Top 10 Hardest Modern JRPGs So Far 

Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 00:45 - Number 10 02:21 - Number 9 04:00 - Number 8 05:35 - Number 7 07:00 - Number 6 08:39 - Number 5 09:56 - Number 4 11:30 - Number 3 13:04 - Number 2 15:24 - Number 1

Scarlet Nexus can have a learning curve once you have more party members and abilities. Once you have the feel for them, it's actually wonderful and stupid fun to play. But it can be frustrating if you're on that curve of learning how/when to best utilize things and timings and such. IMO it's worth taking the time because yeah, it is absolutely ridiculous fun when you're in the flow as intended

I am shocked to see you include scarlet nexus here *Even as someone who usually hates and doesn't play many action rpgs* on hard mode, I found the game pretty easy and the hypervelocity/duplication sas are absoluetly busted Astral chain was more difficult personally

The hardest modern JRPG I've played, if we're not counting Nocturne HD or Etrian Odyssey Nexus (which I think may have come out over 5 years ago), is Mary Skelter 2. It's just slightly easier than EO. I still haven't beat it yet.

started watch this and thought, he better have SMT 5 on here, and you did! great video my friend, some really under the radar games too!

I played through Persona Q2 on Safety difficulty, I died so many times during the final boss but Safety mode lets you respawn without losing any progress. I have no regrets!

I actually didn’t think Octopath Traveler was that hard. I do agree the bosses have crazy health pools but with good healing management you can outlast them. I always thought the game actually played like a resource management game. Like, you have to manage and plan your attacks and healing several moves in advance. I did do a lot of grinding and exploring so I was always overleveled for the storyline enemies. Maybe that’s why I didn’t think it was that hard. Some of those side bosses are nasty though. I probably spent 10 hours on the Devourer of Men and never did manage to beat it.

I love watching your content, good info and your accent brings me back to my childhood watching Speedy Gonzales 🙂

Scarlet nexus is suprisingly amazing! I didn't like it at the beginning bc. Of its presentation and the lack of animated cutscenes. But you get so much depth thanks to that, since with that they filled the game to the max with dialogue.

Most of Octopath Traveler wasn't really that hard. I find that when people complain about the lengthiness of the battles, it's because they didn't really understand the break system and tried to brute force it. I could tear through most regular battles in 2-3 rounds, and bosses in around 8-10 rounds, which feels "normal" for a turn-based RPG. The one thing that was truly difficult was the true last boss, who was also essentially the game's super bonus boss: In order to combat it, you had to have a very, very specific set-up with your characters. A set-up that was fine for the rest of the game could find itself hitting a brick wall right at the end, and that was poor design.

Nice been waiting for this since ya last one when ya said this is coming lets goo

While I understand the complaint about the difficulty in Octopath, I feel this sentiment is caused by player refusal to follow the primary instruction provided eponymously by the devs on the game box/store page, in the game selection, and at the title screen lol I suppose it could be interpreted as traveling along one of 8 paths, but I think it's fair to say that the intention was for players to travel along all 8 paths all the way to the end, which allows for plenty of encounters without any need for grinding, since by the time you complete all 8 prologues you're ready for the act 1 content, and by the time you're done with all of the act 1 content you're ready for the next, and so on 🙂 There's definitely challenging optional content, and the final boss for whoever the player chose as their protagonist makes the final bosses for the other 7 characters look like paper mache in comparison, but other than those exceptions the difficulty is quite fair for players who didn't choose to focus on a single character's route as soon as they finished collecting the other 7 characters 🙂 The major failing by the devs was in not writing route specific interactions with the other characters as the story progressed, making each feel like they were just tagging along with the others for no conceivable reason, which I think is the main reason that so many players forego playing through the acts fully since the other characters don't give you a reason to want to continue their stories while you're doing another character's story mission.

I just got thru the first boss in Monark and it feels like I'm always underleveled. I even do all the side missions and keep lots of recovery items on.

