JRPGs I Played in May 2018

As much I enjoyed playing video games in May, my gaming time in May mostly didn’t go how I expected it to. I started my month playing two portable Persona games as I’d planned to, although not as much as I wanted to. Then I played Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time and was much more mixed about it than I expected to be. Thankfully at the end of the month though, I had two games that caught my attention in the right way and put me in good JRPG spirits going into June. So although I only played a few games this month compared to other months again, here are the JRPGs I played in May.

Chibi Blazblue Game "Clone Phantasma" Will Be Out August 21st In The US

With a different feel compared to the original Blazblue series, Arc System Works will be releasing the chibi brawler Blazblue: Clone Phantasma on August 21st (so in a few days) on the Nintendo eShop. Blazblue: Clone Phantasma will feature a Story Mode and a Challenge Mode that has you battling as many enemies as you can to unlock characters. Speaking of characters, Clone Phantasma will feature 10 characters from the original Blazblue series in chibi form.

Blazblue: Clone Phantasma will cost $5.99 for US Players. The official website can be viewed here.

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Which Blazblue character will look best in chibi form (I would vote Tager, but he doesn't seem to be in the game :( )? Comment below or send a tweet to @JRPGJungle and let us know!

Have a story about a Japanese game or something else you think we should cover? Email jrpgjungle@gmail.com to let us know!

Review - Blazblue: Continuum Shift Extend (PS Vita)

Blazblue: Continuum Shift Extend may be two years old and have a sequel, but there's nothing dated about this 'everything but the kitchen sink' fighting game by Arc System Works. For both fighting game masters and casual fighter fans, Continuum Shift Extend packs not only a brilliant and complicated fighting game into a little cartridge, it manages to also introduce a killer, console sized story for on-the-go gamers. The best way I can sum up my experience with Blazblue: Continuum Shift Extend? I came for the slick fighting game and stayed for the intricate story.

For those new to Blazblue and Arc System Works fighting games, Blazblue is a 2D anime fighter that stays true to the 'easy to play, difficult to master' arcade terminology that you might have heard of. If you enjoy fighting games just for fun and aren't interested in combos, you'll enjoy Blazblue, particularly in Stylish Mode which allows your to perform powerful combos by holding down a single button. Fans of the technicality will be beyond pleased by the variety of characters and the variety of combos available. The diverse roster of characters gives something to everyone who plays Blazblue - for example, characters like Hakuman, Platinum the Trinity and Ragna the Bloodedge all provide completely different ways to play and different combos and finishing moves to master. All characters have different weapons and even species types help give all the characters a vastly unique style. My favourite character in the game's story was Makoto and her fast, fist based style was cool but I was much more inclined to play as Noel because using her guns were a lot more fun. I like that this is how I felt inclined to play, as most other fighting games I just end up playing as my favourite character.

Personally, my only problem with playing this stellar fighting game was my beloved PS Vita. The controls of the Vita are significantly smaller than a PS3 controller and I just couldn't use the D-Pad or the Analog stick efficiently and precisely enough to do some of the harder combos and even something simple like getting my character to 'dash' to the other side of the screen was hard. I'd like to give my Vita the benefit of the doubt as I never have been (and probably never will be) a remarkably skilled fighting game player however from doing a little Google search, I found that there are other players with this issue. The game was originally a PS3 game, so after my good experience with Continuum Shift Extend on Vita, it does make me wonder if I could have a great experience playing it on PS3 instead.

If Blazblue's fighting game mechanics weren't deep enough, prepare for a long, intricate story, complete with anime cutscenes and lots of dialogue. There are 18 character stories, true ending, bonus content and the prequel Blazblue Calamity Trigger's story remastered. It is a huge story to get through, especially if you're looking to unlock the true ending. I spent many train rides trying to do this and discovering all the heroic and colourful characters of the Blazblue universe. Each character's story is told from their point of view so a serious story such as Jin Kisaragi's will constrast heavily with Taokaka's more humourous approach based purely on their personality. Each individual story provides plot choices for the player much and in the game's brilliance, will provide different endings dependent on this including hilarious gag reels and bad endings. It reminded me of a visual novel, but with fights. The length of each characters story was usually around half an hour to an hour in length, which I think is rather admirable when compared to other fighting games.

For players new to the Blazblue series, I highly recommend taking advantage of the included remastered Calamity Trigger story. It really helped fill in some of the gaps in the new story of Continuum Shift and various characters' individual stories. For those who have already played Calamity Trigger, you can look forward to a remastered version of the story you remember.

