RPGs for PS2 (in Off-topic)

I want a good one for the aging PS2. But what I want is something a bit darker, less cartoony than some of them are. Any recommendations?

any final fantasy is good, the best 2 are 7 and 8 but i find 9 and 10 also very good

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

I enjoyed Star Wars: Bounty Hunter. It's one of the older games for the PS2, but if you're a Star Wars fan I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

Final Fantasy Tactics... Tactical RPG, but still awesome. Castlevania is also my #2 because its quite grim. um, shadow of the colossus is rpg-esque, and very very shiny.

You can't really go bleaker than the Shin Megami Tensei series. It's a post-apocalyptic cannibal nightmare.

It's also a JRPG, so you can't expect any award-winning FMV's in there. But the three (IIRC) games offer a huge amount of playing time, are challenging, and should be available at a reasonable price. IF you can find them :) I thought they were something different, and have enjoyed them a lot.

You try the Legacy of Kain games? They are a bit darker, though not as RPG-ey as you might be looking for... There's also Baldur's Gate games and Champions of Norrath, but again, those are love action-genre, I suppose...

I like the Wild Arms series of games, but they definitely fall into the more cartoonish types.

The first Blood Omen was a bit more RPGish than the rest, but good luck trying to find a copy.

Not sure if Predator: Concrete Jungle counts, but that was a really good game with a fairly gloomy atmosphere, but tons of blood and violence...

I LOVE BLOOD AND VIOLENCE!!!!

Feel of the game aside (it IS very cartoonish), Wild Arms 3 is an excellent value compared to it's price. It's a very long game, even when excluding the sidequests. I got mine used in an EB games for 12.99, and it lasted me more than 50 hours. I was...satisfied :) I would have been even at full retail price. Dragon Quest 8 is like that, too.

any of the devil may cry games are good, not a traditional rpg, but the quality in game play make up for it easily, its fun.

God Bless you!

Jesus Loves you!

FF12 wasn't cartoony in the least, and had a more mature, politically based story than its predecessors. It's among my favorite entries in the series. It might be exactly what you're looking for.

And I 100% second Symphony of the Night if you want to qualify that as an RPG. It's an absolutely timeless classic that I still enjoy to this day.

(psst.. hint hint, buy Order of Ecclesia for the DS.)

Legacy of Kain!!!! awesome story line, gratuitous violence and gore, puzzles to keep it interesting, I've got all 5 games (counting the ones from PS1) and i still break them out very often to play it!
Also Resident Evil 2 is a favorite, after that i kinda lost interest in the RE series.

Could you consider Kingdom Hearts 2 a rpg? It's cartoony, but still a great game.

Haven't played much of it, but Disgaea 2 is pretty cool as well.

Kingdom Hearts 2 is a great game, sometimes the story feels childish, but everything about it is really well done and can appeal to a huge audience (I'm still blown away by the opening tutorials!). However it's kinda easy, the combat system is great but after a certain point you can hack and slash with no fear of dying :(

but it's still fun!

FFXII is a fantastic game but will likely leave you with a hollow feeling- it left me, personally, feeling very disconnected, since it's not a very player-engrossing game. The story is phenomenal and the characters are all well-done (although I can't stand Vaan or Penelo). Combat starts out fun but later in the game is very boring. Things walk near you and they die. Gambits are both fantastic and terrible.

Final Fantasy Tactics is one of about four PSX games I've ever enjoyed. The graphics aren't great but they are "catchy". The storyline is the greatest of any RPG I've ever played, hands down. It took me three playthroughs to really understand what was going on. ;D

Shin Megami Tensei is a fun game but I found P3 (the latest one, I believe) to be absurdly hard, I have not played any of the other ones. It has a very interesting graphical style and it's definitely a very fun game, but the weakness system is abhorrent- if you get hit with an element you're weak again, the enemy gets to attack again. This applies to your attacks as well, meaning combat is generally over very quickly, but is somewhat irritating since you can't directly influence what your party members are strong or weak against. The storyline is a bit lackluster but the art style of the game more than compensates. I'd suggest renting the game to see if you like it, since it seems very hit-or-miss.

Now for my personal recommendations:

Star Ocean: Until the End of Time. This game sucked an entire summer away from me. One of the deepest RPG's I've played in a very long time. Every time something comes up in conversation you can go into the main menu and access a "library" of sorts with in-depth information about everything. Don't understand what the word "G-Drive" means? Go read three pages about it! ;) The entire game revolves around the philosophical concept of "existence", and towards the end of the game, it becomes VERY interesting. The combat system is very unique to tri-Ace, and is basically a real-time combat system where you control one of three characters. As you level up, you can upgrade the AI of the computer-controlled characters, and this AI gets surprisingly good. The crafting system is really fun and kept me playing for a very long time. With a 211-level dungeon to conquer it'll keep anybody playing for well over 200 hours.

