#JRPGJuly 2021 Introduction

Welcome to another #JRPGJuly! Here’s to another year of communities coming together to love, play, and talk JRPGs. For those that are unfamiliar with the event, it was created as a community game-along by Anne Lee of Chic Pixel and hosted by Nitro. What is the goal of #JRPGJuly? To play JRPGs and share the experience with others through blogging, social media, and on the RPGamer Discord server. If you wish to participate on social media, please use the hashtag #JRPGJuly, and start engaging with your fellow JRPG fans!

As always, the RPGamer crew loves being a part of the event. Let’s see what folks are going to be blogging about in weekly updates this month! Also, check out our #JRPGJuly themed streams throughout the month over at our Twitch Channel!

Read on to learn more about our motley crew, or use the links coming below to follow along week by week:

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Final Wrap-up


I’m Sam Wachter (@merrygodown), and I am the Operations Manager of RPGamer. I do… stuff on the site, including reviews for questionable games, and I am one slice of the Backloggin’ the Year team. I love #JRPGJuly as it’s one of my favourite events that the site has been participating in for many years. I did a Twitter poll for readers to select what game I will be playing for the month and you have all chosen Golden Sun. While that will be the main focus, I also plan to finish Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, which I am nearing the end of. I’m so excited to share my journey with you this month!

Howdy everybody, my name is Joshua Carpenter (@jscarpe) and I do reviews and other editorial content around the site and you may have heard me on RPGCast. #JRPGJuly is one of my favorite times of the year and I generally love to use it as an excuse to dive into my backlog, but since I’m going on vacation for the first part of July, gaming time will probably be a bit limited. Therefore I’m going to keep it portable and play Mario Golf: Super Rush and see how much of an RPG Camelot has managed to sneak into this sports game.

Hiya! I’m Anna Marie Privitere (@amprivitere), one of the owners of RPGamer. Many of you may already know me from either the RPGCast or Backloggin’ the Year and other site features. This year I will be splitting my time. I’m streaming the Final Fantasy VII Remake weekday mornings on the RPGamer Twitch channel. I’ve also started the Legend of Mana remaster; it’s a game I adored on the PlayStation, will the remaster live up to my renewed expectations? I’ll also be slowly plonking away at my massive backlog… hopefully I won’t need to 5-hour rule too many of them!

Your man in Japan here, Michael Baker (@MaikelYarimizu)! Due to a wonderful sale coinciding with Father’s Day this year, I have a new digital copy of the Grandia Remastered Collection, and I have only played one-half of the games in it previously. What else might I play? Who knows! My backlog is vast and bizarre. I shall also be posting daily some favorite pieces of game music on Twitter.

 

 

Hey, I’m Ryan McCarthy (@LastZimOnEarth) and you might have seen a review or two from me of lesser-known games. This will be the third year in a row that I’ve done #JRPGJuly and this time, I’ve decided to finally get started on a series that I’ve been meaning to get around to for some time now: The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. Having heard a lot of good things about it from friends, I’m looking forward to dipping into what is sure to be a journey into an interesting world with a memorable cast of characters. My current plan for the month is to get through the first game in the series and see where it goes from there.

Hello, I’m Jervon Perkins (@QueerShapedLife) and perhaps one of the more sporadic reviewers/editorialists on the site. I love to take the conversation of video games into the personal realm of life, and hopefully find something eye-opening. Anyway, this year for #JRPGJuly, I will be playing Grandia II HD Remaster. It’s been over fifteen years since I played the game. I remember being overwhelmed with emotion (I’m a Cancer), balling my eyes out, and thinking: “this is profound and amazing.” I would like to chronicle my revisit of it. The second game will be Final Fantasy XIII because I want to see what it’s like playing it WITHOUT the intense backlash.

I’m Scott Wachter (@FS_Wachter) and the plague has completely wrecked my attention span. I have managed to complete one novel and two games, and be seven months behind on comic books this year. I am hoping a deadline might force me to actually accomplish something. After two hours, I’ve been working through 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim and it seems to have a few things going for it to help me out, with plenty of voice-overs, giant robots, and a chesty nurse. More soon, wish me luck.

Your shoujo anime king has arrived fam! Paul Shkreli (@paulwall217) here, who you hopefully know from my critical eye when reviewing games or my casual writing style during my monthly backlog articles that I know you are reading. Go ahead and hit that sweet retweet button. Anyway, since I am a typical over-achiever I decided to volunteer for #JRPGJuly 2021 about sixteen seconds after learning about it, and then took until the next-to-last second to submit my entry to make this deadline. I will be keeping up with my backlog journey and reviewing a game or two, so I’m going with a tried-yet-true and recently-ish ported to Switch when playing Star Ocean: First Departure.

