Oh, I have a real soft spot for Skies of Arcadia: Legends, the re-release on GameCube in 2003. It wasn't as difficult as the original release in 2000 on Dreamcast. However, it was still a great story with a really fun and interesting battle mechanic. It was the first RPG I finished in my life, and I've only beaten Earthbound since. Vyse, Aika, and Fina are fully realized characters and exploring their world along with them is a real treat!

Suikoden II is a fantastic game. So fantastic, I have a difficult time calling it a "hidden" gem, as it was wildly successful. It is consistently at the top of every "best Suikoden game" list, and usually in the top 5 of most "best of PSX" games lists. As a fan of the series, you're in pretty good company! =)

If you're itching for more of that genre, check out a newish series called Eiyuden Chronicles. I got into it via the platformer RPG that launched the series, but then later learned that it is supposedly a prequel for an upcoming game heavily inspired by Suikoden II. I think it was Kickstarted, but I am not sure. In any case, the first game (Rising) is a fun side-scroller RPG with some light Metroidvania kind of play, and I'm super excited to see the follow-up game finally hit the market.

The Ogre Battle series!!

This series has always been the epitome of a Hidden Gem! Back in the 90's there were two games put out by Quest with the same lead, Yasumi Matsuno.

The first being March of The Black Queen, a sort of mix between party style jrpg combat and rts style strategy games. I have never played another game similar to this, aside from the N64 entry into the series called Persons of Lordly Caliber (different director from the original two games though), it is very overwhelming at first since you're trying to keep track of so many places on such a small FoV, while the game plays out in real time. But once you get used to it, there's really nothing else like it.

The second game in the series, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together is the more influential of the two since Yasumi would soon after go on to create the popular Final Fantasy Tactics series. LuCT recently got remade as Tactics Ogre Reborn on all major gaming systems and I could not recommend it enough! On my first playthrough I have over 180 hours, and that's without completing all of the post-game content or going back to do the other 2/3 branching story paths.

I first got into the series with the GBA title though, The Knight of Lodis, a prequel to LuCT that follows the events of a major character from that game whom you would never expect to be the protagonist of his own, let alone someone you empathize with and really become so invested in. I won't spoil who it is, but you need to 100% the game in a very specific way to even get the cutscene that bridges the two games together so don't worry about anything like that, it's mostly an Easter egg for die-hard fans. The game itself plays more or less like LuCT with only some minor gameplay changes that I think are due to hardware limitations on the GBA vs the SNES.

The final game I will mention is Persons of Lordly Caliber on the N64, which plays similarly to the original game but I have only ever played a very little bit of this one so that's about all I know of it lol. They went with pre-rendered claymation style graphics for this title, so while being ugly as sin, it has a very unique charm. What's the opposite of timeless? That's how this game looks, but in a nostalgic way that I enjoy lol.

Ninja edit: the original games are all named after Queen songs, and I think a lot of the characters have Queen related names as well. That's how you know if it's a Yasumi game or not lol. A coincidence in my life, I grew up loving the band Queen, they were my favorite band as a kid. TKoL was my 2nd favorite game as a kid as well but I never knew the connection until much later in my life.

Edit 2: Wildermyth

This game got a little fanfare when it came out, but honestly not enough. Procedurally generated gridbased D&D style game with a very charming papercraft art style that has a lot of focus on making you feel invested into your party of characters and the often wacky situations they get into in between encounters.

Edit 3: Lost Kingdoms

Wow I keep remembering great games that nobody I know is into lol! Lost Kingdoms is a Fromsoft game from the days when they made really good jank, rather than these wildly popular series they keep putting out. You play as the princess of a dying realm doing something I can't remember. What I do remember, very fondly, is the card based battle system where you can summon monsters to the battlefield to fight for or with you in a real time combat arena. Then, once you get farther in the game you can fuse cards to create new monsters like in SMT. If anyone remembers more about this game I would love to hear it, I haven't played it since the NGC was current but I absolutely loved it back then!

The .hack and .hack//G.U. were my go to childhood rpg games. I was a huge fan of the anime and manga. I am super happy that they released a remastered version called .hack//G.U. Last recode. It seems not many know about this video game series, only about the anime .hack//roots or .hack//signs. I enjoyed the combat system and the dungeon format. The cutscenes were really great and I loved the stories it told.

I'm glad you mentioned Azure Dreams. One of the few games I rented from Blockbuster a few times because it was so good. Never beat it though, and I can't remember how far I got.

