Square Enix’s long-awaited Final Fantasy VII Remake has finally arrived, introducing Cloud Strife and the gang to a whole new generation of gamers while giving fans of the original PlayStation classic a fresh but surprisingly faithful reimagining of the beloved JRPG adventure. And while the experience itself is by no means short, the cliffhanger ending and nature of its episodic approach will surely leave many players hungry for more long after the credits roll.
Luckily, there are plenty of excellent JRPGs you can play to scratch that itch and hold yourself over until the next installment. With that said, here are five games you should try out after beating Final Fantasy VII Remake.
Kingdom Hearts
Perhaps the most obvious choice to play next after Final Fantasy VII Remake would be Square Enix’s other wildly popular JRPG series, Kingdom Hearts. Featuring an intriguing mash-up of the Final Fantasy franchise with Disney characters and locations, the series’s recently released third installment, Kingdom Hearts III, garnered critical and commercial success, quickly becoming the best-selling title in the franchise when it released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2019.
Kingdom Hearts shares a lot more with Final Fantasy VII than just its developer and a few recurring characters. Both were directed by Tetsuya Nomura, famed video game artist who’s spent his entire career working on both franchises. Kingdom Hearts also features a similar action-based battle system, various spells and attacks from the Final Fantasy universe and even summons in the form of well-known Disney rides and characters. If you’re looking for a game that’s as close to Final Fantasy VII as possible, then this is your best bet.
Bravely Default
For a more portable JRPG adventure, the Square Enix-published Bravely Default series on Nintendo's platforms provides a more traditional role-playing experience that you can bring with you on the go. Set in the world of Luxendarc, Bravely Default follows the adventures of four heroes as they set out to protect the balance of their world from a growing evil. The first two titles, Bravely Default and Bravely Second: End Layer, are both available to play on 3DS with an upcoming third game in the series coming to the Nintendo Switch later this year.
Bravely Default began development as a sequel to Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light for the Nintendo DS and, as such, retains many of the elements and gameplay mechanics of Final Fantasy while telling an original story built around its unique take on the turn-based battle system. It plays a lot more like the original Final Fantasy VII than the PS4 remake and would be perfectly suited to fans searching for a more conventional take on the JRPG. The upcoming Bravely Default II for the Nintendo Switch even has a demo out on the eShop, so you can give it a try first to see if it’s for you.
Xenoblade Chronicles
Another Nintendo-exclusive series, Xenoblade Chronicles began as a cult classic on the original Wii before earning two sequels, Xenoblade Chronicles X and Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which launched on the Wii U and Nintendo Switch respectively. While each game in the series focuses on their own contained stories and characters, they all take place in massive worlds that blend fantasy and science fiction elements together and often are the focus of their adventures.
Fans of Final Fantasy VII Remake’s gameplay will find a lot to love in Xenoblade Chronicles’ real-time action-based combat system, which is similarly based around auto-attacking enemies in battle to build up enough points for more powerful moves. And with a definitive edition of the first game coming out next month on top of the already staggering amount of available content, the Xenoblade Chronicles series promises to keep you buried in side quests for hundreds of hours.
Persona 5 Royal
If you’re looking for an experience with a more grounded setting while maintaining the same intriguing storytelling and turn-based gameplay mechanics as Final Fantasy, then you can’t do much better than Persona 5 Royal. Set in a faithful yet colorfully exaggerated interpretation of modern-day Tokyo, Atlus’s PlayStation 4-exclusive is one of the most stylish and critically acclaimed JRPGs in recent memory. It introduces players to the Phantom Thieves, a band of high school students who steal the corrupted hearts of those in power in an attempt to reform society for the better.
Equal parts Japanese high school simulator and turn-based dungeon crawler, Persona 5 Royal fleshes out its well-told story with emotive and animated cutscenes and characters along with an eye-catching art style that makes even the menus a joy to behold; plus a soundtrack that gives Final Fantasy VII Remake a serious run for its money. And with Royal being a rerelease of the 2016 title, Atlus has packed in a host of new content, characters and improvements that make it an absolute must-play for fans of the genre.
The Legend of Heroes
A series that has been growing more and more popular in the West with each subsequent release, Falcom’s The Legend of Heroes is a multi-game spanning epic that first began on the PSP with 2004’s Trails in the Sky. Telling one long, overarching story over the course of nine games (and counting), The Legend of Heroes has garnered a dedicated following through its immersive world-building, well-developed character arcs and an intriguing storyline that reveals new twists and developments spurred on by the events of previous games in the series.
Although the current story spans the course nine games, The Legend of Heroes is actually made up of several arcs featuring different characters for each; the most recent arc, called Trails of Cold Steel, follows protagonist Rean and his classmates at Thors Military Academy as they struggle to find their place in the military-based society of Erebonia, while political turmoil and an evil organization threaten to throw the land into chaos.
The gameplay features life simulator mechanics similar to Persona 5 Royal while introducing a hybrid battle system that blends turn-based combat with RTS grid-based movement. If Final Fantasy VII Remake’s multi-part approach to storytelling is something you want more of, then The Legend of Heroes is a worthy investment indeed.