Your review/opinion/whatever really reminded me of Icarus - Sanctuary of the gods (I think the name was Droyan in Germany). You got quite a few party members, but by the time you had like 4 or 5 you never had enough money to even equip them which resulted in damage in the single digits for you. It's one of those games that I really want to like, but it's just completely broken.

It's interesting when people try to convince someone else that a game they think is hard, isn't hard. Makes it really easy to tell the kinds of people that think their personal interaction with the world is the same as everyone else's. Even in non-difficult games you can hit a brick wall that may be a quit-moment for only a casual fan of the game. Cool video, cool channel.

Seriously, i totally agree with your point on Monark, i'm really want to like it, but the grind is real in this game. I already beat 2 out of 4 character routes (Shinya and best girl Kokoro, also this game OST absolute banger), but I can't, for the live of me, beat the other 2 routes, maybe some other time I'll try to beat it, but not anytime soon.

I agreed with Octopath Traveler, it's a game that depend a lot on level grinding. But i can finished (It's took me a year) with My characters on level 80.

Definitely sharing the shock of how rough Kamoshidaman is. His initial phase is simple but the 2nd rivals the power of the FOEs in his world, while Yosukesaurus is even worse. It seems to be a common trend for Persona games where the early game is hellish but after the midpoint things calm down because you've gotten all the good buff/debuff and heal skills. I beat Q2's final boss and the Reaper on the first try, easily. Another annoying trend is with Disgaea where each sequel is tougher and needs more grind to survive. I've been afraid to look and see if the 6th game continued this.

You can grind in Monark. You can repeat past levels or do levels specific for equipment, you can find the "phone numbers" for these levels exploring the school. Do a few levels before starting a new chapter and your new characters will be close to caught up in no time.

Ive platinumed Monark and it was absolute easy. Little bit Grindy specially around the End but the first 90% of the Game were just a Cakewalk. Beated nearly every Boss within 3-4 Turns. When you get a New Party Member just relearn the Skills from a older Member and use the Points on the Newer one. Or Check for the Phonenumbers and sell useless Gear for your Vessels.

The hardest game I've played was SaGa: Scarlet Grace Ambitions. Even Struggled on easy difficulty. But fun combat system!

I am actually playing dragon marked for death right now. I thought something seemed a bit off about it and you just confirmed my suspicions. Still quite fun though

I always forget how gorgeous and badass persona q 2 is and then I see more gameplay. I really hope we haven’t seen the last of the Etrian developers. I love their style

I agree about SMT V, especially on hard mode and if you attempt to fight the Demi-Fiend on that difficulty setting. You're in for a brutal ass-kicking until you figure out his scripted actions and how to work around them. If you had allowed ports on here, then the Nocturne remaster should be mentioned as well. While the remaster does make the game easier in that it allows you to manually pick the skills you want your demons to keep during fusion instead of them being randomly generated and the bug that caused the boss Mot to spam Beast Eye to an absurd degree has been fixed, it's still one of the hardest SMT games, especially on hard mode and if you are going the route for the True Demon Ending. The final boss on that route is insane if you haven't build a party specifically to counter all of his strengths, especially on hard mode.

What I like about Scarlet Nexus is that side quests force you to learn how to use your and your party members' abilities and when you learned it fun and pretty easy to play.

Nice video Erick. Also, cool shirt, looks sick.

