If I was asked to mention, or better yet to make a list of the top ten greatest Japanese Role-playing games ever, the number one spot would spark some controversy. Lists of that particular “greatest of all time” kind are always mostly subjective affairs. If someone wants to stand their ground and say that Quest…
Tag: JRPG
JRPG stands for Japanese Role-Playing Game. This unique genre of game combines the Western RPG or Role-Playing Game genre first popularized by Dungeons and Dragons with Eastern storytelling and cultural references often seen in anime or manga. JRPGs are almost exclusively made in Japan.
Read all of NER’s articles about JRPGs here!
Throwback Bit Thursday: The Legend of Dragoon
The Legend of Dragoon has been one of the strangest titles that I have ever reviewed. The Playstation Japanese Role-Playing game, released in the year 2000, isn’t a really a special RPG, but it is the one game that I felt was the definition of “Pedestrian” when I first reviewed it, and yet, somehow, it…
Throwback Bit Thursday: Thousand Arms
The Golden Era of Japanese Role-Playing Games during the original PlayStation days produced many a great RPG on a consistent basis. It seemed then, that every month a new JRPG AAA title would arrive at store shelves for players to buy and immerse themselves for dozens of hours. During this period, in between the Final…
Throwback Bit Thursday: The Granstream Saga
1998’s The Granstream Saga, is not a remarkable game, it was (even 1998) a deeply flawed action RPG, that featured many good (if not great) ideas that were not executed properly. Shade (the developers) left us instead, with what in my opinion is one of the most glaring examples of wasted potential in an…
Throwback Bit Thursday: Wild Arms
Many will remember Squaresoft’s Final Fantasy VII (1997) as the first great Japanese Role Playing game for the PlayStation. However, a few months earlier, April 1997 to be exact, Wild Arms arrived on Sony’s debut system with a great JRPG experience for fans to enjoy. Wild Arms holds an 83 Gamerankings (The 90s Metacritic) rating….
Top Ten Greatest ‘The Legend of Zelda’ Games of All Time
The Legend of Zelda is one of the most successful video game series of all time. Here, I rank the series from the ‘worst’ (is there a bad Zelda game?) entry to the best entry. I’m obviously excluding the dreadful Phillips CD-i Zelda releases, as the creation rights were licensed to Phillips by Nintendo as…
Throwback Bit Thursday: Alundra, More Than Just a Zelda Clone
Go ahead, enter a gaming forum, and search for an action RPG discussion. The Legend of Zelda Series will usually feature a prominent role coupled with more modern titles such as Dark Souls and The Witcher 3. One game, that few, if any, mention is 1997’s PlayStation’s Alundra. Alundra is a wonderfully crafted 2-D Action…
Throwback Bit Thursday: Grandia II
Game Arts Grandia II was released on December 2000 as a Dreamcast title. The game was the awaited sequel of 1997 (1999 on PS1) Sega Saturn’s Grandia, as such it was one of the most anticipated Dreamcast titles for RPG fans. The game offered a clear upgrade in graphics over its predecessor, and featured fully…
Kitase Doesn’t Confirm or Deny If FFVIIR’s Ending Changes Story Going Forwards, FFVIIR-2 Development Continues
One only needs to read social media comments to see that one of the biggest points of contention in regards to the Final Fantasy VII Remake and its future installments, is its ‘weird’ ending (in an already weird re-telling of the first section (Midgar) of the original Final Fantasy VII). It can be inferred by…
The Rise and Fall of Japanese Role-Playing Games (JRPGs)
Before we start, let us make one thing clear: Japanese Role-Playing Games are not dead. The genre never died, its games are everywhere around us in portable machines, mobile phones and in-home consoles. The word ‘demise’ in reference to the JRPG genre is more a description of the genre’s current state in comparison to its…