Top 10 Favorite Action JRPGs Ever! 

Ys VIII boss battle as your background music what a way to start a video ❤️

Tales of Berseria was the first game in the series I bought and it very quickly became my second favourite rpg of all time. Even have my copy signed by Velvet's voice actress.

Scarlet Nexus is an underrated gem. I'm playing it right now and its battle system is so great I regret not buying it Day 1 to support the developers...

Trials of Mana (both SNES original and the recent 3D remake) are also good

Tales of Berseria made your list...you're good people, Erick. You're good people.

Appreciate the shout out Erick. Funny enough I ended up finding a ps4 copy of Ys 9 that I was planning to send to you but glad to hear that you got one already.

I agree Xillia 2 and Berseria are by far the best in the Tales bunch (not that I finished them all... but I managed to finish quite a few of them ;) ). They are also the darkest let's be honest and I am a Megaten guy.

ToB is my first Tales of game. Holy hell, the story kept me captivated.

Ys IX is underrated? That's a surprise to me. I bought the game after seeing it in your Top 10 of 2021 video and then began playing it as soon as I finished Ys VIII. I loved every moment of Ys IX! If I had played it in 2021, it would have been in my top 3 alongside NEO: TWEWY and Scarlet Nexus.

a bunch of awesome games, I like hearing your stories on how you acquired some of these, awesome video man keep it up

Enjoyable video! There are some great looking titles I was unaware looked so cool. Radiata Stories, Tales Of Legendia and Odin Sphere looked so nice. You backstories for each game added to my enjoyment of your video. Thank you!

Legendia is wildly underrated. Best characters, best localization, best story, best soundtrack in the series, and it's not close. Go Shiina is a genius.

I'm so glad to see Radiata Stories here, it really deserves a remaster 😩🤟

I almost wish you had put all the Tales Of games into one placement in the Top 10 list so games from other series could have a chance to be on the list! Love your videos dude! Always excited to see a new upload.

Ys 8 still is one of my favorite games of all time too. That game is just too good and I loved everyone in it. The reason why I love the series now. I still can’t get into origins. I also played the hack games at least first two and just couldn’t get into it

Always love seeing people who give the Dot Hack series love. My absolute favorite series of all time! The other titles are good too of course. Tales of Berseria is my favorite Tales, YS is fantastic though I haven't actually played one all the way through. Nier I need to play!

It's hard for me to pick a favorite action JRPG of all time.. But in very recent memory, I really enjoyed Tales of Vesperia! I played it after seeing you talk about it in several of your videos. It was my second Tales of game, my first being Tales of Xilia. I really loved Vesperia. I grew to care about all the characters, and the artwork and everything was so lovely. I played it on the Switch. I think I might play Berseria next when I get tired of Elden Ring.

all of these games are amazing, I'm surprised he didn't mention Trials of Mana... maybe it's too simple

Just got done playing through tales of arise, now playing Scarlet Nexus. I'll have to put them on my personal list of favorites already.

