Rusty, for the PC-98 was released only in Japan. It's a good Castlevania clone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0JaLmt68Tk

Oh boy. You've opened the floodgates. Prepare for the stupid negative joke posts about how somebody's an expert on an entire country's output of games because they've only played the minority that have been translated. This will especially be rich in terms of RPGs, where the generalizations are laughably untrue. But hey, ignorance about other countries is an eternal human constant, so what can I say?

If you want the best of Japanese games you can play in English, these days you're going to need a handheld, whether that's a tablet or phone, or the Vita/3DS or even the holder PSP/DS. Right now, for instance, there are all sorts of small Japanese games being sold digitally on the Vita and 3DS shops that absolutely compare to the rich originality of PC indie gaming.

Unfortunately, because as you state, there's a certain brain-dead follow the leader mentality going on in console gaming and a lot of console gamers seem to be caught up in that, not as many of the standouts get translated. For instance, there's still no confirmation of translation for the Yokai Watch games, which are utterly fantabulous RPGs about a kid who solves everyday problems in his town caused by mischief-making spirits. It's original, creative and innovative in all the ways a generation-defining masterpiece should be, but it has very little perception outside Japan. (That's 3DS, by the way.)

Since you're on GOG, though, you probably won't scoff too much at picking up a DS or PSP for old games, and there are more fantastic RPGs on those platforms than you could probably play in a lifetime. Also, because it seems like you might have an interest in old games, the 3DS' virtual console is great for that, but more than that M2 along with Sega has made the Sega 3D Classics one of the best reasons to own the 3DS. There are currently 11 games in the series and they are all faithfully recreated from old console and arcade classics, with awesome 3D quirks that replicate the TVs and arcade cabinets of those days. Wish you could have the experience of playing on old tube TVs with their curved monitors and scanlines again? There's an option for that. Wish you could emulate the experience of swerving left or right on an arcade cabinet complete with the squeaks of the hinges in the cabinet emulated? There's an option for that. Sonic, Bare Knuckle, Space Harrier, Outrun, Shinobi. It's utterly glorious and probably one of the greatest tributes to retro gaming the history of forever. Depending on how well a packaged version does in Japan this year, the collection may also continue to other games in the future too!

In short, portables and in particular the 3DS provide many of the peaks of Japanese-designed games these days, but you may have to have the Japanese version to get all the games you want and know a little Japanese to be able to play them.

I absolutely love Japanese games. I, too, also lament the rise of the "Dude-Bro Shooters".

While the renaissance era of Japanese games ended in the PSone days, there are still plenty of solid titles being released across all genres to this day. Of course, as has been stated, the majority of Japanese games do live exclusively in the console realm, but as I am a console junkie, this has never bothered me. Still, I feel for those of you that are PC-only.

Here are just a few of my favorites:

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disaster:_Day_of_Crisis]Distaster: Day of Crisis (Wii)[/url] - This game was never released in the USA, but those of you in Europe and Asia should go out of your way to track down a copy of this if you haven't already. It is an action game, through and through, but the gameplay is constantly changing, so the game never gets boring. One level, it's a first-person shooter (kinda Time Crisis style), one level is a driving game, another is filled with QTE prompts; it's really got it all. I'll never understand why this didn't get an American release, but it is easily the best Wii game ever made.

/[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar:_Silver_Star_Harmony]PSP/iOS) - Let's just start with this; yes, I have bought all five versions of this game. Needless to say after that revelation, but I love this game. Sure there are actual sequels and prequels and side-stories which are all great in their own right, but the story of Alex and Luna is my favorite. This is a JRPG and, while it doesn't add anything new to the formula, its story and its characters are so vibrant and wonderful that it makes it stand above the rest for me. If you have any of the five systems this is on (yes, I know it came out on the Saturn, too, but that was only in Japan), get this game.

Guardian Heroes (Saturn/XBLA) - One of the crown jewels of the Saturn finally made its way to Xbox Live Arcade a few years ago. This game is side-scrolling Beat 'Em Up at its finest. The story has branching paths, multiple endings, wonderfully colorful characters, an insane 4-player (upgraded to 16-player for Xbox Live) arena battle mode), and a great RPG-lite experience point system for upgrading your character. If you like games like Streets of Rage, Final Fight or River City Ransom, you need to play this game immediately. The "HD Remastering" for the Xbox port is lazy to say the least, but it's much easier to get than the Saturn version these days.

I could go on about this topic for days, so I'll stop here for now. Thanks for giving me an excuse to gush about one of my major passions, RyanDodd!

Yes.
kobold captain death: Um sir, i think they might want more of a answer than that.
me: ba i'm two lazy to write something up today. Witch.
Witch: Yeah boss?
me: your in change so take it away. While i go do something.
Witch: righty oh boss. Lets see what to talk about. Ah i know.

