First Impressions - God Wars: Future Past (Played on PS4, Japanese Demo, Also coming to PS Vita)

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 give natural disasters and this sacrifice was supposed to prevent the spirits from destroying their world. After watching this go down, Future Past switches to the perspective of the Queen’s other daughter Kaguya, who has grown up since being placed in a seal as a backup sacrifice. She's saved by her childhood friend during an attack and they begin their journey together, with the demo taking a look at some of the towns and battle areas that will be found along the way.

One thing I can definitely praise God Wars: Future Past’s demo for is that it doesn't waste much time getting to the action. One of the first tactical battles is fighting to save the princess and that happens fairly early on in the demo. Thankfully, the turn-based tactical battle system will be very familiar to those who have played tactical games before and even with the language barrier, I was able to get the hang of it easily. There are a few things to make Future Past’s battle system unique, such as the Facing mechanic that makes the amount of damage you deal or receive change based on what direction you and the enemy were facing. Reading the website, there's also an interesting sounding Impurity mechanic that makes you more target-able when you attack enemies or heal your party. This mechanic sounds really interesting, although I probably didn't notice it due to the language barrier. Even so, battling was one of the funnest things to do it Future Past’s demo and is one of the most memorable parts of my time with it.

The another part of God Wars: Future Past I really liked were the gorgeous visuals. The beginning moments of Future Past are stunning and detailed anime-style cutscenes, battles look like they were painted and even though outside of cutscenes chibi-style characters are used, it all works together perfectly with the painterly look. The colourful and detailed art style is a true feast for the eyes and really brings the Japanese style world to life.

What I learned about God Wars: Future Past while playing its demo was that it's probably going to be an interesting and pretty way to experience Japanese mythology. The story of gods and sacrifice will likely make it a unique story and I’d definitely love to see more of its beautiful art style. I don't know if I'll be rushing to get it, but God Wars: Future Past’s demo was a decent-sized look at it and I’d recommend giving it a try if Japanese mythology is your thing.

You can pre-order God Wars: Future Past at Play-Asia.com!
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What do you think of God Wars: Future Past so far? Are you going to play it?
Leave a comment below, send me a tweet at @JRPGJungle, hit me up on Facebook, Youtube or Instagram and let's talk!

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The Platinum Trophy Journey: Trigger Happy Havoc: Danganronpa

Following my time playing and reviewing Danganronpa, I quickly made the decision that seems to only happen with my favourite PS Vita game stories - I didn't want to leave that world yet and a good excuse to continue play was getting the Platinum Trophy.

About a year ago I did Platinum Trophy info posts for Persona 4 Golden and Gravity Rush that lightly touched the surface of my platinum trophy experience. Without entering 'trophy guide territory' (PlaystationTrophies and it's contributors already do a brilliant job at this), I still wanted to give a little guide to people going for this platinum because I made a lot of uneducated mistakes in my experience so I'd like to help you avoid doing the same.

How long it took to Platinum (according to psnprofiles): 1 week, 5 days and 12 hours. If you're looking for an hour count estimate, I was silly and didn't realise clicking the info button on my save file would display how many hours I had done until my post-platinum playthrough. As an estimate based on that, I would say I spent around 50 hours between my first playthrough and tying up loose ends specially for the Platinum trophy.

My Trophy Advice

The trophies I've categorized below are all the different trophies you need to receive the 'Despair's Last Reward' Platinum Trophy.

Story Trophies

You don't need to do anything that special for these. Just playthrough each chapter, complete the trials and enjoy the game!

From Zero to Hero - Finished the Prologue
One is the Loneliest Number - Finished Chapter 1
Two of a Kind - Finished Chapter 2
Three's A Crowd - Finished Chapter 3
Four by Gore - Finished Chapter 4
Five Alive - Finished Chapter 5
All's Well That Ends...Umm... - Finished every chapter

While these trophies are pretty self-explanatory, I did refer to this very spoiler-free guide if I was low on health during the class trials.

Report Card Trophies

Report Card trophies are achieved by hanging out with each classmate in any of the Story Chapters or School Mode until you finish their friendship arc and finish their Report Card (which you can access in the menu). Each Report Card is a different length, with the longest one at 9 pages long.

