Jrpg Jungle

While stories about war aren’t typically something I enjoy, Valkyria Chronicles 4’s complex tactical battles and characters may have found a way to make this one interesting for me. As someone new to the Valkyria Chronicles series, I was pleased to see its tactical battle system that combines turn-based and action gameplay well felt as smooth to play as it looked in trailers and combined the two styles well, along with its artstyle and many deep mechanics making the experience stand out from other tactical experiences. Topped off with a narrative that keeps things feeling light-hearted enough in a story with a serious premise, Valkyria Chronicles 4 is a great tactical experience so far and left me much more keen to try its full game next month as a new player of the series. Valkyria Chronicles 4 is set in what it calls the Second Europan War where the Imperial and Federal Armies are at war due to the scarcity of a rare material called Ragnite that both sides of its continent of Europa ...

As a Slice-of-Life JRPG, Atelier Lydie and Suelle brings something different to the JRPG genre. It focuses on collection and synthesis as its main mechanics, partnered with a light-hearted story that managed to turn what could be a sad story about two girls without a mother into one with plenty of humour and lively characters that make it standout from other JRPGs. Although its pacing felt a little slow at times, Atelier Lydie and Suelle ’s deep synthesis systems and fun story made it an experience that was pleasant to play and with lots of side events still waiting for me, there’s plenty to do in this fun, collection-based JRPG. Atelier Lydie and Suelle is based around the two girls from its title: the smart, slightly older twin Lydie and the fun, energetic Suelle who have big goals of making their Atelier the greatest one in the country. At first this is a lofty goal with their lack of alchemy skills resulting in lackluster creations and their Dad’s unreliable nature as their onl...

I’d always been interested in the Atelier series for its pretty art style, but there seems to be more to Atelier Lydie and Suelle than its pretty paintings. Atelier Lydie and Suelle’s delightful looking world contains plenty to collect and find to synthesise and make items with, with the charming and well-designed characters backed by interesting alchemy systems. While the Japanese PS4 demo was a mostly visual experience for me, the world and alchemy systems of Lydie and Suelle have kept me curious about this new addition to the Atelier series. Atelier Lydie and Suelle is based around two young twin alchemists called Lydie and Suelle who work at their father’s small Atelier. The two girls, the fun tomboy Suelle and the quiet and kind Lydie, share a common goal: they want to turn their Atelier into the best one in the country. This goal is set in motion when one day they somehow end up inside one of their father’s paintings with many rare and wonderful ingredients for alchemy at their d...

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...

A big four-games-in-one experience like .hack//G.U. Last Recode has the potential to fall down at some point in its long journey. As a package of three games that were released separately when they first came out with a brand new experience on top, I initially wondered if they’d work well played back-to-back, as well as how a much newer addition to the series would feel beside the older ones. Luckily for Last Recode, each volume contained plenty of new things and variation to keep things interesting, with each feeling like a new chapter for the characters and story growing in each one, building to a big story journey that felt very complete. With engaging reactive combat on top and a story with plenty of character growth, Last Recode’s smoothness makes .Hack//G.U. pass the test of time well and is an old story I’m glad I could experience in its upgraded form. .hack//G.U.’s story is based inside an online game called The World R:2, a popular MMORPG that the protagonist Haseo is trying f...

Since playing games on PS4 , I’ve really come to appreciate how far graphics have come and just how beautiful some games can look. Even the simplest games are expected to look polished and pretty, and I really enjoy games that go the extra mile to make their menus, text dialogues and cutscenes all look like cohesive, good-looking experiences. Most JRPGs incorporate nice art is some way, with the expectation of nice anime visuals and character art often being a minimum for these kinds of games. The games I’m talking about today take this to the next level, whether it be with their art style, cohesiveness or beauty that make them just as fun to look at as they are to play. World of Final Fantasy Modern Final Fantasy games are generally really nice looking, with well-rendered 3D models and landscapes. Yet in all the modern graphics, World of Final Fantasy is the most visually appealing Final Fantasy game for me. The chibi characters are all adorable and the consistent animation style thro...