My 2 cents on some games here, for what it's worth : - I found Scarlet Nexus very easy. Except for some design flaws and some diff. spikes, you can quickly understand how to cheese everything with a couple of ability combos. An extremely fun game though, hoping for a second one. - I do not remember finding Octopath to be very hard. There were ways to become pretty OP quite early and grinding was not that hard as far as I recall. Might have to double-check and replay it. - SMT V was not hard Imo except for the first boss. The rest was trial and error. You craft a fitting persona and then you can make each boss a cake walk. Here are some games that gave me a small challenge : - FF7R had brutal boss battles for most of my first playthrough. Even with a good setup and a better understanding of the system, hard playthrough was also challenging - Valkyria Chronicles 4. But every VC game is hard - Astral Chain had some challenge in it as well. - Astria Ascending was hard up to a certain point, then it becomes a cinch. That's mostly due to how bad the designers balanced the game

I was expecting Resonance of Fate in you list since you talked about it's difficulty before! The game is pretty brutal even if you get how the combat works!

Shiva on Shin Megami Tensei 5, was the hardest JRPG Boss that I ever confronted. But it was a super fun battle, with great soundtrack, and very strategic.

I think its important to make a distinction between Hard but fair vs Hard but cheap. When talking about why a game is hard. Some stuff is hard because it has a learning curve, while some is hard simply because the devs put in instant death cheap shots or HP sponges that use up all your energy and gear.

Eric the bosses in Cold Steel 3 on hard and nightmare can be a pain.

I can understand Etrian Odyssey coming out as hard as people perceived it to be. But that is actually because the game punishes you for cheaping out. There are monsters that will absolutely catch you off guard if you drag the battle too long because you think MP is low, don't use MP items, I'll just hit normally and BAM 2 characters are dead, and before you can get back on your feet, next turn 1 more is dead, along with the 2 guys you just resurrected. Running away sometimes works, but the odds are very slim once you're the one being cornered. There are also enemies that you have to nuke asap if you encounter them with a certain other monster, but you won't know this usually if you are new to the area, which means you're either slightly underleveled, or on par with them. The damage you sustain will most likely be lethal in this case. The bosses are also long AF (unless you're playing the absolute meta party comp), proceeding cautiously, only to get wrecked by RNG (your healer died to a random hit, or your tank died to a crit). There are also bosses IIRC, you have to be absolutely prepared before crossing a certain hp threshold, deal damage too fast, or cross it unprepared, it's a nearly guaranteed wipe

I'm trying not to buy Monark (switch) because in Brazil it costs around US$70.00. But every time I see something I get more excited. Anyway, great job!

Persona Q2 was the first Persona game I ever played, and also the first MegaTen game in general. And goddamn dude, I played on Normal Mode the entire time, but it felt like I was playing Hard Mode with how much I kept dying and having to leave the Labyrinths to heal. I don’t even wanna imagine what Risky is like. I knew MegaTen games are known for their difficulty, but Normal Mode being Hard as hell is like playing Devil May Cry.

I tend to play jrpgs on easy first time, if there's extra content or I love the game I'll play on the hardest setting on new game plus, SMT is a odd one for me while I do love how easy you can break the game I don't think it'd be able to get far on hard on a fresh save

we went from a Atelier game, to all of these brutally hard games...what a segue

You do know in monarch there are phone numbers that lead to training stages right? If not I'd try using those to get those points

Cool shirt, btw. Love this list. Scarlet Nexus is the only one of these I even own. I’m too old and too time-restricted to play many hard games any more. This list tells me what to avoid for my own maximum enjoyment. Thanks!

Im glad i checked this video i found an interesting game that i want to play God wars due to utawarerumono gameplay it makes me wanna play more of these types of games doesnt matter the difficulty will make it through all the waaaay

Scarlet nexus has bug fixes to fix the dodging and other delayed control issues so some of the difficulties are taken away

Erik could u add chapters or a time stamp pinned comments to all your videos sometimes I just wanna hear about only some stuff.

My hardest rpg would be trails of cold steel 2. My damage never really got better but the enemies got more and more hp. Add enemies hitting for a 3rd of a character's hp and normal enemies being spaced out through maps in a way that you have to go look for them, and you got a hard time leveling up...

