Overview

A topic that comes up from time to time among Japanese Role-Playing Game enthusiasts is “what is the best system for JRPGs?” I look at these discussions and am often baffled by some of the things people suggest, but had nothing quantitative to back my opinions. As a big fan of the genre I have been wanting to do a project centered around them so I figured this would be an interesting thing to look into. In the process I also gathered a whole lot of data that is not related to game systems which I will also be going over.

Thankfully, a few days into the project and after realizing how many hours it would take just to decide what games from the Switch should be included, I saw a thread on /r/JRPG about a “JRPG Index” of every JRPG. This project may never have happened if I had not seen it, so thank you to JRPG Chronicles and the primary editor of its index, Lucca – more links in the Sources section.

While this project mostly sticks to games in the JRPG index, my rules are slightly different. Here are the requirements for games to be included in this study:

• Developed in Japan or South Korea – Bug Fables and Child of Light do not count, but Crimson Gem Saga and Magna Carta: Crimson Stigmata do
• Contains “enough” RPG elements – Monster Hunter and Dark Souls count
• Officially licensed – no homebrew, RPG maker games, or fan translations
• Released in North America and/or Europe
• Released on a video game console – mobile, PC, and mini/classic consoles do not count
• Not released on a 9th generation system – The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S were still very new when I started this project and there were very few JRPGs released for them
• Released before 2021
• Digital ports across generations are not counted if they are emulated and identical to their original version. So the Final Fantasy VII release on 8th generation hardware that has a speed up option and graphical improvements is counted, but PS one Classics on PS3 do not count
• Games only available on a system as part of a subscription service, such as Nintendo Switch Online or Xbox Game Pass, do not count

Game Systems – Number of Games

It’s important to get an idea of what we’re working with first. Averages don’t mean as much if the data set is small, so I’ll be starting each section with the number of games relevant to what we’re talking about. Games released on multiple platforms are counted multiple times.

Clicking on the images will expand them. You can go to the next or previous image with the arrow keys, and close the lightbox with escape.

Within the parameters of this study, there are 21 home consoles and 8 handhelds with 1,639 JRPG releases. There are a few more systems with JRPGs, notably the WonderSwan, that weren’t included because they were only released in Japan.

An important aspect of determining the best JRPG system must the number of JRPGs. More games means more chances of finding a game you enjoy. The PlayStation 4 stands above everything else by a comfortable margin as of my cutoff date of 12/31/2020, and will see a few more. But while the Switch is #2 here, it is adding roughly 33% more JRPGs to its library per year than the PS4 has been, and it has several more years of life left in it, so it will likely end up pretty close by the time both systems stop receiving releases.

People often remark on how JRPGs mostly moved to handhelds with the 7th generation, and we can see that clearly here. The 7th generation was the birth of digital distribution on video game systems, and saw a big influx of games because of it, yet the PlayStation 3 has fewer JRPGs than the PlayStation 2 or PlayStation Portable. This is even more pronounced with the Wii and the DS.

It’s quite impressive that the Vita has more JRPGs than the PSP, despite selling so much worse.

Game Systems – Metascores

But it doesn’t matter how many games are on a system if they aren’t any good, so let’s look into the quality of the JRPGs on each system, first with metascores.

Most of these metascores are from GameRankings, which closed over a year ago. GameRankings displayed scores down to the hundredth decimal place, included older games than Metacritic, and did not weigh publications differently. Games without a GameRankings metascore used a Metacritic metascore when possible. For GameRankings I only included games with at least 5 reviews, and with Metacritic, 4 reviews.

While GameRankings has metascores for some older games there is a bit of selection bias for games released before the 6th generation. Typically only the most popular and best selling games have enough reviews, driving the overall average higher.

Systems without any metascores are omitted, and please also note that the y-axis starts at 60, making differences look larger than they actually are.

While the Sega CD and Saturn’s numbers look impressive, keep in mind that they had 3 and 8 games respectively with metascores and that the worst JRPGs didn’t get reviewed at all.

The Game Boy Color and Xbox One have more games to average, but are still rarely thought of as great JRPG systems. While the Xbox One got most of the same digital-only, small developer, low budget releases as the Switch and PS4, much fewer of them got reviewed, which helped its overall average tremendously.

But the average doesn’t tell the whole story. What’s really important when you’re looking for a system to play JRPGs on is how many great JRPGs it has, right?