For me it'd be (gonna only choose 1 game per series...otherwise all 10 slots will be a Tales game and maybe 1 Ys game and Odin's Sphere lol) my top 10 arpgs would be: 1. Tales (Symphonia 1 would be #1 imo as it's the most solid game in the series imo and the best story, imo, as well but the combat is dated. Combat wise i like Hearts R/Xillia 2 the most. If we go with the game from the last 10 years though it'd be Arise as it's my 2nd favorite combat system in Tales after Hearts R/Xillia 2 (not as good as the 2D horizontal combat but i like it's way of doing artes over the arte tree games and Arise's bosses are easily the best we've gotten in a long time...they've been too easy since Vesperia imo. Biggest issue with Arise was the side quests, final parts of the story (especially forgiveness narrative which wasn't needed), and very bad party based ally AI strategy settings and suicidal AI in general)) and as for story it'd be about 4th or 5th best imo (more or less tied with said places with Xillia...above that would be Symphonia at 1, Berseria at 2, and then Abyss at 3. If they localized them i think Destiny and Rebirth would take 4th and 5th though). So it'd probably be Symphonia (more for story) or Arise (more for combat) for my pick in the end. 2. Tokyo Xanadu due to perfectly combining Ys style combat and dungeon design (mainly the traps/puzzles/platforming) with Trails style story telling/world building (granted Ys 8 and 9 are getting close to this as well but TX imo did it a bit better). Only real bad aspect about the game was Aksys butchered the localization's translation in particular on the Vita version (PS4 fixed some of it to make it serviceable but Vita was almost as bad as SAO Hollow Fragment imo). 3. Ys, in particular I'd pick Ys 9 due to it's stronger story and solid combat, granted when combat is considered i liked Origin a bit more even if you don't have party members in it or a plethora of special attacks. 4. Akiba's Beat...ya probably a choice that'd raise some eyebrows but i liked it a lot due to the characters personalities, story as a whole, and of course the Tales like combat system (in fact it's the closest any company outside the Tales team has ever gotten to Tales like combat used in Symphonia, Abyss, Vesperia, Xillias, etc (2D tales combat/no arte trees) and this is even compared to star Ocean's attempts as unlike SO Akiba's Beat allowed you to use the directional stick + attack button to change the normal attack as well and it can have just as crazy an air game as Tales games like Hearts R/Xillias with 1 character (Reiji, lance user, and my favorite character to play as...he's a literal dragoon lol). Unfortunately the game got a lot of hate cause Akiba's Trip fans though it'd be replacing the mainline Akiba's Trip playstyle (believe it got a new game/remaster released sometime after Beat so that argument kinda went out the window)...pretty much just like Valkyria Chronicles fans blasted Revolution for changing up to melee action combat for a spin off game only for VC4 to be announced before VR even released if I'm right. 5. Odin's Sphere Leiftrasir (will also include the other Vanillaware beat em ups here as well as they're almost in the same series...just chose this one due to the emphasis/better written, imo, story) due to it's very smooth beat em up combat (Dragon's Crown Pro is a bit better here though imo...mainly cause with the dwarf you can become a wrestler lol) system and excellent story. 6. Code Vein as it's souls like combat was excellent and i liked the characters, their backgrounds, and the way they presented memories of characters in the game a lot. As for why i'm placing this rather than a Fromsoftware Souls game...it's mainly due to my definition of jrpg: basically the anime style (aesthetic, characterization, and storytelling) is lacking in Fromsoftware's Souls games so i consider them more wrpg than jrpg...and yes I'm including even Sekiro (also why I haven't chosen something like Dragon's Dogma either which would likely beat this spot if i did)...on top of that haven't actually finished any either (furthest i got is so far with Elden Ring where I've put 40 hours in so far and still on the first continent lol...other Souls games i just haven't gotten into as much as Elden Ring or Code Vein (granted CV is Namco developed not Fromsoftware)). 7. Radiata Stories due to huge hilarious cast of characters, solid combat system which let you swap weapon types, great side quests/content, and replay ability options with 2 routes and a lot of content you can go back to get if you missed the first time. If there's one complaint i have it'd be there was no neutral 3rd route to choose and it never got a sequel. 8. Rogue Galaxy, pretty much my comments can boil down to what i said about Radiata Stories but i will also add in that it did the space exploration game far better first than Star Ocean has done to date (closest they got was 4 imo due to how many planets you finally visit there...before that most SO game go to 2 planets at most). 9. Scarlet Nexus is also a game i liked a lot from last year (a lot of people say 2021 sucked for games but i had SN, Tales of Arise, P5S, Ender Lilies, Ys 9 (as far as games i bought are concerned) and so on that released) and had good characters and a mostly solid story (could've been longer and fleshed out a bit more...especially in regards to the 3 antagonist groups (not even counting the final bosses's) backgrounds/goals/etc. Will also say it' had felt far better if they went with an actual world/field map like Tales/Dragon Quest over the God Eater Hub style of maps and it could've used a lot more lore/character focused side quests over the fetch/hunt quests that a lot of modern games seem to be pushing over the last decade). The setting was definitely the most interesting of the games that i played that released last year (post apocalypse cyberpunk world where monsters are trying to eat your brains). 10. Trials of Mana OG or Remake don't differ too much...hell the dialogue and map design are 1on 1 copies when you compare them but will be giving this to the Remake only due to some improvements to combat and the overall aesthetic design looking better imo with the new camera angle, not to mention the extra dungeon content/class as well. With that said i mainly put this in the list due to the class system being really well done imo in this game. As for why either Nier isn't here: haven't completed either yet (got the new remaster that came out for Replicant last year for Christmas but not far in it yet. And as for why SO isn't here even though it's like Tales...their games just aren't as good as the above games imo....and as for Kingdom Hearts/FFXV/FFVIIR/etc....yeah no thanks, all except FVIIR are garbage in regards to combat and story imo and in VIIR's case it's more passable than anything (the Dementor BS and fact it was broken up was honestly my only giipe with the game...besides that combat and character development is quite a bit better than OG VII imo (hated OGVII's combat tbh, same with all ATB games...only combat that could be worse or just as bad would be MMO auto attack style with cooldowns imo)...I'll be blunt when it comes down to it Square Enix is not good with action rpgs imo...well developing action rpgs themselves anyway (Nier is developed by a 3rd party and even Tri Ace I'm not sure about whether it's a SE subsidiary or not (ant heir best game, imo, was Radiata not Star Ocean). As for a few others like Monster Hunter and God Eater they're their own Monster Hunting genre now imo and as for Ni no Kuni 2 and a few other games that are action jrpgs these 10 are just better imo...at best they may beat Trials but not 9 and above (granted...there will likely be action jrpgs I haven't played out there as well of course that could be better than 9 and above)). And as for games like Eternal Sonata which i was also on the verge of putting in here i only didn't due to their combat being more turn based/action based Hybrid more than pure on action or in the case of Xenoblade being more or less auto combat based with cooldowns which i dodo NOT consider action rpg and something closer to turn based tbh...bascially i consider action jrpgs to be games where you can literally do everything combat wise without entering a menu which all of the 10 games/series above fit said criteria (granted you can enter the menu on these too if you felt like it to use items/spells but generally there's a hot key in combat for that as well in half the cases (more so for magic than items tbh as a good chunk of more classic non Souls style jrpgs (Tales, SO, Ys, etc) still seem to focus on pausing combat to use items over giving hotkeys to use them