Psychic - Filled in every page of Sayaka's report card
Hope Peak's Confidential - Filled in every page of Kyoko's report card
Memoirs of a Fashionista - Filled in every page of Junko's report card
The Devil Wears A High School Uniform - Filled in every page of Kiyotaka's report card
The Game Hungers - Filled in every page of Byakuya's report card
Rebel Without A High School Degree - Filled in every page of Mondo's report card
Almost Almost Famous - Filled in every page of Leon's report card
Lost in Scanslation - Filled in every page of Hifumi's report card
The Sixth Nonsense - Filled in every page of Yasuhiro's report card
GoodFellows - Filled in every page of Chihiro's report card.
Mystic Donut - Filled in every page of Aoi's report card
Stranger's In A Brain - Filled in every page of Toko's report card
Lovesport - Filled in every page of Sakura's report card
The French Disconnection - Filled in every page of Celeste's report card
Mr Know-It-All - Filled in every page of every character's report card

It is impossible to complete all the Report Cards in one playthrough of the main story, so there's not much need to worry about this in your first playthrough. You can replay the story to complete them, but an easier way is to do this is while playing and leveling up your characters in School Mode.

To speed up completing the report cards it is possible to give each character presents. However, if you haven't received the 'Ooh, For Me?' trophy or 'Seriously, You Shouldn't Have' trophies (listed in the Monocoin Related Trophies in this post), I would advise saving your Monocoins as it makes those two trophies more time consuming. The presents are not an essential part of completing the Report Cards, so it's up to you if you want to use them or not.

SP Trophies

I put these near the Report Card Trophies, because you will probably achieve these as a result of filling in the report cards. You earn SP most times you spend time with a classmate (unless you receive an trial ability), so expect these to come naturally.

Skilling 'Em Softly - Cleared the 10 SP threshold
Skilled or Be Skilled - Cleared the 20 SP threshold
Ghostface Skillah - Cleared the 30 SP threshold

Trial Trophies - Standard

These are earned by playing through each trial particularly well. A quick note - despite descriptions, multiple sites (PSNProfiles and PlaystationTrophies) have stated it only takes fulfilling the trophies requirements in one trial rather than all trials. I can vouch as well that I only needed to fulfill the trophy requirement in one trial rather than all of them, so these are easier to achieve than they sound.

What's A Mistrial - Cleared every class trial without having to retry
You Must Acquit - Cleared every class trial without taking any damage
Not From Concentrate - Cleared every class trial without using your concentration skill a single time
The Color of Television - Destroyed 100 white noise lines across all class trials
Tuned to a Dead Channel - Destroyed 500 white noise lines across all class trials

If you need help with any of the trials, I again recommend referring to this guide. These trophies are mostly self explanatory, but are time consuming because of the average length of the trials, even while fast-forwarding though everything. I did most of these by replaying the first trial, as it is by far the most straight forward case.

School Mode

School Mode trophies can only be achieved after finishing the main story once. After finishing the main story, this School Mode mini-game will unlock. The trophies for School Mode do require a little more effort, but because your stats do carry over each playthrough, the mini-game gradually gets easier.

School's Out for Summer - Cleared School Mode once
School's Out Forever - Saw every possible School Mode ending

Completing School Mode requires a little more strategical planning than the other trophies. The mini-game is based around resource collection and management, along with keeping up with cleaning and making sure you keep your characters energised to avoid them entering rest mode. A strategy that seemed to work for me was constantly having 2-3 cleaners on every day that I also gave all cleaning buffs to. On top of this, after completing each of the Monokuma Spares, I would spend time gathering resources and creating 10 of each of the Processed Goods (and then 10 more if I finished that). This allowed me to be ready to easily make any Monokuma Spare and kept a good amount of materials in my inventory. Put simply, I recommend having an assigned cleaning team and stocking up on Processed Goods after completing your assigned tasks. It makes every other task a lot easier to gather resources for, because you already have a good amount of them.

As for the School Mode endings, these are obtained by taking the classmates on Trips around the school in a Dating Sim style. Each interaction involves conversation options that help determine how much a classmate likes you. For the trophy, you need to achieve each character's ending by having positive date experiences with them until they have 10 hearts on Monokuma's friendship chart. The great thing about this is it's possible to get more than one classmate's ending in one playthrough, so go on as many trips as possible in each playthrough until you get 10 hearts and then repeat the process until you've dated and done that with all still students cause you're super monogamous like that.

Upon finishing each ending, you will receive a special present (heh) from each of the students that will be worth holding on for when going for the Seriously, You Shouldn't Have trophy.

