Edit: For some reason I thought this thread was only about PSP JRPGs, lol. Well uh, here are four JRPGs for the PSP that comes to my mind…:
Brave Story: It is based on a series of books by award-winning author Miyuki Miyabe (though I do not think she herself participated in the game’s development). I am around 30 hours in. It’s just a very solid RPG game. Tim Rogers gave it a shoutout in his Kotaku Dragon Quest XI Review. What kept me going was the batle theme. It is probably in my top 10 JRPG battle themes of all time (And I’m pretty much a JRPG collector, so I play a lot of these).
Mana Khemia Student Alliance: I have not played the PSP version of this. I played the PS2 version though. I heard there isn’t much of a difference, except it isn’t fully voiced acted and that the loading times are much longer than the PS2 version. The story is extremely cozy and the characters are very anime. The battle system is like FFX but sped up and just feels much better. Probably in my top three battle systems of any JRPG ever. It is also in my top five JRPG soundtracks ever.
Just check out the music during this battle!:
Growlanser Wayfarer of Time: The successor to the Langrisser/Warsong series. This is actually the fourth game in the series originally released in Japan only in the late 90s, but came out here in the US around 2012 or so, and works as a stand alone title, you don’t need to play the others in the series to understand what’s going on. I binged listened to the opening theme, it just feels very nostalgic especially to late 90s and early 2000s anime. (I did not open my copy yet, but I heard it is really good! The back of the box says there are more than 40 endings, and “it’s your choice which characters with whom to forge bonds or pursue romance, but be aware of the outcome…”)
PoPoLoCrois: I did a small write up on treefroggy’s MOTHER thread! https://forums.insertcredit.com/d/673-mother-like-games-with-twin-peaks-sprinkled-on-top/31 It’s really great so far, and a lot like a MOTHER game. Here’s the battle theme.