Just thoughts on psx games people have suggested.
Suikoden: Great games, particularly 2 as said is a classic. They do have one notable fault in that for a game where one of the draws is so many characters it sure makes it a pain to swap teams(And they will MAKE you swap teams as people butt in your party). Gotta unequip your old guys, reequip the new guys, temper the new guys weapons and take off and reequip your runes(Which you can't just do, you have to hit a npc). You'd really think the series would have eventually adopted macromanaging over micromanaging, but they never did. Still don't let that discourage you from playing a great game.
Grandia: Bad voice acting and so easy it's almost insulting. Don't expect to be hit for more than single digits except on rare occasions. But it captures the feel of adventure really well. Don't play it on PS2, it tends to lock up.
Xenogears: Very overrated do to poor gameplay. If you're in it for the story though go for it.
Alundra: Solid Zelda clone. Darker story than you'd expect, which is to it's credit.
Legend of Mana: Fun game, good soundtrack and beautiful art(Backgrounds and such, characters were kind of ugly). You can play through just fine without one, but it is a 'you need a faqs for this' game if you want to explore some of the side stuff you can do like golem building, pet raising and weapon tempering. And hell, you probably won't understand weapon tempering even with a faqs.
Final Fantasy Tactics: Really good game. More about building strong characters than 'strategy', but as long as you go in knowing that you'll have fun. If the game prompts you to save do it on a second slot. It's possible to get locked into a certain battle you might not be able to beat it won't let you leave to level.
Star Ocean 2: I don't know how this holds up with Tales games having refined the playstyle over the years, but it was a fun action rpg for it's time.
Wild Arms 1/2: People are up playing the wild west theme of the games. There's some influence there in the character designs, it's share of guitar tracks and you'll come across a western themed mining town here and there, but it's much more standard fantasy and anime. WA3 is the exception as it leans a lot more towards wild west themes, but that's PS2. They're still good games though. Puzzles aren't deep or anything, but they keep you busy. Second game introduces my favorite random encounter system where a ! pops over your head and if you don't want to fight you just push a button and you don't fight.
Granstream Saga: This was pretty terrible. Big disappointment seeing as it's from the terranigma guys.
Brave Fencer Musashi: Fun game that doesn't take itself seriously. I rented but never beat it because it threw a simon says rhythm game at me and I have no rhythm. Good ride until that point though.
Breath of Fire 3/4: Expect a lot of travelling without really advancing things. But enjoyable with good sprite animation. Really liked Fou-Lu's story in 4.
Saga Frontier: Hated the first. Didn't hate the second, but wouldn't really go out of my way to recommend it either.
