Jrpg Jungle

When I was a kid, before there were JRPGs in my life, there was anime. And while JRPGs eventually became the thing I loved more, I loved anime for similar reasons when I was most into it. Its inspirational characters, gorgeous animation and stories I couldn’t find anywhere else kept me coming back to it at different times in my life, whether it be for the childhood inspiration magical girl anime provided or the darker side of the genre I found as an adult. As much as my relationship with anime has changed, I’m sure it led me on the path to JRPGs in different ways, from making me drawn to its visual style in games or introducing me to story styles that are some of my favourites regardless of the medium. Anime might be a smaller part of my life now, but these are five of the anime series I enjoyed watching that I can link a few of my JRPG choices to at different points in time. Sailor Moon, Magical Girls and Blue Reflection Sailor Moon had a profound impact on my life in my childhood, pr...

Fall marked the release of three long-awaited games: Persona 5 released in Japan and is now my main Japanese study tool, the delightful World of Final Fantasy and the very recently released Final Fantasy XV. Other than having some of my most anticipated games come out, I'm also really pleased with the amount of new JRPG worlds I explored in Fall. I had a silly curry adventure with Sorcery Saga, deferred moves and made relationships in Lost Dimension and tried multiple Indie JRPGs that all were very different. All these games left me with a really optimistic feeling coming into Winter, particularly with the release of Final Fantasy XV. Here's my list of what I played in Fall, feel free to let me know what you played too! Final Fantasy XV (PS4) Status: Only a couple of hours in as of writing this. Hoping to sink A LOT of hours into it! I've barely scratched the stunning surface of Final Fantasy XV, but what I've played was certainly satisfying. I'm amazed by its gian...

Lost Dimension combines a lot of things I love: JRPGs with tactical elements, visual novels and finding a suspect from a group of likable characters. In fact, on the surface it draws a large influence from a few of my favourite series, such as the Trials from Danganronpa or the Materia concept from Final Fantasy, which initially gave me some concerns about how original Lost Dimension would be. But after playing Lost Dimension, I found the combination of these elements plus its own mechanics and its story of traitors make Lost Dimension a unique tactical 30 hour experience that remained enjoyable throughout my time with it, even with some imperfections. As someone who likes stories that make me feel like I need to constantly look over my shoulder, Lost Dimension is right up my alley. Lost Dimension mixes suspicion into the usual ‘save the world’ JRPG plot. The world is being targeted by a man called The End (no really, that’s his name), who gives the world an ultimatum: defeat him at th...

If you've ever had a completely overpowered party member in a JRPG, you'll probably know what it's like to wait each turn for your strongest character’s turn in order to cause some havoc on the battlefield. This is also evident when an enemy has a weakness and only one character has the right attack - suddenly the only character that matters is the one with that attack and the other party members become unimportant compared to the one related to my actual strategy. Lost Dimension’s Defer mechanic plays with this idea, essentially allowing party members to give each other their turns if they don't need them. This considerably changed how I thought about my battle strategies in Lost Dimension and gave me a new perspective on turns in tactical battles and how having access to the right skills at the right time can truly be the ultimate battle tactic. The Defer system in Lost Dimension pretty simple in practice, but makes a pretty significant difference to strategising in b...