Jrpg Jungle

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 ...

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker’s Memory is both new and a return to what some may know from the original Cyber Sleuth game. It’s new with its own unique and fleshed out story that is set on a familiar backdrop to anyone who played the last game. It features the same monster collecting system that was already great with a few new digital faces that fight with a both an old and new exciting battle system, all to a cool electronic soundtrack that has been remixed more than it’s been recomposed. But if you’re anything like me and have been looking for an excuse to return to Cyber Sleuth somehow, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker’s Memory makes it well worth it because despite its familiarity, what it adds in both story and gameplay takes an old game and makes it better. Hacker’s Memory is set in the Tokyo some may know from the original Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth game, an advanced reality that also utilises a digital world called EDEN where people can meet online face-to-face l...

If you’re anything like me, anything described as a magical girl JRPG mixed with Persona is almost guaranteed to be something I’ll be interested in. This was how I heard people describing Blue Reflection before I bought it and pretty much sealed the deal for me getting it, but I didn’t realise just how many similarities there would be. When I began to really see these similarities in Blue Reflection, I became a little skeptic at first. While the idea of magical girl Persona was why I bought it, I’m usually not interested in something that blatantly rips off story ideas. Luckily Blue Reflection for the most part makes the ideas it seems to have borrowed original, but I found the similarities interesting nonetheless, so I wanted to talk about the parallels between Blue Reflection and Persona 5 and how the two good games are similar, yet different. Dungeon Premise Blue Reflection and Persona 5 both share the concept of big dungeons created from people’s joint hearts and shared state of ...

Taking my time with games like Persona 2 and Kingdom Hearts at the moment has made me remember something about myself: I’m not the best at playing games over a long period of time. I fall in and out of wanting to play them, trying other smaller experiences in between, even if I'm enjoying what I'm playing. Mix it in with life taking up time and it really prolongs my time with certain games. Attempting to get my reviews out faster this year has seen me play and finish some great JRPGs more quickly, proving the fact that if I immerse myself in a game, I'm more likely to enjoy it or more quickly find out which games I'd grow tired of. No matter how long I take to play games nowadays, there are a few games I can look back on and say I temporarily ruined them for myself by playing them at a slow pace and this list is just a few of them. Final Fantasy XII I must have tried to play Final Fantasy XII at least two or three times between high school and university. What usually h...

Blue Reflection promises a lot at first glance by seemingly drawing inspiration from popular series like Persona, along with taking the wonderful high school magical girl trope into JRPG land. As a magical girl JRPG, it succeeds in a lot of ways with its enjoyable combination of a traditional turn-based battle system combined with active elements and a unique overdrive mechanic. In school life, it's an enjoyable social sim with clear progression that encourages exploration, even if it can feel a little repetitive sometimes. But this didn’t bother me much as between school and magical girl life, Blue Reflection’s enchanting story about emotions and wishes kept me fully engrossed and although it is not without imperfections, there’s a lot to love in this story heavy, magical girl JRPG. Blue Reflection’s emotional story follows the worthy protagonist Hinako, a high school girl previously known for her ballet prowess that has injured her knee badly, preventing her from being able to da...

During September, apart from playing some of the usual suspects and small bits of other games, I felt like I was playing the waiting game. The first new release I was picking up since God Wars: Future Past was coming out at the end of September and since I missed playing new stuff, I was really excited and spent most of the month anticipating that fateful day. But I couldn’t just play nothing until then, so I did my best to get into the games I’ve been trying to complete throughout the year, along with some DLC and demos to satisfy the need to play something new. With a mix of various series I love and new ones I hope will keep me interested, here are the JRPGs I played in September. Feel free to watch the video version here! JRPG of the month: Persona 2 I’ve been waiting for a while, but I’m please to say Persona 2’s story has finally hooked me. After a tension-filled timed dungeon and another that revealed a big secret about what was going on in the story, I find myself ready to pla...

With its beautiful art style, tactical gameplay with some unique ideas and a mythological story, God Wars: Future Past seemed like a promising tactical JRPG after playing its Japanese demo . In reality, my time with the full version of God Wars: Future Past was a lot more mixed. I enjoyed improving my tactical strategies in its many truly challenging battles, but paired with imperfections in other areas and the battles themselves, I walked away from God Wars feeling very different to how I thought I would. Still, the 50 hour plus experience was fairly interesting to watch grow, even if it’s not the first tactical JRPG I’d recommend, and saw me in some of the toughest tactical JRPG battles I’ve ever faced, for better and worse. Feel free to watch the video version here! God Wars: Future Past at its core is a tactical JRPG with a story based off Japanese folktales that I’m not overly familiar with, but was interested to learn about. The story is led by Kaguya, a princess who had been lo...