Favorite Nintendo RPG Game/Series?

[Mars Adept]

Nintendo has a lot more RPGs than you may realize, although nearly all of them are second-party and most have not received a new game in a long time. Some can’t even be considered a franchise because they only consist of one game!

Whether popular or obscure, which one of these RPGs is your favorite?

 

[tumut]

I ****ING LOVE TOMATO ADVENTURE but Golden Sun is an easy second.

Idk why but handheld RPGs just always hit different

 

[Snek]

My favourite is Pokémon. I have consistantly bought at least one Pokémon game every new "generation" since Red/Blue/Yellow. The franchise is pretty huge now, from the trading card game to manga to anime to phone apps (PokemonGo) to collectible merch. Its so iconic and popular but I think it is very individualistic. Every Ponémon fan has at least one favourite Pokémon that is different from each other. Not everyone's favourite is Pikachu or Charizard, which is the beauty of it.

 

[-Mars-]

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[tiffanistarr]

Earthbound and Mother 3 were life changing games for me. They are so fun and unique to any other RPG i’ve ever played. Mother 3 I think is my favorite out of the two. Not to mention the final battle is one of the very few times a video game has moved me to tears. It is so heavy and emotionally charged. I loved the ending of it. Everything about that game is good to me and I don’t think I could find a critique for either of them.

 

[Kitsuragi]

hands down, paper mario. TTYD is one of my all time favorites and i played it when i was young. every chapter is so aesthetically different and the combat is really fun. the partners are all very different and unique and even the NPC chatter and dialogue is fun to hear. never really a dull moment playing TTYD.

 

[.: Meri :.]

I've gotta say Pokémon! I haven't actually played any of the others listed here, eheh. ^^; But I love cool and cute fantasy critters, and so working on filling out a Pokédex (as much as I can anyway) has always been a lot of fun for me. I also get a lot of satisfaction from task completion/checklists, so "gotta catch'em all" really spoke to me. I find grinding in games to be pretty relaxing, so I enjoy that aspect of the series too.

 

[Croconaw]

Paper Mario by a landslide is my favorite. I preferred the original, Paper Mario N64. It had my favorite partners in it and I loved the story.

 

[amemome]

I voted for Mother/Earthbound! I think the story for each of the games (1,2,3) is fun yet touching and beautiful and the characters are quirky but super relatable. I know it's never going to happen, but I really hope they'll release Mother 3 in NA so I can play it on my Switch (or whatever the newest compatible device ends up being).

 

[Neb]

I love nearly every RPG series referenced. The only ones I don’t love are from games I haven’t played.

All of the older Mario RPGs are childhood classics (anything past Bowser’s Inside Story have been hit or miss). Earthbound/Mother are endlessly charming. Being able to play Mother 3 legally is actually one of the reasons I started learning Japanese. While I haven’t finished Golden Sun it’s an excellent RPG that has aged really well. The same can be said for Xenoblade Chronicles. Even “bad” Fire Emblem games still typically have excellent gameplay. Advance Wars is super charming and has surprisingly deep combat.

Despite all of those excellent series Pokémon still takes my vote. While the newer games have really suffered from being rushed, I will always appreciate what the series does. There are so many ways to play these games. You can shiny hint, replay the games with self imposed challenges, complete the Pokédex, play the side content, or battle competitively with other players. Every way to play is easy to learn, but hard to master. This allows for so many opportunities to be social with other players and to keep the fan playing.

 

[Newbiemayor]

I love the first three paper mario games! I know you said 1 and 2 which tbh understandable but I still love super I think ttyd is my fave with Super and then n64 after.

 

[Belle T]

It's hard for me to choose a favorite but Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is near the top. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is also there.

I really like the characters and world of Xenoblade, so I really do want to play them.

 

[Bulerias]

This is a tough one. I know that it is more of a strategy game than pure RPG, but Fire Emblem will always have a special place in my heart. I vividly remember playing FE7 and Sacred Stones on the GBA, everything about those games was so memorable. I loved the story, the characters, the music, and of course the gameplay loop was incredibly satisfying. I was even more impressed by Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, which felt like natural extensions of the same formula for a more adult audience (not that the previous two games were for children necessarily). I admit that I was pretty disappointed with the way the series developed on the DS and 3DS. The art style and storylines felt pandering and diluted somehow, leaning into a much more traditional anime direction. Which is fine in and of itself, but there are already plenty of games in that category. It felt like the series lost some of its uniqueness at that point. I thought that Three Houses set the series back on the right track, though there is still a fair number of anime tropes that I hope are cut down in the next game. All that being said, the GBA and Gamecube/Wii games definitely elevate the series overall in my mind. I would say the Mother series would be the only other one on this list that I would put in the same category (though I have played and love most of the games mentioned here).

