Series? Difficult as different series have their own masterpieces and failures. Some more than others, but still difficult.
Kingdom Hearts has incredible depth. But it's funny to put it on it's own as it's really a Final Fantasy spinoff. And even if judging the spinoff separately from Final Fantasy, there have only been three games released so far. Three are coming...but just that...coming.
What little Kingdom Hearts has released so far has been solid. Wonderful depth, better than any of the recent final fantasies. I love the KH games...possibly equally as much as Final Fantasy IV, my favorite final fantasy game and Chrono Trigger.
My only criticism of Kingdom Hearts is it's a bit overly Disney and not enough Square. Nothing against Disney being in the mixture, it wouldn't be Kingdom Hearts if it weren't filled with Disney. And I happen to love certain Disney worlds, like the Tron world, the Nightmare Before Christmas World, the Beauty and the Beast World, the Pirates of the Caribbean World, the Mickey Mouse world...they are some of my favorites. I grew up on Disney so the mixture is a dream come true. But the Disney seems to overshadow the Square stuff a bit much.
II, was even more darker and more epic than the previous one. Which was pretty great, something I was hoping for. But the cost was that areas were smaller and the game was shorter. :/
But other than that nothing I can criticize really. How odd that Final Fantasy has become a shell of it's former self. And that vitality...the supreme spirit that Final Fantasy had has now exists quite fully in the realm of kingdom hearts.
Final Fantasy IV is the greatest Final Fantasy ever made. VI is good as well. There are elements of VII which are actually better than VI. But the overall world of VI is more interesting than VII. Final Fantasy has been going downhill ever since IV. XII didn't even feel like a Final Fantasy. Really the only game since they abandoned Nintendo that's felt like a Final Fantasy is IX.
When I first got a Gameboy Advance I got a Golden Sun and play a bit of that. There was a them that reminded me of the Crystals, which is good. And it had the old-school RPG feel which can be good, supreme if done right. But it still felt generic.
I've only played the first Wild Arms game. Even though the graphics did not reflect at all what the Playstation was capable of, it was a fascinating game. A fun play, but far from the best.
I would call the Chrono series the best were Chrono Cross not such a downfall. Chrono Trigger is my most favorite game of all time. Chrono Cross was no Chrono Trigger though. The overall game play was not good. The soundtrack was a masterpiece. The storyline of Chrono Cross was an interesting follow up, but the characters were not as interesting. Chrono Trigger was a fantastic adventure but Chrono Cross was like nap on the beach.
I've played some of the Breath of Fire games, they were LAME.
Zelda is pretty good. I could rate it better if I had more experience with it. The themes of a Link to the Past were great. For a super Nintendo action game it was quite amazing. As far as replay...now that I'm not stuck with an SNES...I would not play link to the past again. Does not detract from the fact it is the best action RPG for the SNES. Actually, scratch that, I think I like Seiken Densetsu III better. Link to the Past came before that though, making Link to the Past the reigning influential king of all action-rpgs. Ocarina of Time on the other hand, I would definitely play again. It is a masterpiece. I've only played a little of Majora's mask, but I didn't like it quite as much as Ocarina no Toki. I don't know about the newer games, and if they have fallen or not. Oh hey wow, I forgot that Kingdom Hearts is Action-Adventure too, and so is Okami. Zelda is the Godfather of all Action-RPG. Action-RPG is good thanks to Zelda, and it hold a mighty place in my heart, but I like what it gave birth to better. Stuff like Kingdom Hearts and Seiken Densetsu III.
Dragon Quest stinks. There are some good elements in it like every RPG has, but other than that big thumbs down. I don't have any experience with it other than watching videos of the older ones on youtube and playing VIII for the ps2, but VIII: Journey of the Cursed King is painfully bland. I must note that the soundtrack was just awful, I just loathed every random battle because the monsters were lame and the battle music was the worst battle music I ever remember hearing.
Seiken Densetsu AKA Secret of Mana is spectacular. One and two weren't so great, but Seiken Densetsu III was a masterpiece, just fantastic. And the following games have been pretty good too.
Pokemon was the first good RPG the gameboy had. But after you so firmly established a certain 150 pokemon and one piece of land, it's hard to expand. After gold and silver I just really gave up.
I've never played Arc the Lad or Shadow Hearts, but Shadow Hearts looks interesting.
.hack has an interesting concept. Of getting stuck in a video game. But that's all it has going for it. .hack as a video game is incredibly boring.
Brave Fencer Musashi was above average, but
Samurai legends was bland and corny.
I've never played Blue Dragon, but it doesn't look very good. Blue Dragon already fails in the area of flora and fauna in my book.
Dark Cloud stinks. Level-5 just can't make good games.
I've never played a non-Japanese RPG that I liked.
Hmmm...after all this..I really can't put on series as the king. All have fallen short in ways and many have excelled almost equally.