Well, Secret of Mana is nice and laid-back I think. As long as you're at a good level and you know the attack patterns of your enemies (that's the only possible hangup early on, of learning when to attack enemies and how they move. You should have seen when I was getting my tail kicked by a Rabite until I finally "got" it), it will be smooth sailing. I'm a fan of its unique battle system where you fight enemies on the map in realtime. And once you get magic, bosses are trivial to beat. Combine that with beautiful locations and music, a flying dragon for transportation later in the game, and my belief that there has never been a Mana game since that could match it... you've got a winner. Secret of Evermore is very similar, with some new ideas and limited traveling through time. And Seiken Densetsu 3 is the true sequel to Secret of Mana, although I don't care that they changed the battle system there.
Final Fantasy X is a turn-based RPG with the best innovations I've seen in an RPG and a good taste of that Final Fantasy flavor. People might say to go for FF12 instead, or say that nothing matches the brilliance of FF7 or FF6 (FF3 to Americans), but FF10 was the only Final Fantasy game I've been able to stick with for the turn-based combat, appealing graphics, and cool unconventional ideas. It also seems to go on forever. Took me 60 hours to beat, and that's still not close to getting every last secret. My only big complaint with FF10 is the sometimes corny dialogue and awkward delivery, lip synching that usually doesn't sync well, some strange animations while someone's talking, and the inability for a character to stay perfectly still during a scripted sequence. So when Tidus goes to put his hand on Yuna's shoulder, it looks like Tidus's hand has a case of the jitters, and it doesn't rest comfortably on the shoulder. This is apparent in the frickin' intro, even. But in fairness, you forget and look over that stuff after a while. And the dialogue seems to get less corny as it goes on (a full playthrough might make the early dialogue make sense too).
Okami is another excellent action RPG. Get it on PS2 or Wii, doesn't matter, just play it. Might have to stick with it a while to really get into it, but it's an entertaining game and so far is the best wolf-character I've ever played as. That's really why I played it in the first place, to play as a wolf (Zelda Twilight Princess's wolf doesn't move as smoothly). It is flawed, I'll admit that. It's ridiculously easy to beat, this is the easiest RPG I've ever played, at the level of Super Mario RPG's difficulty. Combat gets monotonous real fast, but then, most RPGs have you pressing the Attack button 95% of the time anyway. No really tough puzzles to challenge the noodle. There's only a few minor parts near the end (usually optional) that honestly get tough, and man are they tough. For completionists, try getting all the Stray Beads.