On the topic of story mode, Continuum Shift Extend's soundtrack really packs a punch and heightens epic scenes with it's combination of heavy rock and atmospheric music. What I didn't appreciate from the game's sound was it's tendency to turn up the music to double the volume (and consequently turn down the voiced dialogue) whenever I unlocked my Vita or while doing something simple like viewing the time on my Vita and then re-entering the game's app. The music would only put itself back to a normal volume (and turn the dialogue up to a normal sound level again) at the next 'looping' of whichever song was featured in the scene. This isn't a huge game-breaking issue and doesn't effect the overall feeling of positivity I have for the game, but it's a two year old game. I don't understand why a patch hasn't been released for this as I'm not the only one with this problem.

See this screenshot I took? The volume turned up after.

Along with story mode and arcade mode, Blazblue also features some unique fighting gameplay modes of it's own. Along with your typical versus, score game and network features, it features Unlimited Mars, Challenge and Abyss. Unlimited Mars is a mode where you fight characters that are controlled from a ridiculously hard A.I. that is a challenge for players of all skill levels (I had no success playing that mode). Challenge is basically a training mini game that challenges you to perform various combo sequences. Abyss was my favourite of Blazblue's unique fighting modes: You progress through difficulty levels and have the option of using your in game points to buy special attacks and stat boosts for whichever character you choose. It also doesn't fully heal you every battle, so you have to think about how you'll use your points - whether you'll need them on healing or can afford the luxury of a stat boost to get you through some of the harder levels.

While I do think I would have a better experience on the home console edition, Blazblue: Continuum Shift Extend fits a mammoth experience onto the PS Vita that would be worthwhile to any fighting game fan on the go. If you like fun characters, an epic story and a solid and fun fighting game, your PS Vita needs Blazblue: Continuum Shift Extend.

Score: 8/10
Played on and off over the last year and properly dedicated myself to it's story mode for a month.

Blazblue: Continuum Shift Extend is available now at Play-Asia.com.

Please note: I have not played the other Blazblue titles such as Calamity Trigger or the more recent Chrono Phantasma, but my playthrough of Continuum Shift was enjoyable enough to make me want to. If playing Calamity Trigger ever alters my opinion on Continuum Shift, I will update this review.

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BlazBlue....the Card Game?!

In a completely unexpected turn of events, Alliance Digital Media will be releasing the official BlazBlue Battle Card game for iOS in Fall 2014 (Australian Spring). It is worth noting this game is the first BlazBlue game that will not need localisation as it will be developed in English.

The card game will allow players to play online and will have leaderboards. Not much of the gameplay has been revealed, but in the trailer you can see the characters special combo's displayed as cards and the layout of the game looks very similar to BlazBlue's console game fight layout.

Players will be given the option to choose from 12 characters. As you can see in the trailer below, Hazama and Ragna are (of course) in the game, so only time will tell who the rest of the characters will be (characters like Jin and Noel are probably a good bet).

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Sunday Musings: Remember That Time When Narcissu Broke Me?

Hey everyone!

This week was ridiculous and not really in a good way. I wish I could say it was because I got trashed, won the lottery and accidentally shaved my head, but that wasn't really it. Instead I went to work, worked my butt off outside of work and weeped like a wounded animal when I finished reading Narcissu 1.

I also posted my review on Child of Light this week (I loved it!) and there wasn't a heap of news to cover. I feel E3 brewing something. I would love to think it's Persona 5. Please E3, give us a longer trailer!

You know you want it.

May next week be full of more JRPGs, kinder bosses, no late work hours, sleep and smiles. And winning the lottery so I can buy even more JRPGs.

Games I Played This Week!!

Blazblue Continuum Shift Extend (PS Vita. Available on PS3, X360 and PC)

All Blazblue games have amazing posters. Fact.

I 100% completed Makoto's story, which was brilliant by the way. Everyone, please watch her family scene. It's totally ridiculous and that's exactly why you need to see it.

Getting 100% completion in Makoto's storyline put me on a very big sidetrack - I realised this game wasn't Persona 4 Arena and I didn't have to unlock more characters to get 100% on characters. So the completionist in me went on a crazy rampage through Ragna and Noel's stories before I realised that deep down I just wanted the true ending. I am sorry Blazblue true ending, I'm coming for you!

Narcissu - Side 1 and 2 (PC, free on Steam!)

