Jrpg Jungle

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...

I knew nothing about the God Wars series when I jumped into the Japanese demo of God Wars: Future Past. Other than vaguely hearing that it was a JRPG, I was mostly drawn to it from its gorgeous animation style and its old Japan aesthetic. As usual, my limited Japanese kept me from getting any major context from the story, but it seems to be based around Japanese folklore, with a beautiful princess and a journey that had me visiting multiple places in the demo alone. Mixed with a tactical battle system with its own unique twist and pretty visuals, my look at God Wars: Future Past has at the very least made me curious about it. Feel free to watch the video version here! After comparing what I thought the story was to the press release, turns out I wasn't that far off. Future Past’s demo opens with the Queen of the story’s land of Mizuho sacrificing one of her daughters to calm the spirits that the people of Mizuho had been neglecting. Neglecting the spirits had seen them begin to giv...

Confession time: I didn’t know if I really wanted World of Final Fantasy when it was announced. While the idea of a cute Final Fantasy aimed at a younger and broader audience sounded interesting, it didn’t appeal to me much as a fan of the main Final Fantasy games. But World of Final Fantasy's trailers and character announcements thankfully kept my curiosity, because it ended up being my favourite game from 2016 and one of the best JRPGs I’ve played in a long time. With cute and charming characters old and new, and a surprisingly complex monster-hunting system incorporating all the memorable Final Fantasy creatures fans know and love, World of Final Fantasy is a must-play for JRPG and Final Fantasy fans looking for a fun and more traditional Final Fantasy adventure. What sets World of Final Fantasy apart from most Final Fantasy games is that it includes new characters alongside characters from other Final Fantasy games, all in the intriguing world of Grymoire. This mysterious wor...

World of Final Fantasy features an interesting new concept for Final Fantasy games in the form of monster capture. While World of Final Fantasy’s gameplay is closer to more traditional Final Fantasy games, Imprisming monsters (known in World of Final Fantasy as Mirages) and using them in battle by making a stack is a very new mechanic to the Final Fantasy world. The best part of this is the Monster Stacking isn’t just visual: monsters are helpful in many ways in World of Final Fantasy and collecting a variety monsters and abilities makes the monster hunt a highly useful new mechanic. Being able to use both friendly and enemy monsters in battles serves as a fun new concept for past Final Fantasy fans and a great way to introduce the famous Behemoths, Tonberries and Moogles to those new to Final Fantasy. Monster Capture may be a new concept to Final Fantasy, but the series isn’t a total stranger to having monsters in your party. After all, most Final Fantasy games include a Summom mechan...

As much as I love video games, I don’t claim to be the best at gaming. While I can pick up most mechanics, my varying degree of skill with some games has made me no stranger to the Game Over screen and I've had to hit the Retry button in some of my most played games (such as my complete inability to complete the Omega Ruins in Final Fantasy X). Recently I’ve been playing the Roguelike JRPG Sorcery Saga: The Curse of the Great Curry God, a fun but tough dungeon crawler that has found me sent back to its town without my items on multiple occasions with a small bit of my dungeon confidence eaten away. This made me think back to some of the many fails I’ve had while playing JRPGs and while these are only a small selection, these are some of the biggest fails I’ve had while playing or more accurately, times I’ve had my ass kicked while playing JRPGs. Note: I’ve kept spoilers to a minimum by mostly not mentioning boss names and story circumstances, but there are some minor spoilers about...