Looking for a game which lets you merc masses of monsters? Or one where the story revolves around winning a tournament against powerful or famous foes? If that’s the case, you’re hungering forgames which feature a great battle arenato test your character’s strength and skill!
Arenas are aJRPGstaple that offer a break from the genre’s dungeon-centric gameplay.
Whether you want to wade through waves of enemiesafter beating the gameor need to triumph in a main story tournament, battle arenas add exciting challenge and variety.
10Niijima’s Casino
Persona 5 Royal
Persona 5is a thrillingly dense and complex game, with a variety of available party members and personas from which to build your team of four.But what if you had to battle using only Joker?
The Battle Arena in Niijima’s Casino adds tactical texture with exactly that restriction. Allegedly designed for “one on one” battles, like every game in Sae Niijima’s palace, this arena is rigged!
You’ll have to guide Joker alone in a sequence of battles against multiple opponents. Unfortunately there’s no option for a re-match, but this solo twist offers a challenge interesting enough to sneak onto our list.
9Blitzball
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster
What if an arena wasn’t only about battling? Theblitzball minigame inFinal Fantasy Xis similar to a conventional arena, but instead, it’s all about Spira’s most popular pastime.
This intriguing remix offers “endless” play similar to a traditional arena—including prizes for your victories—structured through playing ranked Leagues and Tournaments against other Blitzball teams. As an added touch, the further you progress the main story, the more players and techs you’ll unlock.
Overall, Blitzball is surprisingly deep for a minigame, and an optional one to boot. If it feels odd that this arena isn’t about battling, well … considering how easy it is to lose hours playing it, I reckon Blitzball is good enough to bend the definition.
8Colosseum
Fire Emblem
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Arena tiles tend to be rare in theFire Emblem franchise,and entice risk in exchange for gold and experience. The chance to defeat additional enemies is especially tantalizing in the older games, with a limited number of enemies you can defeat for experience.
Of course, those sameolder games have a charming penchant forpermadeath mechanics.So, every time you placed a wager and entered the arena, you also risked the life of that unit.
Maybe it’s just my nostalgia talking, but the sense of danger inBlazing BladeandSacred StoneshelpsFire Emblem’sarenas stick out. After all, most battle arenas are an optional opportunity to win bonus prizes—how often is a character’s life really at risk?
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7Victors Hollow
Octopath Traveler
In Square Enix’sOctopath Traveler,the game’s story focuses on your choice of eight characters. As their tale progresses, you traverse a slowly expanding world while the remaining characters join your party.
The Arena in Victors Hollow is central to the knight Olberic’s storyline.By entering the city’s annual tournament, you’re battling for the opportunity to confront a major villain and uncover the reasons for a betrayal in Olberic’s past.
This battle arena is a strong example of how the locale can create a powerful story. Arenas certainly don’talwaysneed narrative—some games jam narrative into arenas needlessly!
What makes Victors Hollow “click” is the tournament’s synergy with Olberic’s tale. Through these battles, Olberic strives to regain his strength and discover new purpose in his life, resulting in a poignant tale.
6Fun City Battle Arena
Star Ocean 2
Star Ocean: The Second Story R
Sometimes, you just don’t want to jump right into the next dungeon.Star Ocean 2nails that spirit by sticking itsbattle arena into a city-sized amusement park.
And Fun City goes deeper than the typical “endless grind” gimmick arena. Its modes range from solo duels and team battles—where each party member challenging a 1-on-1 fight instead of the typical combat style—to a grueling survival mode against waves of foes.
Fun City shines because it focuses on the JRPG battle arena’s central premise. It builds around a gladiatorial core with variations on the same theme to provide a real vacation from the norm.
5Masked Martial Arts Tournament
Dragon Quest XI
Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of An Elusive Age - Definitive Edition
A JRPG icon, theDragon Quest seriesstands out in no small part due to the influence oflegendaryDragon Ballmanga creator Akira Toriyama.For me, it’s exactly that connection which makes the Masked Martial Arts Tournament inDragon Quest XIso delightful.
