part of older rpg's is the exploration and letting the quest and your story just sort of play out. If you miss stuff, thats stuff you can do on your next playthrough, but if you use a guide on the first it just becomes a checklist as you go from point a to point b to get more story. It legit becomes a slog.

Now, if you get absolutely completely stumped, cautiously look up the solution, but be wary because I had the part I cared the most about in FF8 completely spoiled by doing this. You also ruin the surprise of what's to come, but some older games have some insanely cryptic parts on purpose for thise sweet, sweet guide sales. Other than that, just avoid them like the plague.

>>11872360
I absolutely agree with you on this. JRPGs to me are all about the exploration, the crazy plot twists, and the world-building. People play them for different reasons though. My best friend in high school would play through every major PS1 JRPG with a strategy guide in hand, but I also think he just liked playing God in the games. It also doesn't help that fifth gen in particular is full of ridiculous secrets or systems which helped promote strategy guides, however, I still think they're best played going in completely blind for the most part.

>>11871153 (OP)
Assuming you've already played FF1 to 3 and DQ1 to 4, play Metal Max and then if you don't play games in Japanese cry about Metal Max 2 not having a translation

>>11872687
Its funny, I was so ate up by the fact I couldn't get into JRPG's that I forced myself to find the exact moment I started finding longer games boring and it was exactly when I started using guides a habit that started with Dark Souls 1 funnily enough. If you use a guide it's less about the adventure and more about getting to the end and checking off the laundry list on the way. It legit becomes work. Not to mention that the combat will become bland and you'll be overpowered early and know every enemies weakness or how to handle them. With a JRPG, and especially a turn based jrpg, a guide removes the actual "game" portion and every part in-between the story segments just becomes padding to waste your time.

>It also doesn't help that fifth gen in particular is full of ridiculous secrets or systems which helped promote strategy guides

Yuuuup, that's the one super downside. A good rpg won't actually punish you too bad for that and it'll give you a reason to playthrough again with the use of a guide, but I've had some games softlock me just because I missed something super optional but super important.

>>11871482
>tfw still need to beat Phantasy Star 2

I swear, those games are pure, unfiltered soul

>>11872183
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OznW2hSzFkI

The part in one of the first towns where that little boy sings a song about how he loves his mother is one of the cutest things I've ever seen in a game.

It's a cool game, but I think the idea of controlling random people around the world is cooler than the execution.

Lunatic alright!

Anyone know if anywhere actually had Book of Futures? Doesn't seen like its on the steam collection

>>11872341
Only Passage of the Book is translated, I believe.

>>11871153 (OP)
Suikoden I and II. 5 is really good to but it's pretty dated in terms of the average jrpg of its time. The first 2 still hold up

>>11872048
Don't play this, it's posercore shit, even more so than FF7 and OoT.
It won't sell you on the genre but you're gonna be a discord kitten in less than 3-5 years after it.

>>11872183
>Herakles no Eikou
Avoid 1 btw, very irrelevant game but you can play it AFTER you played the other games.

>>11876363
What's wrong with Linda Cube?

>>11876215
Theres a fan translation that gets a lot of the first 3 games, you have to own the steam compilation version though