I feel really sorry for my boyfriend. There we were, lying in bed Tuesday night. He was reading his book and I had my laptop out to read Narcissu. This was probably a really nice peaceful moment. Then I got to the end of Narcissu. Then I became a ball of snot, tears and sniffles that only got louder the more I tried to suppress them.

The thing about the ending is the entire story sets you up for it. You know exactly what's going to happen really early on. I think the anticipation made it worse but it was still a good read. I'm reading the second one now. So far, no tears.

Final Fantasy X HD (Available on PS3 and Vita. And in non-HD, on PS2)

I'm in the last part of the game and I'm getting destroyed and punished for the JRPG sin (no pun intended) I have committed - no level grinding. I KNOW I KNOW - It's half the reason to play these kinds of games right?!

Honestly, I got excited to play X-2, so I didn't grind. It was a mistake. Now I'm stuck on the first of the last bosses, getting slowly destroyed. I am however making more strategical decisions in battle and I hope this is making me a better gamer.

Steins;Gate (in Japanese on iOS. Also available on PS3 and PS Vita)

This week I translated two sentences in one session. I felt like a Japanese god. (I'm not)

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Also, worth noting - this blog is now on Twitter as @JRPGJungle! Please follow for updates on posts and random posts about what I'm playing. Let me know what you played in the comments or on Twitter!

I'm looking to review more games as well - if any of you would like to tweet me or email me (jrpgjungle@gmail.com) games you would like reviewed, please do and I'll do my best to make it happen if I get enough requests. I'd love to have a big, healthy database of JRPG reviews to help you guys find games and I always happy to play a JRPG for the greater good of my readers.

Have a lovely week everyone!

-Tara

PSN: guittaraxx

Awesome Blazblue T-Shirts!

If you've ever wanted a T-shirt with Rachel, Taokaka, Jin, Makoto or the NOL symbol to show off your Blazblue pride, you're now in luck!

Eighty Sixed Clothing has put up five different Blazblue T-Shirt designs at the extremely reasonable price of $19.95. Each come in many different colours and size small to 3XL.

Get them here! My personal favourite is the NOL symbal. So subtle, yet so cool.

Sunday Musing's: I finished Child of Light!!! Back to Final Fantasy X HD

Welcome to my Sunday Musings!

This week was a good week - I only worked three days, I played more games and I feel more relaxed then I have for the last two weeks, even though there was a lot of JRPG news to cover on here. I actually have to be careful about feeling relaxed - I start to become lazy and find it hard to focus. I need to balance my work and play. But I love playing!

Since I don't really have anything 'social' to talk about this week, here are the games I played. And good news: it's a lot more than previous weeks!

Child of Light (Played on PS4. Also available on PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC)

Can you believe it took me over two weeks to finish a twelve hour game? I need to get my priorities straight.

I won't spoil too much of my review right now, but I feel very positive about this game and I felt a little sad to finish it. Child of Light is a stunning experience, I'm so thankful that it exists to give such a fulfilling story to the people who play it. Seriously, just go play it - It's $20 and if you're reading this blog and love a good story, I don't think you'll regret it.

Oh and I got 100% in trophies. #justsaying

(You can read my somewhat more structured feelings about Child of Light in my First Impressions post)

Blazblue: Continuum Shift Extend (Played on PS Vita. Also available on PS3 and X360)

This week I finished Rachel and Jin's story modes and began Makoto's. And I still haven't unlocked the 'true' ending! I'm really enjoyed Jin's story, so far I feel his showed the opposite side of the story and even involved some battle handcapping which was challenging. Makoto will be interesting as she's one of the characters that were new to Blazblue in Continuum Shift Extend. But I really want to get to the end and see the rest of everyone's stories - Arc System Works' story modes are very good at creating suspense!

Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars (Played on PS Vita. Also available on 3DS)

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this game! Before downloading it, I truly thought the game's concept (no pun intended) of a dungeon crawling dating sim with classmating (Atlus definitely did intend for this pun) and giggly girls to be crazy. Too crazy, even for a JRPG! Conception II so far isn't a groundbreaking game, but it is fun and humourous and I want to buy the full version. Try the demo on PSN if you haven't already!

(You can read more about my feelings on Conception II at my Demo Review/First Impressions post...complete with screenshots!)

Steins;Gate (iOS)

Barely worth mentioning this week, but I thought I would anyway. I got through one line of translating and finally got up to Okabe saying something. This will not be a short playthrough, that's for sure.

