Jrpg Jungle

There was a time when smartphone JRPGs meant something to me. Whether it was being able to have a free, immersive experience with me on the go or having something to play when I didn’t bring my portable consoles out as much, smartphone games were a part of my life in lunch breaks and train trips and I was pretty addicted to certain ones like Final Fantasy Record Keeper . As much as I enjoyed these experiences, I fell out of them sometime last year when I became overwhelmed with the amount there were to play and started bringing consoles like my Vita and Switch out with me more in preference of bigger experiences with a concrete beginning and end, despite still enjoying them from time to time. I’ve still kept smartphone games on my phone though, as they’re still enjoyable for their collection systems, bite-sized stories and gameplay tributes to console games I love just in pocket form, so here are some smartphone games I used to play that as I play more big experiences I sometimes wish ...

I don’t know about you, but when I think of the JRPG genre, the Yakuza series isn’t one of the first that comes to mind. Before that are usually the many fantasy games with deep stories, combat and worlds that the genre is widely known for, such as Final Fantasy and Persona, so if you haven’t tried the Yakuza games, you may be surprised to hear that Yakuza shares more in common with them than you think. When I downloaded Yakuza 6’s demo and played its first few hours, I expected to be running around in an open world, running into fights along the way in a plot with a rough tone but what I didn’t expect was a moving emotional story that can rival some of the big current JRPG stories well. Combined with JRPG systems and a big world, Yakuza 6 is a JRPG that appealed to me way more than I would have expected and has completely drawn me in with its well-written introduction to its story. After watching others talk about Yakuza 6’s wacky mini-games, I decided to download Yakuza 6's demo ...

Have you ever been stuck at a point in the story of a JRPG and needed somewhere you can level up quickly but all the random battles are giving either too little EXP or are frustratingly difficult? I know it’s happened to me too many times. In .Hack//G.U. Last Recode though, this is an issue I haven’t experienced once, thanks to its convenient and forgiving dungeon creation system through Area Words that create custom dungeons tailored to the parameters of the words you used. Whether I’ve been under leveled or wanted to be safe before going into battle, .Hack//G.U. Last Recode’s innovative way to unlock dungeons both in and out of the story have been incredibly useful for leveling between story moments and I’m appreciative of how they’ve kept Last Recode both challenging, yet frustration-free. In .Hack//G.U., Area Words are used to create dungeons and other areas based on the combination of words, whether it be for story moments, quests or for leveling. After I noticed characters freque...