I don't know if either of these are hidden gems, but Parasite Eve and Star Ocean: The Second Story were some of my favorite PS1 JRPGs. Parasite Eve was terrifying, and very difficult especially for like a 12/13yo, but the setting and story were great. I almost finished the game...until my dad turned off my Playstation while I was at school (I finished the final boss one morning before school). I even left a note requesting it be left on. Sigh.

SO:TSS had a solid story. I liked that the decisions mattered. If you get this character, you can't get this other character. The crafting system was fun, even though you I don't typically like crafting minigames much. I actually completed this game on the PSP or Vita.

Oh another one I enjoyed was Legend of Legaia. Standard JRPG, but it had some fighting combo elements in it, along with I think some magic socketing system. I did complete that game. That's also where I discovered the wonder (and misery) of grinding to level up. There was this like this bull-headed boss underground that I had to kill. But I was too weak and kept dying to him. So I spent hours and hours and hours running from the town up to the boss' lair and back, over and over. I leveled up so much that the battle was quite literally a cakewalk.

equal parts rogue-lite, Pokemon, dating sim, and city builder

That is... quite an eclectic mix of genres, I think I have to look into Azure Dreams just because of that to see what exactly that looks like.

Personally the only hidden gems that come to my mind would be the first two Gothic games (simply because they are old and clunky, but still good) and else heart.break() (because for some reason my mind wandered to it).

Terranigma is one of the best action JRPGs from the SNES, sadly it was not released for the NTSC region, but lucky for my younger self that didn't know English, it is one of the few games back in the day that you could get in Spanish for your emulator.

I'm not sure you could call them hidden gems, but the Ys games from Falcom usually get very little attention or discussion online, at least compared to bigger Japanese franchises, they've been getting some more (much deserved) attention in recent years, especially after the games came back to PC though.

For the uninitiated, they're fantasy Action JRPGs with a focus on combat (think Zelda with less puzzles, better combat and equipment with stats) and they were primarily PC games back in the 1990s, they revolve around Adol Christin, an adventurer with a bad case of getting in shipwrecks and his mishaps around the world, each game is mostly unrelated to one another aside from the protagonist and a few returning characters every once in a while, so you can start anywhere you want in the series. The games have gone through a few phases, the first two were basically Zelda clones with a "bumping into enemies" combat, the later six games are more traditional hack and slash, kind of like Diablo but without all the crazy loot, and the last four games have a party mechanic where you can change between three characters on the fly, each with different skillsets and they started having a bigger focus on storytelling.

The games are still being made and the new one, Ys X: Nordics, comes out in September (in Japan for now, booo). Oh and before I forget, they have some absolutely kickass soundtracks in every single game without a miss, highly recommended if you want some shorter, no bullsh*t action RPG games, especially the newer three games Memories of Celceta, Lacrimosa of Dana and Monstrum Nox.

Oriental Blue for GBA. The game never got an official English release, however, the fan translation does an excellent job. I believe this is a true hidden gem of the GBA era.

The gameplay is pretty traditional JRPG: open world design, random encounters in the over-world, towns scattered throughout, and a slew of playable party members along the way.

The thing that this game does differently is that, while there is a traditional spell/skill mana usage aspect, it does not work in the traditional sense. Each member has a few skills they can learn but aside from that there are stones you use alongside battles, each with a different power and effect. These stones can also be embedded into weapons, clothing, etc. that allow you to use the power of said stone, with no mana cost.

This does come at the expensive of the durability of the host item, but there are several items you find along the way that, when filled with max stones, occur no durability penalty.

Aside from that the game truly feels alive. NPCs have different dialog depending on events that have happened in the game. This along with the non-linear gameplay really make it feel like a mesh of new and old in terms of RPGs.

I really liked Tyranny.

It's got some flaws and there's a decent amount of setup for a sequel that just doesn't exist, but ultimately it's still a very interesting game, especially for a first playthrough.

This is not a retro title, but Fuga: Melodies of Steel and its sequel are pretty charming strategy RPG. Both games are available on Game Pass and have sizeable demos, so you can easily try them out.

It might look silly due to the furry cast of characters, but the world building is top notch, the characters grow on you quickly, the artwork is excellent, the OST is superb and the whole concept is engrossing and creative. Great replay value thanks to multiple endings, too. It's actually a bit hard to describe what's so good about it due to spoilers, so you have to take a leap of faith here.

It's somewhat a prequel to other two other CyberConnect2 titles (PSX Tail Concerto and NDS Solatorobo), but you don't need to play them, although you might miss some call forwards.

Vintage Story

It's basically what I wanted original Minecraft to be before they doubled down on whatever and never bothered touching the original survival mechanics. This game has you knapping stones, forming pottery (actual, tiny voxel squares to form pots, which you will be using with food/liquids!).