We have different ideas of how poor of a metascore might need to be before we wouldn’t consider looking at a game, and how high a metascore needs to be to really grab your attention, so here we have metascores broken into 10 point chunks.

The original PlayStation has had the largest number of 90+ scored games, at 6, while the DS, PS2, PS4, and Xbox One have 4. While Sega had the two systems with the highest averages, there are only 3 90+ JRPGs in Sega’s history – Panzer Dragoon Saga, Lunar: Eternal Blue, and Skies of Arcadia.

Overall, there isn’t much difference between the relative proportions of these buckets among different systems, the 70s are the largest group, followed by 60s, or sometimes the 80s.

Game Systems – Polls

To get more of the “fans who don’t happen to work for a major game reviewing outlet” viewpoint I also looked at two polls to gauge how well different systems were received.

The first was held on /r/JRPG in late March 2020. 178 users voted for up to 10 games.

The second seems to have been advertised in many places, as there were over 1500 responses. I’m not sure when it started, but it was posted to /r/JRPG in early 2021. I am using the data from the “vote for your 10 favorite games” poll. Unfortunately, I can only see the top 100 games, so many games with a few votes were not counted.

I “normalized” the votes between these two polls so that they had equal weight, despite their difference in vote totals. This resulted in a number of “points” given to each game that received at least one vote. I multiplied the number by 100 so we didn’t have to deal with a bunch of zeros, so ultimately one vote in one poll is worth .7 points, and the most voted for game (Chrono Trigger) is 100. This is what I mean when I refer to “poll points”.

Before we get to the graphs, I feel it is important to discuss the relative merits of metascores and poll points.

All metascores are of their time, based on expectations for games coming out on those systems. Metascores cover many more games, no one voted for many mediocre to bad games in either poll. However, ports often do not get enough attention to receive a metascore, especially cross generational ones.

Retrospective fan polls can favor enduring classics and foundational childhood memories. Games that are not just good for their time is also an important factor here, as some game mechanics and quality of life issues that were considered normal at the time of a game’s release may be viewed harshly in the future. Polls also favor JRPGs ported across many consoles, as more people get a chance to play a game. I chose to give all versions of a game the full number of poll points, except when the polls specifically split them into separate releases. Since people have different personal definitions of JRPGs, some games that not everyone considers to qualify will receive fewer votes. Compilations did not receive any points if a game within them was voted for.

Systems with larger libraries have more opportunities to earn poll points and are also more top of mind, so it’s not much of a surprise to see the 8th generation doing so well overall, other than the Vita.

Chrono Trigger was the most voted for game in both polls and was worth 100 points, more than a third of the SNES and DS’s point totals.

Sega’s entire catalog of JRPGs was beat many individual systems.

Game Systems – Physical Game Price

Physical game prices are always increasing, (studied in some detail here) making it difficult to play many of the best JRPGs on older systems. What good is a system if you can’t afford the games you want?

The following data is from PriceCharting, which analyzes games sold on eBay. The prices used in this study are of “complete in box” copies, which means the box, game, manual, and other inserts are included, but the shrink wrap has been removed and the game has likely been played. These prices are the most volatile data included and will be out of date the quickest. All prices are in United States Dollars. North American versions were used when possible.

If you’re curious about the overall average cost of a game on various systems, I have studied that too.

It will cost you $65,740.29 ($51.60 on average) to own a complete physical copy of every JRPG released before 2021, and that number is only getting bigger.

The SNES and PS1 are known for having many classics, and are often talked about as some of the best JRPG systems, but the DS is almost tied with them in terms of price.

While there aren’t many 3rd generation JRPGs, I was surprised how cheap they were overall.

The Saturn has several expensive games but Panzer Dragoon Saga, at $996.61, is carrying a lot of that price.

Game Systems – Digital Game Price

While I strongly prefer to have physical copies of my games, I understand many like to have digital copies instead. I did not record delisted games or anything from storefronts that have closed. All prices are without discounts.

I originally had a note here about the PS3 and PSVita storefronts closing, but that is no longer the case for now.

A complete digital collection of what is possible to buy at the moment will cost you $24,821.07 ($28.53 on average).

As digital prices are more standardized (more on price distributions later), total digital cost tracks closely with number of JRPGs.

Game Systems – Cheapest Versions

Maybe you’re agnostic about the format of your games and are happy to buy whichever is cheaper.

