Since 2015, it’s been my own tradition to make a few JRPG resolutions to improve my gaming life for the year ahead. I do this to encourage myself to play the experiences I think I don’t have time for and to finally catch up with any JRPG urges I had throughout the previous year that I didn’t take the time to cater to. These resolutions always come with
mixed levels of success, but they always help me improve my gaming time and are a fun way to start planning what I want to play each year. While keeping up with new releases is a challenge in itself, there are a few things in my JRPG life I’ve been wanting to do since I found some new things I liked last year and also things I’ve been wanting do for a while and never got around to. With those things in mind, these are my three JRPG resolutions for 2018.
1) Play an Atelier game
In 2014, I saw the trailer for
Ar nosurge and was flawed by it. First from its music, then from its stunning visuals and all together with its interesting premise about planets it became a must-buy JRPG for me back when I rarely bought JRPGs at release. Ar nosurge wasn’t perfect, but its deep social systems and story were different to a lot the JRPGs I was used to and sparked my interest in Gust as a JRPG Developer. Last year I played another Gust game called
Blue Reflection and it ended up being one of my favourite JRPGs of last year thanks to its great story and unique combination of magical girl RPG with social sim elements similar to other games I know and love, and served as a reminder that Gust makes games that interest me.
One of Gust’s biggest game series is the Atelier series and I’ve had my eye on it for a while but have never actually dedicated the time to playing one of the many parts of its series. With Atelier Lydie and Suelle coming out in English this year and its Japanese demo being free and already out, I’m confident this goal will probably be done and I can finally play the pretty visuals I’m attracted to whenever I see them.
2) Platinum or 100% one of my top games of 2017
2017 was a fantastic year for JRPGs and
my five favourites from it are some I really love and want to come back to. Whether it be for extra social moments I haven’t seen yet or the incredible replayability in some of the titles I loved last year, while I spent many many hours with all of them there is still plenty to see and I want to dive even deeper into them. An obvious choice for this would be
Persona 5 since I’ve had intentions to platinum it even before I got it in English, but even shorter games like Blue Reflection have things I just didn’t get to that would give me a deeper insight into its story. Since I’m still finishing up Xenoblade Chronicles 2 I’m not sure which game I’ll do this with yet, but there are definitely some worlds I’d like to go more into and this goal will be my perfect excuse to hopefully do so.
3) Replay an old favourite JRPG
Throughout 2017, I had a few really random JRPG cravings of sorts. Old games I loved like
Persona 4 Golden, Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Kingdom Hearts II popped into my mind at random points during the year, but I had no time to play them (writing the first resolution is also making me want to play Ar nosurge again!). I want to pick a game I used to love and regardless of whether I’ve platinumed or 100%-ed it in the past and I want to replay it just because I like it to re-witness the story and remember why I loved it so much in the first place. I don’t have a solid idea for which game I’ll do this with yet other than the ones I mentioned, but I’m really excited to re-get to know an old favourite all over again and be reminded of one of the many experiences that made me fall in love with the wonderful JRPG genre.
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What are your JRPG goals or resolutions for this year?
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Nice resolutions. Any desire to play Radiant Historia remake?
ReplyDeleteDesire is there! I don't know if I'll play it right away as my plan for February is the SAO: Fatal Bullet game atm, but it does look really interesting from what I've seen. Hopefully I'll get to it sometime!
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