Jrpg Jungle

Last year, I tried a few JRPGs in my backlog I had been really excited for, such as Fire Emblem: Awakening and Lost Dimension . I really enjoyed both of these games, but they both had stories that were predominately serious and after playing them back-to-back, I found myself in a weird place where I briefly wondered if I needed a break from JRPGs because the stories were feeling so heavy. But if course, the answer turned out to be no, as after playing a very silly JRPG in the form of Sorcery Saga: the Curse of the Great Curry God , I'm into JRPGs more than ever, with my love of JRPG silliness fully tended to. Silly JRPGs often get a lot of flack from well-meaning JRPG fans that think they're a trashy part of the genre and I understand they're not for everyone. Personally, I love these silly and sometimes trashy JRPGs for a break between and during serious games or for when I want to laugh while still playing game mechanics I like. My first silly JRPG experience was probabl...

I remember getting my PS4 at launch in late 2013, ready to play games like Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts 3, thinking I would need a PS4 ASAP for their eventual but surely not far off releases. My PS4 was in my home all 2014, but other than the new toy hype and one week playing Child of Light, it was barely used and I found some concern creeping in, as my PS Vita and even my PS3 at the time were getting much more use. The PS4 begun with a lack of JRPG support, with big JRPGs like the Final Fantasy X HD Remaster originally coming to PS3 and not PS4 initially (thankfully, it’s on all current gen PS4 consoles now). Fast forward to now and I’ve only played one of the two games that were my system sellers for the PS4, but I’ve found myself able to keep my PS4 plugged in much more consistently since last year and it has finally become my preferred home console. Here’s a look back at the PS4's journey into not only being a console for the players, but for the JRPG players too. Fee...

With Persona 4 being so important to me, it’s no exaggeration when I say I had sky high hopes for Persona 5. Persona 5’s long and rewarding journey definitely managed to pass and even exceed my expectations, with a deep JRPG story that stole my heart thanks to a masterful balance between deep gameplay mechanics and the rich narrative being the best the Persona series has seen yet. If you’re like me and missed balancing school life, rich dungeon crawling, a great JRPG story and fulfilling relationships on an in-game day-to-day basis, Persona 5 has all of this in a stylish 100+ hour experience that is a standout entry in the series and in the JRPG genre. Persona 5 begins in typical Persona fashion. Between strange dreams about Velvet Rooms and being granted special powers, you’re a transfer student entering a new town ready to start your new life and not get in too much trouble, especially since you're on probation. This is until it comes to light that a bunch of important individual...

There was once a time when video games didn’t support screenshots, a dark time indeed. But enter the social media age and it’s an assumption most games will support them in some way. It’s a feature that has had its effect challenged recently, with some developers implying that a screenshot has the potential to ruin a story heavy experience. At the other end of this is Final Fantasy XV , which embraces screenshots to their fullest potential and helped make a JRPG with a lot of customisation features such as costumes and mostly a non-linear exploration feel even more personal. Feel free to watch the video version here! Since every current gen console supports taking and sharing screenshots in some way, Final Fantasy XV took this idea and ran with it, making one of the core characters, the cheerful Prompto, a photography lover and photography AI. They developed a unique AI system that takes photos in real time and at the end of the day, Prompto (like any good photographer), shows you the ...

A long time ago, I wrote about how much Persona 4 Golden changed my life. Even now, it's still one of the most significant JRPGs I've ever played and I can safely say if I hadn't played it when I did, I don't know if I'd be making JRPG content at all. But before Persona 4 Golden, there was another JRPG that struck a chord in me that made me realise video games were much more than just finding gems and beating up bad guys. That game was Final Fantasy X. I've probably mentioned on here before many reasons why Final Fantasy X is so important to me, but I don't think I've dedicated an entire post to it. My journey with Final Fantasy X is significant enough to get its own post, as my first story-driven JRPG, my first video game addiction and the first one that moved me. I discovered Final Fantasy X when I was around my early teens at a friend’s house. A slightly older friend was playing it and it was one of the prettiest games I'd ever seen. As someone wh...

When playing Persona 2 and Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD recently, I noticed I felt a little lost. Not in a deep, emotional way or anything, but much more literally, at least in my gaming life. Both Kingdom Hearts and Persona 2 are over 15 years old (let that sink in) and in these 15 years, there are certain things I've apparently come to expect need in what I play. Aside from the beautiful graphics and smarter UIs found in modern video games, there's a little tiny thing I'm lost without - map markers and map points. It's exactly what it sounds like: I am saying that among the many fantastic JRPGs I was catching up on that I missed or hadn't played for a long time, before noticing how wonderful the story is or how good or bad some of the pixel art is, my biggest problem becomes how lost I find myself navigating these old worlds. It's important to mention that I don't usually blame the older games I'm playing for this. While yes, the older games could have put in...

One of the first things that stood out to me about Persona 5 when I tried to play it in Japanese last year was the way that gameplay mechanics kept unlocking, even 40 hours in. Playing the English version now, I'm still having the same experience five dungeons in, thanks to the Confidant system in Persona 5. This constant unlocking of new mechanics keeps gameplay varied and gives more benefits than just interesting conversations and Persona EXP for spending time with NPCs, and it manages Persona 5’s depth well. It's one of the many things that keeps Persona 5 deep in its JRPG roots, with the polished gameplay Persona fans know and love. Spoiler note: No story spoilers will be spoiled here, but there may be some mild gameplay spoilers. Proceed at your own risk! Feel free to watch the video version here! Confidants take the familiar social link mechanic for those who played Persona 3 or 4 and puts a spin on it that makes it suit Persona 5 much more. Persona 5’s themes of justic...