Hoping to make your life's design a bit more dynamic!

Not necessarily your favorite, and they can even be games you disliked, but left you with a very satisfied feeling and probably a feel droplets of sweat on the forehead, etc.

Mine:

Breath of Fire 3: The first psx rpg I ever played and I loved it. I made steady progress all the way until the end. And got hung up on the last boss. For weeks I would try several times per day, to no avail. Over the next few weeks, maybe a few times per weeks..and slowly, got to the point where I gave up and/or forgot. But every so often always in the back of my mind that I never beat it, even as I played and beat numerous other rpgs and other games. It must have been a year or even more that I picked it up on a whim full memory of how hard this beast was as well as exactly how she would always best me. So I felt lucky 4-5 turns in that she was missing, not using her strongest stuff..my hits were striking hard and heavy..and on my FIRST try, I beat her. (chalk it up to more rpg playing exp.?) This delay caused the victory to be very rewarding!

Secret of Mana: I spent a long time on this, probably 9 months as a teen and it was one of my favorites, if not my fave game ever. It was sad but awesome to win this!

Zelda: First rpg ever played! As a 6/7 year old my often times very nasty "step brother" let me play this. I struggled at times, pleading for his help at times and never getting it. But I slowly trudged on probably to the 3rd or 4th castle in the dark world, when my mom divorced the pr!ck she was married to and the "step brother" thankfully left..although sadly with zelda. 7-8 years later I got the cart and the slow trudge to eventual victory was real sweet!

Persona: I did not like this game that much but something kept me coming back. Like BoF3 I got stuck. But this time, very deep in a dungeon or forest. I actually beat the boss but was very low on items (for some dumb reason) and could not get out..or something. Many attemped tries failed to get out. One time I even had the exit in sight and died just before. I dropped this game for a year. The enemies were to strong, whooping on me, I was probably under leveled and without sufficient personas. But I came back a year later, picked it up and probably got lucky on my first try. Meticulous...A few battles went well, got some new personas, luck changed. Got out of this beast of a dungeon, played more methodically and carefully. Got more personas and beat the game a few weeks later! So rewarding if not hard!

Paladins quest: See my topic in Lennus 2 for THAT story

Earthbound: Sorry sorry sorry I picked this game up years ago and something just did not appeal to me, the cult classic that it is. I tried with hesitation, just five days ago. Picked up steam and won today. Obnoxious annoying, even cheap, the game seemed. It was hard. But i beat it and kicked back with a good brew after beating it. Will never touch it again, but I can finally say i beat earthbound (and I call myself an rpg fan).aha

Dark law: This game is real hard and you will most likely be hanging on by a thread and grasping at straws a few scenarios in. But hang in there and notice the money slowly roll in, spells accumulate, strength slowly increase and it is very cool feeling to advance in this game. The hidden dungeon itself is rewarding to beat, and, with the random passcodes to enter doors, is probably the hardest "bonus" dungeon I have seen, star ocean 1/2 and ToP included.

Dragon Quest 6 and 7: Both very long games, 7 especially, which took me nearly 100 hours, if not more, i would think and 6+ weeks. Not an easy game by any stretch of the imagination and because it was the longest game I had ever played, to this day, simply beating this behemoth, sweaty hands included, was an accomplishment in its own right!

Honorable mentions: 7th Saga - a fairly long game, but the game throws you right into the thick of things with some pretty hard battles and does not let down. Plus the duels latter on will have you close to a heart attack. Plus the clank clank clang of Lux...Wooh beating it was nice, especially after the "faux" "ending""

FF7; spent an entire summer on this and over 70 hours, doing everything and finally winning was an incredible feeling. The first psx rpg I ever beat, and why it gets a mention here!

King Field: Never played a game like this, and it was not easy. Took a long time getting used to it but stuck with it despite being beaten down (due to going in the wrong places too soon)

Darkstone

Vandal Hearts: Another one where I was stuck in one battle and dozens of attempts to pass led to failure. A lucky miss here, a nice strike there and suddenly the tides of battle turned and victory was within my grasp, not by much. But the rest of the game went much more smoothly. Sometimes I think when a game has even one very veryvery hard battle, it can make you feel so much relief, and winning the game can be so rewarding because of it.

