The PlayStation 2 is one of the most beloved systems of all time, largely because it had something for everyone. Whether people loved platformers or open-world games, the console was able to offer greatness. Yet the genre that benefited the most had to be RPGs, which received plenty of all-time classics.
Of course, with so many classic titles available, there are plenty that were also amazing, despite not receiving acclaim. Many of them were beloved at the time but have gone forgotten as the decades have past, while others were forgotten just because they were never localized to America to begin with. Still, that doesn't make them any less amazing for people who still love the PlayStation 2 era.
Tales of Rebirth Was Never Brought To The States
Namco had a consistently weird attitude towards the Tales of franchise in the 2000s. Despite both Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Destiny being popular with the JRPG fanbase, Namco remained inconsistent with the franchise throughout the 2000s, with many of its best games never leaving Japan. Tales of Rebirth is one of those games, coming out during the peak years for the PS2 without ever receiving a localization.
Tales of Rebirth tells the story of Veigue Lungberg, a young man who sets out to rescue his friend Claire after she gets kidnapped by agents of the throne. While working to save Claire, Veigue begins making new allies and learning more about his world, a place struggling with racial tensions between its two races: Huma and Gajuma. While Veigue encounters some powerful enemies, he also wields incredibly powerful ice magic to defend himself.
Tales of Rebirth was immediately well-received as another great RPG from the Tales team. However, Namco never quite believed in the potential for 2D RPGs to perform well, so they never tried to localize the title. Even now, decades later, Tales of Rebirth has never been brought over, even as Namco works to remaster every Tales of title in the world. If players want to try this, they'll have to seek out a fan translated version to play it in English.
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Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance Has Been Forgotten With Time
The original Baldur's Gate is considered to be one of the best PC RPGs of the late '90s and early 2000s. It was so successful that publisher Interplay Entertainment decided to create a spin-off franchise for consoles. Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance released a year into the PS2's lifespan, developed by Snowblind Studios. Unlike the PC game, the title chose to be a real-time hack-and-slash RPG, though it retained the same isometric viewpoint.
Honestly, Dark Alliance turning out to be a fantastic video game goes against the usual conventional wisdom. The main Baldur's Gate titles had been developed by BioWare, but Interplay decided to go with an entirely different studio for Dark Alliance. Typically, that doesn't work well, but Snowblind understood exactly what would appeal to a console gamer.
More than that, the game utilized a completely new engine to take advantage of the PS2's power. The result was a game that ran fantastically and had reviewers extolling how great it looked. Beyond the graphics, Dark Alliance was an incredible experience, offering deep and rewarding combat and an engaging storyline.
It even received nominations for best RPG from various game outlets. However, these days Dark Alliance isn't nearly as talked about as bigger games like Final Fantasy X or Kingdom Hearts 2. Sadly, it comes from an era where WRPGs weren't as beloved on consoles as they are today.
Front Mission 5: Scars of the War Was Too Tied To Older Front Mission Games
Despite having one of the best tactical RPGs for the PlayStation in Front Mission 3, the truth is Square was never high on the Front Mission series in America. The only two games that ever made it over were Front Mission 3 and Front Mission 4, while the SNES games went ignored for years. Front Mission 5 also went ignored, as the game released in 2005, and Square Enix never bothered to localize it.
To many fans of the franchise, Front Mission 5 is seen as the best in the franchise. It features the strongest narrative, tying up many of the plot points from prior games and giving the series a real conclusion. Rather than focusing solely on the events of the present, Scars of the War covers events across fifty years going back to before the events of the first game and even well ahead of the events of the previous game.
Perhaps it is Front Mission 5's ties to older games that made Square look over it when they could've localized it. Considering even fans think the game is best played by people that have experienced every other game in the series, maybe they thought it's appeal was far too narrow.
Whatever the reasoning, Front Mission 5 remained a Japanese exclusive title, with people only coming up with a translated patch years after the fact. Considering the franchise itself was always rather niche, it's likely even major JRPG fans have never seen this game before.
X-Men Legends Isn't Discussed In The Modern Era
In the 2000s, good superhero games weren't just rare, they were basically unheard of outside the realm of Capcom's fighting games. Despite all the medium's successes, superheroes were the one thing they just couldn't consistently do. So when Raven Software finally figured it out using the biggest superhero team of the 2000s, it immediately became a big deal.
X-Men Legends placed players in the role of Alison Crestmere, a mutant that recently gained new powers. Taken in by the X-Men, Alison begins training to use her powers, but also gets pulled into the X-Men's other activities. Before she knows it, she's battling against other dangerous forces to try and save the planet, right alongside the biggest X-Men on the planet.
X-Men Legends figured out how to make superheroes work by creating an addicting action-RPG. Players could take four members of the team into any mission, and rely on a handful of special attacks that used their powers. It was an elegant solution, and fun combat paired with a solid fight scene plus plenty of fanservice made X-Men Legends an easy buy at the time. While this game was a big deal in the 2000s, both X-Men Legends and the Marvel Ultimate Alliance franchises have fallen into obscurity as Raven Software continues working on one of the biggest franchises in the world in Call of Duty.
Wild Arms 3 Comes From A Less Popular Franchise
Considering how long Wild ARMS lasted, it's a surprise the franchise isn't discussed more. Debuting on the original PS1, what helped the series stand out was its setting. While other franchises were satisfied with high fantasy or occasionally some level of science fiction, Wild ARMS took place on a desert planet, allowing them to use some Wild West tropes. The result was a franchise that lasted almost a decade across seven games.
Wild Arms 3 was the first game for the PlayStation 2, and immediately puts the new console's power to use by making the entire game using 3D cel-shaded graphics. The stylized result created a game that actually still looks great even decades later. Set on the desert planet of Filgaia, Wild Arms 3 introduces players to Virginia Maxwell, a young woman who lives as a Drifter while trying to find her father.
Along the way, Virginia runs into a group of other Drifters, and they all discover they've been chosen to protect the planet from a deadly threat. The Wild Arms series was just popular enough to keep going, but nowhere near popular enough to become a major success.
With a charismatic lead, great music, and a clever combat system, Wild Arms 3 is a great game that flew under most people's radars when it released. Even now, the whole franchise hasn't really received a proper port to other consoles, and Sony has little interest in placing it on PC.