I have fond memories of Dot Hack games back on my old PS2

Damn bro. Not only are the RPGs worth the story journey, but your own journey getting them was awesome 😎. BTW, you have some nice fans to be sending you stuff. Keep doing what you're doing.

Honestly I want to play them all. I'm glad there's videos like yours with a small recap. Personal fav has to be YS VIII - gotta keep going with IX

My top 3 action rpgs: Monster Hunter World, Dark Souls 3, Ys VIII Lacrimosa of Dana. Of course there's more games to those franchises that can be on a top 10 too

Symphonia, vesperia and star ocean 2 for me

My favourites are just... basically Ys games tbh. Maybe a bit of Tales of Berseria and Zestiria thrown into the mix. NieR Replicant is probably up there too. Massive props for putting Ys 9 above 8 btw, I honestly kinda agree. Got into the series with 8 and has been one of my all time favourite games ever since, but then I replayed 9 last December and... idk man, just resonates with me a bit more now tbh (except maybe the OST and story, still a tossup for me). Gameplay is definitely better in 9 though I feel.

7:58 "buttman returns" i definitely had a good laugh from that one

Nice to see both Tales of Xillia and Berseria on the list! Both those games were my favorite games that made me a fan of the Tales series!~

Always happy to see a reference to Star Ocean the Second Story in peoples top 10 lists!

The Eleanor thumbnail brought me here

I completed YS, 9,8 then Odins Sphere last year before diving in to Trails of cold steel that was a heck of a ride YS 9 was just what I needed to get myself rolling.

Hey brother, I love all your content. If you love dark stuff, I do recommend checking out stranger of paradise demo while it's still available. It's edgy as hell, hilariously at times but it gets the point across

So glad I preordered hack gu for the switch. Can't wait to play it. I could have gotten the PS4 version but wanted it on the go.

Tales of Symphonia was the first tales of the game I played when I was a kid. That game changed my life on the perspective of anime action jrpg.

