Jrpg Jungle

In a world of modern graphics and one track story paths, Octopath Traveler is unique. With its premise of telling eight different stories in one world, Octopath Traveler gives you the opportunity to choose the order and flow of how you want to play through its interesting seperate stories, with the choice of playing as many as you want at a time offering a custom gameplay experience. While having to level up your characters each time you want to try a new one from its eight can make the experience run a little long, it makes each experience feel like a journey of its own in this world harboring its own lore that leaves a connecting thread to each story if you play them all, but also has each one stand well enough on its own. All of its unique storytelling partnered with a great battle system that makes finding and exploiting weaknesses a rewarding process and its class actions that make each character useful in different ways make Octopath Traveler a satisfying JRPG with no shortage of...

With eight story paths to follow and a mid-month release, my July went exactly how I expected it to and was full of a lot of Octopath Traveler and time with my Switch. I began the month on the tail end of Ys VIII and immediately jumped over to Octopath Traveler, so my PS4 hasn’t seen that much love this month but I’ve enjoying playing the Switch both on my TV and with me on the go and the extra time I’ve been able to get into my games. The only other games I played were a few smartphone JRPGs for times like being at work where it would be inappropriate to pull out my Switch and for some special collaborations, but I only put a small bit of time into these because I was into already big games on the go and didn’t feel the need to play much else. So in what was a month full of portable goodness, here are the JRPGs I Played in July. JRPG of the Month: Octopath Traveler Like many other JRPG fans with a Switch, I spent most of my July enamored with the big world of Octopath Traveler. As I t...

Octopath Traveler definitely reflects its name. With eight characters and their stories available to play through, I was expecting to dive into my chosen character Primrose’s story alone when I began my Octopath journey and was surprised when I noticed all the adventures available on the map, ready to be explored at my leisure. These eight paths are just the beginning of Octopath Traveler’s ability to create freedom in each players Octopath journey, with freedom of party members, secondary jobs, story paths and more making each player traveling through the world of Orsterra have their own unique journey that may be deeper or more challenging than others. In a world that truly makes you feel like you have many paths to take, Octopath Traveler’s ability to create your own story and game flow make it a unique JRPG that combines the linearity of its individual stories and the freedom of its big world to make each playthrough a true, one-of-a-kind experience. Octopath Traveler’s journey beg...

With the promise of being a big adventure on a deserted island, Ys VIII certainly delivers. Making one island somehow feel like a large world of its own, Ys VIII encouraged me to explore the many inches of its island thanks to its story and its great mechanics that help with exploring that slowly revealed more of this island as I played. But there’s more than just exploring an island to Ys VIII, with the adventurous spirit of its protagonist and the mysterious island making the story bigger than its initial premise and its well-paced reveal made this adventure intriguing throughout its six chapters, with more things to dive into post-game. In this rich island world, Ys VIII captures the spirit of adventure well, and its mysterious world with plenty to see and explore with its smooth gameplay makes it a fantastic fit on Nintendo Switch. Ys VIII revolves around the series’ protagonist and adventurer Adol Christin who finds himself aboard a ship called the Lombardia that leads him to his ...

As someone who started out Xenoblade Chronicles 2 completely new to the Xeno franchise, I had no idea I’d get so hooked by it. I usually dive deep into games with social elements like Persona 5 and Blue Reflection , both being games that I’ve actively decided I want to put the time into platinuming and thus expected myself to be playing in my spare time. Instead, I’ve found myself every time I’ve had free time wanting to pick up Xenoblade Chronicles 2 to chip away at something, whether it be quests or filling affinity charts, and wanting to dive more and more into its world. I definitely enjoyed Xenoblade Chronicles 2 a fair bit but I didn’t expect to be as into it as I am, so with this thought in mind, here are some reasons why I think Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has kept me hooked on it months after its release (and why you might still be too). Things to Check-Off If you’ve ever been any kind of completionist , you’ve probably enjoyed mentally checking off things you’ve finished doing l...

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 promises more than enough to satisfy players who like to have lots to do. There’s a big open world with quests and plenty to find, a story filled with its fair share of epic moments and an active battle system that ended up being engaging after taking the time to get to know it. It may not be the most perfect open world JRPG with systems that give random results and the way things are unlocked being questionable at times. But I can’t deny the almost 100 hours I’ve sunk into the experience as plenty of proof that as an open world JRPG with endless things to develop and find, Xenoblade Chronicles 2’s vast and beautiful world is a pleasure to explore. Xenoblade Chronicles 2’s story begins in the world of Alrest, a world covered in Cloud Sea and the Titans that drift through it. The land and areas in Alrest are on top of the backs of Titans who are slowly falling to their death into the Cloud Sea, leaving Alrest and its people at risk of being wiped out or left with ...

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...

As someone who tends to prefer modern graphics over the old-school JRPG kind, you can imagine my surprise when I found Project Octopath Traveler’s demo impressing me. Don't be fooled by its 16-bit art style; Project Octopath Traveler boasts the polish of a current gen title in every way it should, from its well-written engaging preview at its story to a fun battle system that makes simple strategic additions to the turn-based system I already loved. As a game that was nowhere to be seen on my radar prior to this demo, this introduction to Project Octopath Traveler puts its best foot forward and shows an intriguing concept with a well done delivery so far. Feel free to watch the video version here! You could be forgiven for thinking Project Octopath Traveler is a strange word choice for this working title, but it makes sense when you consider its concept. With ‘octo’ signifying the number eight, Project Octopath Traveler gives the player a choice of one of eight different heroes sto...