Remakes, remasters, and reimaginings are all the rage right now in video games. For the last several years, studios the world over have crafted new and vastly improved versions of all-time classic games, ranging from faithful modernizations like Capcom’s Resident Evil 4 remake to Square Enix’s wildly ambitious and expanded Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy. While plenty of older games benefit from a modern glow-up, others don’t need a lot of alterations to shine bright decades later.
Here are seven JRPGs that have aged like fine wine. These games may have been ported to newer platforms or lightly remastered at various points, but they look and play nearly identical to when they were first released. Where to play: Nintendo Switch Online (standard subscription) We may never get an official English version of Mother 3, but we do have one of the most endearing and influential RPGs of all time as part of the SNES library on Nintendo Switch Online.
Mother 2, better known as Earthbound, was released in North America in 1995. Boasting some of the most clever enemy designs this side of Dragon Quest — think piles of puke, annoying hippies, and a quintet of moles jockeying to be third-best — Earthbound is consistently weird, wonderful, and laugh-out-loud funny. This save-the-world adventure spanning a warped version of small town America has spawned countless imitators over the years, but Shigesato Itoi’s timeless vision needs no updates whatsoever to be a fantastic ride in 2026.
Where to play: Nintendo Switch, PS4, Windows PC, Xbox One In the waning days of the PlayStation 1 era, Square turned its back on the steampunk grit of Final Fantasy 7 and 8 and did something totally unexpected by taking the series back to good, old-fashioned medieval fantasy. With a chipper hero accompanied by a sassy princess who yearns to escape the strictures of royal life, FF9 is a heartfelt examination of love, life, and mortality that’s also a love letter to the genre. Rumors of a remake have been churning around this one for years, but last year’s 25th anniversary came and went without an announcement.
And honestly, FF9 doesn’t need a remake. The visuals and music were stunning back in 2000 and still hold up brilliantly today. A weekly cheat sheet to what you’ll eventually love to play.
No buying, no commitment — just saving for later. Ever since the first trailer for Octopath Traveler back in 2018, Square Enix fans have been hankering for a remake of this sweeping time-travel epic in the HD-2D style. We still haven’t gotten one, but that’s okay, because Chrono Trigger is pretty much perfect already.
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