Cherry Tree High Comedy Club (PC via Steam)

Alright, here's where things get slightly more interesting. I had a crazy urge to read a Visual Novel yesterday! I have no idea where it came from but it was there and it was powerful. This also resulted in my finding the Visual Novel Database this week.

Anyway, I began the free demo of Cherry Tree High Comedy Club and played for about 15 minutes. It reminds me a bit of Persona with it's activities - you have lunchtime, afternoon and the evening as the time periods of a day where you choose what you can do. The things you do during these times either raise stats or help get someone to join your club. Your stats are basically what you can converse with other people about (music, video games, fashion etc.), which will ultimately help you get more people to join the comedy club. So far it's a cute concept, but I'm only 15 minutes in so I probably can't give a professional opinion yet. :)

Narcissu (PC Via Steam)

I daresay this is my first proper Visual Novel. I've played games with Visual Novel elements (Blazblue's story mode and a lot of the dialogue in JRPGs are good examples of this), but never just a pure visual novel. Narcissu is free on Steam and is a very moving story. The tale is through the perspective of a sick person who is admitted to hospital with not a lot of hope of living. However, instead of being constantly grim, the story is moving in another direction. I have no idea what's going to happen, but let's just say I'm hooked for now.

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What have you been playing this week? Did you play any of these games?

Next week I'll be back to Final Fantasy X HD. Maybe even tonight - I'm excited to get back to it. I love me some Final Fantasy! Have a good week everyone!

-Tara

PSN: guittaraxx

Sunday Musings #4: Mother's Day, @JRPGJungle and not enough time to play games

Ahoy hoy!

This last week feels like it took forever, yet I didn't have enough time. I actually spent a lot of my time brainstorming and working on ways to make this blog better! I'm really enjoying having more time to work on this site, but I'm trying to balance that time so I still have time to game. Obviously running this blog, I like JRPGs. This blog is pointless if I'm not playing them. But hopefully next week I can establish an improved routine!

If you use twitter, you may be pleased to know this blog now has a twitter: @JRPGJungle. Please follow us if you read the site! Not only does it help out, I'm hoping that it can help notify any readers of when new posts are up. The main reason I started this blog is because I didn't have any friends that were into JRPGs - this Twitter will also be where I put my random thoughts and musings while I game so please come hang out. :)

This weeks 'what I've been playing' is a tad short. I think I've found a way to adjust some of my time though so I have more time next week...which means more to report on! But anyway:

Child of Light (PS4)

I wish I could say I'm further into Child of Light, but I think I'm nearly halfway. This game is beautiful, honestly I said a lot of how I felt in my first impressions. I love flying in this game, I'm impressed by the combat and I'm really excited to see the story develop a little more.

Blazblue Continuum Extend (PS Vita)

I finished Taokaka's story and have begun Rachel's, with the above experience describing the funniest game dialogue I have possibly ever had the joy of witnessing.

I was somewhat let down by Taokaka's story to be honest. She's a cool character and I find her funny, but her story is a large step below Ragna's and Noel's in quality. I understand that Tao provides comic relief, but I think their attempt to try to give her a purpose could have been stronger and I really would've loved to have seen Tao develop more as a person.

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After a lovely Mother's Day with my family, I'm off to get ready for the week. I'm currently working on a few features and gaming a lot more. Let's hope I have more to say next week so this feature doesn't get boring. Please tell me what you have been playing so I can be jealous! :)

Happy mid-May!

Usually-Sunday-But-Today-Is-Not-Sunday Musings #3: What I've been playing, exclusivity and I am cold.

Hello everyone!

Sorry this is late. It's been a big week, full of unexpected change and not enough time. But at least Child of Light was good!

It's also very cold here in Australia and I have next to no winter clothes. Horray for preparation.

First off, I'm writing exclusively for this site again. That's right, no more WTFGamersOnly. I didn't have the time sadly and for me to continue doing the site justice, I would've had to focus on it completely and not do this blog, my songwriting and my Japanese studies. So I'm going to focus on here instead!

I learnt so much in my week there, so I'm really happy I did it. They are a wonderful group of people, so check the site out at: www.wtfgamersonly.com and if you wanted to read my articles that I did there, go here: http://www.wtfgamersonly.com/author/taraplaysgames/

This does however mean I can work to make the content that I put here the absolute best, so I hope to see a few more faces reading this blog if my hard work pays off. You may have also noticed I added a review page to this site to keep track of all the reviews and to make it easier for you readers. The review page currently looks pretty bare, which I am taking as an excuse to play more games.

