Never heard of Breath of Fire? I thought it was one of the most well known japanese RPG serious out there. BoF 1 & 2 are for SNES, 3 and 4 are for PS1, 5 is for PS2. I've only played 1-4 myself.. beaten 1 once and 3 multiple times, only tried BoF 2 & 4 a little bit. I like the series overall
EDIT: mistake, accidentally wrote that 1 & 2 were for NES, they're for SNES of course