Imagine you’re a filmmaker in 1977. You’ve just finished a movie — a project you’ve put everything you had into. You spent years working on the script. You cast every role with the perfect actor. You’ve used all your knowledge you’ve learned from film school and all your previous projects. The film is in the can and about to hit theaters, it releases… and nobody cares because Star Wars just came out.
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That was basically the situation for every JRPG released twenty years later. Because at the beginning of the year, a little game called Final Fantasy VII hit store shelves in Japan and basically spent the entirety of 1997 eating the lunch of practically every other game to come out. And, make no mistake — 1997 was a big year for gaming, even without the adventures of Cloud Strife and AVALANCHE monopolizing the imagination of the gaming public.
Today we’re going to take a look at 9 other JRPGs that came out that same year. Some of them you’ll be very familiar with, others you may not have even heard of. Give some of these a try — if you aren’t too busy playing any of the FFVII remakes, that is.
9 Wild Arms
Sony Wanted In on that JRPG Goodness
In both Japan and North America, Wild Arms was the JRPG PlayStation owners played while they waited for Final Fantasy VII. While the Sony-published, western-themed title had just a month’s headstart on Square’s behemoth in Japan, that pales in comparison to the lead it had in the States. American gamers were enjoying the adventures of Rudy, Jack, and Cecilia a full five months sooner. Of course, that also gave them that much time to finish the game before Final Fantasy VII would consume their lives.
Wild Arms was by no stretch of the imagination a failure. Critics loved it, and it was successful enough to spawn six sequels and spin-offs. Still, like the rest of the games on this list, it was eventually pushed aside by the juggernaut that was FFVII. It’s a testament to just how good of a game Wild Arms is that it was as successful as it was with that albatross around its neck.
8 Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Like Bringing a 2D Knife to a 3D Gun Fight
OK, so, don’t get me wrong here. Much like Wild Arms above, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night was, by all metrics that matter, a success. It sold well over a million copies, reinvigorated the Castlevania franchise, and helped define a genre for decades. It also showed the world that in the early age of 3D, there was still room for quality 2D games. Just… not a lot of room, you know?
However, it’s not hard to argue that if it weren’t for the Castlevania branding, Symphony of the Night might have completely flown under the radar like a bat. It’s that branding that caught the attention of PlayStation owners that were otherwise distracted by Cloud Strife and his blocky buddies. While obviously not a traditional JRPG, it was still a title from Japan in 1997 that felt the weight of FFVII‘s release.
7 Shining Force III
It Had More Against It Than Just FFVII
The year I was a Freshman at Iowa State University, I discovered two things: Final Fantasy VII and emulation. And it was with emulation that I discovered the Shining Force series. True, I was a Sega kid during the 16-bit Console Wars, and I did enjoy RPGs. It’s just that Shining Force flew under my radar.
While my roommates were playing FFVII on the Big TV, I was on my PC finally playing Shining Force II and loving it. Playing that and Chrono Trigger constantly was a big part of why I never actually got a degree from Iowa State. Unbeknownst to me, there was a third game in the series released that same year — Shining Force III on the Sega Saturn. That last part should tell you everything you need to know as to why.
Which is a shame, because it’s actually a game worthy of the series name. It’s just as fun as the previous two games (way more fun than Shining in the Darkness but, then again, stubbing your toe is way more fun than Shining in the Darkness) and has a really stellar presentation.
6 Grandia
Retro Evolved. Eh… Kinda.
Also debuting on the Sega Saturn in 1997 (it would get a PlayStation port two years later), Grandia also told a sprawling story with complex characters. However, the setting and gameplay were way more reminiscent of the previous Final Fantasy games than the actual FF game released that year. It was made completely in 2D and with pixel art graphics — but it also contained voice acting, something the Final Fantasy series wouldn’t do for another three years. Granted, it wasn’t very good voice acting, but it was still voice acting.
Grandia did enough things right and was popular enough to get a number of sequels and spin-offs, including an MMORPG that ran from 2009 to 2012. Unfortunately, comparisons to FFVII and the poor reception of the hardware it was released on kept the series from really reaching the next level.