Thank you buddy !

actually just finished code vein and i wouldn't say its that hard, but its definitely frustrating in the ways you describe. its systems are at odds with itself at times. it's built around you being able to mix and match blood codes, weapons and gifts encourage experimentation but then throws in dumb restrictions. I hope it gets a sequel and they get another shot at it. its still a great game though.

I don't have problem with games that requires dodging like Scarlet Nexus and Code Vein since I play games that require perfect dodging but I have to agree with Monark. Levelling in that game is a pain in the ass that's why I dropped it a few days after playing since there is only one instance per chapter where you can repeatedly enter, it's fine in the first few levels but after that, you will see the exp requirements skyrocket off the roof from a few hundreds to thousands and you get more or less 500 exp per run and that's on S in the early game. Getting an S is annoying since it requires multiple actions to be done just to get an S rank, if any of your party members die or you exceeded the number of turns (most of them should be done in 2-4 turns max), your points will be deducted. and oh boy, they will die.

On mistover, you forgot the areas are lv restricted, after a member gets too strong, he cant join an expedition on that area anymore... so multiples characters to keep exploring.

Tales of arise was hard for me but I'm getting through it just fine

I personally liked both "scarlet nexus" & "code vein"

Out of all the games in the list, personally I found any Dungeon Crawler games such as Etrian Odyssey to be challenging. Code Vein is to be expected since its basically Dark Souls waifu edition. I just recently finished Monark, but not sure if I found it "difficult", or maybe I just was too overleveled, that's why I found most of the enemies and bosses in Monark to be relatively easy 😅😅

SMTV has the right difficult level, IMHO.

how unfortunate I was eying down the last two games on this list but I'm really not a fan extremely difficult jrpg's hopefully you do indepth review on them.

I own God Wars Futures Past,Mistover and Monark but i've yet to play them. I hope i can get through them.

While i agree that Octopath Traveler is a hard game. It is also a very fair game. If you are well prepared for battle you will be fine. The game does advises what level you should be before starting a new chapter. You will know how much you need to level up and prepare always with so many potions.

I just platinumed Code Vein, it isn't that bad once you figure out all the bosses. I used the same blood code the entire game Atlas with the Oni Bane weapon just demolishing everybody's health. The worst part is getting all the medals! That was so grindy, problem was barely anyone plays online.

I like the games it look cool and amazing and intended story thanks for the video

What are the games shown during the intro besides Suikoden V?

Again a missed opportunity to plug the great underrated gem that is Natural Doctrine. A hard unknown and misunderstood game 😔. ( Though it's older than 5 years... )

I love that intro

"Persona Q2 is difficult" I admit, it can be rough and definitely requires you to understand how the battle system works; but damn...that music is amazing...

Honkai star rail is the HARDEST turn based game to date! After I beat SMT 5 completely, I been keeping close eye on it and since Day 1 it’s a thrilling challenge!

Octopath is brutal over 100 hour's and damn does Galdora test how willing you are to grind or fish for exp x100

erick you need to try ps2 armored core last raven for the ps2 that is a freaking maso game

I ended up giving up on scarlet Nexus since I could never for the life of me manage to make the perfect dodge work and kept dying repeatedly

octopath traveler is indeed a grind fest. I have noticed a trend lately with square enyx. Alot of their stuff lately has the dreaded words "difficultly spike"

Can you make one with the 10 easiest? I am am looking for a smooth entry into the genre.

May I request a content? PS1 RPGs list that re-released in PS4 and PS5.

Hardest jrpg I've played in the last 5 years is probably code vein. I'm not good at dark souls but code vein I eventually got good at it. But let me tell you the cathedral level damn near made me break my controller in half, with the sheer amount of crap you have to put up with, to get through it. Still it's a good game just was brutal for me to get through .