Dragon Ballis characterized in no small part by its tournaments, soplaying a brand-new tournament evoking Toriyama’s stylefeels a little bit like getting dropped into aTenkaichi Budokaiwhere you don’t know the characters. The colorful and wacky opponents of this story arc grasp the spirit of earlyDragon Ball.
Simply a famous connection, however, wouldn’t be enough to get Octagonia’s tournament onto this list! This arena-centric arc introduces key characters forDragon Quest XI’splot, and obtaining its prize is necessary if you’re to save the world.
Blend story, gameplay, and aesthetics together, and you’ve got a winning arena.
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4Battle Tower
Pokemon Emerald
When it comes to battle arenas as a gauntlet,the Battle Tower is where Pokémon games stop playing nice.Perhaps the most iconic is the post-game Battle Tower inEmerald’sBattle Frontier, although this arena can be found throughout many of the Pokémon franchise’s main games.
Completing the Battle Tower in any of its iterations requires training a team of three Pokémon to the absolute peak for the target level: no items, no swapping your roster, no changing order or a Pokémon’s moves.
The Battle Tower is perhaps the best example of a JRPG where the battle arena offers a test of skill not found elsewhere in the game. While Pokémon games in general are accessible to a wide variety of gamers, conquering the Battle Tower is a serious single-player achievement.
3Nordopolica Coliseum
Tales of Vespiria
Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition
TheTales series’twist on JRPGs adds a fistful of action via foregoing turn-based battles for a chaotic real-time melee. When visiting Nordoplica inTales of Vesperia,this gets cranked up to 11.
TheColiseum pits a single character against a whole mass of foes.It’s framed, quite reasonably, as the ultimate challenge inTales of Vesperia,requiring beating an entire optional post-game dungeon just to unlock the finalbattle against 200 enemies.
It’s a challenge which, within the usual style of a battle arena, makes excellent use of theTalescombat system to shape a difficult and memorable contest. Hack your way through, and you’ll reach the summit ofTales of Vesperia.
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2The Glitz Pit
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (2024)
Think you’ve got what it takes to become the Champ? Then sign yourself up for theGlitz Pit and take on the Rawk Hawk himself to win that star-studded belt!
The Glitzville chapter inPaper Mario: The Thousand-Year Dooris an absolutely fantastic narrative-driven battle arena. Drawing inspiration from professional wrestling, classic Mario foes, and deliciously bad puns, the Glitz Pit confronts Mario—known temporarily as the “Great Gonzalez”—with twenty different themed battles.
Yet you can’tmerelywin to progress! Rising through the ranks requires winning with panache, represented by accomplishing tasks set by the arena’s manager.
A mystery unfolds between battles which encourages exploring the arena and Glitzville to discover why contestants keep disappearing. Theme blends together with “gimmicks” and narrative into a true JRPG Wrestlemania!
Golden Sun
Game Boy Advance cult classicGolden Sunfeatures the best battle arena sequence I’ve ever played because of how itblends puzzle, platforming, and combat elements togetherinto a single event.
This arena battle features three rounds. Each round begins with racing through an obstacle course to the central area. The first gladiator to arrive receives better equipment for use during the arena’s battles.
This prelude creates an incentive to be quick, but unlike many other JRPGs,Golden Sundoesn’tforceyou to win the minigame. Further, the obstacle course segment allows you to be assisted by party members in the bleachers, adding a puzzle element to completing the race swiftly.
Combining these gameplay elements together results in a fast-paced and unique arena experience. Atop that, there’s a driving reason to participate in the Colosso festival: if you succeed, its organizer will help you seek out the hidden island of Lemuria and its alchemical secrets.
Fun gameplay, high stakes, and a meaningful reward—I’d call that a winning combination!
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