Witch: Well folks in metal believe in your self and summon up something to kill people time or persona 4 for short.
Alymay: Spider persona go!
Witch: *walks away slowly. now where was i. oh yes, you get to walk around town and go fishing and fishing. also catching bugs and talking with people. a lot of talking with people. beside that you get to fight in a tv world. i swear as far as i know, no one was on drugs when making this stuff up. The story is about.
Alymay: spider spoils!
Witch: hey how did you get in here?
Alymay: From that door.
Witch: how didn't i notice that giant wide open door before. hmm any way onto talking about this thing i am totally not getting paid for in any way by my boss to talk about. Nope this is clearly a review made by me and ignore this piece of paper i am reading words off of. its totally not a script or anything. Yeah onto the gameplay. well you beat up monsters for gold and stuff. totally like a role playing game or something. Now wheres my coffee.
Me: why the hell do you need coffee, you're all ready dead, it won't do anything for you.
Witch: oh hey boss good point. hmm i need to think on that. Ah yes the review sort of talking thing. Yeah. So you have a map, you can run pass the enemies if you want to. Its turn base. where nearly everything has a weakness. using these weaknesses against the enemy can lead to another free action, once per enemy. if you knock them all down, you can perform a powerful all out attack. which attacks and deals damage to all enemies. if you do well enough, sometimes by pure luck.
Alymay: spider luck!
Witch: yeah or something like that. you get some cards and can pick one or so of them. to get a bonus, like more money, bonus to stats, more stuff or even another persona. which are these cards things that learn skills as you level up and you can fusion together to make new ones. each having their own weakness and strengths. With the main character You, able to freely switch and swap persona's out. allowing you to fit any need your current party is lacking.
Alymay: Pokemon?
Kobold captain death: Hmm sounds more like digimon with the whole fusion thing.
Witch: Ah yeah sort of. only in trading card form and something something to do with the power of the mind and stuff. Ok i'm out of here. doddodod.
Me: not yet you're not. you still need to finish it up.
Witch: Spider monkey, here i was hoping to finish early.
Alymay: Spider monkey where?!
Witch: ... Any who. yeah if you are into detective mystery stories, this might be right up your magical great sword of story telling plus 5 or was the saying alley. hmm. oh yeah also get to make social links and stuff by talking to people, getting to know them. which leads to bonuses when you fusion persona's together. also can get bonuses for by fusion a persona on day x, if you check the fusion forecast. Which is like the weather channel, only with more fusion. all right i'm out of here. Now where do i cash in my paycheck.

Speaking of Japanese games. Why is everyone saying console gaming in Japan is declining because of Mobile gaming and is saying that Final Fantasy XV (and only XV) will either save it or doom it?

Out of all japanese games why FFXV? Completely ignoring everything else?

My sources:

http://gamerant.com/final-fantasy-15-end-console-gaming-japan/

Only one I can think of that I played was WWF No Mercy for N64.

probably because final fantasy is huge in japan second only to dragon quest

its also an example of everything thats wrong

inflated budget

inflated developmetn cycle

over empahsis on "cinematic presentation"

probably utterly linear

and square enix has been remarkably tone deaf with the whole ff 13 disaster ( pushing out 3 games ina series that was almost universially reviled )

if ff 15 goes bust it migth cause a mini crash and maybe budgets and games will dwindle and try less to be "cinematic" course this is just conjecture

and i am probably wrong i dont like final fantasy or jrpg's in general anyway

too much grinding too many random encounters and i dont care for the melodramatic stories either

or the fact that the protagonist ususally a sullen 15 year old spikey haired arechtype who angsts a lot

i do miss the quirky games that come out of japan though
i never cared for online multiplayer or fps games

....mayeb ill dig my saturn out instead

Meh I got used to random encounters. Unless of course encounter happens fast. Final Fantasy 7 to 9 had slow transitions to the battles.

i hate random encounters
its infuriating that i cant take 2 steps with out being hit by 3 enemies

and i hate grinding too its dull boring monotonous and just a means to aritificially pad the length of a game

Because they're being dumb. That's all there is to it. It's a moronic viewpoint. It predicates several things in its very assumption that at the outset are either dubious or not true:

1) It assumes that the industry always revolved around home consoles, which is hilariously wrong. The early 80s until around 1987 focused on PCs and arcades. Arcades were still a much bigger force than consoles for a little while after that. The whole "home consoles are the center of the Japanese gaming industry" is a myth created from their dominance in a certain part of 90s, specifically 91 to around 98.