Monocoin Related Trophies

I put together all the Monocoin, present and gallery-related trophies here together because they're all essentially connected by the spending and receiving of Monocoins, which you receive in game by investigating certain areas, completing trials and School Mode as many times as you like.

Nine Coins, Nine Purses, Nine Bears - Collected 999 Monocoins
Ooh, For Me? - Collected 50 unique presents
Hey, Big Spender - Enjoyed the excitement of the Mono Mono Machine 100 times
Seriously, You Shouldn't Have - Collected every possible present
Rogue's Gallery - Unlocked all gallery items

This set of trophies isn't hard, although they're all time consuming and perhaps a little tedious, so I'll describe this set in more detail.

Nine Coins, Nine Purses, Nine Bears may pop after trying to get the School Mode trophies because School Mode gives you 200 Monocoins upon completion, so I would recommend getting as many Monocoins as possible while trophy-hunting in School Mode. A big tip is to not spend any Monocoins until this trophy pops as your coin count is not accumulative and will only pop the moment you have 999 Monocoins in your inventory at one time.

Ooh, For Me?, Hey, Big Spender and Seriously, You Shouldn't Have all tie in together, because you'll probably pop the first two while working towards Seriously, You Shouldn't Have. This trophy revolves around the Mono Mono Machine, which makes this a difficult trophy to write about because it is based around chance. While the more coins you put in the Mono Mono Machine, the more chance you get of not doubling up on presents, I would recommend putting your coins in one Monocoin at a time until you have all of the presents you can gain from the Mono Mono Machine as you won't waste as many coins this way. You'll know you have all the presents you need as you'll see the odds of getting a double of a present go to 100%, which means you're done. The rest of the presents are received by completing all of the classmates endings in School Mode and getting their special present when you talk to each of them one last time before leaving the school.

I left the Rogue's Gallery trophy for last as it includes a sneaky locked Easter Egg gallery photo for those who have the 'Man's Fantasy' present, which can be gained while playing the Mono Mono Machine. Once you own the Man's Fantasy present, to unlock the secret item you need to replay chapter 3 up to the scene where the girls go to the bath house without the boys. With the 'Man's Fantasy' present, Makoto will decide to take a peek at the girls in the bathroom, which unlocks a hidden artwork for the item gallery. Once you've unlocked that, it's as simple as spending your Monocoins on each gallery item until you have them all. If you run out of coins, you can replay School Mode or one of the trials to get more.

Finally, after all that you will receive 'Despair's Last Reward', the Trigger Happy Havoc: Danganronpa Platinum trophy! w00t!

The platinum is by no means easy, but compared to a lot of other platinum trophies, it's pretty easy as long as you know what to do. I hope this helped someone! Good luck and happy platinum hunting!

Don't have the game yet? You can purchase Trigger Happy Havoc: Danganronpa at Play-Asia.

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What's the last game you platinumed?

I love hearing your thoughts, so please comment below or send a tweet to @JRPGJungle and follow if you want to keep up the content we post. Thanks for stopping by!

NIS America Tells Siliconera That Criminal Girls Will Keep "Core Game Play Mechanics" And Details Censorship

A little over a week ago, NIS America announced the localisation of three Japanese games, including a censored version of Criminal Girls: Invite Only for PS Vita. As noted in our original news post, the Japanese version of Criminal Girls featured some rather racy game functions, specifically the 'Punish System' that is used to level up the girls. During this punish system in the original Japanese trailer for the game, some raunchy photos of the girls were to be interacted with via the PS Vita's touchscreen in order to level up the girls. With the censorship for the English version announced, Siliconera reached out to NIS America to gain clarification on what we could expect to see censored in the game. NIS America's statement  to Siliconera opened by stating:

"A key part of our localization philosophy is keeping games as true to the original as possible when we bring them to the West. Unfortunately due to rating issues and regional regulations, we sometimes have to work with our developers to make minor changes to game content."

NIS America went on to stress that the changes to the game were not to appeal to a wider audience, rather to ensure that Criminal Girls: Invite Only would be allowed to be released at all in the West. They also stated on the censorship:

"For Criminal Girls, the changes the developer is making do not change any of the core game play mechanics. They are modifying the amount of fog that remains in some scenes as well as removing the Japanese audio from those same scenes."

"We apologize for this situation and we hope that you will stand by us as we continue to bring as many creative, fun, and exciting products as we possibly can. Thank you for your support." 

Going off these quotes, since the Punish System is a core game mechanic, we can expect to see it in the game in some form.

