I’ll just say it — I loved the PS2 era of gaming. It was when I almost considered myself a Sony gamer, and I picked up a huge assortment of eclectic and interesting adventures for the console. But the one genre I really grew to love on the PS2 was JRPGs. And though many of them are incredibly worthwhile on the sytem, there’s also many super hard-to-beat games, which we’re covering here.
Hard isn’t always the same as bad, though, and sometimes the price of admission for an amazing story is super difficult gameplay. That can be because of several factors, including how obscure mechanics are, as well as how ruthless foes and balance tends to be. Regardless, these are games where you’ll want to make repeated use of save points to have a chance at success.
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As always, there’s a great mix of games on this list. There are many well known series, some completely obscure stuff, and everything in between. They’re ranked according to both overall reception and difficulty, with the latter having much more weight. So get ready for punishment, and let’s talk about hard-to-beat PS2 JRPGs.
10 Suikoden V
All the Stars in the Sky
There are some who feel that the Suikoden games aren’t all that difficult. And that makes sense if you only play through a game once. But as any fan of the series knows, the whole point of Suikoden is recruiting all the Stars of Destiny and then beating the game to get the best possible ending.
And since it’s very possible to miss the window doing so, this is a series that demands dedication and experiencing everything. Especially so in Suikoden V. Luckily, the game did make some positive changes, such as featuring 6 party teams and a nuanced skill system. You’ll even send armies clashing into one another in rock-paper-scissors style.
While the game is a lot of fun overall, it is admittedly slow to start, and features excessive load times. But if you can put up with that, you’ll find another worthy adventure in Suikoden V.
9 Rogue Galaxy
Jaster and Friends
I almost always prefer turn-based battles to anything approximating real time. So when I say I loved Rogue Galaxy, it’s because the game managed to win me over. That was a mix of the quirky style of the game, challenge and incredible freedom to explore at my own pace. All of which is why it’s a great game for any fan of the genre.
That said, Rogue Galaxy isn’t exactly easy. In fact, the version we got in the West is actually the harder one, because the developers wanted to make it feel less easy and more balanced. That led to visual refinements, and many tweaks to the combat to make it more difficult.
All that said, there’s a wealth of things to do in the game other than wander and fight, including insect-based mini-games, weapon modification and using a Factory to generate blueprints. It’s a wild world to explore in Rogue Galaxy, and you’ll be glad you did.
8 Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria
One Body, Two Heroes
Generally speaking, you don’t play a game on Hard the first time around. But in Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria, that’s actually the marginally easier difficulty. Which is sort of insane, and a good benchmark of what sort of challenge you can expect from this sequel.
The game features two heroes, Alice and Silmeria, in the same body, which leads to some fun gameplay options. You’ll also make use of randomized Einherjar to strengthen your team. As for combat, it’s very dynamic, with time stopping while you respond, and letting you rip off enemy body parts, temporarily giving you unlimited options for a brief period of time.
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Put simply, you’ll need all the help you can get. Luckily, it’s easy to enjoy the game even when it’s brutal, since Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria is still gorgeous two decades later.
7 Disgaea: Hour of Darkness
Demonic Fun, Dood!
The Disgaea games are really fascinating. They feature cute graphics and wonderful characters, and don’t seem impossible at first. But they’re also games that almost require massive amounts of grinding to level up and get so overpowered that everything becomes easy. So, depending on how patient you are, you could find the game very easy or very hard.
It all started for me with Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It’s a special sort of craziness that features homicidal penguins, angels, demons and even a parody of Power Rangers. But if Laharl wants to be victorious, it’s gonna take some effort on your part.
If all that wasn’t enough, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness also features multiple endings and some extensive optional content. The latter will especially prove challenging, even to the most hardened JRPG fans.
6 Persona 3
Enter the Dark Hour
Even though I bought them in order, I didn’t actually beat Persona 3 until years after I had beaten Persona 4: Golden and Persona 5 Royal. And considering I waited for the Switch edition of the latter, that should tell you something. Because while I enjoyed Persona from the moment I got into the series, I was not ready for the level of challenge I faced in Persona 3.
For one thing, I’m a bit of a control freak. So not being directly able to control my entire team chafed a bit, especially during boss battles. For another, it took me a while to learn that the Persona and SMT games really encourage you to make your main character a Swiss Army knife of sorts, able to deal with any situation effectively.
