Jrpg Jungle

With Final Fantasy XV’s Universe constantly expanding, a free Assassin’s Creed tie-in chapter is a very unique addition. As a tie-in to a game that is from a different series, developer and world, it’s a wonder how this Assassins Festival manages to mostly fit itself into Eos convincingly. The gameplay in this expansion expands on Noctis’ ability to warp around areas by letting him traverse areas in new ways, at least when it’s not being plagued by XV’s old downfall of invisible walls. But if you want to spend more time with XV’s still likeable cast and play some fun side quests, the Assassin’s Festival may be worth your time. Feel free to watch the video version here! The Assassin’s Festival does its best to justify its place in Final Fantasy XV’s Universe and does succeed to some extent. The event is held in the already interesting town of Lestallum and celebrates the legend of an Assassin of past that saved the town from oppression, while also honouring what happens to be Noctis’ an...

I love Final Fantasy XV on PS4 . I love it enough to have played it for almost 200 hours. I’ve watched Kingsglaive and the Brotherhood anime, played A King’s Tale , a little bit of King’s Knight and having also played the Episode Gladiolus and Prompto DLC, I’m eagerly waiting for the Episode DLC based around my favourite XV character Ignis. When they first announced the Final Fantasy XV Universe, I was ecstatic. I was in the group who loved the characters and the story of XV and was excited to get more background into some of the main group. That was until the universe kept expanding. Feel free to watch the video version here! Final Fantasy XV began as a universe from its Uncovered release date announcement event. The (intended) release date was announced, along with the anime, movie, a demo with content separate from the main story and a mobile game. The Final Fantasy XV Universe started off nothing short of beefy and gave enough to satisfy the fans who needed something to hold th...

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...

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 ...

On March 10th at 8pm, you can bet I was grinning pretty hard as my platinum trophy for Final Fantasy XV popped. Not only is it my little badge of honour for a game I've had over 100 hours of fun with, it's my first platinum trophy since 2015 and my second JRPG one since I platinumed Persona 4 Golden in 2014. Platinum trophies are my excuse to stay in worlds I don't want to leave yet, and this Final Fantasy XV trophy gave me another 60 hours of gameplay to satisfy my addiction to its open world . The extra time I spent in Final Fantasy XV going through the trophy list and finding out what I needed to do was actually pretty fun and it isn't that difficult of a platinum to get compared to my three (or more? I can't remember) playthroughs of Persona 4 Golden. Final Fantasy XV’s platinum was mostly pain free because it simply requires time and if you waited until the end game like myself to explore the open world, you'll probably find a lot of new things that you di...

Currently my Persona 5 hype is very, very high, probably due to the fact that it's almost April (or because I changed my PS4 theme to the Persona 5 one). Thankfully, there were a lot of JRPGs in March to keep JRPG fans busy, in fact more than I could keep up with. What I did play, I really enjoyed. There was the breath of fresh air that was NieR Automata and its amazing story, my addition to Final Fantasy XV continued thanks to Episode Gladiolus and I got a little further into my own personal side quest of catching up on the Kingdom Hearts series by playing more 1.5 HD on PS3. I might not have played all the new JRPG releases this month, but these very different JRPGs I played in March I am overall quite happy with. Here are all the JRPGs I played a little and a lot of in March, before Persona 5 takes over my entire life. Feel free to watch the video version here! My Favourite JRPG of March: NieR Automata (PS4) It's always nice when positive expectations pan out. I had the high...

Spoiler note:  Due to the nature of when Episode Gladiolus is set in Final Fantasy XV's story, mild spoilers may follow Although the core Final Fantasy XV game is Noctis’ story, Gladiolus’ small departure from the group in the main story made his character feel less complete compared to the other guys, until now. Episode Gladiolus finally gives Gladio and Cor the character development they need in the hour long strength testing journey. The Episode surprised me with the evident thought put into making Gladio's combat different to Noctis’ and switching from warps to brute force was a cool new way to tackle XV’s foes. With new story and fun challenges, Episode Gladiolus is a pretty decent experience that rounds out Final Fantasy XV's characters more and will likely be enjoyed most by those like myself who haven't moved on from XV yet. Feel free to watch the video version here! Gladiolus’ solo journey starts pretty much just after he breaks away from Noctis, Ignis and Prom...

Remember when people completed games without the motivation of a trophy or an achievement? When I was discovering video games through Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot, young little me really wanted to have every gem, every record and every level for some reason. I don't remember whether it was because my parents wouldn't buy me another game or if I just wanted to, but I have many fond memories of the joy I felt getting that final gem and the hours in between. I started thinking about this after looking at Final Fantasy XV ’s trophy list. It's my resolution to platinum at least one JRPG this year and I enjoyed the hell out of XV, so I thought it would be a good candidate considering I'm had around 70% of XV's trophies when I finished it (edit: and I finally got that platinum !). What struck me about XV’s trophies was how easy it looked compared to what could still be done in it. You can get a trophy for maxing out Ignis’ cooking skill, but you can't get one f...

Final Fantasy XV loves retro games. The boys of Final Fantasy XV are always playing the retro-style smartphone game King’s Knight and there's also the mini-game Justice Monsters Five in XV. A King's Tale Final Fantasy XV is another nod to this, but adds story into the mix to make the side-scroller a little more than just a side experience. I had fun with the short side-scroller but as a fan of Square Enix’s usual ambitious and cinematic storytelling, A King’s Tale was fun for a free experience but isn't all that memorable in the long run. Feel free to watch the video version of the review here! A King’s Tale is part visual novel and part side-scroller. It begins with an adorable exchange between King Regis and a young Prince Noctis sharing a lovely father-son bedtime story moment. Noctis requests for his dad to tell him an epic bedtime story about Regis’ own travels and Regis obliges, with the story being told through the side-scrolling adventure (which I like to think is ...