Right boysengirls, don't think people have talked much about some of my favourites so it's time for a list. I play a lot of these, so some gems like the Pokémons didn't make the cut.
ZeldaMy top 25 games (yes I keep a list) has six Zeldas in it. Ocarina 3D, Minish Cap, Wind Waker HD, Twilight Princess, A Link Between Worlds, and of course Breath of the Wild. Granted, that's partly because I'm a Nintendo fanboy; but on the 'adventure' side of things Nintendo has nailed the formula, and variations thereon, time and again. However, I don't
reeeeeeally count them as RPGs; so I'll throw them up top along with
Okami (what if Zelda but Japan?) and move on.
Xenoblade1 and 2, not Chronicles. 1 introduced me to the Xenoblade formula of giving you massive alive-feeling explorable worlds to JRPG in, and 2 refined it and prettied it up. Top JRPGs the both.
Mario & Luigi: Superstar SagaBack when Nintendo weren't afraid to take the Bros. to different places and introduce them to all-new characters, we got this. Turn-based battling with several twists, genuinely funny dialogue, an all-new and charming cast of supporting characters, and the genuinely creepy Joke's End. Brrr. If you never played it on GBA, the 3DS remake is well worth picking up.
Muramasa: the Demon BladeLittle-known action RPG on Wii and Vita where you play as a ninja and feel like a ninja: the showy pyrotechnics type, mind, not the historically accurate kind. The 2D swordfighting just
feels tremendous. Also you can slash up Japanese demons and eat dumplings. There's a story too, I think, but I struggled to follow it; but this is a rare RPG where it's all about the gameplay.
Bravely SecondSquare Enix's original 3DS RPG, Bravely Default, had a solid job system, a solid battle system, and was oddly user-friendly for a 'true' JRPG. There was just one problem: the story of the game's first half was bobbins, and the gameplay of the second half was worse. (So, two then.) Enter the sequel, which cleaned that right up. Good characters and dialogue too, on top of everything. It wasn't perfect, but it's probably the best 'pure' turn-based JRPG I've played.
Paper Mario and the Thousand-Year DoorThe undisputed king of JRPGs. This GameCube classic had turn-based battling with several twists, genuinely funny dialogue, an all-new and charming cast of supporting characters, and genuinely creepy sections. However, it also had a lot of entertaining riffs on the paper theme, a whodunnit on a train, a mechanic whereby you had to appeal to the crowd to power up your specials, a genuinely epic scope, a chapter where you investigate who's manipulating a wrestling ring, and - above all - boldness. A boldness to take Mario outside his comfort zone that Nintendo seemed to lose not long after. Play this at all costs: if it costs a bomb these days, that's reflective of its quality. One of my top three games ever.
Ace Attorney: Trials and TribulationsProbably not what you meant, Gemini: check the actual definition for an 'adventure game'.