Jrpg Jungle

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...

When Lost Sphear’s English demo appeared on PSN, I initially made the assumption that this was just the English translation of the Japanese one I’d already played, so I put off playing it for a little while. When I finally got to it, I realised I was very wrong and that this demo not only showed a new area in Lost Sphear, but also expanded upon a few things I liked about it in the Japanese one. Most importantly, the new Lost Sphear demo did its job of getting me even more curious about it, so here are some things it expanded upon in the demo that makes its world and gameplay seem even more interesting. You Can Unlock More Than Just Areas With Memories In the Japanese demo I played, Kanata receives his powers to use memories and unlocks a part of the first town, which made me think this kind of ability will be only used to unlock new areas. The new English demo proved me wrong, with Kanata able to unlock a bunch of things with his power, including treasure chests and breakable boulders...

When playing a big open world JRPG both at home and out of the house, it’s hard to imagine playing much else during the month. My December JRPG time was full of the two releases I intended to fill it with and not much else on the side, apart from finishing my November JRPG .hack//G.U. Last Recode and the very occasional stray into other games I’ve put to the side during my open world journey with Xenoblade Chronicles 2. With it being the holiday season in December though, it felt good to sink my teeth into a big open world and get immersed in mostly one game before a year full of new ones, so here are all the JRPGs I Played in December to round off 2017. JRPG of the Month: Xenoblade Chronicles 2 It’s interesting to me that I found myself immersed in another open world JRPG again during December this year. This time last year I was playing Final Fantasy XV and quickly realising the time sink it would be and I’m currently feeling that with Xenoblade Chronicles 2, but in a different way....

After a year full of JRPG brilliance with titles like Persona 5 and NieR Automata being released this year, 2018 has its work cut out for it already. Thankfully we live in a great age where great games are coming out at a rate pretty much impossible to keep up with and looking at the JRPGs coming out in 2018, it will likely be no exception. I’m already having trouble deciding what I want to play in January next year with multiple great JRPGs coming out, let alone for the entire year. With plenty of great JRPGs on the horizon next year, this is a list of the ones I’m most excited for so far, with no doubt that more releases will keep getting me keen from now until the end of next year. Kingdom Hearts 3 Kingdom Hearts 3 has been floating around for a long time as ‘now in development’ and this year was finally given a 2018 release window. Despite finally actually having a release time-frame though, after being super impressed with how its gameplay looked during E3 and other conferences...

With a brand new Switch in hand, I entered October with pure excitement after an August and September fairly quiet on new JRPG releases. My main goals for October were to finish Blue Reflection and play my new Nintendo Switch, so I made sure to play any new Switch demo on the go that caught my eye and at home give my time to my new favourite JRPG magical girls in Blue Reflection. As usual, I also attempted to finish what I was playing before I dedicated myself to newer releases, but I let lots of little things use my time in between too meaning I didn’t get to focus on them much. I don’t regret a bit of it though as I wasn’t ever bored last month, so here are all the JRPGs I played in October. JRPG of the Month: Blue Reflection While it’s not perfect by any means, I was won over by Hinako and her magical girl friends in Blue Reflection. The emotional story was filled with great characters that I enjoyed getting to know and I was genuinely moved multiple times while playing thanks to it...

There’s a certain nostalgia to old school JRPGs, but Lost Sphear is thoughtful enough to remember to make it special. With its emotive premise of watching all that you hold dear disappear, this literal take on loss somehow manages to keep things from getting too heavy, with the introduction to the cast being fairly light-hearted most of the time in this demo. This first look at Lost Sphear showed me a peek at the main objective of recovering the lost parts of the world and a new take on the active time battle system, and both seem interesting enough to make me think Lost Sphear is more than just its emotional premise. If you’ve seen any of the English Lost Sphear trailers, you’ll know it’s a story of loss and a world slowly disappearing. The main objective of Lost Sphear seems to be recovering memories that unlock the areas covered in fog and this is done during the character’s journey into the many places in Lost Sphear’s world. From the first trailer, it seemed like Lost Sphear could...