15. Shadow Hearts series (PlayStation 2)

Sure to be a controversial choice, the Shadow Hearts series of RPGs were groundbreaking for their time. The first installment came out in 2001, while Shadow Hearts: Covenant came out in 2004, capped by Shadow Hearts: From the New World was the last installment to appear in 2006.

The series never leaped to the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 generation of hardware, so many people have forgotten about it. However, it was one of the first games (aside from the same developer’s first effort, Koudelka, on the original PlayStation) to delve into the horror genre from an RPG approach; traditionally, RPGs were scene as a strictly fantasy (and sometimes science fiction) genre of game, while horror was thought to be done best by the survival horror genre.

Many of the developers involved in the Shadow Hearts series had already experimented with RPG horror when they worked at Square, where they produced two Parasite Eve titles for the company before they went independent, first as Sacnoth and later as Nautilus.

While it would be a wonderful thing to see what this group could have done with the Shadow Hearts series on the PS3; however, Sacnoth/Nautilus is apparently no longer in existence and its team is now scattered to the four winds, working on a variety of other projects for other companies. (I heard one even now works selling New York hotel deals, but that’s not verified.)