 

[daringred_]

super paper mario is literally one of my favorite nintendo games period. (if not the favorite.) the fact that you can play as peach? (not to mention her super cute design?) chef's kiss. the pixel guys? chef's kiss. the characters, story and world-building? chef's kiss. the card collecting? chef's kiss. the music? oof, chef's kiss. the game just doesn't miss, frankly. it's just a shame that the others returned to the lame turn-style based combat. (which i personally feel doesn't work with this game at all.) really put me off any future entries after sticker star.

 

[Bulerias]

super paper mario is literally one of my favorite nintendo games period. (if not the favorite.) the fact that you can play as peach? (not to mention her super cute design?) chef's kiss. the pixel guys? chef's kiss. the characters, story and world-building? chef's kiss. the card collecting? chef's kiss. the music? oof, chef's kiss. the game just doesn't miss, frankly. it's just a shame that the others returned to the lame turn-style based combat. (which i personally feel doesn't work with this game at all.) really put me off any future entries after sticker star.

Had you played Paper Mario N64 and Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door before playing Super Paper Mario? I agree with you that SPM is fantastic, but the turn-based combat harkens back to Super Mario RPG, so there's definitely a strong precedent for this type of gameplay being associated with Mario RPGs (same thing with the Maral & Luigi series). I wish Nintendo expanded upon SPM's gameplay in future games, because the ones that followed really didn't seem to understand what made the previous games good. The turn-based combat was essentially rendered meaningless because what made the series an actual RPG was totally gutted (i.e., leveling up, etc). Though, I will say, Origami King was pretty good because of its unique mechanics.

 

[daringred_]

Had you played Paper Mario N64 and Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door before playing Super Paper Mario? I agree with you that SPM is fantastic, but the turn-based combat harkens back to Super Mario RPG, so there's definitely a strong precedent for this type of gameplay being associated with Mario RPGs (same thing with the Maral & Luigi series). I wish Nintendo expanded upon SPM's gameplay in future games, because the ones that followed really didn't seem to understand what made the previous games good. The turn-based combat was essentially rendered meaningless because what made the series an actual RPG was totally gutted (i.e., leveling up, etc). Though, I will say, Origami King was pretty good because of its unique mechanics.

oh, i know the games before it were turn-based too; the change in combat-style is one of the main reasons i see people cite for why SPM is 'bad' which is unfortunately short-sighted. i might not enjoy turn-based combat with this sort of game (it was too much of a chore for me in sticker star; i think i could be amenable to it if it was better executed though), but i would never say any of the other games are inherently bad because of it. (for me, sticker star's drawback was, ultimately, the sticker gimmick itself; relying on those for the combat wasn't a great idea imo.) i've always just been more of a platformer -- i think the only other game i've played with turn-based combat is pokemon, but i feel like the world of those games makes it work, whereas the paper mario games feel like they should be platformers too largely because of the way the world is designed/looks. if i had the right console(s) already at my disposal, i would definitely like to at least try TTYD, but since i generally don't care for turn-based combat, i unfortunately wouldn't buy one just to play it rip.

reminds me of how much i'd love to replay SPM for the hundredth time, but our wii and wii u are both in storage, and i don't even have my own tv anyway

 

[Midoriya]

Easily Pokemon to be honest. Nothing else even comes close.

 

[huuussein]

as someone who doesn't even really like RPGs, pokemon has been and will always be one of my number 1 gaming franchises in general. i'm personally not a fan of the rpg formula, but somehow gamefreak managed to create a game that is interesting enough even for me and i have stuck around ever since the gameboy days LOL

 

[~Kilza~]

So I have two different answers for this.

My favorite Nintendo RPG game is EarthBound. I first played it back in February 2020, and I was blown away by it. For something that first came out (at that point) 25 and a half years ago, it has aged incredibly well. It still holds up as an excellent game and is very unique and heartfelt. It currently ranks as my 8th most favorite game of all time. However, I can't really talk about the EarthBound/Mother series as a whole since I haven't played EarthBound Beginnings nor Mother 3.

My favorite Nintendo RPG series is Golden Sun. I first started playing the Golden Sun series with The Lost Age back in...2004, I think. It's a game I fell in love with and still have fond memories of today even if it took me ages to beat it the first time. I eventually managed to pick up a used copy of the original Golden Sun back in 2005 or so and loved playing through that as well. I have played through both of the original 2 games multiple times and have always enjoyed revisiting them. I did also pick up Dark Dawn on release day in 2010 and liked it even though it wasn't at the same level as the first two games. Within the series, my ranking of the games is TLA > GS >> DD. I am still hoping that one day we'll get a sequel to Dark Dawn! I also figure it might've been awkward had I not included Golden Sun as the dude with the Golden Sun avatar lol

 

[Fullmetalwwant]

My favorite games were the first two Paper Mario games, with Thousand Year Door being one of my favorite games of all time. I remember spending many nights trying to get to the end of the first Paper Mario game