A complete collection of JRPGs, buying only the cheapest format, comes to $68,297.81. This is more expensive than either a complete physical or digital set, as it includes all physical-only and all digital-only games.

Systems without active digital storefronts have the same prices as the physical copies graph, but Switch, PS4, and Xbox One see a sizeable increase in the price of a complete collection.

Game Systems – Exclusivity

Some games get ported many times across multiple generations, while some are forever stuck on one system. In choosing the best JRPG system I feel that one must consider the exclusives.

The two screen handhelds with touch controls are difficult to adapt to other systems, leaving many of their games stranded. I was surprised so many PS2 games have never found homes anywhere else.

Much of Sega’s JRPG library has ended up on various Nintendo systems.

The 3DO may only have 2 JRPGs, but it’s the only place you can play them.

The Saturn was an outlier in many ways but I’m still not sure why so few games managed to escape its orbit.

The 7th and 8th generation saw quickly declining exclusivity in terms of the North America, Europe, and Japan regions, so I wasn’t surprised to see system exclusivity also fall.

That’s it for the best system section. Did you find a new system to explore? I will have some final thoughts on what the best JRPG system is in the wrapup section. But I still have a lot of other data to show off.

Years – Number of Games

All games use the year of release in North America, unless they are a European exclusive, in which case their European release date is used.

For many games released in the 3rd and 4th generation only a year and month is known. In this case I entered the date as the first day of the month.

There are many games in this uncertain era that are listed as coming out on the last day of the month, including on days of the week that games have rarely been released on. These dates are consistent across sources even though it is very unlikely that they were actually released on that date. Games rarely even had definitive release dates back then, but these dates have been parroted around without disclaimers.

Dragon Quest is often said to be the first JRPG, but it took over 3 years to reach North America. It was the 9th JRPG to leave Japan.

As release dates for games of this era are hard to pin down it’s difficult to be certain, but Miracle Warriors: Seal of the Dark Lord for the Sega Master System appears to have been the first JRPG to reach North America or Europe, coming out in January of 1988. Not a game you hear about often.

Generally, more JRPGs come out every year, but I’m quite puzzled by 2012 and the surrounding years. This was around the time the 3DS, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation 4 launched. Looking at my study on release dates, there were also fewer overall games released around this time, centered around 2013.

Years – Metascores

What year do you think had the best JRPGs? Would it be near the end of the SNES era when 2D game development had been refined? Maybe during the PS2 when games still didn’t take too long to develop and there was still a lot of experimentation?

Please note that the y-axis starts at 50.

JRPGs did not review well at first, but their scores grew quickly every year until they reached their all time high in 1995. The best scoring games of that year were Chrono Trigger, Lunar: Eternal Blue, and Earthbound.

The JRPG genre sticks closely with overall metascore trends, where 2007 was also the worst year in gaming, metascore-wise

On the other hand, 2000 doesn’t stand out in terms of averages, yet 5 90+ JRPGs were released that year, and 2020 is not far behind.

2012 for some reason only managed 6 JRPGs with an 80+ metascore.

Years – Polls

But maybe retrospective fan polls tell a different story than current-at-the-time reviews?

Much less nostalgic than I would have guessed, and bit of recency bias instead. Since the people voting in these polls are probably mostly in their 20s, it’s natural to see fewer older games. Much bigger differences between adjacent years than the metascores.

100 of 1995’s and 2008’s points come from Chrono Trigger. Very different years without it.

Only 4 games from 2002 received any poll points, Kingdom Hearts chief among them.

Publishers – Number of Games

It may seem to make more sense to study developers than publishers. Developers make the games, after all. While that’s true, publishers exercise varying control over how a game turns out and many are developed and published by the same company. There’s also many more developers, many of which have short lives, are bought and sold to different companies, and don’t make a statistically significant number of games.

I didn’t do any combining of companies based on ownership, I just kept it to how they were credited, much to Atlus’s favor. Only publishers with at least 10 releases are included. North American publishers are used when possible.

Square Enix have dominated the JRPG genre since it was created 18 years ago. Not just Final Fantasy games but also many higher budget games that they don’t develop.

Nintendo isn’t particularly known for publishing JRPGs, but their age, their willingness to bring some games overseas when the original publisher isn’t interested, and the many Pokémon games are enough for second place.

Kemco has a long history, but it wasn’t until the last decade or so that they started cranking out cheap mobile JRPGs, and then porting them to every other system possible.