Disgaea 2: Hour of Darkness. It's an sRPG much like Final Fantasy Tactics but man, this game is absurd. With a max level of 9999 and no effective stat cap, you can get some very powerful characters. The storyline is basically trash but the combat system is wonderfully in-depth and the customization is endless. You can customize virtually everything, from your characters to their items, to the stat-boosting effects of items, to the items' names... while some parts of the game are a bit imbalanced (I've seen my Magic Knight, which is the best class, hit 9 million damage), it's very fun, and the "main quest" is quite literally only about five percent of the actual game. It's hard to explain how detailed this game is, but anybody who enjoys RPGs should check out Disgaea at least once. It may look a bit cartoony, but beneath the childish exterior is one of the deepest games I've ever played. Hell, it IS the deepest game I ever played for the PS2 (its predecessor Disgaea 3 holds the all-time title).

Resident Evil 4, while not a "typical" RPG, has a lot of RPG elements. It's still a third-person shooter, naturally, but as a fan of RPGs (and honestly I don't like shooters), this game got me hooked. It's creepy, it's dark, it's grim. I find myself jumping when something unexpected happens, or I'll find myself wary to go around corners when I can hear enemies nearby. If you haven't played it, I really think you should give it a try.

Really, anything by Square/Square Enix, Nippon Ichi Software (NIS), or tri-Ace is always worth a shot.

"FFXII is a fantastic game but will likely leave you with a hollow feeling- it left me, personally, feeling very disconnected, since it's not a very player-engrossing game."

I have to say I disagree. I was rather pleased with the absence of a whiny emo 17 year old male protagonist whining about some girl the whole game. I admit Vaan didn't fall far enough from this archetype, but he was miles more tolerable than, say, Tidus.

"Combat starts out fun but later in the game is very boring. Things walk near you and they die."

Man, I'd like to see your gambit setup. I found enough challenges throughout the game to keep me satisfied.

"Disgaea 2: Hour of Darkness. It's an sRPG much like Final Fantasy Tactics but man, this game is absurd. With a max level of 9999 and no effective stat cap, you can get some very powerful characters."

Hmmm, now you've piqued my interests. No stat cap? Count me in! If it's one thing I love, it's level grinding, hence why I play CB.

And I strongly second Resident Evil 4.

Vaan is definitely better than Tidus, and I find him much more tolerable than Cloud. My favorite character is Balthier, just because he's so classy. :D

And if you want my gambit setup, I can go dig my game out... I remember I just _abused_ high-level Black Magicks (what was it, Plague?). I didn't even have the "legendary" Zodiac Spear, just standard stuff you can buy at stores.

At least there exists some sort of challenge in the high-ranking Hunts. However, I find the game to be a bit of a bore, combat-wise, but don't get me wrong- I played through the whole game. It's a great story line with a nice cast of characters, and wonderful graphics and spell effects (although the Mist attacks look like an ADD ten-year-old masterminded them...). I wouldn't say the story is "dark" but it is certainly the most mature FF game that has been released.

i have to agree that disgaea hour of darkness or cursed memories is FF tactics on crack, the hierarchy to unlock better pupils is like a pyramid. and the whole council briding for votes and lvl up your weapons, its jsut full of extras to make for a good time

id also recommend 'makai kingdom'

And all of you out there saying "Disgaea has no stat cap", there actually is :P

In Disgaea 1, stats are stored as signed (don't ask me why) 32-bit integers divided by 100, so if you go over 21,474,836, it goes bonkers and negative. In Disgaea 2, they just hard-capped it at 20 million flat.

I beat FF12, what I think was they just layered the eye candy on too hard and the poor PS2 takes a minute to load a screen... add that to no preloading and you have one LONG game. And I love my gambits. Basically had Ashe blasting every single elemental weakness in the book (scathe otherwise :) and beserk-haste Basch whacking what's left.

I beat P3 as well, it's just a matter of fusing up the right personas to weak the hell out of everyone. A hint: fuse up some with all 4 main elements and all-out everything, works all the time.

get an emulator, and roll FF II. Final Fantasy 2 is the best RPG ever made. Other fun ones, Super Mario RPG, Secret of Mana, and Chrono Trigger

Obscurans, I said no _effective_ stat cap. I've never seen anybody hit the 20-million mark on any stat- the absolute highest I've ever pushed it was about 16 million and that was really trying.

Chaos Soldiers can sometimes hit this cap but I think they're a stupid class anyways.

Secret Of Mana, that takes me back. I've still got my old SNES in the cupboard and I think I still own that game. Might have to dig that out!

The Shadow Hearts series or ISO are pretty dark games and pretty intriguing for less than a tenner

To hell with all of you...I already don't have enough time to finish all the games I have waiting for me here, now I have to buy me a dozen more.
I really think I need 2 of me and 48 hours a day now...
Maybe...no, propostorous.
I need to find myself a NTFS ps2.
Or maybe I should just move to gaming paradise...Japan.

By the way, why isn't NTFS a legit word for the spellchecker?

I personally enjoyed valkyrie profile 1 & 2 or much older version of tri-Ace's game: star ocean series :D

FF 12 was fun in the beginning, but once you know how it works, it starts to get boring, what keeps you playing is just the storyline I guess.

Shadow hearts series are good too

if you have secret of mana the original, that means legally you can down load the rom!!

personally the rom plays much better than the normal cartridge.

why?

because you can save any where, and speed up the game play so it makes grinding a piece of cake.