JRPGs I Played in November 2018

November was a month of monster hunting JRPGs for me. With the main two releases I was interested in having heavy themes of catching them all in distinct ways, my month of November nostalgically brought me back to this type of JRPG I loved as a kid and the story heavy games I love now with a monster collecting twist, alongside solid turn-based combat systems. While I didn’t play a heap of games in November, but monster collecting games are big so there was still plenty to play, so here are the JRPGs I Played in November.

JRPGs I Played in October 2018

Thanks to some great new releases, I really enjoyed my JRPG time in October. I was finally able to try The World Ends With You thanks to its Switch release and in the spirit of enjoying games on the go, I also took the time to continue playing other games I’ve been enjoying such as Torna, the Golden Country and started Dragalia Lost so I can have a portable to play on my smartphone too. So with those, two platinum trophies and some new games I was finally able to try, here are the JRPGs I Played in October.

JRPGs I Played in September 2018

When thinking about my JRPG time before and after September ended, one thing was always for sure: I was going to play Dragon Quest XI. And thankfully I did, with a majority of my playtime for September being dedicated to it, although I did find a little time to try a couple of other things, such as the DLC for the ever addictive Xenoblade Chronicles 2. While it’s a shorter JRPGs I Played addition, September wasn’t lacking in gameplay time since I found myself taking time to appreciate detail in the well thought-out world’s I played through that really made me love everything I played. So in a true month of quality over quantity in my JRPG time, here are the JRPGs I Played in September.

JRPGs I Played in July 2018

With eight story paths to follow and a mid-month release, my July went exactly how I expected it to and was full of a lot of Octopath Traveler and time with my Switch. I began the month on the tail end of Ys VIII and immediately jumped over to Octopath Traveler, so my PS4 hasn’t seen that much love this month but I’ve enjoying playing the Switch both on my TV and with me on the go and the extra time I’ve been able to get into my games. The only other games I played were a few smartphone JRPGs for times like being at work where it would be inappropriate to pull out my Switch and for some special collaborations, but I only put a small bit of time into these because I was into already big games on the go and didn’t feel the need to play much else. So in what was a month full of portable goodness, here are the JRPGs I Played in July.

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.

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.

JRPGs I Played In October 2017

With a brand new Switch in hand, I entered October with pure excitement after an August and September fairly quiet on new JRPG releases. My main goals for October were to finish Blue Reflection and play my new Nintendo Switch, so I made sure to play any new Switch demo on the go that caught my eye and at home give my time to my new favourite JRPG magical girls in Blue Reflection. As usual, I also attempted to finish what I was playing before I dedicated myself to newer releases, but I let lots of little things use my time in between too meaning I didn’t get to focus on them much. I don’t regret a bit of it though as I wasn’t ever bored last month, so here are all the JRPGs I played in October.

JRPGs I Played in May 2017

Remember how last month I was tossing up between three JRPGs? What if I told you I played none of those games and spent most of the month finishing Persona 5 and beginning a platinum run for it? Would you be surprised? Probably not.

I eventually chose my May JRPG as Summon Nights 6, only to see it be delayed, which pushed me towards taking a little more time on my Persona 5 review and getting back to NieR Automata to try finish it properly. I also took some brief time to try some new experiences, such as Fushigen TOD Reloaded and some Japanese App Store experiences. Although I'm sure I'll have more of a direction in what JRPGs I play next month, I enjoyed trying new experiences and spending more time with some new favourites, so here's a look at what I played in May.

Feel free to watch the video version here!

My favourite JRPG of May 2017:

Persona 5

Since I didn't play any new releases this month, and I fully finished Persona 5 mid-May, I’m putting Persona 5 as game of the month for the second month in a row. Finishing it was bittersweet because I found it so wonderful and while it ended in a way I was satisfied with, it was sad to know I wouldn’t experience the magic of my first playthrough with it again. I spent quite a few late nights with Persona 5 because it was sucking me into the deeper meaning of each dungeon and other plot twists along the way made me not want to put it down. I’m satisfied enough to try platinum it, just like I did with Persona 4 Golden and I’m enjoying my second playthrough at my own pace. I’m taking time to enjoy the little things in Persona 5 like the trend recommending NPCs and vague nods to future story events from other characters. Honestly, it’s just a really fantastic game and I’m going to be playing it on and off for a very long time, I’m sure.

Fire Emblem Heroes

Another month of Fire Emblem Heroes and playing it in small bursts, except this month is a little special. In the Gacha draw focused on Female Mages, I got my favourite Fire Emblem character Tharja, gave her all of my level crystals and put her into my party. My party is full of half five star ranked characters, so I’m hoping to either get more five star characters to join or to rank my other ones up. Anyway, I’m still playing and it’s still pretty fun.