Love your enthusiasm and will be checking out some of the old school titles you've mentioned that I have not tried yet. Just wrapped up a playthrough of Ys Viii this week and actually just received my copy of .hack GU Switch version in the mail, perfect timing. I loved seeing Nier Gestalt as your top pick, the PS3 version left such a mark on me that I couldn't wait to relive it all over again with the PS4 remaster, even the 5th bonus ending. Shout outs to Astral Chain, Scarlett Nexus, and Trails of Mana. Cheers from TX.

I'm a new gamer! loving your content! Im currently trying out JRPGs, and they are awesome!

This is an interesting list and it reminds me that I need to play the Tales and .hack//G.U. games. My list has some similarities, but is a bit more retro overall. 01 The Ys series (my favorite being a tie between Ys Books I & II on the Turbo CD, Ys VIII, & Ys IX) 02 Odin Sphere 03 Alundra 04 A tie between the Shin Megami Tensei Raidou games 05 Soul Blazer 06 Beyond Oasis 07 Illusion of Gaia 08 Seiken Densetsu 3 09 Star Ocean: Till the End of Time (the only Star Ocean that I've played) 10 Terranigma It could be debatable whether some of these should be considered action adventure, but there is an area where the genres overlap. Some honorable mentions are: Brainlord, Crusader of Centy, The Legend of Oasis, King Colossus, Light Crusader, Golden Axe Warrior, and Secret of Mana. Any recommendations would be welcome as there are likely many more recent games that I have missed.

Ys IX was by far my favorite game that year! VIII was fantastic too, but IX gets the edge for me.

The almighty Al Gore Rhythm finally suggesting a creator I would and now do enjoy? Insanity. Subbed. Awesome content. I’m here for it now.

Grwat list, Erick. For me, these two are great too: Gurumin and Nayuta no Kiseki (this last being the most complete RPG - talking about features- I have played so far)

Best girl Eleanor in the thumbnail, approved.

I really love Dot Hack Gu on ps2. It's my favorite game(s) of all time. I so happy to see that you love Dot Hack GU as well. And I agree that it's a masterpiece

Bro your great keep up the amazing vids

Hola Erick, para starocean 2 cual version recomiendas, psp o psx? emulando no hardware original. Saludos

Great video! Would you advice to play the PS1 or the PSP version of Star Ocean the second story?

I remember back then I had quite a bit of fun with Summon Night Swordcraft Story series on GBA

Love this list and its pretty similar to what mine would be except I'd probably have Symphonia, Arise and Scarlet Nexus somewhere in there. And MAYBE Persona 5 Strikers because im such a Persona fan. But Nier, Berseria, And both Ys games you have would DEFINITELY make it on my list as well. Very well done. 👏🏾

I remember starting to play Tales of Xillia many years ago, but never got into it for very long due to there being too many games I had to get through at the time. Then I started playing Berseria many many years later, and felt so guilty when I got to the penguin mission reminding me that I never finished Xillia.

Been binge watching your videos for the past 3 days and love everyone of them! As Suikoden 1+2 as my top ranked RPGs of all time I'm sure you're excited about Eiyuden Chronicles?!?!?!!?!? Also what do you think of Legend of Legaia? I havent gone through all your videos to find out what you think of it.

Hot damn, this is a great list. Dude just 25k more subs and you'll be well over 100k subs,congrats! Come on ,you can do it before Christmas. Also how dare you not play Elden Ring 😉

Star ocean 2 also had 80 different endings, insane I never tried to get more than 2 lol oh I'm surprised you put a game in a completely different timeline in todays top 10 fav list, shows how good the game was back in the day ahead of its time etc.. If only they would remake it with all new 3D

Nice vid as always Erick. Did u play Tales of Destiny DC? It got a english patch some time ago and seems like a wonderful game ;)

in radiata stories,there is a hidden character,you can recruit Lenneth Valkyrie ( from valkyrie profile game )

I have played a few of your favorite action JRPG's, like Radiata Stories and Odin Sphere, I actually own a few of the games that are on your list, Tales of Xillia 1 & 2, Tales of Berseria and Nier automata, all of the JRPG's I have played and own are great, I just hope that I can beat them all at some point In my life, because my JRPG list keeps growing and I don't want to fall behind to much, thank you for telling us about the best action JRPG's there are in gaming Erick Landon ✌️

Nier replicant was such an amazing experience last year for me!