Speaking of games!: What I've been playing:

Child of Light (PS4)

I have a lot of love for this game already. While I'll cover more in my First Impressions/Review, the combat system is so addictive. I'm on the edge of my seat in battle planning how to interrupt enemies. I really hope we see more of this system.

And obviously the fact that the game is breathtakingly beautiful always helps. But I'll save the rest for my first impressions!

Final Fantasy X HD (PS3)

Slight spoilers!

Lady Yunalesca currently has all of my rage. I got to Zanarkand, forgot how much thinking was required for the puzzles, realised I hadn't grinded enough during the first boss battle and then decided to face off with Lady Yunalesca.

I got to her third stage, then forgot to keep one of my characters in zombie at all times. She got me good.

Blazblue: Continnum Shift Extend (PS Vita)

On a total of 8 hours on the train on Sunday, between studying I finished Noel Vermillion's story and started Taokaka's. The story makes a lot more sense now and it's getting cool to see the stories intertwine. Also, Taokaka is such a cute and hilarious character.

It was very funny to be standing on the train last night and have a high definition screen of Tao grabbing one of the characters chest areas. In Australia PS Vita's not as common, so people tend to look over my shoulder a little. I hope this freaked someone out a little or amused them. :)

Steins;Gate (iOS)

Still translating veryyyy slowly. After I've translated chapter one, I think I'll try the english version. So far doing one screen a day has led to a very slow story and a lot of descriptive dialogue translated...and not a lot of actual dialogue. It's proving to be very effective at teaching Japanese grammar for adjectives though. I'm just greedy and want more story.

Bonus talking about gameness!

World of Warcraft (PC)

As you can tell from most of my posts, I'm really not much of a PC gamer. However my boyfriend was playing a lot of WOW, so I few weeks ago, I decided to try it. I played it three times and I'm wondering: is the game just fetch quests? I didn't find it nearly as entertaining as I did Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. I really missed the story elements and the visual style. Probably won't be going back to it, but feel free to comment and enlighten me to what I'm missing. I'm genuinely curious as to why this game is as popular as it is.


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I won't be buying an games in the next few weeks as I just got a bunch of free games from Playstation Plus and haven't even finished the games I've been talking about in this post. But anyone know of a good place to start in visual novels? I'd love to get more into them. BlazBlue's story format is similar to the visual novel format and it's so good for on the train.

Have a good week everyone!

News: This Week in Japan's game sales: Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment debuts on top!

The top selling game in Japan last week was Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment, selling a massive 145029 copies in it's first week. The game was followed by Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy which sold 80523 units.

A few other notable mentions are BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma debuting at number 7, with 10709 sales and a brilliantly titled game called 'I Thought it'd be Harem Paradise but it Turned Out Yandere Hell' selling 4101 and charting at number 18. I'm gonna go look up that game now.

You can read the rest of the charts at Siliconera.

Blazblue: Chrono Phantasma out now on PSN!

I swear I mentioned a couple of weeks ago I was bummed that I couldn't find Blazblue: Chrono Phantasma anywhere in Australia (I couldn't find the post...but I remember typing it somewhere!). Well, I'm a little late to the party here, but Blazblue: Chrono Phantasma was put on PSN for us all to enjoy as of last week!

And on topic: How amazing is the promo poster?!

This is the third installment of the Blazblue series. So far the game is on PS3, but it is due out on PS Vita as well in June in the US. The PS Vita games are region free, so if you want to wait for the Vita version, you can pre-order on Play Asia.

If you're not familiar with the world of BlazBlue, BlazBlue is a 2D fighter game, with fighting mechanics by Arc System works. I've always felt the games fit very well with the philosophy of arcade games: easy to play, but difficult to master. Each character has different combos and special abilities, so you can spend a lot of time getting good at different characters. If that seems like too much, don't worry, I barely know any combos and the game is still fun. The game also has a big story mode (although I've heard it's a little smaller in Chrono Phantasma) with a complicated story line spanning over multiple time lines.

Anyone else planning to pick this up? I'm still on my PS3 game ban till Australian Spring, but I may get it on Vita considering I'm really enjoying Continuum Shift right now. The story mode is probably the most in-depth I've experienced (even more than Persona 4 Arena) and I still haven't looked at everything else on the menu. I love the Visual Novel feeling of the story. It's just good.