Persona 2

I didn’t play nearly enough Persona 2 in May because I was writing a lot when I was on the go, but I did notice something a little interesting. My battle skills in Persona 2 improved drastically while I was also playing Persona 5. Persona 2 is pretty light on explaining mechanics, so it was almost like I needed Persona 5 to remind me how to play Persona properly and then jump back in with the knowledge I needed. I’m hoping to story picks up a bit more soon at this point, but it is a lot more enjoyable now I’m playing better.

Final Fantasy XV

I logged into Final Fantasy XV briefly to check out the 1.10 update and check out some Stinky Tofu (no, really). It isn’t a huge update, although the new Stinky Tofu recipeh did provide some very interesting stat changes when I tried to do this latest timed quest (which is tough by the way!) with it’s HP dropping capabilities while boosting other stats (you can imagine my shock when I saw my 9999HP Gladio go to 900. That was sort of scary.). I also did the one-question survey where they asked what future content fans would like to see in XV and if you guys did it, I’d love to know what you answered with out of sheer curiosity. Avoiding spoilers, I chose the Story Content regarding a Disappearance, but all of the ideas are ones I wouldn’t mind seeing in XV.

Fushigi TOD Reloaded

Since I enjoy finding random JRPG demos to play on my PS4, when I saw in screenshots the roguelike-JRPG elements I remembered from Sorcery Saga: the Curse of the Great Curry God, I decided to give Fushigi TOD Reloaded a go when I saw it on the Japanese PSN Store. A lot of it’s dungeon mechanics do remind me of Sorcery Saga (minus the curry brewing) with it’s roguelike nature and mechanics. It seems to be a pretty dialogue heavy game with lots of talk about ghosts and things I don’t know the meaning of in Japanese and probably some throwbacks to the Touhou game is was inspired by. I enjoyed its music and gameplay, so I may talk about it more in a First Impressions sometime, but my first (accidental) look into a Touhou Doujin game was pretty interesting and made me want to get back into roguelikes more.

Omega Quintet

Let me be straight: I only played Omega Quintet for about five minutes while getting footage for my last video, but I was reminded that I still really want to play Omega Quintet. I had enough hype a couple of years ago to buy it in Japanese when it came out because I feared that it wouldn’t be localised, and even though I don’t have the now-available English version, I was reminded by the cute singing and dancing, and the fun Final Fantasy XIII-esque combat system that I would like to eventually play this Idol-JRPG to completion. Whether I play it in English or Japanese and even whether it’s good or not, there is a still a piece of me that really wants to play it.

NieR Automata

I only played a tiny bit of NieR Automata last month thanks to cranking out my Persona 5 review (and Persona 5 in general), but I have an itch to get back into it and get those main endings I haven’t seen. I actually tried to play a few times this week but my PS4 was having errors, but hopefully I’ll have better luck before June’s releases to at least finish route C. The plot is getting weird and I like it.

Phobos Children

I had the idea of re-purposing my horribly cracked old iPhone into a phone with the Japanese App Store (I still use the Australian one) so I could play all the Japanese mobile games I see ads for on the train and on Twitter here. My good friend Dennis (the lovely designer of my logo and video intro, check out his work!) suggested a game called Phobos Children and knowing there were also a bunch of other games I probably wanted to play, I took the small amount of time to finally make this happen and played a bit of Phobos Children.

I haven’t played that much, but I liked the gameplay of Phobos Children a lot. Battles are done through tapping buttons coming up the screen and pressing matching colours to make combos was pretty fun. There were a few localisation imperfections in the dialogue, but regardless I found myself kind of wishing I had my other phone with me on the train for something different to play, so I hope to return to it in future (hopefully when I get an iPhone to HDMI cable to stop looking at my super cracked screen).

Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia

Dissidia Final Fantasy is the first game I go to at arcades here because it’s so pretty and has so many Final Fantasy characters I love in it, and I’ve been interested in checking out the cute character sprites I’ve seen from Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia on Twitter, but it’s not available in English yet. With my Japanese App Store iPhone in hand, I checked out a little bit of Opera Omnia and while I haven’t made any real progress in it yet, I love how many characters are available and the fact that they actually interact with each other in cutscenes. This is one game I definitely plan on returning to and since I haven’t had much experience with the other Dissidia titles, I’m interested to see what it’ll be like.

June JRPG Plans

Episode Gladiolus feels like it was forever ago, so it’s very much about time for Final Fantasy XV’s Episode Prompto to come out and reveal just what that sobre trailer means. On top of finally playing Episode Prompto, I’m also hoping it includes a trailer for Episode Ignis because Ignis is my favourite character from XV and after seeing how fun it was to play as Gladio, I’d like to do the same with Ignis. I also really like Prompto, so I’m curious about what they’ll do with his character story-wise and if they’ll add special mechanics like they did in Episode Gladio.