😁 great video, for me I always love the dot hack gu series I beating them multiple times over and over again and to this day still love playing them, even after the initial time I played them back in middle school of 10 years ago, heck even bought the remake before I owned a ps4

Even though story isn't the strongest point I love the level 5 action jrpgs.. Dark cloud one I love, dark cloud 2 I still play today.. Improved on every aspect of dc 1...rogue galaxy ramped up difficulty but still quality gameplay and somewhat improved narrative

SO2 should be higher!!! And Nier Replicant was my last rpg, what an awsome game! The musics OMG

They all look pretty good, though I'm disappointed Tales of Destiny and Eternia didn't make the list, as well as Alundra, being my first real taste of Action RPG, along with Star Ocean Second Story.

The best action RPG of all time? Secret of Evermore. And Terranigma and Secret of Mana 1 and 2 are also awesome.

31 hours into my first playthru of Tales of Vesperia DE on Switch, my first Tales game... really enjoying it.

Dark Chronicle will always be in my top 10 action RPG's. How does Tales of Arise stand against the others? So many Tales games, so little time...

Radiata Stories is a must try guy !!! It was so much fun back then.

Hey man! Thanks again!

I have the same shirt! And am wearing it today aswell lol

I haven't played any of the Ys games... Would it make sense to start with 9 since that one looks most appealing?

Great list, if you like Odin's Sphere , you can also check out Dragon's Crown, also made by VinillaWare , though I would say it gave me more of a Diablo dungeon crawler vibe, but still quite a beautiful and fun game to play. As for some personal AJRPG list, I would add Sword Art Online into the list, though some might argue that if you haven't watch the series you might not enjoy it as much, but I kind of treat it like an offline MMORPG, that way I can just enjoy explore it open world and the action. I would also add Final Fantasy XII the Zodiac Age , though it more similar to Xenoblade Chronicles it more in the 1/2 Action JRPG category.

Ys VIII was such a masterpiece. I initially played it on my hacked vita. After a few hours, I jumped on my PS4 and immediately bought the PS4 version. Love the series. That’s when I vowed to buy every Ys game that will come after in the series.

the content king is back

I remember renting the .hack games from blockbuster and following when the next part of the game was coming out. I now own all the ones for ps2, and had to buy the ps4 version since I loved them so much.

"Naww, that didn't happen" Sure Erick, what did happen was you punched him in the face, took the game and the $25 back😁

If you haven't played Tales of Phantasia with Cress or Tales of Destiny with Stahn you need to do that right now immedietely lol

I love Eleanor in Tales of Berseria, she was so much fun to use.

Hello, Erick. I think I've never seen you cover any Sword Art Online games. Are they that bad or you simply haven't had the opportunity to try them out? I am asking because the franchise picked my interest recently with its action combat system.

Radiata stories when you fight lenneth from valkyrie profile she joins you and you get the most powerful special in the game the ultimate volty blast, Nibelung Valesti!!!

hi - in ys viii how soon can you play as dana and will I be able to play her for the majority of the campaign?

Solid list!!!

thanks for the video

Great list.. I’ll add Lunar silver star story ( ps1 version ) and the xenoblade series as some of my personal favorites.

Tales of Arise for me!!!

Breath of Fire 3! (It may not be action, but damn it, I'm mentioning it!)

14:13 My riding stables LOL did you play it? lol where are you getting your games from man?