5 Alundra
From Stalking Land to Stalking Dreams
If you saw the gameplay of Alundra and thought “This looks awfully similar to the gameplay of the 1993 Sega Genesis RPG Landstalker,” well, congratulations. You’re as old as I am. There’s a reason for that, though — for why it looks like that, I mean, not as to why you’re old — a good portion of the team from that earlier game worked on this one. They’re also both excellent. They also have little to do with each other. And nothing at all to do with 1990s WWF star Alundra Blayze. I know, I was shocked, too.
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Like Landstalker before it, Alundra uses an isometric perspective for its combat. It follows the titular elf as he enters the nightmares of the denizens of the village of Inoa to fight the monsters within, and discover what’s causing them. It released in Japan months after FFVII and was successful enough to not only get a US release the following year, but a sequel, as well.
4 Final Fantasy Tactics
Welcome to Ivalice
Final Fantasy Tactics is considered one of the franchise’s crowning achievements, and rightfully so. What a lot of us forget, however, is that it was released in the shadow of its mainline cousin, Final Fantasy VII, the same year. It’s still a niche genre and probably would have had trouble reaching a wide audience no matter when it was released. That being said, this wasn’t just some random game Square slapped the Final Fantasy branding onto.
Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi had been wanting to create a tactical RPG since 1993. However, he was pretty caught up doing, you know, Final Fantasy stuff. Fortunately, it was two years later that Ogre Battle creator Yasumi Matsuno came to Square, and the two were able to create some tactical RPG magic. Tactics also introduced the world to the land of Ivalice, which would later feature in Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy XII, and the two Tactics sequels on the Game Boy Advance.
Fortunately, you can also now experience the game in a new, upgraded way with Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles. Which you should do, as it’s awesome.
3 SaGa Frontier
Square Didn’t Only Just Make Final Fantasy Games, Y’know
During the 1990s, as Square was conquering the RPG world with the Final Fantasy series, they also had another franchise that was doing pretty well, too. Those were the SaGa games, initially released for the Game Boy, but would eventually make it to much bigger platforms. Those of us old enough to remember those early years also remember these games being rebranded as the Final Fantasy Adventure games but, make no mistake, these were definitely their own thing.
When Square decided to move the Final Fantasy series to PlayStation, they brought SaGa along with it. SaGa Frontier stood apart from FFVII with its non-linear gameplay, more science-fiction focused setting, and multiple playable protagonists. While the series was already popular in Japan, which helped Frontier‘s success in that country, it didn’t review particularly well. That could have been why the series never particularly took off in North America. That being said, it’s still a series going strong today,
2 Tales of Destiny
This Franchise Wouldn’t Find Its Destiny Until Later
The Tales of franchise is one of the more popular to debut near the end of the 16-bit era. As of this writing, there are seventeen different games in Namco’s legendary series. 1997 was the year both the Tales and Final Fantasy franchises stepped onto the PlayStation. Visually, however, FFVII simply blew Destiny out of the water, as the latter held on to more of the 2D aesthetic that carried over from its SNES days.
Of course, Final Fantasy didn’t kill the Tales of series — far from it. In fact, FFVII‘s popularity probably exposed more people to it. But it certainly wasn’t the JRPG released that year in either country that everybody was talking about.
1 Breath of Fire III
Going With What Works
Like the Tales of series, Capcom’s Breath of Fire franchise got started on the SNES/Super Famicom. Like that same series, Breath of Fire kept what made it work so well in the 16-bit era when it made its move to the PlayStation. That resulted in Breath of Fire III, which launched in Japan on the opposite end of 1997 from Final Fantasy VII. What resulted was a beloved entry into the series that didn’t really set the world on, well, fire.
Breath of Fire IV would see much more critical acclaim, but really couldn’t catch up to the others. Dragon Quarter and its dismal worldwide reception kind of put a halt to things and, other than a Japan-only mobile sequel in 2016, we’ve seen neither hide nor hair of the franchise since.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
