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.

Review: Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker’s Memory (Reviewed on PS4, also on PS Vita)

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker’s Memory is both new and a return to what some may know from the original Cyber Sleuth game. It’s new with its own unique and fleshed out story that is set on a familiar backdrop to anyone who played the last game. It features the same monster collecting system that was already great with a few new digital faces that fight with a both an old and new exciting battle system, all to a cool electronic soundtrack that has been remixed more than it’s been recomposed. But if you’re anything like me and have been looking for an excuse to return to Cyber Sleuth somehow, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker’s Memory makes it well worth it because despite its familiarity, what it adds in both story and gameplay takes an old game and makes it better.

DLC Review: Episode Ignis (Final Fantasy XV DLC, PS4/Xbox One/PC)

As DLC tied to my favourite character of Final Fantasy XV and two satisfying previous DLC episodes, I had high expectations for Episode Ignis’ story. As expected based on the last two Episodes, Episode Ignis gives unique fighting mechanics to Ignis to suit his fighting style and reveals what happened in a part of the game he was absent. Unique to Episode Ignis however is a special Extra Verse portion that puts a new twist on big moments of Ignis’s story that had a fan of Ignis and XV’s core story like myself captivated in all the right ways. Delivering the kind of quality expected from the last few DLC chapters coming to XV, Episode Ignis mostly delivers and is a story chapter that fans of Ignis and Final Fantasy XV won’t want to miss.

7 Things I Learned More About In Lost Sphear's English Demo

When Lost Sphear’s English demo appeared on PSN, I initially made the assumption that this was just the English translation of the Japanese one I’d already played, so I put off playing it for a little while. When I finally got to it, I realised I was very wrong and that this demo not only showed a new area in Lost Sphear, but also expanded upon a few things I liked about it in the Japanese one. Most importantly, the new Lost Sphear demo did its job of getting me even more curious about it, so here are some things it expanded upon in the demo that makes its world and gameplay seem even more interesting.

JRPGs I Played in December 2017

When playing a big open world JRPG both at home and out of the house, it’s hard to imagine playing much else during the month. My December JRPG time was full of the two releases I intended to fill it with and not much else on the side, apart from finishing my November JRPG .hack//G.U. Last Recode and the very occasional stray into other games I’ve put to the side during my open world journey with Xenoblade Chronicles 2. With it being the holiday season in December though, it felt good to sink my teeth into a big open world and get immersed in mostly one game before a year full of new ones, so here are all the JRPGs I Played in December to round off 2017.

My 3 JRPG New Year Resolutions for 2018

Since 2015, it’s been my own tradition to make a few JRPG resolutions to improve my gaming life for the year ahead. I do this to encourage myself to play the experiences I think I don’t have time for and to finally catch up with any JRPG urges I had throughout the previous year that I didn’t take the time to cater to. These resolutions always come with mixed levels of success, but they always help me improve my gaming time and are a fun way to start planning what I want to play each year. While keeping up with new releases is a challenge in itself, there are a few things in my JRPG life I’ve been wanting to do since I found some new things I liked last year and also things I’ve been wanting do for a while and never got around to. With those things in mind, these are my three JRPG resolutions for 2018.

The Results of My 2017 JRPG New Year Resolutions

Last year, I tried to make my JRPG Resolutions more realistic. I was over ending the year with a bunch of Resolutions I didn’t end up having time for, so I tried to be a little smarter and just do three. In hindsight, I ended up doing an unofficial resolution that I wanted to try keep up with new JRPG releases as much as possible in 2017 and I did that very well. However it also took a bunch of time away from my intended resolutions and while I think I had more success overall than failure for my 2017 JRPG Resolutions, I didn’t end up with the 100% completion I hoped for. In any case, I’m thankful for these resolutions that encouraged me to go deeper into at least one of my favourite JRPG franchises and fully completed or not, I’m happy to take what they taught me about my gaming time into 2018.