Jrpg Jungle

A majority of the cast of Persona 3 and 4 (and some other characters too) together in Persona 4 Arena Ultimax When I finished Persona 4 Golden, I was sure there was no other game in the world that was as deep, as engaging and as involved as it was. Little did I know, Persona had plenty more to offer and the series was already highly successful after Persona 3. Persona 4 Arena had introduced me to the characters of Persona 3 and since I wanted more Persona in my life, after starting the game, getting distracted by other games and then starting again, I decided to finally commit to Persona 3 to learn more about the series and honestly, in the hopes finding another game that would become high in my favourites list. The mechanics of Persona 3 were easy enough to pick up, but I quickly noticed a different feeling in Persona 3. I definitely think both games I good, but I found I definitely had a favourite out of the two games. For anyone interested, but specifically for those who were like m...

Music takes an interesting, more dominant role in Final Fantasy X-2. With Yuna now somewhat famous after the events of Final Fantasy X, she seems to be a pop star figure in of sorts, especially if we're judging from the game's opening cutscene where she's singing and dancing to a pop song. Much like the different tones in their opening movies, Final Fantasy X's more sentimental feeling is replaced in X-2 with a mix of mostly fun upbeat funk, rock and pop pieces, but also a wider exploration of genres when needed for more humourous and dark scenes that are quite different to what was heard in X. The composer for X-2 isn't the same composer as Final Fantasy X and doesn't feature any compositions from Nobuo Uematsu, Final Fantasy's regular composer, which could have a lot to do with the different feeling of the music in X-2. While I'm a big fan of music from other Final Fantasy games and Uematsu's music, when X-2's is placed aside other Final Fanta...

Yesterday it was my day off. I played 4 hours of Persona 3 according to my game count. Except I didn't. Yesterday I played Hearthstone, read the Walking Dead comic, bought a DSi and some Pokemon games for it, went for a walk in the park, had multiple convenience store runs, did a bunch of chores.... I probably played an hour of Persona 3. Two if we're being generous. This happens to me a lot, not just with Persona games, but with every console game I play. I look at my game counts and I feel like I really should be finished by now. Then I look at How Long To Beat and feel like this even more. It makes me question my gaming ability because it makes me think I'm taking too long because I'm bad at the game. It makes me question whether it's me or the clock or the fact I leave my console on way too much while I'm running errands. It's most likely the latter, but it's still something that has bugged me for awhile. It's weird thing to write about, but I...

Final Fantasy XV has got a lot of expectations to live up to. It's been floating around for almost 10 years, beginning as Final Fantasy Versus XIII and resurfacing at E3 a few years ago as Final Fantasy XV. For almost 10 years, myself and others have been waiting to find out when it'll be out, what it'll be and will it be better than more recent Final Fantasy games that a lot of fans didn't enjoy so much. Despite this, I walked into Platinum Demo: Final Fantasy XV with leftover hype and positive expectations for the game following the Final Fantasy XV Uncovered event. The demo is only 20-30 minutes long, but it's a good teaser for the full game, showcasing some of what's to be expected from the game's combat, boss battles and interactive worlds. Platinum Demo is a standalone story that won't be featured in Final Fantasy XV. It looks into a  dream from Noctis' childhood where small Noctis is led through the game by Carbuncle, an adorable rabbit like c...

It honestly wasn't until I finished Persona 4 Golden that I understood I wasn't just a fan of weird Final Fantasy games, I understood there was entire genre of these Japanese Role-Playing Games I loved, I just hadn't been paying enough attention to them. I love this genre enough now to talk about it as much as possible, but there's a catalog of classic JRPGs and highly relevant series that I haven't touched yet. I always intend to get back to them, but it's not that simple sometimes because of life getting in the way and the sheer length of a JRPG, not to mention keeping up with the franchises I already love and want to continue playing. It's hard to balance both. So, as  a reminder to myself of  my backlog of shame, here's 5 JRPG games I definitely should've played by now and hope to play sometime soon. Tales of... Series The Tales of series is one of the biggest JRPG series at the moment, both in popularity and series entries, with 16 main entries...