Rank these JRPG debuts from Best to Worst (DW, FF and PS)

[Jeckidy]

Phantasy Star
-The first Phantasy Star is the most underrated debut for a JRPG franchise, particularly in the 80s. It has a little bit of all the things that make both DW and FF good, but adds its own ideas. It also looks a lot better and plays more smoothly. I enjoy the cast and story much more, too. The game is somewhere inbetween FF and DW in terms of difficulty, but it manages to remain fairly balanced.

Final Fantasy
-I never grew up with the original FF or experienced it during its heydey to love it on the basis of nostalgia or when it was considered new. I actually don't care much for the first three FF games at all, though compared to others it was certainly one of the better games of its time, regardless. The most interesting thing about it is the job and spell system, but other than that it was sluggish, ugly and tedious in nearly every aspect. This coming from someone who was introduced to FF starting with FF3US/FF6 and considers the SNES ones to be the best in the series.

Dragon Warrior/Quest
-The thing about this game is that it's too easy. Fun, but very simplistic. I enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than the first FF, though. You can skip many unnecessary parts of the game but it just goes by too soon, even without doing that.


My vote:
PS1 > DW1 > FF1

[Thief]

The first person dungeon crawling of PS1 goes a long way to take your focus from monotonous turn based gameplay to more interesting figuring out how to navigate dungeons (especially if playing without making maps/online maps). Otherwise I never played FF1 and barely made any progress in DW1. I intend on playing all the DW games, but really have zero interest to ever play the FF 1-3 so far. I can only stand FF6-8 in this series... maybe 9 too.

[Kamahl]

PS1 is easily the best of the 3, don't care for either of the others. FF6 and DQ6 on the SNES are really darn good though.

[Jeckidy]

FF is the most hit and miss of the franchise. It tries to experiment with various spinoffs and elaborate systems, but also hasn't always succeeded at it.
DW is the most samey, but yet there are a few of them that really stand out well enough like DQ8. Still, the games are good, just very similar.

I have played a bit of the other PS games and while I haven't actually finished them all, I have a feeling I will end up enjoying the PS series more than the others that have been mentioned. Just because something is more popular doesn't make it better at all. IMHO DQ and FF have gotten too much exposure that it has cheapened the series.

[Thief]

I've never beat a DQ game yet (even 8, because I got to a point where these enemies where wasting so much of my time by dancing, then making one of my party members dance forever too, rinse, repeat, and just why can turn based combat be as quick as PS4 & Shining games?). But DQ games seem to have more charm then FF... can anyone comment on this?

[DJ_Convoy]

My vote:
PS1 > DW1 > FF1

Would agree with this order. PS1 is still fairly overlooked to this day. I'm pretty sure this was my first RPG, and I don't think it's rose-colored nostalgia that makes me think it was better than Dragon Warrior or Final Fantasy.

I had a friend who had Dragon Warrior (I think here in the US, it was a giveaway in Nintendo Power), and I watched him play it a few times... and liked it when I finally got to try... but Final Fantasy, coming to it later, I found it to be a bit simplistic and dull.

[asmikace]

This is a tough to rank as all three have there merits. I played Final Fantasy 1 the first and that set the standard for me so DW1 was not enjoyable despite being groundbreaking for the genre and improvements in later sequels that FF1 used. Phantasy Star 1 however was groundbreaking and still unique and fun to play this day so I would go: PS1>FF1>DW1.

[segarule]

PS1 is easily the best of the 3, don't care for either of the others

IDEM

[Jeckidy]

IDEM

If I recall, your signature quote is in regards to PS1, right?

[segarule]

If I recall, your signature quote is in regards to PS1, right?

Yes.
IMO PS1 > all nes FF > all DQ nes

[Crom]

This comparison would be better with DQIII, not DQ, since DQ came out 1.5 years before the other two and DQIII came out around the same time.

[Thief]

This comparison would be better with DQIII, not DQ, since DQ came out 1.5 years before the other two and DQIII came out around the same time.

Yes, I agree.