Not knowing any of that, I got into the game and promptly became stuck in Tartarus after the first couple of bosses. I just wasn’t prepared for a boss whose weaknesses I couldn’t breach. But many years later, I managed to not only beat this ruthless game, but I even defeated the Reaper!
5 Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Raidou Kuzunoha vs The Soulless Army
Real-Time Demon Hunting
Even though I’ve played other Shin Megami Tensei games, there’s not many quite like Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Raidou Kuzunoha vs The Soulless Army. It’s almost a mix of Phoenix Wright with real-time combat instead of the traditional turn-based fare.
The investigations are pretty different, though not unwelcome. The part of the game I found most challenging was the real-time combat. Unlike Rogue Galaxy, it’s quite hard to truly grasp the fundamentals. I also admit I missed having demons that can do anything and everything in battle, instead of ones suited to one combat function or another while Raidou slashes like crazy.
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After you’ve gotten the fundamentals down, the bosses in the game will still give you a rough time. Because even though it’s very different, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Raidou Kuzunoha vs The Soulless Army is still a Shin Megami Tensei game. And without exception, those are always a challenge.
The Illusion of Freedom
It’s kind of morbidly funny that Metal Saga once felt like a crazy, far-flung future about how mankind was devastated by their own technological creation. Nowadays, that just feels like a day that ends with a “y”. That aside, Metal Saga is a neat JRPG from the Metal Max series with a sort of Mad Max vibe, which is pretty unique even today.
Even more distinctive was how the game featured characters on foot, canine companions and tanks. Skills don’t use energy, but instead are based on currency. And while tanks are powerful, you can’t swap back and forth between them during battle, which was a missed opportunity.
The true difficulty of Metal Saga was that it’s almost too open-ended, and it’s often hard to know what to do next. And those feeling ambitious can even take on the final boss first in the adventure, a surefire way to wind up very dead.
3 The Nightmare of Druaga: Fushigino Dungeon
Adventures in Marriage
|
Platform |
PlayStation 2 |
|---|---|
|
Publisher |
Namco Hometek |
|
Genre |
JRPG |
|
Release Date |
October 27, 2004 |
If you haven’t heard of The Nightmare of Druaga: Fushigino Dungeon, you’re not alone. It’s one of those mysterious and obscure PS2 games. Weirder yet, it’s the sequel to The Tower of Druaga, and it starts with an intended wedding between Ki and Gil thwarted by the sorceress, Skulld. She steals your bride, so you have to go to rogue-like hell to get her back!
The game also auto saves to make your life harder, as well as featuring many types of foes you cannot defeat, and have to avoid instead. It’s very archaic and brutal, even though it’s nominally turn-based. If all that wasn’t enough, the game also has a Souls-like design where you lose almost all of your stuff every time you die.
The easiest way to think about The Nightmare of Druaga: Fushigino Dungeon is that the game hates you and wants you to fail, much like the sorceress herself. Definitely not a JRPG for the faint of heart.
2 Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne
Here Comes the Darkness
Even though I had a hard time with Persona 3 growing up, once I was an adult, I didn’t find it all that difficult. Patience and grinding were all it took to succeed. That’s not the case with Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. A game where you think you’re prepared, moments before the boss annihilates you.
Every single serious encounter in the game requires finding the proper way to counter and survive. Leveling up isn’t enough, and will just reward you with frustration. That said, any fan of the series will still find a lot to enjoy in this once relatively obscure game, which recently benefited from an HD remake.
More than anything, Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne plays like a much older game. You’ll have to contend with ruthlessly frequent enemy encounters, never have enough healing items, and will just feel unprepared for what they throw at you. But even that wasn’t as bad as our final game on this hard-to-beat list.
1 Baroque
Heaven Help Me
You typically don’t go into dungeon crawlers expecting an easy adventure. But even by those standards, Baroque is one of the most fiendishly esoteric and unnecessarily hard JRPGs I’ve ever played. The whole thing is just crazy convoluted. So even though there’s an interesting story about absolution and humanity here, it’s muddled and hidden behind a game where death is a certainty.
Not only is the Neuro Tower you’re exploring challenging, but it’s also randomly generated. Meaning that you never know exactly what foes wait in the shadows, ready to ruin your day. Though when you do die, you can hurl items into consciousness orbs, allowing you to find them on subsequent runs.
Perhaps worst, from a design standpoint, is how you have a vitality and health meter. When vitality is empty, your HP starts draining like a stuck pig, which is very bad. And if that wasn’t enough, you also have a limited inventory to work with. Baroque is perhaps one of the most frustrating and challenging JRPG experiences ever made.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