I have played over half the games mentioned Scarlet Nexus: I agree wholeheartedly Etrian Odyssey: My damn jam Dragon Marked for Death: Witch main (Witch is God) I need to try mp (Ninja = easy mode) Octopath Traveler: Level grinding sucks, yes. Tanky regular enemies and Super Bosses, YES Code Vein: Really fun if you're playing with a friend Monark: Jesus Christ the combat and skill point system Metal Max Xeno: going to get it and play it

I'm interested in playing Octopath Ttraveler, and now that I've listened is hard I'm more insterested

I have beaten SMT V on hard. But it didn't feel THAT hard. There are some spikes in difficulty, but nothing a newcomer couldn't handle. I saw you footage against Ishtar, you did ignore her machines, which makes her way harder than needed. You got me interested in Octopath Traveler though.

...don't mean to sound pretentious but I had a pretty easy time with q2 wasn't able to beat it though because I lost my save data but I was able to get up to the very start of a.i.g.i.s

Thank you I wanted to like Monark soooooo bad. It’s just annoyingly hard for like no reason and it was just like I was under leveled the entire time and just like wtf….over it so bad I had to return the game

with the mad max game it is very easy to brake the game. find an engine any of the engines upgrade it to max than sell it. it should give you enough money to rebuy that same one but with a little extra keep doing this until you get the best stuff and just steam roll most bosses when you get a second member do the same (since you have unlimited money) this way i think you can beat the last boss early.

In monark u just hav to play the fertile grounds

agrred on code vein and i need to play smt 5.

what's the game name in 0:37?

CodeVein is criminally underrated tbh.

Monark in the thumbnail :) Erick talking about how much he dislikes Monark :(

The art style of Metal Max Reborn maxes it look worse than the original lol...I'm glad the look of it turned me off playing the new version.

The hardest RPG I played was SMT Strange Journey......F**k Sector Eridanus! I was stuck there for almost a month

I got 4 hrs in Xeno reborn gave up and sold it, lol. Too complicated for no damn reason.

this sounds more like a mechanic hate video then an actual video game difficuty video

When someone mention hardest JRPG, Shin Megami Tensei always come in my mind

I have Scarlett Nexus it's definitely some difficulty spikes also the same with code vein and octopath Traveler

Sounds like "Omega Labyrinth Life" hasn't been the only offender.

Kinda surprised to see Octopath on this list. There's only 3 really hard optional bosses. You level really quickly as well...

11:31 Couldn't agree with you more, fellow RU-vidr

Wait you thought metal max: reborn was hard??? I had no issues with it since the game continuously gives you items you can use to upgrade yourself with!

Octopath Traveler is easy. Here's the secret. Runelord Tressa ftw 🤣

shout out to mistover, only available physical

Metal Max Xeno Reborn isn't hard at all. I really don't now what your talking about the tank controlls are very basic and easy to understand. Bosses that seem overpowered are a thing but only if you're not into grinding a lot. The same thing about Scarlet Nexus grinding and understanding the mechanics of this game makes it a breeze to play and it's not really hard except maybe for the final boss but that is debatable.

I love modern JRPGs

you are a great channel you should branch out to let's plays i am sure people would watch you i am going to sub

Every Game that can grind and over power I don't look as a Hard Game, but as difficulties unbalance game.

Scarlet nexus is an amazing game that most people won't play since the battles are so bad. You can easily get wiped on a random encounter if you get one bad dodge. Kinda sad. I get dark souls has a crazy fanaticly following of a few people, but that doesn't mean that every game should be so unforgiving where one bad dodge leads to a game over. I don't want them to make elden ring easier, i also don't want all the jrpgs to be like dark souls.

Bravely default is hard for me :(

God I hate RPGs with convoluted equipment systems. They can sometimes ruin some of the enjoyment of an otherwise great game. Case and point: Tales of Berseria.

Guessing DeSu is on here

Ugh dragon marked for death was so hard and it explains jack shit to you as to what you do for quests.

scarlet nexus is the 2nd Easiest Hard mode for me. The 1st is trials of mana hard mode. Code Vein enhanced difficulty solo? Fuck that.