RPGs were the fuel the PlayStation 2 ran on, and no publisher supplied more of them than Square Enix.
Here’s a detail that tends to slip people’s minds: the PS2 era was already underway before Enix and Squaresoft ever merged. But by the time the console was winding down, a good number of games were shipping with the new company’s logo on the box. Somewhere in that stretch, Kingdom Hearts appeared out of nowhere, and Star Ocean, Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy each made a technical leap you can still see the effects of today.
Almost every Square Enix RPG on the machine had something going for it. Three, though, are the ones treated as the top tier, and the fanbases they’ve gathered since their early 2000s releases haven’t gotten any smaller. Remasters and remakes mean all three remain easy to play in 2026.
Kingdom Hearts 2 won the argument, even if it shouldn’t have
Personally, I’d argue for the original Kingdom Hearts over the sequel — and I have. The bigger fanbase disagrees, loudly, and its love for KH2 is unwavering.
The reasons hold up. It stretches the first game’s storytelling further than before, the combat is vastly better, and there are even more Final Fantasy and Disney characters to mess around with. The overarching Kingdom Hearts narrative also starts pulling real weight here — the point at which the series stopped resembling an enjoyable one-off crossover and started looking like a franchise with staying power.
In the years since the PS2, KH2 has resurfaced in an enormous number of ports and remasters. A Switch 2 release is lined up, keeping fans occupied while Kingdom Hearts 4 remains on the horizon.
Ever been curious what it’s like to take on Hades’ minions with FF10’s Auron fighting beside you, or to watch FF8’s Squall share a town with Scrooge McDuck? This is the game for that. And it happens to be a superb RPG besides.
Final Fantasy 10 is the PS2, basically
Nothing in the genre is more tightly bound to the console. FF10 marked an enormous technical step up for Square Enix — Squaresoft back then — bringing fully voice-acted cutscenes, expressive facial animation and cinematics that looked stunning by the standards of the day.
The technology, though, wasn’t the highlight. Tidus and Yuna anchor one of the finest stories the Final Fantasy series has ever produced.
Plenty of players name it as their favorite Final Fantasy outright, and it consistently places near the top whenever the franchise gets ranked. The Sphere Grid, Blitzball and the Cloisters of Trials feel stitched into what makes the game stick with you, not tacked on afterward.
Ports have arrived nearly nonstop across the last 12-plus years, the latest landing on Switch 2. If you’ve somehow missed it, don’t wait. (An honorable mention belongs to Final Fantasy 12, which is also fantastic.)
Dragon Quest 8 is the one that broke the series in the West
This was the first entry released in the U.S. without the Dragon Warrior branding, and a major reason the franchise finally clicked with audiences outside Japan. For most Western fans, DQ8 stood as the series’ definitive game right up until DQ11 landed in 2018.
It represented a leap forward much as FF10 did. Pull up footage of Dragon Warrior 7 on PS1 and the gap speaks for itself.
Cel-shaded visuals made the cast and the monsters look like Akira Toriyama’s drawings had climbed off the page and started walking, something the series had never managed before. Voice work in the North American and European releases gave those characters genuine presence. Across roughly 60 hours, the story has you completely hooked well before the credits roll.
You could argue the 3DS remake bettered it. Even so, the original is probably the finest thing Square Enix built for the PlayStation 2 — and it defends that title against a very crowded field.