RPGs are one of the things the PlayStation 2 is genuinely for. The ones worth playing start with Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy X, Persona 4.
The biggest library in games, and a machine that was in enough houses that nearly anything could be made for it. Its strength is range rather than any single genre.
This is one of its strengths. Character action, third-person adventure and mid-budget Japanese games that would not be greenlit now — Ico, Okami, Katamari Damacy, Shadow of the Colossus.
Filtering to RPG means you want progression — a character to build or a party to grow — layered on top of whatever else you liked.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
A reason to keep going after the novelty wears off. RPGs are the genre that reliably converts hours into feeling more capable.
Immediacy. Almost every RPG asks for a slow first few hours, and the systems that make hour forty good are the same ones that make hour one a menu.
Kingdom Hearts is the usual first answer, and there are 5 in the library we cover.
Yes — it is one of the things the machine is known for, and there are 5 in the library we cover.
Whether the stats are the point. In an RPG the build decides what you can do; in an action game with stats the build only decides how fast you do it.
No. The picks below span turn-based, real-time and action RPGs, and each one says which it is.
From the games this site covers on the PlayStation 2, matched against hand-mapped gameplay categories rather than a storefront's genre tag. A page only exists where there are at least four, which is why some console and genre combinations have no page at all.
Or browse the whole PlayStation 2 library.