Saturday 10 January 2015

Five New Years Resolutions For Gaming in 2015!!

People usually make New Years Resolutions for life improvement things, like 'lose weight!', 'learn a new language' or 'be a better person'. Of course, you should work on your goals whenever you want and if that's on New Years Day, then good for you. For the sake of this blog, I wanted to do something much more fun and game related. This is 10 days late, but this year let's strive to better our gaming habits with five Video Game New Years Resolutions! Below are mine and you can add yours in the comments below. Happy 2015, friends!


1. Platinum Final Fantasy X HD



I've had this goal since I was in primary school to completely finish Final Fantasy X and have always become overwhelm by the massiveness of the game. When I say 'finished', I'm talking with the ultimate weapons, all Aeons obtained, completed sphere grids for all characters and everything else. I always got part way through this goal multiple times, but never achieved it. This time though, there are platinum trophies to be won and to document my progress, which for me is honestly a game changer. I will complete this goal....Then cry over the total amount of hours I've spent in this game in my whole life.

2. Play a native Japanese RPG from start to finish




I've been studying Japanese on a serious level for over a year now and I'm actually heading to Tokyo later this month for a few months. Let's just say if that doesn't improve my Japanese, then I have no idea what will.

The existence of this blog is a testimony to my love of Japanese RPGs but I want to take my relationship with these wonderful games to the next level. I want to play at least one JRPG that hasn't been localised. And not just play it for a little bit - from start to finish. I've played bits and pieces of old Japanese Gameboy games and Visual Novels and it's a struggle that involves a lot of dictionary use and note taking, so this will not only allow me to play games I've always wanted to play but couldn't, but will hopefully improve my Japanese even more. Learning can be fun!

So far, I'm tossing up between Ciel nosurge or Persona 5, depending on how far apart the English release of Persona 5 is from the Japanese one. I've already started playing through/translating the demo version of Nekopara Vol. 1 (Steam Version) for my own personal use and it's taking awhile, meaning this goal will probably take me most of the year to complete. I should get started soon!

3. Chip away at my backlog




Probably an impossible goal to fully complete, but I would love to delve into my backlog of games collecting physical and digital dust. Along with free Playstation Plus games I've been saving up throughout a one year subscription, I have gems such as Catherine and Persona 2 to start, Persona 3 and Tales of Xillia to finish and I don't even want to think about the rest. Most of you will understand this big task, but I don't buy games to sit on my shelf. Let's get playing!

4. Play more PS4 games




I'm hoping this year's release schedule fixes this, but my PS4 is collecting dust and I don't like it. I'm taking it with me to Japan, so games like Omega Quintet will no doubt end up in my possession, but I'm also thinking of trying some of the various indie games available on the PSN. I'm sure there's some gems I'm missing out on, so comment below if you know anything I should try!

5. Buy a 3DS XL




I've wanted a 3DS for awhile, although I feel like I'm two timing my Vita a little. In saying that it's not like I drive so I always have more time than most for handheld gaming in my commute and variety is never a bad thing. I really want to play Bravely Default and Persona Q, along with all of the Pokemon games I've been missing out on since the Gameboy Colour was out of style.

I've never actually purchased a Nintendo console with my own money. I'm quite thoroughly a Playstation person, but I love and respect Nintendo's creativity and am keen to get involved. Fingers crossed I find a good bundle in Japan!

Bonus: Blog about all of the above things and film some videos.

I've been wanting to get the confidence and equipment to make videos and expand this blog for awhile and I should really just DO IT. I'm gonna wait till during my Japan trip, so if you're interested in unboxing or gameplay videos from a JRPG perspective, please let me know! It'll motivate me more than I can say!

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Got your own video game resolutions for 2015?
I'd love to hear yours, so comment below or send a tweet to @JRPGJungle. Thanks always for reading!

4 comments:

  1. I ran across your site while looking for JRPG blogs, this is a wonderful list of JRPG resolutions! The year is almost 3/4ths over, so how are they coming along so far?

    Personally I'm having a hard time working away at my backlog - it seems like when things get tossed on the backlog, they're doomed to never be completed.

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    1. Hey there! Thank you so much for the read and the comment!

      They're going okay, so far I'm guessing I'll complete at least 2/5 of the resolutions. I hoped to complete them all of course, but life seems to happen to my gaming time sometimes unfortunately.

      I'm definitely coming up to finally buying a 3DS which will be good, so I hope to accomplish that by the end of year. I'm also chipping away at the backlog little by little, even if I haven't played the games I mentioned in this article (Catherine, Persona 2 and 3 and Tales of Xillia). I just finished Final Fantasy IX (which I hope to finish writing a review for soon) and I'm playing through Conception II properly right now. Playing through the backlog has probably been the most rewarding part of attempting these resolutions - I love new games as much as the next person which makes it easy to forget about classics worth going back to.

      As for playing a native JRPG and platinuming Final Fantasy X, I thinking about making Final Fantasy X the native JRPG I play through to try hit both of these goals, although I'm not confident I'll finish doing so by the end of the year because it seems to take me a long time to mentally translate/understand even one chapter of a game (tried with both Ciel no Surge and Persona 4 Dancing All Night - not even halfway through the openings on both).
      Definitely also want to pick up my PS4 more - I love it so much, but my backlog is mostly PS3 and Vita. I should really pick up J-Stars Victory or something!

      I will be sure to check out your blog also - thanks again for stopping by! :)
      -Tara/JRPGJungle

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    2. I only got a 3DS recently myself, mainly for Stella Glow, Fire Emblem and 7th Dragon. It's a neat handheld, but the 3D hurts my eyes after an hour or so. I'm glad you can turn it off when needed.

      I think playing a game that you're familiar with in English (Final Fantasy X) in Japanese is a great way to get practice. In your mind you probably already know what the lines are in English so it's like having mental subtitles in case you get stuck. I did the same thing a few years back with some of my old favorites like Final Fantasy VI.

      My PS4 isn't seeing much use either, but I'm hoping that the upcoming games in the end of 2015 finally make it worth the purchase. I have faith in Gust so I'm hoping for good games in Yoru no Nai Kuni and Atelier Sophie.

      I'm new to blogging (and navigating all the various commenting systems like Disqus and Google+ OpenID stuff). When I was searching for other JRPG blogs it seemed like a lot of the top google results were mostly dead sites that hadn't been updated in a long time, so it's good to see other alive sites. I'll be sure to follow your site from now on. Good luck on the rest of your 2015 goals!

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    3. That's interesting about the 3D, I'm very curious about it because it's such a unique and cool concept in theory, but most people seem to agree it's a pain on the eyes. I really want to try the Fire Emblem series and finally play Persona Q, so I'm excited to get one soon :)

      That's a very good true about playing a familiar game in Japanese. I actually do that with manga series (like Danganronpa) and it does work really well, so it's probably the way to go. And it will be pretty amusing to hear the infamous 'HAHAHA' scene in FFX in Japanese. Also, thank you for reminding me I still need to play FFVI. haha

      I'll be following your site too, it's definitely rare to see another active JRPG site. Good luck with your site and thanks for stopping by, JRPG friend! :)

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