assuming that you existed during their timeframe and were old enough to understand, buy, and play TTRPGs, what systems would you use to run popular JRPGs in tabletop form? not acting out their stories, but making a new story in their world.

Chrono Trigger, 1995

Time travel, standard elemental magic system

Final Fantasy 7, 1997

Guns, swords, mecha, summoning, materia

Xenogears, 1998

Guns, swords, kung fu, mecha, religious themes

these are just three examples, i played these myself, you can add more if you want

if you have nothing to contribute to the discussion (such as 'I don't play JRPGs' or 'I don't like JRPGs') then don't talk

Just for clarification regarding systems - is the system restricted to being available at the time of the JRPG's release or something that is now available?

Quote from: ponta1010 on December 23, 2022, 09:50:34 PM
Just for clarification regarding systems - is the system restricted to being available at the time of the JRPG's release or something that is now available?

system restricted to being available at the time of the jrpg's release, yes

Mekton - it has been around in an easily gamed form since 1987.

Quote from: jeff37923 on December 23, 2022, 10:07:47 PM
Mekton - it has been around in an easily gamed form since 1987.

that only works for xenogears where you pilot the giant robots, in final fantasy 7 you just fight them

Quote from: MeganovaStella on December 23, 2022, 10:26:14 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on December 23, 2022, 10:07:47 PM
Mekton - it has been around in an easily gamed form since 1987.

that only works for xenogears where you pilot the giant robots, in final fantasy 7 you just fight them

Mekton has rules for every scale. It actually points out that "mecha" is just short for "mechanical" and that everything from bikes to cars to androids to personal firearms qualifies and can be created with it via their scaling system.

It also has rules for psionics of different scales and organic mecha that can easily be used to represent magic and various magical creatures.

It's going to be your best bet overall.

I'd somehow play Final Fantasy VII, using 2nd Edition AD&D.

Quote from: Jam The MF on December 23, 2022, 10:39:51 PM
I'd somehow play Final Fantasy VII, using 2nd Edition AD&D.

How

Quote from: MeganovaStella on December 23, 2022, 11:28:05 PM

Quote from: Jam The MF on December 23, 2022, 10:39:51 PM
I'd somehow play Final Fantasy VII, using 2nd Edition AD&D.

How

I don't know, but my character would have to have a very high strength; so he could effectively wield one of those big buster swords.  I merely chose 2nd Edition AD&D, because that was the current edition in 1997.  I owned Final Fantasy VII for PC, and I loved it.  I also had a friend that had it for their TV game console.  It was a big deal.

Back in 1997, I'd either be using Rifts/Palladium Fantasy, Mage the Ascension 2e or Mekton for all my gaming needs. So, if I actually found a jrpg interesting enough to emulate* I'd use one of those.

* which I wouldn't... I've never liked them because enough video games in general (and jrpgs specifically) of the era tended towards fatalistic bullshit endings and I had better things to do with my time (by 97 I'd already run my own "end of days" story for my Mage campaign where the PCs saved the world and everything was slowly trending upwards in every further campaign I set in that universe in the two decades since).

This is a tricky one for me. At the time of release I could potentially go for some dodgy fan translation of Sword World that I found when I was a kid around 2008-ish that claimed to date back to 1997. It wasn't a very good translation. Clearly made by someone to whom English wasn't a first language.

I know this isn't part of the brief, but if I were to run something like this nowadays. I'd use Fabula Ultima

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/410108/Fabula-Ultima-TTJRPG

I recently used it for solo play and it tries to emulate JRPGs in a TTRPG. It's a pretty fun game and I'd recommend it if you want something with old school SNES and PS1 RPG vibes.

Dragon Quest III (Famicom/NES, 1988/1992): BECMI D&D.

After playing SUIKODEN I wanted to convert the whole story to a
pen&paper campaign. I never got very far and was pretty young at the time so I took the only system available to me, which was Drakar och Demoner. The BRP derived swedish fantasy game. I did not do any specific translation of the mechanics of Suikoden. Just tried to wing the stats of monsters and characters.

Much later I did my own jrpg-type campaign heavily inspired by Final Fantasy VIII (but pure fantasy), Camelot, Narnia and Ocharina of Time that would lead into a Epic Quest for the elemental Fire Crystal to counter the power of the big bad Ice Witch and restore balance to the realm. So pretty much Final Fantasy. I also used Drakar och Demoner/BRP for this but leaned heavily on freeform. But I want to redo it all at some point in BECMI or something adjacent.

Recently I have had an itch to play something inspired by Shin Megami Tensei. And I want it OSR friendly.

BECMI(or OSR) feels most appropriate for Dragon Quest or NES/SNES Final Fantasy if going by the constraints of the OP. But in reality I would probably use the game Retro Phaze(jrpg inspired OSR) for that.

I'd probably go with GURPS.  Probably not  as good as a specialized system built for task, but it has enough supplements that I could probably find everything from whatever game I'm interested in in the supplements and stick it together.

For one classic JRPG series you could run reasonably well through regular AD&D, I'd bring up Breath of Fire I through IV (1993-2000). You'd just have to homebrew some races and rules for the whole "turning into a dragon" thing.