I can't say I ever played an RPG I thought was perfect, or the aboslute best, but my favorite has to be Chronotrigger. It was a short little 20 hour journey of fun that I couldn't put down. Also, it had that FF style combat but with out the extremely annoying random battles that get really in your way when you just want to concentrate on getting to a town, or completing a story quest (and the battles in the FF series are never actually random, you always get attacked at the same basic intervals in those things, its just random monsters). Never tried the sequel.
I liked the story in FF7, but honestly, 90% of the battles only required you to repeatedly hit the "attack" button. Not nearly enough strategy. A shame really, as the game was generally cool otherwise.
I played FFX recently, and while I liked the basic setup, and the battles required much more strategy, the overall story and world felt rushed and cobbled together. Plus it was extrememly too linear and the end sequence in the crystal cave was just plain annoying. I didn't like how all the non-linear stuff was basically "catch em all" style side quests that had nothing to do with the main plot. Those kind of things hold no interest for me. I mean, I already defeated the Big Bad Guy, why go Pokemon hunting?
Did it bother anybody that in Fallout you had a turned based combat system but had no control over your companions? That turned me off to it, but I always wanted to go back and get into it.
I'll always have a soft spot for the original Phantasy Star, the first console style RPG I played. Big colorful graphics, 1st person dungeons...Cool stuff in its day.
I remember the oldies of western games too. Anybody remember the Questor series for C64? Pools of Radiance?
BMAN
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/bman/scbetty/series.php