I find it funny now that the only reason I bought Tales of Berseria was because of how edgy, and beautiful Velvet's cover art. Didn't even know the game, and I never played a Tales game before. When I played it, I was hooked. I normally play JRPG's for the story, and I can say it was a emotional ride, and guilty pleasure to play. :D

Odin sphere is one of my favorite games ever. Leifthrasir is the how you really should do a remake

So, is ffvii remake on the honorable mention? Just curious, I'm new to your channel

Omg I loved radiate stories!!!! Need a part 2 or remake like they doing everything else lol......those dot hack gu games also need to continue!!! Love my boy haseo

I've never managed to finish star ocean the second story. I progress in what i believe is the final dungeon but keep having to come back cause everyone is dead or dying. Put it on the shelf for a few years. Came back to it and found it even more difficult. Put it on the shelf still. This thing is like a game thats been going on for more than 20 years since ive started it. Please hype me enough so i find the courage to finally finish it!

You know a game's got you when you stay up late playing it and it's the first thing you think about when you wake up the next morning (or the next afternoon, depending on how late you stayed up playing it).

I have a very old hidden gem you should take a look at. Guardian Heroes for the sega saturn. There was a remake downloadable version on the xbox but I never played that one so I can only vouch for the sega saturn. It's a side scroll RPG that combines the fighting combos of a fighting game. The music was really great for it's time and the story, with 40 different endings it takes a while to get them all, but this game is short. You can beat each story in about 4 hours, but the fun doesn't end there. In versus mode, you can pic over 150 playable characters with their own fighting style. All you needed to do was encounter them in the story. Want to play as a little bunny? Sure. How about the timid villager who you only see running away? Why not. How about a massive end game boss battle free for all!? As long as you encountered the character you unlocked it. Building up your states and making it to your play style is how you set your points. With a max level of 255 you become a god. passing 255 the game randomly changes your level with every hit but every time you level up you get full HP so as long as you keep hitting stuff, you wont ever die. Also if you have the controller adapter for 6 players, you can have 6 people fighting in the arena at once. This may not seem like a big deal, but it wasn't until smash bros on gamecube could you have 8 players at once and then you needed to link 2 gamecubes together to do this. Guardian Heroes came out in 1996 and smash bros. on gamecube came out in 2001 so Guardian Heroes was 5+ years ahead of the time. We don't see many fighting games that will have a level up system built in. I'm not sure, because I haven't played the new Mortal Kombat 11 or the latest Street Fighter games yet. Can someone tell me if they have a level up system in them? Don't give me, but the "tales of" games have you push a direction to pull of a move and can be followed by a combo. Sure, moves you set, and not fast passed like a fighting game. Even Legend of Legia 2, a turned based, has more directional based combos in a faster fight than any "tales of" game. I am just saying Guardian Heroes is way ahead of it's time and if any game deserves a proper remake, it's that one.

Good list Eric, just good games.

Personally I think YS 8 on the Switch have a really enjoying problem with shadows flickering for threes and so on so would sorta be a bit careful before buying it.

My personal top 5 Action RPGs would be: 5: Astral Chain 4: Scarlet Nexus 3: NieR Replicant 1.22 2: Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana 1: NieR Automata I haven't played a lot of Action RPGs. I still haven't played Tales of Berseria, because I haven't had time to really sit down and get sucked into it yet, but I did buy it because it was on sale on the PlayStation Store recently, so I'm gonna play it sooner or later...

These days I barely play any Trials of Mana ie Seiken Densetsu 3 (Secret of Mana 2) but the PS4 remake of it was the last action type I played. YS I haven't played since the 6th game game OUT on the PS2.

Always stunned to find anyone else who also loves Legendia. But best Tales game? Abyss, all day. Also... Star Ocean 3 is a damn masterpiece. Puts Last Hope to shame.

I liked Ys 8 and wanted to try Ys 9 when it came out, but previews made me skeptical. Holy crap, I had nothing to worry about. Ys 9 ended up being better than 8 for me, and one of my favorite RPGs ever.

I'm always afraid of overhyping Nier when I recommended it to someone. So all I can say is that both Replicant 1.22 & Automata are great, but i'd recommend you to try it only if you're really curious & in the mood to play it. Curiousity can helps you to enjoy Nier even more.

Glad I brought xillia and xillia 2 along with graces a few months ago all physical and finished berseria probably a couple months ago

Brightis quintet's last game on PS1

what is the name of the song at 0:25 pls

Haven't playes many AJRPG, but my favorite would be Legen of Mana, followed by TWEWY and NEO