Jrpg Jungle

As expected, August was a pretty free month for JRPGs. I didn’t pick up any new releases, although I did manage to find the time to try newer experiences in demo form and left each one feeling fairly positive. I also kept true on my promise of playing Persona 2, found a new IP I’m super excited to learn more about and rearranged my gaming time a little to help me enjoy JRPGs even more and as much as possible going forward. While August wasn’t full of releases, I had no shortage of things to play in my JRPG time, so here are all the JRPGs I played in August. JRPG of the Month: Zanki Zero (JP Demo) I walked into Zanki Zero knowing nothing more than that it was done by the team who made one of my favourite games Danganronpa , so when I found myself infatuated with its story and its incredibly unique mechanics, I was pretty surprised. Since I had no background on what the story would become, I slowly found myself in Zanki Zero’s story of clones, constant death and rebirth and the stories o...

As much I enjoyed playing video games in May, my gaming time in May mostly didn’t go how I expected it to. I started my month playing two portable Persona games as I’d planned to, although not as much as I wanted to. Then I played Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time and was much more mixed about it than I expected to be. Thankfully at the end of the month though, I had two games that caught my attention in the right way and put me in good JRPG spirits going into June. So although I only played a few games this month compared to other months again, here are the JRPGs I played in May. JRPG of the Month: Pokemon Quest If you’re a fan of Pokemon and JRPGs, you might’ve noticed all the exciting Pokemon announcements like the Let’s Go games and the core Pokemon game coming to Switch in 2019. There was also one more game that came to Switch right away and that was Pokemon Quest and since I wanted a good excuse to play my Switch for the first time in almost a month, I decided to give it a g...

April was a very focused month of JRPG playing for me. I managed to beat two decent-sized JRPGs in series that are new to me largely thanks to not straying much from them, which makes for a somewhat shorter video but means I completed two JRPGs, which is pretty satisfying. I did fit in a couple of extra things though, with my addiction to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 needing to be catered to and my daily Persona O.A. sessions exploring its recently added gameplay keeping my Persona 5 urges at bay. So although it’s not as many games as usual, here are all the JRPGs I played and got really into in April. JRPG of the Month:  Yakuza 6 I’m still a little surprised that Yakuza 6 is my JRPG of the month , but with the way I raced through its chapters because of how into it I was, it really truly was my favourite JRPG of April. When I played its demo, I was brought in by its story and how deep and detailed its characters were and this continued in its full game: its characters balance being seri...

It’s not every day you find a JRPG heavily rooted in anime and third-person shooting with a clear Freedom Wars influence, but Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet delivers this in its own way in this gameplay heavy experience. Taking third-person shooting mechanics and adding in JRPG ones with leveling and stat-boosting, Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet’s challenging hunts and quests tell the story of this gun-filled MMORPG from Sword Art Online’s second series, but with interesting new characters that make its own story accessible to both newcomers and fans of the show. It might not be the biggest world to explore, but with endless customisation in both appearance and gameplay style, and an interesting story that ended a little too soon, Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet’s shooting filled world managed to both be pretty fun to play and make me care about Sword Art Online’s world more. Fatal Bullet is based in the story’s online world of Gun Gale Online, an online shooting game known for its popu...

January was a very good month for JRPGs and also a month where I had to quickly accept that it would be impossible to play everything. After all, I started the month on the tail end of December’s Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and while I had a solid game plan in the form of Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker’s Memory for January, various experiences from betas to demos to indies kept popping up and all I could do was try stick to my plan while playing what I could in between. I did manage to try a lot of the experiences I wanted to try in January for varying lengths of times and feel positively about most of them, so here are all the JRPGs I Played in January. JRPG of the Month:  Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker’s Memory Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker’s Memory has been the JRPG I wanted to start 2018 with ever since it got given a release date thanks to the first one making me fall in love with my PS4 . Armed with my PS4 again, I entered Hacker’s Memory with not much knowle...

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker’s Memory is both new and a return to what some may know from the original Cyber Sleuth game. It’s new with its own unique and fleshed out story that is set on a familiar backdrop to anyone who played the last game. It features the same monster collecting system that was already great with a few new digital faces that fight with a both an old and new exciting battle system, all to a cool electronic soundtrack that has been remixed more than it’s been recomposed. But if you’re anything like me and have been looking for an excuse to return to Cyber Sleuth somehow, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker’s Memory makes it well worth it because despite its familiarity, what it adds in both story and gameplay takes an old game and makes it better. Hacker’s Memory is set in the Tokyo some may know from the original Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth game, an advanced reality that also utilises a digital world called EDEN where people can meet online face-to-face l...

As DLC tied to my favourite character of Final Fantasy XV and two satisfying previous DLC episodes, I had high expectations for Episode Ignis’ story. As expected based on the last two Episodes, Episode Ignis gives unique fighting mechanics to Ignis to suit his fighting style and reveals what happened in a part of the game he was absent. Unique to Episode Ignis however is a special Extra Verse portion that puts a new twist on big moments of Ignis’s story that had a fan of Ignis and XV’s core story like myself captivated in all the right ways. Delivering the kind of quality expected from the last few DLC chapters coming to XV, Episode Ignis mostly delivers and is a story chapter that fans of Ignis and Final Fantasy XV won’t want to miss. Spoiler note:  Due to the nature of when Episode Ignis is set in Final Fantasy XV's story, mild spoilers may follow. Episode Ignis starts off strong in the epic Leviathan portion of Final Fantasy XV’s story and details what happened before Noctis wa...