Top Eleven: Japanese RPGs

Lately I've been playing a lot of Eternal Sonata (review to come once I can find someone to help me discuss the absolutely insane outfits these characters wear), and I managed to get two other people I know interested in playing it.  The question then came up, "What are you favorite Japanese RPG (jrpg) games?"

Now, I could've done this as an Ask Erik, but then I was afraid it'd get lost in the shuffle.  Titling it a "top eleven" makes more sense, in my eyes, because it is, at its core, a list.

I'm also amazed I haven't done this list before, because I've played a lot of these games over the years.

Now, one has to ask "what makes a role-playing style video game a "Japanese RPG?""  Well, there are a few qualifiers.

The first of which is "at least one person needs to have an absolutely ludicrous costume and/or weapon.
The more characters that look like they gathered everything they own from the blown up ruins of Party City, the better."

Erik's Top Eleven: Video Games That Should Be Movies

Some friends of mine recently posted a link to a list of ten video games that should get the film treatment, and I have to be honest here, because to be dishonest would be to wrong my readers and I would never do that.

It felt like a pretty lazy list.  To me, it screamed "Let's take some of the biggest video games of all time, some of the highest reviewed ones, and a few classics and toss them in a list.  Boom, where's my paycheck?"

I mean, seriously.  Halo?  I get that it's huge, but to have a game starring a guy whose face you never see?  Master Chief isn't a character, he's a blank slate for the player to put themselves into.  I mean, unless they want us to get to see Channing Tatum's head under the mask when the helmet comes off, because that's what gamers want, right?  Same with Dead Space, because that's what I want to sit through for two hours is someone running around a spaceship shooting up monsters that aren't actually scary.  I saw that, it was called Alien: Resurrection.

So instead, I'm looking for games that have a good story, a world that needs development, and characters who are interesting, and I'll try to avoid any games that had either a live action or animated adaptation.