Publishers – Metascores

Working Designs was a somewhat controversial and short lived publisher known for their elaborate special editions, but comes out on top in terms of metascore.

Some people feel like Square became a shell of themselves after their merger with Enix, and there is a noticeable drop in scores.

Nintendo maintains quite a large average considering their output.

Few of Kemco’s games even get enough reviews to qualify for a metascore, but when they do, it isn’t pretty.

Publishers – Polls

Square Enix wins out on fan acclaim, with Nintendo and Atlus also pretty proportionate to the number of releases under their belt.

Nippon Ichi and Kemco really don’t make much of an impression despite their large number of JRPGs. 122 Kemco releases, and not a single person counted any of them among their favorite.

It’s not entirely fair to compare publishers with many titles against those with a few, so here is the average number of poll points per release.

Square Soft gets a big boost here, with most of its games making someone’s favorites list, while Square Enix gets a big drop.

Sony also fares a bit better, but this way of looking at the data doesn’t change much else.

Series – Number of Games

Publisher loyalty isn’t common, so let’s get angry and argue about what the best JRPG series is. Series had to include at least 5 distinct games without ports. All spinoffs were included. How many do you think qualified?

Forty-four, enough to have to split them into two graphs. Hyperdimension Neptunia and The Legend of Heroes got a bit cut off to fit better.

With a long history, many spinoffs, many remakes, and many ports, Final Fantasy is by far the most prolific JRPG series.

Atelier has been releasing games almost every year, porting them widely, and remaking some of them, but few people would probably guess that it’s #2 in terms of total games.

Series – Metascores

The y-axis again starts at 50 to exaggerate differences.

The Dark Souls series are not traditional JRPGs, but only two of its releases have scored below 85, earning it highest overall.

The Xenogears, Xenosaga, and Xenoblade games are much more eclectic but have done very well overall.

I was surprised to see Shin Megami Tensei (which includes Persona) so high up, with 31 games it’s difficult to keep the average so high.

Drakengard+Nier are a loose series that I forgot to include, but their metascore average is 72.5.

When I look back at old gaming magazines there were quite a few articles about Yu-Gi-Oh and Digimon being potential Pokémon killers, so it’s funny to see them dead last.

Series – Polls

Final Fantasy, with its large amount of titles and long legacy takes the most poll points by a large margin.

Chrono Trigger (both releases) and Chrono Cross aren’t a large enough series to be included, but if they were, they’d rank fourth, just under Dragon Quest.

As with publishers, it may be more meaningful to look at the average number of poll points per game, rather than the total.

Xeno, with only Xenosaga Episode II not getting any points, takes the crown from Final Fantasy.

The Legend of Heroes also gets a boost, while Shin Megami Tensei and Dragon Quest stay close to their original positions.

Big 4 Hardware Makers

Four large hardware makers have dominated the video games market: Nintendo, Sega, Sony, and Microsoft. Sometimes people discuss not just the best systems, but the best hardware company. With so many games over such a long period, and so many other factors to consider, I’m not sure this is very meaningful, but I still wanted to see who came out on top.

Y-axis starts at 60, so please keep in mind the overall range here is only 5.29.

The relatively small number of JRPGs released and also considered worthy of review on Sega systems overall scored quite well. Sony’s average is no doubt hurt by its huge library.

In terms of people’s overall favorite games, though, Sony has a solid lead over Nintendo, while Microsoft and Sega are nowhere close.

Miscellaneous Findings

I have several more graphs that didn’t fit in elsewhere. I won’t always have a lot to say about them, and most are small.

While exclusives are a big draw for a system, they are a bit worse on average. Overall I would say they are more likely to be low budget games that sell less than non-exclusives and would not make a worthwhile amount of money to port.

The difference is much more pronounced with poll points.

Physical versions of exclusives fetch higher prices overall, while digital versions cost a bit less.

While the smaller budget exclusives have to charge less to stay competitive, the secondhand physical market covets them and sees them as rarer and more valuable.

This is not just the percent of a system’s library that is a JRPG, but a JRPG that released in North America or Europe. This is a bit more speculative and harder to measure exactly than the other data that is part of this project. I used the number of releases according to wikipedia’s lists of games for each system, not including anything after 2020. These lists have different criteria for inclusion and recieve different amounts of care.

Another thing to consider is that fewer and fewer games remain Japan-exclusive over time. Something like 90% of the Saturn’s games never left Japan, and I know there were a lot of RPGs among them.