After 1998, with the increasing popularity of mobile phone technology and Pokemon/Digimon/Yu-Gi-Oh branding, Japan steadily became a much more mobile-focused industry. This switch happened in the early 2000s, as early as 2002. People in other countries really only noticed it when it spread to the titles they cared about, but it was huge in Japan. We are again witnessing a change in Japan's market right now that is actually pointing to an interesting new direction no one in the West is yet talking about, but you don't hear anyone mention that.

2) There is another assumption that console gaming is what their audience in these English-speaking countries wants that completely ignores what we, the Japanese people would like to play. Included in this assumption is an unspoken rule that the entire world should cater to the whims of Americans, because fuck yeah America. It's really insulting and something of a holdover of the vestiges of the Orientalism, where the Occidental world dictates to the other side what it should be and do, wholly unconcerned with the desires of the people they are talking about. There is an assumption that approval from other countries should be the holy grail for Japanese developers, which is an unbelievably tasteless opinion.

3) It assumes that the big, gigantic, bombastic kind of console epic with explosions and hype trailers is the best kind of gaming possible. I don't think I have to point out to this audience how bad that assumption is. It completely ignores all the creative and well-made more modestly presented RPG design that happens in other spaces among Japanese developers.

4) It incorrectly measures Japan's impact on video game pop culture. While Nintendo and Sega were/are certain heavyweights, their (the people who write these articles) favorite games like Lunar, Castlevania, Ridge Racer, Phantasy Star were NEVER that popular in other countries or around the world in the first place and have kept similar sales numbers throughout their franchise lives. The scale of sales in America for console games simply went up and past the scale Japan was producing. When you look at the scale and scope of America compared to Japan, this is a not a revelation to anyone intelligent. It was bound to happen. Those old franchises are important to people who grew up in that era, but were not ever as popular as they perceived them to be, especially in some parts of Europe.

5) Another assumption is that gaming development breaks down into Japan vs. The West. Do I even need to expand on how unfair this is to unique and rich game development cultures in France, Germany, Poland, etc. that they get to be mashed in with the Americans, Canadians and British simply just because? Aren't there people on this very forum who get frustrated that their country is often not treated as a real and distinct market on its own?

6) The last assumption is that Final Fantasy is the be-all, end-all of Japanese RPGs, which has always been and will always be eye-roll worthy. It completely ignores that it fluctuates between games as diverse as Pokemon, Monster Hunter, Tales Of, Shin Megami Tensei, SaGa, Dragon Quest, Puzzles vs. Dragons, Yu-Gi-Oh. There has not been one consistent sales king, but an ebb and flow of important titles that capture the public imagination and push forward in different directions with a rising tide of other smaller works that prove influential as well.

7) As a bonus, Nintendo is always ignored as "beside the point" in these writings, when they're one of the only real sources of where Japanese gaming is going that remain steady throughout all the many disruptions in the business.

So long story short, writers who aren't really writers, as in the great measure of writing as a means to approach the truth, write these things. They're just internet ramblers who wound up in positions to get paid for their nonsensical, incorrect farce of idea farts.
Newsflash: 95% of Japanese RPGs have not required any grinding since Dragon Quest IV and Final Fantasy IV provided design models to get rid of it back in the early, early 90s. If you're grinding in games after that, you're most likely doing it wrong.

You don't even have to grind in games where some players are infamous for their grinding exploits, such as Disgaea or Etrian Odyssey. There hasn't been a major RPG in about two decades that hasn't had some other mechanic substituted for it. If you're not taking advantage of the game as it was designed and simply do it because you think that's what is expected of you, that's on you, not on the designers.

I grew up on Japanese games. Ultima 3 was my first English game and I played that in Japanese way before I got my hands on an English copy. Nope. Go is a Chinese game.

I even find "western" audiances hating on Japanense made games pathetic when they are the same people hating on whatever comes out from Rockstar, EA,Ubisoft, Activision, Etc.
If you hate most Final Fantasies than I highly suggest you try Final Fantasy XII which completely removes random encounters.

And other FF games that takes place in Ivalice.

Yes and no, i used to play them a few years ago and catch up on titles that i missed (ps1) on the psp, it was amazing to play Xenogears even with that 2 part being mediocre.
Nowadays i avoid them because i don't like the asthetics used on most games, even when the gameplay looks interesting (Etrian Odyssey 4) but i'm currently playing Valkyria Chronicles (it's great) and hopping that somehow the yakuza titles appears over here in pc or ps4 format (not sure what was sega thinking by releasing it on the Wii u).

In a perfect rpg world, I like when there are specific areas available to grind. That way, whether it be because I'm sucking at making the right choices in combat or just getting "bad rolls of the dice," I can level up a bit before tackling that obstacle that stopped me in the first place.