As for full JRPGs I want to play in June, I’m planning to play the Japanese Valkyria Revolution demo to help me make my decision. I played the God Wars: Future Past demo a few months ago and thought the mythological story looked interesting so that’s definitely on my list, but the Valkyria Revolution trailer looks really good too. There’s also my hope to continue playing through NieR Automata and with most of the new JRPGs next month coming out after the 20th, I’ll hopefully get a bit of time.

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What JRPGs did you play in May? What will you play in June?

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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JRPGs I Played in April 2017

I said last month I’d play a lot of Persona 5 and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing for almost the entire month of April. In fact, I’ve barely played any other games as between life and enjoying the time sync that is Persona 5,  I just haven’t had the time. It’s lucky that Persona 5 is such a good game however, as I haven't minded at all. I’ve downloaded a few demos of JRPGs I’m quite sure will be good, but I don’t want to leave the friends and confidants I've made in Persona 5 yet. So although the list of JRPGs I’ve played this month is a short one, the amount of hours I put into my main April game is certainly not. Here are the JRPGs I Played in April.

Feel free to watch the video version here!

My Favourite JRPG of April:

Persona 5

If you’ve seen my recent content or my March JRPGs I’ve played post, then Persona 5 being my favourite game of April is probably no surprise. But Persona 5 is highly deserving of this month’s title, as it’s really really good. I intend on making a full review of Persona 5 (plus plenty more content because there’s a lot of good things to talk about in it!), but my first 70 hours with it have reminded me very much of the deep and addictive JRPG gameplay that was in Persona 4 Golden that sucked me right back into JRPGs to begin with. There’s something really fun about the freedom having so many different options and mechanics given, and partnered with the improved dungeon and social systems, I hate when I have to put it down. At the time of writing this, I’m in Persona 5’s August and I don’t know how far I am from totally finishing it and I honestly don’t mind not knowing, as long as I can spend more time with the fun characters and dungeons.

NieR Automata

There were four days before Persona 5 was released this month, which gave me a little bit of NieR time. I’m a little into Route C and a lot of story revelations have already occurred, even a few hours in. I’m amazed route by route by the sheer scope of NieR Automata and I’m pretty sure each new route proves to me I’ve never played anything like it. While I’m loving my Persona 5 experience, there is a piece of me that still has Automata in mind as I’m curious about what will happen next. I hope I can get back to it a least a little in May, as I’m sure it has plenty more story to tell.

Fire Emblem Heroes

Fire Emblem Heroes has been my main portable game of May, although I haven’t really played that much. I did really enjoy the Easter event with it’s cute story and costumes, even if I did three gatchas and didn't win a single Easter character. Every time I log into it recently, there are a bunch of Orbs and gifts waiting for me which have been nice for gatcha draws, although I think I’ll be stockpiling them until they do a character draw for a Fire Emblem character I know better. I do think Persona 5 and NieR have put me into more of a console game mood recently, but Fire Emblem Heroes is still enjoyable if I have nothing else on me to JRPG with.

(Also, chapter 10 is finally out for anyone who didn't know!)

Persona 2

I only played Persona 2 once this month for a couple of hours, but after playing the newer Persona game, it did become interesting to me in a few different ways. I’m gonna do a full post about this, but there a few small elements such as demon negotiation in Persona 5 that seem inspired by Persona 2 which was cool to see on the go. I’m fairly sure I still have a lot of Persona 2 to get through at 15 hours in, and I hope the story amps it up a bit soon as I slowly continue my way through it.

My May JRPG Plans

May is an interesting month to think about right now, as I don’t know if I’ll have fully finished Persona 5 by the first of May. I was really interested in the Caligula Effect for its interesting aesthetic, but it releases on May 2nd so if I’m not going to be done in time for its launch, so I might wait and let the price goes down. This leaves me with the options of Fire Emblem Echoes or Summon Nights 6, where I think I’m personally more interested in Fire Emblem. Because I’m currently living in Tokyo with access to an Australian 3DS, I would have to import the Australian version for that one (or finally set up eShop), so hopefully I’ll be bothered enough to go through the import hassle to play what’s probably a good tactical JRPG.

On top of May’s new JRPGs, if I have time I would love to get back into NieR Automata as its story still has me intrigued, especially where I left off before Persona 5 took over my life. I also am really enjoying the gameplay of Persona 5, so there is the thought of Platinuming it in my head as well. My May JRPGs are a little uncertain at this point, but I’m excited to see what ends up in my console next month.

Most of the games listed in this article are available to buy or pre-order at Play-Asia.com!

(This is an affiliate link that helps supports the site, so if you use it, thank you!)

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What JRPGs did you play in April? And if you're playing Persona 5, how far are you hours-wise?

Leave a comment below, send me a tweet at @JRPGJungle, hit me up on Facebook, Youtube or Instagram and let's talk!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
Make sure to follow @JRPGJungle on Twitter and Instagram, like JRPG Jungle on Facebook and Subscribe to the mailing list and Youtube Channel for updates on content and random musings on JRPG news and games. You're awesome! <3