Best 3D, Turn-based JRPGs on PS5

PS5 JRPGs are hardly a rarity, but if you’re after something that isn’t pixelated and dripping with nostalgia, your choices are a bit more limited. We’ve done the hard work for you, though, and put together a list of eight of the best 3D, turn-based JRPGs on the PS5. A few of them are also playable on the PS4, but there’s no reason not to play them on PS5 if you’ve got one.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak

For all the fuss about how new games would revitalize outdated turn-based systems, Trails through Daybreak is the one that quietly revolutionized classic combat, even if few outside the series’ comparatively small fanbase noticed. Daybreak streamlines action and adds new ways to customize your party, so turns move faster and involve more strategy than ever. There’s also more than two dozen passive skills that activate depending on how you customize your character – buffs, debuffs, extra attacks, and more – and if you’re playing on higher difficulties, you’ll need all the help you can get. 

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth

Infinite Wealth‘s combat is a remarkable improvement over the frequently loose, unsatisfying battles from Yakuza: Like A Dragon. The physics actually work this time, meaning you can set up reaction attacks and hurl thugs in front of oncoming traffic or bat them into an ally’s oncoming attack. The class system is much stronger and more varied this time as well, and your opponents are some of the most bizarre and fantastic in the genre, everything from thrusting hooligans to a gigantic shark. It is a Yakuza game after all.

Persona 3 Reload

Persona 3 Reload might look like a rehash of Persona 5‘s combat system at a glance, but it’s rather more complex in ways that make it more enjoyable. It’s missing the Psy and Nuke elements from Persona 5, but instead, every weapon has a damage type – pierce, slash, or strike. The change sounds simple on paper, but in practice, it means every character has a chance to be useful in a variety of combat situations, which frees you to experiment more with party setups or just use the characters you like the most. That’s not something you can say for most turn-based JRPGs, either.

Metaphor ReFantazio

The best way to describe Metaphor ReFantazio‘s combat is if Persona 3 Reload met Final Fantasy V. You’ve got a suite of elemental weaknesses and physical damage types to consider in each battle – and enemies dangerous enough to where a misjudged attack could send you to the game over screen. In addition to that, Metaphor includes an expansive class system that lets allies specialize as defenders, ranged attackers, debuffers, and more, and if that weren’t enough, you can mix and match skills between classes.

Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age

Dragon Quest XI earns its reputation as one of the series’ best for story, and even though it’s missing a class-based system like Dragon Quest VII, DQ XI still has one of the best battle systems as well. Your allies start with Dragon Quest‘s usual archetypes – healer, thief, mage, the kind of thing you’d expect if you played Dragon Quest VIII – but every ally can specialize in different ways depending on the weapon skills you choose. This is another feature from Dragon Quest VIII, but DQ XI makes it possible to create fun and viable builds regardless of your skill picks – something the older game can’t boast.

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance

SMT V: Vengeance is Atlus’ best version of the Press-Turn Combat system, thanks to some smart improvements over SMT IV. Demons are more useful for longer, as they learn additional skills, which gives you freedom to tinker with party combinations instead of constantly chasing the next new and improved demon. Passing down skills through inheritance, making new demons with strategic fusing, and exploiting elemental weaknesses to keep your enemies from attacking – SMT V is one of the most in-depth and rewarding combat systems in the genre, even if the learning curve is rather brutal.

Final Fantasy X/X-2 Remaster

Okay, so this is technically a PS3 JRPG remastered and playable on PS5, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a stronger turn-based combat system than the ones Square Enix created for the Final Fantasy X games. FFX itself takes the series back to turn-based combat for the first time since Final Fantasy VI. Far from being just a repeat of old ideas, it includes a massive skill tree for each character and lets you customize their growth in minute detail. FFX-2 channels the spirit of Final Fantasy V and gives you more than a dozen classes to experiment with via changing outfits on your quest to become a star.

Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End and the Secret Key

However uneven the Ryza trilogy might have been, the one thing it definitely improved on with each entry is the Atelier series’ turn-based combat. Atelier Ryza 3‘s bombs and the other whatnots that you craft play an important role in bringing down tough enemies and keeping the party safe, but there’s a lot more going on as well. Each character specializes in a combat type, such as raw power or magic, and has a selection of skills they can unleash after using building momentum with basic attacks. You can also string these together in ridiculously powerful combos involving other characters. That’s before taking the party’s tactics level into account and how you can modify your team’s performance using keys found in the open world.

Let us know what you think the best turn-based JRPGs on the PlayStation 5 are in the comments below!

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