Advice about some last-gen RPGs

Howdy folks, I just had a few questions that I wanted to run by everyone to help me with a decision. You see, one thing my fiance and I love is a good RPG. Granted for her, she prefers the artistic style of JRPGs (specifically that anime styling), I assume the role of actually playing the game while she observes and helps when she can. To be perfectly honest she also uses them as a catalyst to help sleep as she works nights and sometimes has difficulty sleeping during the day.

That aside, I've been looking through all the RPGs that I have missed this past generation, specifically for the 360. I think I've come up with three games that could fit the bill and I wanted to know what the word of mouth on them were. I've looked them all up in terms of reviews and they seem to be all great if flawed games. They are:

Last Remnant

Infinite Undiscovery

Star Ocean : The Last Hope

I've also looked up their prices and all seem very cheap and I am certainly not against the idea of just picking up all of them for something like 30 bucks total. I just wanted to know what you folks thought of these games and if there are any other games that could also work. Thank a lot!

Also Harvest Moon 64 is very expensive(for an N64 game). Kinda lame as I've always wanted to play it. Who knew eh? Thank again.

Drew

I've seen people say some good things about Lost Odyssey. If you're specifically looking for visuals, Final Fantasy XIII delivers, whatever other issues people might have with that game.

Let's be clear, though: If you're looking for a JRPG with some wonderful art and style, then you need to play Ni No Kuni. It's a PS3-only game, sadly, but it looks great. A lot of the design comes from Studio Ghibli, a famous Japanese animation studio.

Tales Of Vesperia is my favourite 360 JRPG. Lost Odyssey is also good. I do not recommend Star Ocean in any way. That game has an OK combat system but the story and characters are atrocious. It's not a good game to observe.

I definitely agree with you there, I played a little bit of Ni No Kuni, a little after the volcano guy, with a friend. Game's gotta lot o' heart I tell ya. Unfortunately, I don't own a PS3 but that game is certainly on my list if I can get the chance to nab a PS3 at some point.

As far as Lost Odyssey, I think I played a little bit of that waaaaay back when. I totally forgot about it. Thanks for the reminder!

The Last Remnant is alright, not great but not terrible either. The only really interesting thing about it was the combat system, but a lot of the bigger fights can take a pretty long time to finish so making any real progress takes a good deal of time commitment. I would say Lost Odyssey is probably a better game in terms of sheer quality, but it's also kind of a generic JRPG. If you don't mind silly tropes like all the main characters having amnesia and solid but unoriginal turn-based combat, then maybe you should go back and check it out again?

Infinite Undiscovery is a very half-baked game and really bummed me out. Poor voice acting, with the exception of a two-hour-or-so period toward the end of the game before it starts to suck again, repetitive combat, large yet empty areas. It's a game of great concepts and clearly not enough development time to make them all work.

If you don't mind a romp through Totally Average-ville, then it's more or less fine. The story is the least bad part, so it has that going for it if nothing else. It's the sort of game where you can play it and see that there is an amazing game lurking within there somewhere, but something just went horribly wrong along the way and they couldn't get it done.

I wish I kept my copy of Harvest Moon 64, but, like many other dumb kids at the time, "I can sell my old games and get new ones at EB Games! Radicaaaaaal!" sounded like a good idea...

Also, if we're talkin 360 only, I would recommend Lost Odyssey, Tales of Vesperia, Eternal Sonata, and Resonance of Fate over any of those games. In my personal opinion, none of the games you listed were bad, but they wouldn't be my first choice.

I appreciate the responses guys. I'm starting to notice that the further I look into Infinite Undiscovery the more I hear of it not being as good as it could have been.

Oops, sorry @ulquiokani, I didn't notice your response when at first. Yeah, I just recently finished Tales of Vesperia and I definitely agree with you. An awesome game it was. About Star Ocean, though, I was really hoping for that one to be something special. I don't know maybe because of the more scifi setting as opposed to traditional fantasy.

@champinmaking: Star Ocean's voice acting is so completely brutal I stopped playing within the demo. I've heard great things about the battle system but the script and acting are like millipedes tearing through your eardrum. In a bad way.

The Last Remnant is excellent and fairly unique; PC version is definitely the best one though.

Star Ocean has extremely good combat because it's Star Ocean; the rest of the game is whatever.

Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2 also have extremely good combat systems and generally pretty interesting plots; the suffocating linearity of the first game actually made the plot way more compelling than most Final Fantasy plots.

Resonance of fate deserves a look. Especially if you're looking at other Tri-Ace games. Maybe Eternal Sonata as well.

I really appreciate the responses guys. I can't believe I had forgotten about FFXIII and its ilk. I'll definitely look into everything you folks have recommended.

Star Ocean Last Hope, is the worst. It has the worst character in the history of JRPG, a pure Satan spawn called Lymle Lemure Phi mkay? She ends every goddamn sentence with mkay, mkay? And that's not the worst part, despite having the body of a 5 years old, there's a sexual tension between her and Faize, which is another completely annoying character. Don't waste your money on this game, you could probably find a copy in the neighbourhood dumpster.

PS: But, it probably has one of the best RPG battle systems out there.