 

 

Hello! I am Sarah McGarr (@yournoodleface)! I make graphics for the site. I picked Final Fantasy XIV because I’m still trying to catch up on the story. I just started the Stormblood content, so this should be interesting. It’s been too hot out here here in the Pacific Northwest to even turn on my computer, but looks like July will be cooler so I’m itching to get back into things.

Hola, Ryan Radcliff (@RadShadow) here, and this year for #JRPGJuly I figured I would beat myself up with some Demon’s Souls. Maybe I will keep a death counter handy? If I need to take a break from the pain and punishment this title will undoubtedly bestow onto my psyche, I do have Tales of Destiny Director’s Cut available to cleanse my palate.

Hello everyone, I’m Cassandra Ramos (@BerryEggs), aka Strawberry Eggs. I am a very, very out-of-practice newsie and contributor to many a feature here at RPGamer. I am going to be a bit ambitious this #JRPGJuly and try my hand at playing two or three games. As I am writing this, it is still June and I am on the sixth chapter of Bravely Default II. I am doubtful that I will finish it before July starts, but we shall see. Otherwise, I will write about my spoiler-free thoughts on the ending and the game as a whole. I will likely play through the demo of NEO: The World Ends with You, a game I have been looking forward to for a decade, and may play more by the end of the month, should my game arrive on time. I will also play the Legend of Mana Remaster between these games. I have an odd history with the game, as I never played it but did watch a friend play it years ago. I am surprised at how nostalgic the game makes me feel, and now I’ll experience it for myself.

Hey all. I am Erik van Asselt (@FanFrog). You might have seen one of my streams on the RPGamer Twitch channel and now you are wondering what I am going to do for #JRPGJuly. Well, there is one game that has been on my bucket list for a very long time. It is one of the classics that has been taunting me and I think I am ready to tackle it. And this time you can watch me do it. During #JRPGJuly I will stream my full playthrough of Earthbound for the Super Nintendo with the goal of finishing it this month. I hope you will join in on the fun on RPGamer’s Twitch Channel.

 

 

Hello everyone, I’m Michael Apps (@AskWheels) aka Wheels and you’ve probably heard me as one of the hosts on Q&A Quest. As part of our streaming team, I’ll be doing a new show on Sunday nights focusing on the Neptunia series, and you can partake in my journey with this in the #JRPGJuly columns as well as I’ll be recounting my time with Neptunia ReVerse there as well. With Disgaea 6 and Monster Hunter Stories 2 coming out, I’m sure to be sharing some thought on those as well, though given my bad experience with Disgaea 5, I will only discuss Disgaea 6 if I’m enjoying it. I may have some thoughts on some other odd games as the month goes along but this trio will be my focus!

Salutations. I’m Phil Willis (@JCServant). While many know me from a decade of hosting the RPG Backtrack, I recently moved over to full-time streaming on Twitch for the site. I plan to stream Trials of Mana most weeknights starting about 9:30pm EST. However, those who know me also know I have a hard time focusing on one game for a long time. So, I plan to sprinkle in a few sessions of a little-known Korean-made RPG called TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children. It features a combat system similar to XCOM: Enemy Unknown and a unique cast of characters. Please join me on RPGamer’s Twitch Channel and you might win some gold for the big gift card wheel we spin in September!

Hello everyone, I’m Ryan Costa, maybe you’ve seen one of my reviews or impressions I’ve done over this crazy past almost year. I’m a relative newcomer to the website and haven’t had the chance to join #JRPGJuly before. I figured this year I’d try out a game from my backlog I’ve never played in Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light. I chose this game because it takes aspects of two of the biggest games in my RPG history. First, the game’s name reminds me of where my RPG journey started with Final Fantasy I and featuring a story from Takashi Tokita who also wrote Final Fantasy IV, which is my favourite traditional JRPG of all time. Here’s hoping this somewhat forgotten game can kickstart playing some of my backlog and also provide some nostalgia to smile about.

Hi, I’m Zach Welhouse (@ZachRPG)! Although I’m not as active on RPGamer as I once was, the dulcet tones of #JRPGJuly have the power to lure me from my cave. Fresh from a stint on Disgaea D2, I’ve been looking forward to working with manageable numbers again. I’ll be playing through Fire Emblem: Three Houses this month. I’m a relative newcomer to Fire Emblem, having only played Fire Emblem: Awakening, Fates, and Heroes. I’m going to give Hard permadeath mode a try and see how it goes. After a few hundred floors of the Item World, a repeated battle or two won’t be the end of the world (he types, blissfully unaware of the horrors that await).

 

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