5 Anime Series I Like and the JRPGs They Led Me To

When I was a kid, before there were JRPGs in my life, there was anime. And while JRPGs eventually became the thing I loved more, I loved anime for similar reasons when I was most into it. Its inspirational characters, gorgeous animation and stories I couldn’t find anywhere else kept me coming back to it at different times in my life, whether it be for the childhood inspiration magical girl anime provided or the darker side of the genre I found as an adult. As much as my relationship with anime has changed, I’m sure it led me on the path to JRPGs in different ways, from making me drawn to its visual style in games or introducing me to story styles that are some of my favourites regardless of the medium. Anime might be a smaller part of my life now, but these are five of the anime series I enjoyed watching that I can link a few of my JRPG choices to at different points in time.

JRPGs I Played in February 2018

February was an interesting month in terms of the way my gaming time went. With Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Hacker’s Memory all finished, I was left with time to come back to my long term JRPG quest Persona 2 and time to catch up on Japanese demos like Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time and Atelier Lydie and Suelle that had been sitting on my hard drive for a while. There were also a few random delays, with Xenoblade Chronicles 2’s New Game+ mode that I’ve been looking forward to ever since I finished it getting a delay and the full version of Little Witch Academia not coming out in English when most people (myself included) expected it to. Luckily, the main JRPG I was looking forward to did come out towards the end of the month in the form of Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet and I can look back on the last month and say I had a lot of fun with what I played, so here are all the JRPGs I Played in February.

JRPGs I Played in January 2018

January was a very good month for JRPGs and also a month where I had to quickly accept that it would be impossible to play everything. After all, I started the month on the tail end of December’s Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and while I had a solid game plan in the form of Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker’s Memory for January, various experiences from betas to demos to indies kept popping up and all I could do was try stick to my plan while playing what I could in between. I did manage to try a lot of the experiences I wanted to try in January for varying lengths of times and feel positively about most of them, so here are all the JRPGs I Played in January.

Post-TGS 2017: My Favourite JRPG Trailers and Announcements

Tokyo Game Show this year was pretty good. Even if there wasn't an announcement that particularly blew my mind, there were enough trailers of games I was already keen for to keep my hype going hopefully until the end of the year. TGS 2017 for me is mainly just a reminder that the next 12 months are already looking fantastic, with interesting new IPs coming out, great remasters and spinoffs, and some of my favourite series getting new additions. With plenty of hope that it's given me hype that will last, these are my favourite announcements and trailers from TGS 2017.

This Week's PSN EU/AU PSN Releases, JRPG Style! (8/8/15)

Why hello! Welcome to this week's edition of Europe and Australia's new PSN releases, which pulls each week's PSN additions related to the JRPG genre and other Japanese games into one post for your convenience.

I was pleasantly surprised to open up this week's new releases for the PSN and to see the Sword Art Online PS Vita game now released for PS4. Hollow Fragment has been talked about a bit by JRPG fans online (no doubt for it's anime popularity and being a pretty cool concept for a game) and I haven't played it yet, so I'm so very keen to play it on PS4. The PS4 still needs way more JRPGs, but I'm so happy to see this hitting the consoles and I hope there are more to come.

Also featured on the PSN this week are a few deals that appear to be the same as last week, so if you missed out them, this is the best time to pick up those games.

Enjoy, stay safe, have a good week and happy gaming!

New Releases

• Sword Art Online Re: Hollow Fragment (PS4)

Deals

• Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z (PS3, PS Vita)
• Guilty Gear Xrd -Sign- (PS3, PS4)
• Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed (PS Vita)
• JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle - Joestar offer (PS3)
• Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy (PS Vita)

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Pick of the week: Sword Art Online Re: Hollow Fragment. If you haven't played it on Vita, this is the time. Gotta love some JRPG PS4 action!

What's your pick of the week? Will you be picking up anything from the PSN this week?

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

Please note the content available is subject to change by region and the content listed in this post is based on the European/Australian PSN at the time of writing.

This Month's PSN EU/AU PSN Releases, JRPG Style! (29/8/14)

Photo from Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment

Hello hello!

For a start, I'm sorry posts have been sparse! I've been working on two reviews with any blogging time I've had, so I haven't been able to keep up with JRPG news this week, which by the way, I hate! What if I missed a sweet game announcement? O.O

Anyway, since I didn't post the PSN update last week, I thought I'd show off what PSN's offerings for the entire months were instead. So if a few of these games look familiar, that's why. But there have been some awesome releases as of late, with games such as Tales of Xillia 2, Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment and Hyperdimension Neptunia ReBirth1 (in case you don't follow @JRPGJungle on Twitter, I'm on a Neptunia kick right now.) being released in these last few weeks. Looks like the game drought is starting to clear, thank goodness!