I agonised for hours with just plain badly balanced MC mods, overhauls - honestly, they were awfully curated, featured so much guff and being mods, it never really broke the bones of Minecraft, because well....it was still Minecraft.

VS is great, and very slow paced. My only complaint is the lovecraftian features which ruin an otherwise amazing primitive/early technology game. Thankfully you can disable these outright in the world generation settings (Homo Sapiens mode), along with a LOT of other tweakable things and of course...freeeee modding!

It's great, well worth a checkout.

I don't know how hidden it is, but every few years I go back to Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. I love the first half, getting attacked by a space empire, getting stranded, meeting Cliff and Nel. Love the battle system, and absolutely adore the cast. Don't mind the twist, but the game loses some momentum for me at the end. But it hits that "stuck in an underdeveloped planet" fantasy harder than anything else I've played.

Arcanum. Its made by some of the people who made the first two Fallout games. It's a fantasy game, but the swords and sorcery world, is undergoing its industrial revolution. So there's upheaval as technology is catching up to magic. You can make traditional fighter, thief, ranger type characters. There's a bunch of magic schools, but high int characters can also study technology to learn how to craft things. Everything from molotov cocktails to clockwork mechanical spider bots.

The steam punky stuff isn't as unique as it was when it first came out, but it's still a pretty deep game mechanically with some really good writing and characters.

Technomancer is one of my all time favorite games, hard, but wonderful.

Azure Dreams is one of my all-time favourite games. I never owned it on PSX, but I rented it out for many, many weeks from Blockbuster Video. The game's music is forever seared into my mind.

I recently got the Gameboy version of Azure Dreams and was able to finally play it for the first time. It's pretty good! The only significant differences seem to be the removal of the dating sim and city building features. The music and monster names also differ, but it's largely the same game.

I highly recommend it, especially considering there aren't very many roguelikes for the Gameboy.

Definitely not the most hidden of hidden gems but the lack of my own friend group that hasn't played or even heard about this game is a crime... TUNIC

TUNIC truly gave me a sense of nostalgia while playing it the first time. The second time was just because of the sheer enjoyment I got from it playing through it the first time and getting some spoilers online of multiple endings and levels of completion.

The mystery of the plot, the gradual understanding of the world, it's a wonderful time, especially going into it blind. Couldn't recommend it more.

Project X Zone 1 and 2. It was a bit grindy by the end, but having teams of characters from tons of different games fighting together was great. And I enjoyed the combo system in the combat.

Forgive me as it's not really a proper RPG as it's more of a hack 'n slash with RPG elements, but it's definitely a hidden gem and it's not often I get to talk about it.

Dragon Valor for the PS1, it has a storyline with multiple branches depending on some of the things you explore/decisions you make, decent gameplay along with a few puzzles that aren't ridiculously challenging and has a great soundtrack. If you're ever looking for something fun to play, I definitely recommend it.

One of my personal favorites is Phantasy Star Online: Episode 3 C.A.R.D Revolution for the Gamecube. Although some might call it the red-headed stepchild of the series due to its departure from the hack-and-slash combat that defined the first two episodes in favor of a HeroScape-like card battle system, it somehow works really well.

Each battle begins on a 2D grid based on the stages from episodes 1 and 2. Players can choose either Hunters (who equip items like guns and swords to fight with) or Arkz (who summon monsters fought in previous episodes to fight for them). Each deck is made up of 30 cards. There is no mana system; instead, you roll 2 dice each turn to determine your defense and attack points. These are used for summoning items or monsters, casting spells, using special attacks, and moving. It sounds confusing, but it's actually quite intuitive when you play it yourself.

The graphics are about what you'd expect from the GameCube Era, maybe even a bit worse honestly. The music, however, is absolutely incredible. The same team that did sound for Sonic Adventure 2 and PSO Eps 1+2 once again hit it out of the ballpark. I still listen to some stage music on car rides today - IDOLA: The Strange Fruits absolutely slaps!

A physical copy of the game is somewhat expensive, but there are - ahem - other options for those who feel adventurous. Give this forgotten gem a shot if you like tactical games or TCGs. And let me know if you know any similar games; I've never found anything that quite scratches the itch.

My personal favourite is the Aveyond series. I played "Ahiraman's Prophecy" back when it was released (for free) and I was in school. The game is pure unadulterated nostalgia for me. The story and gameplay is simple and moments stick out even after all these years. What I like the most about the game is the soundtrack which instantly transports me back to my childhood.