This Week's PSN EU/AU PSN Releases, JRPG Style! (20/8/15)

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

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.

No new JRPG releases this week, but luckily there are still some great games such as Persona 4 Golden, Danganronpa and Steins;Gate on sale. This is the last week they're on sale, so pick them up soon if you want them!

Have a good week and happy gaming!

DLC

Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess (PS3, PS4, PS Vita)

Paid

• Humiliating Trap: Octopus Arm
• Rachel Pack

Deals

• Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (PS Vita)
• Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (PS Vita)
• Dragon Ball Xenoverse (PS3, PS4)
• Dragon Ball Xenoverse: Time Travel Edition (PS3. PS4)
• Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed (PS Vita)
• Persona 4 Golden (PS Vita)
• Sayonara UmiharaKawase + (PS Vita)
• Steins;Gate (PS3)
• Ys: Memories of Celceta (PS Vita)

Avatars

Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines

• Akaneko Onatsu Avatar
• Akeboshi no Oji Avatar
• Onmyoji Ataru Avatar
• Tokasen Avatar
• Yazaka Gozumaru Avatar
• Yatsude no Osumi Avatar
• Avatar Bundle (includes all of the above avatars)

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Pick of the week: Persona 4 Golden, the Danganronpa series and Steins;Gate. Loved the Persona and Danganronpa games and I want to play Steins;Gate because of how great the anime was.

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 Week's PSN EU/AU PSN Releases, JRPG Style! (5/6/15)

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.

So I must have been living under a rock or something over the last few weeks (or starting a new job), because I somehow completely missed that Steins;Gate was coming to PS3. Steins;Gate is one of my favourite anime ever because of it's deep story about time travel and it's effects on others and the game is meant to delve much deeper into this tale. If you haven't experienced the story, this is supposed to be the best way to do it.

Joining Steins;Gate are Operation Abyss and Guilty Gear Xrd -Sign-. I'm definitely excited for Guilty Gear's 2.5D graphics and because I always love an Arc System Works fighting game. Operation Abyss could also be interesting, with it incorporating lots of ideas from other games hopefully in new ways. With these three new releases, I'm pretty happy with this week's selections for JRPG fans and would call this a good week!

To all of you, have a good week and happy gaming!

New Releases

• Guilty Gear Xrd -Sign- (PS4)
• Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy (PS Vita)
• Steins;Gate (PS3)

DLC

Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy (PS Vita)

Free

• Dark Hero Portraits
• Power Recorder Set

Paid

• Swim Team Xth Squad

Deals

Playstation Plus Discounts

• Guilty Gear Xrd -Sign- (PS4)

Themes

PS Vita

• Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines Theme

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Pick of the week: Steins;Gate. #need

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.

Phantom Breaker: Battlegrounds Coming West On PS Vita Very Soon

Game developers 5pb. have announced they will be launching the side-scroller, beat em' up game Phantom Breaker: Battlegrounds in North America and Europe on July 29th and in South Korea on August 1st. The game will be released on PS Vita via the PSN store.

Not only is this exciting news for fans of 5pb.'s games (who are the developers behind popular visual novel series Steins;Gate and Chaos;Head), it has also been an important experience for 5pb. as it is their first international release. Producer Masaki Sakari stated (via Gematsu's original article) that it was a big learning experience for them that he expects will be useful going forward. Hopefully this means we can expect more 5pb. games in the West in future!

The Japanese trailer for Phantom Breaker: Battlegrounds can be seen below. The trailer also features cameos from some Steins;Gate characters!

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Have something to say about this article? Comment below or send a tweet to @JRPGJungle!

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

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

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

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!

What I've been playing this week+Catch Up! (Let's make this a series....number 1!) (Final Fantasy X HD, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend and Mercenary Kings)

What's up everyone?!

It's Sunday in my home country of Australia and it's also Easter! I managed to have the trademarked Easter stomach ache before 9am because I'm an impatient brat. Well, not really. Me and George (boyfriend/in-house partner in crime) are terrible at giving gifts on the day, so we swapped and started out chocolate last night, leaving me this morning with the perfect amount to eat with breakfast. BAD IDEAAAAA! Parterned with pizza for dinner last night, I feel lethargic...hashtag, weight loss and healthy eating.

Did I mention I haven't gone running in two weeks?

Anyway, down to business. I've been rather faithful to my games this week. On PS4, I played a little Mercenary Kings and a spot of Resogun. On PS3, I'm racing to the end of Final Fantasy X HD. And on PS Vita, I finally found the load button in Story Mode and am trying to finish the Calamity Trigger part of story mode in BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend. Also, I found out BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma is out (found on Amazon here) ! Did Australia get it? I think we didn't! JB Hi Fi and EB Games seem to have no clue that this has come out...I'm not even gonna bother with any other retailers. This scares me a little for my Spring Persona fest. I'm scared I'm gonna have to Play-Asia or Amazon everything and wait a few weeks past the release date. If I hear any spoilers, I will destroy the internet. I may also have to get a US 3DS, but that's probably not so bad....if George has an Australian one and I have a US one, it means no region restrictions (except for Asian games).

I digress. Let's talk more about games!

PS3: Final Fantasy X HD

I've gotten a lot further than my last gaming diary. I'm at Mt Gagazet, reliving the horror of getting through that mountain with just the initial save point. The game is telling me I need to level grind and I am politely flipping it off.

However, I am enjoying this game a lot! It's amazing how after about 10 years, this game is still good. The sphere grid system does not age and I don't think the battle system does either. Now that I'm older, I'm able to think more strategically on how can I make each of my turns count. And the HD cutscenes are stunning. A job well done to Square Enix. I'm even getting a little excited to replay X-2 (I'm a girl, I liked that game), but this will have to wait till after Child of Light (!!).

PS4: Mercenary Kings

Pssh.

I'm terrible at this game. It's fun, but I haven't even gotten past the first mission yet. I'm terrible at timing when not to get hit and when to roll....but it's fun. I love the 8-bit soundtrack.

PS4: Resogun

Not much to say other than I can't finish experienced mode yet, but damn I want that trophy. It's been the game I play while George uses the PS3. I love the option to remote play with the Vita and when near the console and wi-fi, I had a very smooth experience.

...but I still lost because I'm unskilled. I'll get there.

PS Vita: BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend

I'm okay at this game! Just don't ask me to perform a combo!

I've always wanted to do the story mode on this game. Arcade mode is great, but it barely touches on what seems to be a very in-depth story. So I've done the right thing and I've started with the Calamity Trigger story and will work my way through all of the characters. This is going to be a big task to get to the true ending, but I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff.

Also, Noel Vermillion is a great character. I really enjoy her voice acting/part in the story so far.

Bonus game: Steins;Gate Lite (Japanese/iPhone edition)

I loved the anime for Steins;Gate and the game offers multiple endings and control over the story...which I am a sucker for. I love seeing how things could go if everything went wrong or if I could choose how the story went. However, I am only a Japanese learner, so I've been using this to learn more Kanji and I'm barely 5 sentences in. I try to translate a sentence a day, so I can't comment too much having only translated a few sentences. However, I enjoy the art style and seeing Okabe's inner-thoughts.

Comment below and let me know what you've been playing...or what I should have been playing this week! And happy Easter everyone :)