As Black Friday Approaches…Will You Be Able to Find a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X in Stock on Stores? My answer to this is to keep your expectations in check. Since the launch of “next”, now “current”, generation machines last November, I have only been able to find Xbox Series Xs in Walmart shelves once in…
Category: Opinion
The Never Ending Realm features video game reviews, fan-fiction, fan-art, and more! Since 2003. Read all of our opinion pieces here!
The Top Ten All-Time Best JRPGs According To Never Ending Realm
For the past few months, I have compiled several ‘Top 1-5″ and “Top 6-10” lists chronicling nearly every genre from nearly every console around. Most of these lists have used Metacritic as the barometer for the ranking system. Today, however, I am feeling bold, and a bit biased. So, I will risk the ire of…
Throwback Bit Thursday: Ocarina of Time and Miyamoto’s Thoughts on its Story
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time will turn 23 years old in just 3 days, and thus, there has been no better time to reminisce, and discuss, what perhaps is Zelda’s most important entry on this edition of Throwback Bit Thursday. The topic? The game’s story, and how Miyamoto (and Nintendo EAD) approached some…
The Top Ten Best-Selling RPG Franchises
Before we go any further, I want to make clear that these numbers were pulled out of Wikipedia (in large part), so some of these tallies might be either inaccurate or not up to date. An example of this is the Assassin’s Creed sales tally. The game had sold 155 million units prior to Assasin’s…
Is Pokémon The Unsung King of JRPGs?
Let us get this out of the way, since its inception, Pokémon has been the best selling Japanese Role-Playing Game franchise in the world. It is rarely mentioned alongside Final Fantasy by JRPG fans, but the reality of the situation is that Pokémon is bigger than Square Enix’s biggest franchise. Pokémon Was the JRPG King…
Throwback Bit Thursday: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim turned 10 today. Two console generations have passed since its 11/11/11 release date, and that makes Skyrim a prime candidate for a Throwback episode. Skyrim was a significant step forward for open-world games, and even legendary franchises, like Nintendo’s Zelda, took a lot from it when crafting its newer entries….
Top Five Greatest Games of All-Time According to GameRankings
For the past two weeks, I spent a reasonable amount of time compiling two lists that consisted of the best JRPGs according to GameRankings scores. (The website, gamerankings.com, has sadly been defunct for years now and the company staff merged with Metacritic.) GameRankings is particularly useful as it lists older games that Metacritic does not,…
Ten of the Best JRPG Songs Ever Made Part 2
The first part of the ten of the best JRPG songs was a hit with readers, but many complained (and rightfully so) about the omission of certain great tracks. Thus, we have taken it upon ourselves to list ten more JRPG tracks that should be on everyone’s music playlist . Luna’s Boat Song (1999) –…
Throwback Bit Thursday: Sonic The Hedgehog 2
Sonic The Hedgehog is an important fictional character in my life, for a variety of reasons. First, my first experience, and love with video games came with Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3 in the late 1980s when I was the age that my son is now (4 years old). My chance encounter…
‘Xeno’ Games Creator: Heroes and Heroines in RPGs Often End Up Being Disliked
Tetsuya Takahashi is the lead writer and creator of Xenoblade Chronicles (and all things ‘Xeno’ starting with Xenogears). The man had some interesting takes on his work on Xenoblade Chronicles on an old “Iwata Asks” (A series of in-depth interviews conducted by the late Satoru Iwata) segment. One the things that caught my attention during…