Written in 2024 by vio81
Time sure flies when you're having fun, right?
As such, we have almost covered a quarter of a century now. Not just games have changed significantly over the course of 25 years, but also our tastes - what would have only registered as a blip in the early 2000s for us could be primetime entertainment now, due to the fact that the catalogue of many series have been raided to re-release, remaster, remake or reboot classics, whereas releases of completely new titles or (gasp) a new IP are getting more and more elusive over time.
As such - time to wrap up with some recommendations for contemporary titles then!
What better way to start the grande finale than with the remake of a cornerstone RPG that many have put in their Top-10 GotY lists even before RPG-o-Mania has been around? (Technically, we are talking about two games so far - will it be three, four in the end? Who knows!)
FF7R makes up on the (unspoken) promise of playing FF7 with graphics that match FF7 Advent Children - and if we're honest, the remake is actually surpassing the graphical fidelity of the pre-rendered FF7AC movie. But it is not just graphical prowess where the remake delivers, the gameplay has been adapted to meet modern expectations (for better or worse) and the soundtrack is finally not held back by inadequate programming.
And most importantly, the game even dares to introduce a new (and plot-relevant) aspect that has not been there in the original game - an army of ghosts called "Whispers": These ghosts turn up at various points in the story, and can be interpreted as an embodiment of fans and their expectations - making sure that the remake does not change too many things, making it one of the boldest moves that modern day SQEX dared to take.
Highly recommended if you like a classic with contemporary perks (like a french dub-option, which i absolutely love!)
docower thinks, Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth are mere fan fictions of the original game.
The latest release in a long-running series sounds like business as usual in Tales of-Land, and if you've been keeping up with recent Tales-titles, you may wanna skip to the next game immediately, because this one's not for you then.
... OK, still here: Why should you give Arise a shot then? Simple answer is, for someone who's new to RPGs in 2024, it may be the best starting point out of all 25 titles in this list. Slightly longer answer:
Maybe it is an excuse to listen to a Motoi Sakuraba soundtrack, maybe it is the influx of newcomers in the development team (some staff members have been there since the first title, Tales of Phantasia in 1995!) or maybe it is the tiny Quality-of-Life improvements which have been added to the gameplay:
In the end it probably is a combination of all those factors that made it resonate with a larger-than-usual audience - after all, Arise turned out to become a quite successful release for the series.
Where Tales of Arise was a good starting point for someone who never played RPGs, Nier Automata is the exact opposite: It is only recently that I found out that many (normal) players have been struggling to progress past the intro section, something that a nerdy Platinum-fanboy (like moi, confession time!) was totally unaware of.
If you can bruteforce your way through, an action RPG at its best awaits you, with two sets of weapons, many unique locations, tons of FOEs to tear through, a riveting story, a treasure trove of crunchy-movement options (yes that is a term I totally made up on the spot) and a gameplay loop that rewards perseverance, plus a few recurring themes - cameos from the first title, weapons that change the gameplay slightly/significantly, and a soundtrack that at least matches its predecessor, if not surpasses it.
In short, this may very well be Peak-PlatinumGames, and a game I absolutely _love_.
Wait, that's not really NieR? docower, sneaky little bastard, managed to place a Final Fantasy XIV screenshot here! But to be fair - the NieR quests are pretty nice!
Last but not least - the grande finale, the final dancer:
The spot that is normally reserved for THE endboss, and of course you could see it coming - namely that I would pull a Zeromus (shout-outs to FF4) here:
This spot truly belongs to the best of all RPGs - namely the next title that will grab your interest and keep you chained to the screen, be it mobile, PC or console-based:
It is the title that changes the formula enough to make you fall in love again, the title that introduces new mechanics or systems you end up expecting from competitors, and in a few cases, it may very well be _YOUR_ new favourite RPG.
Unlike all of the other 24 recommendations, and due to the very nature of this recommendation, we all haven't played it yet - so what may be the next best thing then?
At one end of the spectrum, there's Metaphor Re: Fantazio - a new top-tier RPG from the Atlus/Persona team, a demo's out for the XBOX Series X and the PS5 already.
At the other end, there's FANTASIAN Neo Dimension, a remake from a mobile-only title from Hironobu Sakaguchi & Nobuo Uematsu that offers a new take on random encounters - you can stack them for later and do some batch-processing when you feel like taking on some FOEs, until you've crossed a threshold where battles start to commence immediately.
And inbetween, there's a new Mana-Series title ... as it turns out, the real endboss is deciding to give a new RPG a shot, since it can be a significant time investment (50 to 100 hours is a must these days, isn't it?) that you have to commit to - so in the end, it really is up to YOU, dear reader, to give new titles a fair shot.
~FIN~
.... wait a second, someone saying "But something's missing" here?
INDEED, you are right!
As with any good (and cliche-ridden) RPG, the true final boss has been waiting in the dark all the time! Check back next week for a trip to the Seraphic gate of all articles, until we finally meet the last, true endboss!
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