The 7th, and especially the 8th generation of handhelds have had very JRPG-heavy libraries. Surprisingly, the Gamecube very slightly beats the PlayStation 2 here, though I’m sure the difference is within the margin of error.

Trivia and Superlatives

The games included in this study fit a common definition of JRPGs, but are not an objective truth. I make this distinction because I want any readers of this project to exercise some caution before repeating any of the following as an absolute fact. And so I don’t have to add “for the purposes of this study” over and over to every statement.

I learned a lot about my favorite genre and still have more interesting information to share.

One interesting JRPG I didn’t get to talk about was Napoleon. Napoleon was only released in Japan and France, possibly the only game to ever have this distinction. I specifically didn’t make “available in English” a requirement so that it would be included.

I recorded the range of metascores of every JRPG series, too. Dark Souls unsurprisingly had the smallest range, at 8.06, but Etrian Odyssey was #2 with 9.45. On the other side of the scale Final Fantasy had the largest range thanks to its many spinoffs, at 45.46. Atelier has the second highest range thanks to the poorly received Mana Khemia: Student Alliance, at 41.22.

The cheapest JRPG with a metascore of over 90 is Final Fantasy XII for the PlayStation 2, just $6.40.

The first 5 JRPGs released in North America or Europe – remember that these dates are not exact, and are in a mm/dd/yyyy format:

• Miracle Warriors: Seal of the Dark Lord – 01/31/1988 – Master System
• Dragon Power – 03/01/1988 – NES
• Phantasy Star – 11/01/1988 – Master System
• Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest – 12/01/1988 – NES
• Zelda II: The Adventure of Link – 12/01/1988 – NES

The oldest JRPG still exclusive to one system is SpellCaster on the Master System, released 09/01/89. The first digital-only JRPG was Ape Quest for the PSP (01/10/08), though it did get a physical release in Japan.

The 5 JRPGs with the lowest metascores:

• Magus (PlayStation 3) – 32.5
• Fantasy Hero: Unsigned Legacy (Switch) – 34
• Swords & Darkness (3DS) – 36
• Arc of Alchemist (Switch) – 36
• Medabots Infinity (GameCube) – 37.67

The 10 JRPGs with the highest metascores:

• Chrono Trigger (SNES) – 95.64
• Persona 5 Royal (PlayStation 4) – 95
• Persona 4: Golden (PSVita) – 94.16
• Final Fantasy III (what we know as VI now, SNES) – 93.96
• Persona 5 (PlayStation 4) – 93.3
• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PlayStation) – 93.03
• Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir (PlayStation Vita) – 93
• Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition (PlayStation 4) – 93
• Final Fantasy IX (PlayStation) – 92.72
• Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS) – 92.52

The earliest game to earn any poll points was Phantasy Star for the Sega Master System, released around 11/01/1988.

The 10 JRPGs with the most poll points:

• Chrono Trigger (SNES, DS) – 100 poll points
• Persona 5 (PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4) – 78.33 poll points
• Final Fantasy III/Final Fantasy VI (SNES, DS) – 65.89 poll points
• Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4/Persona 4: Golden (PlayStation 2, PlayStation Vita) – 59.60 poll points
• Final Fantasy X (PlayStation 2) – 56.03 poll points
• Final Fantasy IX (PlayStation, PlayStation 4, Switch, Xbox One) – 53.34 poll points
• Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition (PlayStation 4, Switch, Xbox One) – 51.35 poll points
• Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable (PlayStation Portable) – 48.61 poll points
• Nier: Automata (PlayStation 4, Xbox One) – 48.20 poll points
• Xenoblade Chronicles/Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition (Wii, Switch) 43.26 poll points

The 5 cheapest JRPGs (complete, physical):

• Kingdom of Paradise (PlayStation Portable) – $3.75
• Sushi Striker (3DS) – $4.39
• Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. (3DS) – $4.47
• Dragon’s Dogma (Xbox 360) – $4.60
• Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters – Daybreak Special Gigs (PlayStation 4) – $4.90

The 5 most expensive JRPGs (complete, physical):

• Earthbound (SNES) – $1,275.78
• Panzer Dragoon Saga (Saturn) – $996.61
• Magic Knight Rayearth (Saturn) – $742.50
• E.V.O.: Search for Eden (SNES) – $624.99
• Chrono Trigger (SNES) – $546.93

