Thanks, next time i'm in the mood for a rpg I'll give it a try.

There are many unknown RPG Maker made games who are quite fun.
I only know the German classcis like "Vampire's Dawn" and "Unterwegs nach Duesterburg", but there is also this guy called real troll who does really funny games :D
Also, Elektra Kingdom is at progress and the demo is fun.
For Horror Lovers would be "Dreamland R" and "Alone"

Yes.
And to all the Earthbound fans hereabouts--have any of you played Mother 3? If not, I can't recommend it highly enough. Same basic sense of humor, but the story is leagues beyond its predecessor--honestly, the end is the closest a game has brought me to tears. And I was just playing the Japanese cart with a translation guide open on my PC.
A perfect companion piece to Earthbound. It's flat-out inexcusable that it never got a Western release.
Also, Etrian Odyssey. Don't let the anime trappings fool you--it's a by-and-large Western-style dungeon crawler (you even have to draw your own map in-game). Awesome stuff.

Mehh, stop posting stuff about Earthbound, silly American people. Us Europeans hate it when people talk about a JRPG we never got to try. :<

Legend of Legaiaa
Legaiaa 2:Duel Saga
No mention of Skies of Arcadia?
Grandia series.
There was one I can't remember, it was a PS1 game, and it had a 'monster tower' and you built up the town. Perhaps someone can help?

I think you are talking about "Azure Dreams", it was kind of a roguelike, wasn't it? I'm almost sure i still have the disc. Also, there was a GBC port, but it was incredibly crappy.

Lufia, very fun game and plot
Super Mario RPG, awsome joined effort betwen Squaresoft(Square-Enix) and Nintendo
Eternal Sonata, an interesting jrpg with the main character beign Frédéric François Chopin

Look on the bright side. We got Terranigma, they don't ;)

Aye thats the one, it wasn't bad, but once you reached a certain point, progression in the tower became near impossible and having to start from scratch each time was frustrating.

You know, when I think about it, that's funny. I grew up with my Amstrad CPC 464 (the tape version) and the RPGs there (like Bloodwych) were obvious D&D rip-offs. Then I got a PC and got trapped in the Might and Magic series.
At the same time, I got a SNES with Zelda and shabang! there started my love for JRPG and adventure games: Scret of Mana, of Evermore, Chronotrigger, Final Fantasy and the likes...
I grew up and never got into the PS1 generation. Except for Grandia and Valkyrie Profile, which were awesome games. I was more on the PC side, with the Baldur's Gate series and the likes. The Gamecube too, I just bought the special Zelda: the Wind Waker pack and that's the only game I ever played on my Gamecube...
I discovered that finally, as much as I love Japan, its culture and its games, when it came to adventure and RPGs I was definitely a westerner. For me (and that's my opinion, you can disagree), there's no JRPG like Mass Effect 1, The Witcher, the Gothic series or Dragon Age Origins.
I say that, but i still enjoyed very much Zelda and Mario&Luigi RPGs on my Nintendo DS !!

You could emulate it. I did.
Also,
Lost Odyssey

Zelda is really more of an action adventure, since you don't raise stats or gain levels. Zelda 2 for the NES was the only game in the series that had traditional RPG mechanics, except that it was also a side-scroller aside from the overworld. Of course, debate over whether or not Zelda is an RPG series is a regular Internet phenomenon.
I've tended to fall on the "western" side of RPGs, though I am proud to have familiarized myself with a handful of the classics of Japanese/console RPGs like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 2/4 (admittedly, not on the original hardware).
The console-based RPGs I've mainly been intrigued by are strategy RPGs like Fire Emblem for the Gameboy Advanced (on an actual Gameboy :D ). The SRPG series I feel most "nostalgic" for (using quotes because I haven't *ahem* experienced it on the original hardware) is the Shining Force series. That series makes me feel a bit melancholy because its last great game was Shining Force III for the Sega Saturn. It was actually a trilogy spanning three scenarios, but only the first scenario made it outside of Japan (the Saturn was dying at the time). Shining Force III was the most advanced of all the Shining Force games, but after that its developers left Sega to form Camelot. Since then, Sega mainly used the franchise to make some sub-par action RPGs.
A series of tactics games that was well regarded, only to end with its original developers leaving while the parent company uses the license to make some mediocre action games. The fate of the Shining Force series is not all that different from the fate of X-COM.
P.S. Is it me or was this thread originally about what RPGs of any kind we've played, but then changed to what JRPGs we've played? I guess to balance things out, I'll mention that the most influential western RPGs I've played are Spiderweb Software's Exile and Avernum games.

I haven't been into JRPGs for years, honestly. I can still replay my older favorites, but I haven't picked up a new one since Disgaea.
I just started on Might & Magic VIII tonight. It's my first time through.

vote +1
also: Lufia, Secret Of Mana, Nwn!