News and recent trailer of the upcoming Final Fantasy XVI have been exciting for many FF fans for a variety of different reasons. First, the game is seen as some sort of rebirth for the series after nearly two decades of unpopular mainline Final Fantasy games. Second, the game’s producer, Naoki Yoshida, has a good…
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.
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Games That Will Cost You a Kidney: Dragon Force
When we think about old classic turn-based Japanese Role-Playing games, Final Fantasy Tactics and the Shining Force series come to mind. A game that is not often mentioned, and it should be (mentioned) among those great titles, is Dragon Force. Dragon Force is a tactical Sega RPG. It was published by Sega in Japan, but…
Final Fantasy XVI: Distances Itself From Turn Based Battles to Focus on Action
Some Final Fantasy old school fans have been clamoring for a return to the series turn-based combat roots. Despite this, modern gaming has, for the most part, moved away from what was the preferred method of role-playing game combat in the early decades of the genre. Action-combat role-playing games have sold better than turn based…
Final Fantasy XVI Will Not Feature an Open World
Despite the fact that Final Fantasy XV ventured into “open world” territory (with restrictions), which was a first for the series, Final Fantasy XVI’s producer, Naoki Yoshida, has confirmed that his game won’t feature an open world, even though the game takes inspiration from modern AAA open world RPGs. It is Difficult To Translate A…
Games That Will Cost You a Kidney: Revelations: Persona
The original PlayStation was the home to many great Japanese Role-Playing games. Some of these games (Wild Arms, Suikoden) were modestly successful on their PS debuts and spawned franchises before dying off in the mid 2000s. Today’s subject in the weekly “Games that will cost you a kidney” series is a game that didn’t have…
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: Fully Embracing its Sequel Role to the Original Game?
As part of the celebration for Final Fantasy VII’s 25th anniversary, Square Enix finally unveiled details of Final Fantasy VII Remake “Part 2” which will be called “Rebirth”. The game’s title and trailer seem to “officially” confirm what was obvious to those of us who had played the original game before the “Remake”, which…
Games that Will Cost You a Kidney: Shining Force III
The Sega Saturn is, at least to me, the most legendary of the 32/64-bit era machines. The reason? I didn’t own one, and I only know a single person who did. Furthermore, this person lost the console two decades ago. As a JRPG fan, it was painful that the Sega Saturn was also the home…
Games That Will Cost You a Kidney: Vanguard Bandits
Another week, and another ill-fated Working Design’s PlayStation 1 release. Vanguard Bandits was a decent JRPG/Strategy game based on stereotypical anime mech troupes. Vanguard Bandits had a little more ‘flash’ than most Japanese strategy games of the time. It featured multiple story events with different ramifications given the choice of the protagonist, and consequently, multiple…
Final Fantasy XVI: New Trailer and Target Release Season Revealed
Sony’s state of play was not a mind-boggling event. Most games in the presentation were cross-generational titles. However, JRPG and Final Fantasy fans in general had much to celebrate about as a new trailer of Final Fantasy XVI was unveiled. A More Mature Fantasy: Final Fantasy Goes Witcher Political turmoil, large scale bloody battles, and…
Games That Will Cost You a Kidney: Thousand Arms
Thousand Arms, like other games on this weekly feature, is not prohibitively expensive. If you are willing to gamble with your money on “resurfaced discs”, you can get the game on Amazon for about $189.00. This (the price point) is a whopping $169.00 more than I paid for my physical copy of the game about…