Now some major developers/publishers and series with some hg101 links when available for more detail
Square/Enix/Square Enix Final Fantasy One of the biggest and most well known, most of the later games in the series lean towards being more cinematic and cutscene heavy because they're higher than average budget. They vary a fair amount in terms of battle system, mechanics, and scope (with some like 10 and 13 being more linear and railroaded than others) which leads to a pretty divided fanbase.
Dragon Quest/Warrior[i] Pretty much THE archetypical JRPG and what many think of representing the term when thinking of a generic RPG. It does do a few interesting things like the chapter system in 4, the generation system in 5, etc. so I'd say it's better executed than your typical "generic" JRPG.
<i>SaGa</i> Square's most controversial series, with the most mixed opinions of. It's more inspired by western RPGs, with more nonlinear, quest oriented gameplay. It's also a lot more experimental, ditching experience and levels for more experimental leveling systems in the vein of its spiritual predecessor Final Fantasy 2, or most infamously Unlimited SaGa in its entirity as it models its gameplay abstractly represented in a similar fashion to a tabletop RPG instead of being set up like other JRPGs. Also, The Last Remnant is sort of a spiritual successor to the SaGa series since it has a lot of the same ideas going into it. (I'm actually a pretty big fan of the series, though admittedly it isn't for everyone since it's got a lot of mechanical flaws, bugs, or generally unfinished games because it's a pretty low budget series).
Seiken Densetsu/Mana Most of the games are pretty basic hack/slash ARPGs with simple gameplay and stories. Legend of Mana is radically different mechanically, as well as nonlinear and more story intensive (although it's pretty much all world building, which put off a lot of JRPG fans as it isn't a linear narrative). The recent attempt to revive the series with the "World of Mana" compilation crashed and burned hard since it tried to experiment even more without really backing it up with quality, probably burying the series for good.
<i>Front Mission</i> SRPG with mechs.
Kingdom Hearts Popular Disney crossover ARPG.
Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre Unfortunately I haven't played any games in the series besides one of the spinoffs. Though as noted earlier, the OB games are broader army level games while TO games are unit based. Most SRPGs tend to copy TO.
Nintendo various Mario RPGs They try to keep to simpler mechanics, and mix in more action/platforming elements.
<i>Fire Emblem</i> One of the earlier SRPGs. While later SRPGs tend to have a small number of units that have a large amount of customization making them walking death machines picking off the enemies one at a time, in FE you have a large number of units which have fixed classes and have specific roles in battles. It tends to be simpler because of the lack of customization, and a bit R/P/S based in unit and weapon counters. But you have to play pretty conservatively, since units are pretty fragile, there's permadeath, you're up against a lot of enemies at a time with frequent reinforcements, items have limited uses, you have to manage EXP and gold carefully since there's a limited amount of it in the game so grinding is difficult if not impossible, etc.. It's a bit too luck based for my taste though.
Capcom <i>Breath of Fire</i> First four games are pretty typical JRPGs, albeit featuring character designs with more diverse anthromorphic animal and plant attributes. Fifth game is radically different, feeling more survival horror inspired, as you have a limited amount of saves and you have to escape from an underground structure before the main character's corruption meter (which is constantly increasing at a steady pace, but jumps up sharply if you use his transformation powers to overwhelm enemies in battle) hits 100% kills him.
Monster Hunter Well, it's more about skill than RPG elements so it's arguably an action game, but it's enormously popular in Japan so I should mention it. The concept is kind of like party raids in MMORPGs I guess (I don't play MMORPGs), though on a smaller scale. You fight a series of progressively more dangerous dinosaur/dragon like monsters with up to four players, track them down when they flee to heal, ultimately wearing them down until you can trap or kill them, and poach their skins to make better equipment. The combat is slower paced and more meticulous, and regardless of your equipment you can get wrecked in a couple hits so it's more about skill and learning patterns/tells/weak spots/etc. than grinding to the point of invincibility. There's also a lot of imitators like God Eater, and Lord of Arcana.
Sega Shining There's a pretty wide range of Shining Games with various forms of gameplay and titles, but the only ones people actually care about are the Shining Force games. Which are pretty much Fire Emblem ripoffs without the permadeath. Well, except for the PS2 Shining Force games which for some godforsaken reason are hack/slash action RPGs.
Phantasy Star First four games are standard JRPGs with a hybrid of scifi and fantasy. Though the first game is first person in dungeons, the second game has nighmarishly complicated dungeons in the latter half of the game, and the third game is all around mediocre so the fourth is the most popular by default.
Then come Phantasy Star Online which is a loot based multiplayer online (not "massively multiplayer", mind you) game from before MMORPGs found their legs. Which was succeeded by the Phantasy Star Universe games which got more of a mixed reception due to the changes to the game mechanics and story. Phantasy Star Portable 2 is considered to be the best of the PSU games for fixing some of the flaws they found with the console games, and also considered the closest successor to PSO (at least until PSO2 comes out).
(personally I hate PSO. It's something that you probably had to be there at launch, since it's aged badly IMO).
Konami <i>Suikoden</i> Pretty typical JRPG, except that it's based on the idea of having a base and recruiting 108 characters to fight in your rebel army, so it's fairly popular because of the large number of playable characters to choose from as well as watching your base expand as you recruit more NPCs some who provide other services like shops etc..
gah, this is getting a lot longer than I predicted and I haven't reached the more niche games so I should probably break it up again.