I should have made this a graph, but the most to least expensive average price of a physical game by system:

• Saturn: $300.21
• 3DO: $196.87
• SNES: $192.38
• Sega CD: $175.05
• Turbografx: $155.60
• Game Boy: $140.36
• N64: $125.70
• Game Boy Color: $93.55
• NES: $87.76
• Gamecube: $85.31
• Game Boy Advance: $82.17
• PlayStation: $77.28
• Genesis: $72.70
• Game Gear: $62.96
• Master System: $55.48
• Dreamcast: $46.18
• DS: $46.00
• PlayStation 2: $37.63
• Wii: $33.13
• Switch: $26.24
• PlayStation Vita: $22.96
• PlayStation 4: $22.87
• Wii U: $21.06
• Xbox One: $18.56
• PlayStation 3: $18.56
• 3DS: $17.65
• PlayStation Portable: $17.20
• Xbox: $13.95
• Xbox 360: $13.77

The overall average was $41.67, in between the DS and PlayStation 2.

The Best JRPG System

Back to the central question of this study, first let us discuss individual systems and just their libraries, without backwards compatibility.

I have to give it to the PlayStation 4. It has the most JRPGs scoring at least 80 by a good margin, has a large and diverse library, it’s modern enough to not have the headaches of battery or memory card saves, it has online features, and it has trophy support if you’re into that. The games are also cheaper on average than the Switch, and will likely fall much more over the next ten years.

The 3DS and Switch are also excellent systems, with lots of highly rated games, and are handhelds/can be handheld. The 3DS has cheaper games on average (4th cheapest average physical price), while the Switch has a more eclectic selection of ports from different eras, but fewer exclusives.

If we’re to include backwards compatibility I think a “fat” PlayStation 3 that can play PlayStation 2 and PlayStation discs offers the best overall value with a huge and mostly affordable library. Unfortunately, finding one in working condition is becoming harder and more expensive. While a fix for the Yellow Ring of Death has fairly recently come to light, it still requires buying specific capacitors and a willingness to open up your system and solder. In addition there are quite a few PS one Classics and PlayStation 2 Classics if you want cheap digital JRPGs.

If you’re not willing to do hardware fixes or you’re not looking to buy digital games, the PlayStation 2 and non-fat PlayStation 3 both play original PlayStation discs natively, which is a nice if expensive addition to their libraries.

The 3DS, which can play DS games, is another excellent choice, with a large number of JRPGs that are unlikely to ever get ported elsewhere, and overall cheap prices with a few expensive outliers.

If you are into older handheld JRPGs, the GameCube with a Game Boy Player is actually capable of playing games from the entire Game Boy line. Those 4 systems are among the 11 most expensive systems to buy JRPGs for, so it’s not for everyone.

So overall, depending on your tastes and wallet, the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Switch, and 3DS are all great systems with lots of quality JRPGs to play, many of which are quite affordable.

Wrapup

After reading all this did you change your mind at all? What do you value most when considering a JRPG system? Should cost be a factor at all? Is library size the only important metric? Or maybe you only care about your favorite series?

I would like to include a copy of the spreadsheet I used to make this project. Perhaps you will find it helpful in finding a new JRPG to play or perhaps you would like to study the statistics your own way. You can save this as an HTML file and then copy and paste into your preferred spreadsheet program. Some of the formatting is sloppy and I am sure I made some mistakes.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRivdWr57EDcnjZLQSfPzZI3Z9pJ0urTARI9ErGF-z3zPjUvGqq5Sh5gKqOfLEo6dlnYWS-jTSO5PPZ/pubhtml

Sources

The JRPG Index, by Lucca, part of JRPG Chronicles, for the base list of games.

/r/JRPG wiki’s list of JRPGs for a lot of publisher and release date information.

Wikipedia’s various lists of games for publisher, release date, and other information.

https://gr.blade.sk/#/ for an archive of GameRankings’s metascores.

MetaCritic for other metascores.

/r/JRPG’s Greatest JRPGs of All-Time poll results for providing poll numbers.

The Greatest JRPG Games and Battle Systems of All Time Poll for also providing poll numbers.

PriceCharting for physical game prices.

Nintendo Game Store for digital prices of Nintendo games.

Official PlayStation Store for digital prices of Sony games.

Microsoft Store for digital prices of Microsoft games.

MobyGames for exclusivity and miscellaneous information.