Enough talk. Here are this month's PSN EU and AU offerings:

New Releases

• End of Serenity (PSP)
• Hyperdimension Neptunia ReBirth1 (PS Vita)
• One Piece Pirate Warriors 2 (PS3)
• Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment (PS Vita)
• Tales of Xillia 2 (PS3)

Free Demo

• Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited (PS Vita)

DLC

• Dynasty Warriors Xtreme Legends Complete Edition (PS3 + PS4 + PS Vita) - Various Free and Paid DLC
• Everybody's Golf (PS3 + PS Vita) - Various DLC
• Hyperdimension Neptunia Rebirth1 (PS Vita) - Various DLC
• Mugen Souls Z (PS3) - Various Free and Paid DLC
• One Piece Unlimited World Red (PS3 + PS Vita) - Various Free and Paid DLC
• Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment (PS Vita) - Costume Pack
• Tales of Xillia 2 (PS3) - Various Free and Paid DLC

Deals

• Persona 4 Golden (PS Vita)
  (Side note: this is my favourite game, so naturally I highly recommend it!)
• Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle - Joestar Offer
• Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle - Prestige Edition - Add-On
• One Piece: Pirate Warriors - Grand Line Edition
• Mugen Souls Z
• Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention
• Blazblue: Continuum Shift Extend
• Toukiden: The Age of Demons
• Demon Gaze
• Atelier Rorona Plus + 3 DLCs
• Atelier Meruru Plus: The Apprentice of Arland
• Atelier Totori Plus: The Adventurer of Arland
• Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection

Avatars

• Tales of Xillia 2

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My release of the week: Hyperdimension Neptunia ReBirth1
Comment or Tweet @JRPGJungle with yours!

Did I miss something important? Or maybe you found a game on PSN that you think fellow JRPG fans would enjoy? Comment below, send a tweet to @JRPGJungle or email jrpgjungle@gmail.com to let me know!

Bandai Namco Gives Release Dates For PS Vita JRPGs: Sword Art Online, Tales of Hearts R and One Piece

Bandai Namco is aiming to please this week, giving release dates for Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment, Tales of Hearts R and One Piece Ultimate World Red on PS Vita. The release dates cover both North American and European releases and are all scheduled for release during this year.

While already out on PS3 and other consoles, One Piece Ultimate World Red is due on PS Vita July 14th in North American. Europeans have nothing to wait for - the PS Vita game is already out in European regions, via the Playstation Network or Play-Asia.

Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment will be released in North America August 19th and in Europe a day later on August 20th.

Tales of Hearts R will be released November 11th 2014 in North America. Meanwhile, Europe will receive the game on the 14th of November.

Pre-order One Piece Ultimate World Red for PS Vita: Play-Asia

Pre-order Tales of Hearts R: Play-Asia

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

E3 2014 - Bandai Namco: Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment English Trailer

Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment is a game that myself and other fans of the SAO anime have been excited about for some time. Here is the first English trailer of the game! The game is due for release in Summer 2014.

For more information on Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment, check out our previous articles here and here on the game.

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

Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment to be Released Digitally in Europe and Australia!

We already knew that Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment was coming to the US digitally. This was and still is awesome, although it meant that if European or Australian gamers wanted to play the game, they would have to import the Chinese version with English subtitles from Play-Asia (which you still can do if you would like a physical copy). It was better than nothing, but kind of a bummer that Europe and Australia were left out...but not anymore!

Bandai Namco have decided to make much cooler for European and Australian SAO fans. They're releasing the localised game digitally on PSN EU!

I particularly enjoyed these quotes from Bandai Namco's European vice president of IP Stragegy, Herve Hoerdt:

“Adding such a strong license to our portfolio in Europe and Australia is an honour for us. Fans were looking forward to enjoy this game, we listened to them.“

“Our close collaboration with Sony allows us to release more and more niche games; Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment is the result of this successful partnership!”

(Quote sourced from Gematsu)

I'm very pleased with this move from Bandai Namco and think it's a move in the right direction for games, particularly one based on an already globally popular anime. The audience for these games is only growing and will be encouraged to grow further if these games are easier to access. Good one, Bandai Namco!

The game will be available in the US, Europe and Australia in July on the Playstation Network. Impatient? If you want to get the Japanese version, it is available at Play-asia.com.

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.

The Sword Art Online game looks kinda cool!

If you enjoyed the anime of Sword Art Online, you'll be pleased to know there is a game coming to the west. Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment is based on the series, except you get to experience the land of Aincrad for yourself. The game gives you the chance to clear the game and climb to the top floor yourself, plus meet all of the very different characters and even romance them!

Yes, that's right. You can romance your favourite SAO character.

This game so far looks to be half your typical RPG with battles, leveling and costumes and then the other half is a dating sim. There is no doubt in my mind that people will be looking forward to romancing Asuna or one of the other girls but what I'm most excited for is exploring the world of Aincrad that had 100 floors in the show. I'm curious to see what these floors are like and how many floors they will let us gamers explore.

If you happened to play Infinity Moment (the last Sword Art game), because these games are similar, you will be able to transfer your save to keep your stats. However if you've been waiting for the English release of Hollow Fragment, you can start your own leveling journey and also enjoy the content from Infinity Moment (apparently slightly-modified, although I assume this will only be improvements) for the first time, along with added extras all translated to English this US Summer (Australian Winter). Extras will include a new character, a new story involving the 'Laughing Coffin' group from the anime and online multiplayer features.

If you're in the Europe/Australia region like me, never fear! PS Vita games are region free, so you can order this game from a reliable import game retailer such as play-asia.com .

I'm keen for this - the whole idea of Sword Art Online was such an interesting content! I'm also terrible with keeping up with TV series yet I managed to watch all of SAO, so yeah...I liked it a lot, especially the Aincrad segment. Hoping to import this one :)