Criminal Girls: Invite Only is scheduled for released in North America and Europe in 2015. Thank you to Siliconera for their original article.

Import the Japanese Version: Play-Asia

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

A key part of our localization philosophy is keeping games as true to the original as possible when we bring them to the West. Unfortunately due to rating issues and regional regulations, we sometimes have to work with our developers to make minor changes to game content.

These decisions are never made lightly, and whenever we do make them, it comes after working closely with the various rating boards as well as the developer . Making the changes necessary to release some of our more niche titles in the West is not, and never has been, an attempt at making the game more appealing to a larger audience. We know that censoring a game would lose just as many fans as it may potentially bring in.

For Criminal Girls, the changes the developer is making do not change any of the core game play mechanics. They are modifying the amount of fog that remains in some scenes as well as removing the Japanese audio from those same scenes.

Ultimately, our goal is to make games available to our fans in the West, and to keep those same games as close to their original as is possible. Regrettably, without changes, some games would not be able to be released here—as is the case with Criminal Girls: Invite Only.

We apologize for this situation and we hope that you will stand by us as we continue to bring as many creative, fun, and exciting products as we possibly can. Thank you for your support.

Read more at http://www.siliconera.com/2014/07/11/nis-america-explains-changes-criminal-girls-invite/#7ldU4f1QZZ5af8jy.

NIS America Have New Localised JRPGs Coming In 2015 - the Guided Fate Paradox Sequel, Criminal Girls and the Firefly Diary

From The Guided Fate Paradox: the Awakened Fate Ultimatum

If you needed some JRPGs to look forward to in 2015, NIS America have got you covered. Next year will see NIS America bring localised versions of Criminal Girls: Invite Only, the Firefly Diary and the Guided Fate Paradox's sequel the Awakened Fate Ultimatum (previously known as Cross Thesis Awakening) to the West.

Notably, Criminal Girls: Invite Only will come with some content edited for the Western release. The game's original trailer featured some racy content involving the Vita's touch screen and 'punishing' the girls in the game (I'm sure your imaginations can work out the rest). In the new trailer (below) for the localised version of the game, these clips are nowhere to be found.

Criminal Girls and the Firefly Diary will be released for PS Vita and the Guided Fate Paradox sequel is due for release on Playstation 3.

Via: IGN

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Finding All The E3 News Overwhelming? Here's A Complete List Of Posts From Our JRPG E3 2014 Coverage!

E3 is a crazy time of year and if you want to keep up with all the news, it can take dedication and a change in sleeping pattern (at least if you're in my country!). To make things easier for you, here is a master list of JRPG Jungle's E3 2014 coverage, sorted by conference/company. Happy hype train!

Nintendo

• Pokemon Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby's Release Dates and Gameplay Footage
• Xenoblade Chronicles X Is Announced For WiiU
• Fantasy Life Trailer

Atlus

• Persona 4 Arena Ultimax Trailer
• New Persona Q Trailer

Sega

• Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F 2nd Trailer

Square Enix:

• Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix Gets A Release Date and Kingdom Hearts 3 is Now in Development!
• Final Fantasy Agito is Announced for the West!
• Final Fantasy Type-0 HD Remaster Coming to PS4 and Xbox One
• Final Fantasy VII G-Bike Is Announced For Mobile Phones
• Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Gets A Patch, New Class and Marriage Equality
• Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call trailer + Release Date

Bandai Namco

• Tales of Hearts R English Trailer
• Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment English Trailer

Aksys Games

• Guilty Gear Xrd Sign Trailer

NIS America

• Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair E3 Trailer
• Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited Trailer

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E3 2014 - NIS America: Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair Trailer

NIS America have shared another trailer for Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. For a slightly longer look at Danganronpa 2, check out our post on the other recent trailer for the game.

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You can pre-order Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair from Amazon.

Follow @JRPGJungle on Twitter to keep up to date with our news, reviews, articles and J-RPG musings!

E3 2014 - NIS America: Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited Trailer

During E3, a trailer for Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited has been released. The game is a PS Vita port of the original game Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten, this time featuring all DLC for the game plus new content and scenarios.

Disgaea is a popular Strategical JRPG franchise that is known for it's kooky Netherworld shenanigans and extreme stat grinding potential, including the option to level up to level 9999.

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You can pre-order Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited for PS Vita from Amazon.

Follow @JRPGJungle on Twitter to keep up to date with our news, reviews, articles and J-RPG musings!