Dragon Warrior IV for NES on an NES and Destiny of an Emperor-II (E) for Famicom on a PSP.

That's a hard question, some of my answers would be similar to the hardest RPGs I had beaten like Might and Magic 3 and 6 and Ultima 5 and 6. I'm not sure if that would be considered rewarding though. Dragon Quest 7 wasn't hard but its length might also include it in this category.

In terms of getting some benefits I could use, beating Shining Force 3 scenario 1 and 2 provided me with benefits for Shining Force 3 scenario 3 since all my characters from the first 2 games got to bring their stats and goodies with them. I'm hoping Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky will be similar where you can bring over all your stuff to the sequel. Beating it was also rewarding because you get some pretty shocking events at the ending and you get to see a trailer for its sequel. Too bad I have to wait a while for this game, apparently it was so large that it was released with 2 UMDs in Japan.

I would have to go with Lennus-2 for the sole reason that it is the only RPG that I have played through totally in Japanese... sans walkthrough... sans having any idea what the heck was going on

What comes to mind is SaGa Frontier. The first time I played it, I'd bought a used copy that didn't have the instruction booklet. Then, I had to buy a new memory card since the game technically takes up the entire thing!

But it was definitely a game that reminded me of older RPGs: thrown right into the story without any tutorials or major directions. I didn't go on the internet much back then either (damn dial-up), so I didn't know if there was Gamefaqs or some other site around. Instead I had to learn how the system operated and how to get to places, as I went along. The first time I reached a last boss (with Emelia), I was still learning some of the best sword techniques. As a whole, the game was still wholly challenging to me, too.

You may have mentioned this once, but if you did, I forgot. I have never struggled through a whole Japanese RPG, with or without a FAQ. BTW, a certain game's progress is going well now.

Saga Frontier was an interesting game. I just kind of played it without any real help like Xiados did and just explored and experimented finding new party members and many new worlds that were connected to each other in various ways. I beat it several times with different characters which is kind of rare for me because there was so much to explore. I wish they had more non-linear JRPGs like this.

The Digital Devil Saga games were extraordinarily rewarding - not necessarily from a plot perspective, as the endings were good but not great, but simply from the sense of accomplishment I got as the long final boss battles fell one by one.

The arena in Armored Core 2. I could basically care less about the missions, but tweaking a core for the arena and getting through the last 10 battles was really rewarding. Partially because I was using a core that was designed exactly the way I wanted it, but also because I had to adjust my build to handle certain enemies, sometimes pretty drastically. It was a little frustrating not being able to just play my preferred machine the whole time, but the challenge of figuring out how to overcome the enemies was really rewarding.

I'm going to kind of lump Queens's Blade Spiral Chaos and Final Fantasy XIII together only because, like Draken, I played them completely in Japanese. They were the first RPGs I played to completion in Japanese and I played them fairly close together. Queen's Gate: Spiral Chaos was additionally an awesome SRPG and had enough challenge, depth, and entertainment to be one of my favorite games ever. FFXIII was fairly linear so perhaps my perception was skewed, but I didn't really think I would be able to get through a new FF game all in Japanese. I was really proud of myself when I finished that game.

Also, basically all the Resident Evil games and probably Dead Rising too. Somehow the sense of surviving that you get in those games is very rewarding. I like how the limited inventories (in both series, one with limited ammo, the other with limited lifetime for melee weapons and such) adds to the feeling of struggle and making decisions that effect whether you live or die. It may sound trite, and some people complain about them not being "horror" enough...whatever, RE has really kept the feeling of survival going through the whole series. There are always tough spots and bosses that really give me a sense of accomplishment when I finish them. There is also an aspect of them being scary and bleak that also makes you feel like you made it through something harrowing. In that case Silent Hill too.

EDIT: My bad, I just realized only two of those are RPGs.

Hmm...It'd probably have to be Suikoden 2 for me, as that's the only game where I actually took the time and effort to fully complete it (getting all 108 stars). Seeing the best ending possible was a really rewarding experience, and worth the extra 15+ hours I put into it.