#JRPGJuly 2024 Introduction

Welcome to another #JRPGJuly! Here’s to another year of communities coming together to love, play, and talk about 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 MDi. 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. Join us on Twitter with #JRPGJuly and engage 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!

Hi everyone, my name is Joshua Carpenter (@jscarpe) and I work on editorials and features for the site and can often be heard on RPGCast. The Trails games are far and away my favorite RPG franchise so with the most recent game, Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak, coming out at the beginning of the month, it made my #JRPGJuly gaming decisions easy. I’ll be sharing my adventures through Calvard here each week as well as on Bluesky.

If you’ve spent any time reading RPGamer, you probably already know who I am, but in case you don’t, I’m Andi Privitere (@pawsrpg) and I do reviews and a bunch of behind-the-scenes things. JRPGJuly is my favourite month, and this year I’m excited to be diving into Octopath Traveler II. I really enjoyed the first game up until the final dungeon, so the sequel should hopefully be exactly what I’m looking for.

Hi everyone! I am Sam Wachter and I am the Operations Manager of the site. My goal for this #JRPGJuly is to go back to a few JRPGs I started forever ago and left incomplete. The first game on my list to knock out will be Sand Land! After that, who knows? I still have Valkyrie Elysium, NEO: The World Ends with You, Fire Emblem Warriors, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III… the list goes on. Will I get to all of these? No! But would I like to make a dent? Heck yes!

Hi there fellow RPGamers, I’m Robert Sinclair, aka lolwhoops, and this #JRPGJuly I’m planning on tackling Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance. I owned the original, but never actually played it. It sits on a shelf, still in its steel book. When I heard it was getting an upgraded version, I knew I needed to get it and give the game a proper go. I’m really excited to play the most recent SMT game because the series is a huge part of why I’m so passionate about JRPGs.

Hello! My name is Jahwon Corbett! I’m a recently hired reviewer for the site. For the last two years, I’ve been on a CRPG kick, having played through most of the modern ones from 2015 onward. But as of late, I’ve had a nostalgic desire to get back into JRPGs like Tales, Final Fantasy, Radiant Historia, etc. The game I decided to play for this #JRPGJuly is Octopath Traveler II, a game that I’ve seen raving reviews for from fans and critics alike. I have played neither Octopath game before, and the most recent JRPG I played was Dragon Quest XI (still need to finish it), so I’m hoping that this game will finally spark that love of JRPGs in me again!

Oh hello there. I’m Sarah, aka noodle, who only appears for random features or in the chat on RPGamer’s Twitch Channel. I also secretly appear by doing some graphics here and there. For #JRPGJuly, I’ll be doing my usual FFXIV gaming. I’m almost done with Endwalker, and I am hoping to complete it before early access begins for Dawntrail. Stay tuned to see if I do! If I need a break from FFXIV, I’ll be playing some RPGs from my Steam library — like Looking for Heals, among others.

Hey there, I’m Jervon Perkins (@QueerShapedLife), and I write reviews and editorials for RPGamer. I’m thrilled to be joining you for another year of #JRPGJuly, where I’ll be diving back into the world of Final Fantasy XIV with the upcoming Dawntrail expansion. It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years since I first embarked on my adventure in Eorzea with A Realm Reborn. Since then, I’ve enjoyed exploring this rich, immersive world at a casual pace, accompanied by my beloved lalafell, Serenity Hart. This year is particularly exciting as we not only anticipate a new expansion but also a significant graphics update, marking the first time since my initial PS4 experience that I’ll see the game in such stunning detail. I’m looking forward to rediscovering the beauty of Eorzea and sharing my journey with you all.

Hello everyone! It’s that time of year again! I am Cassandra Ramos, a contributor to many a feature here at RPGamer. As I started a replay of the SNES classic SNES game EarthBound, I intend to finish it. Since I finished a replay of EarthBound Beginnings right before it, I will be comparing the two games as well. If  I finish that, I will start another classic 90s JRPG, Final Fantasy Legends II. Since that game is short, I may start yet another game, but we shall see. Goodness knows I have a large backlog of JRPGs!

Zach Welhouse, checking in. I don’t show my face too often, but #JRPGJuly is a good chance to use all these elixirs that I’ve been stockpiling for the past few years. I’ll be chipping away at Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. I’ll mostly be talking about mini-games and sidequests to avoid spoilers. Luckily, there’s still a lot to explore!

Hello all, I’m Robert Albright, aka TAM (@TheAnimeMan1) and am part of Community Management as well as one of our streamers. This #JRPGJuly I’ll be diving into Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail, the game’s latest expansion. I’ve recently also beaten Atelier Iris 1 and 2, however I have never beaten Iris 3 so I’m going to be giving that one another shot as well. If you’re curious about my progress in Atelier Iris 3, I’ll be streaming it on our Twitch channel at twitch.tv/RPGamer on Tuesday/Thursday mornings at 11 AM EST.

Paul Shkreli here, back for another #JRPGJuly. The recent anniversary of Final Fantasy XVI has me thinking about the game’s critical response, and whether it has changed a bit in light of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. I remember being really blown away by the opening hours of the story and combat system, but also being ready to finish the game and a bit disappointed in aspects of the finale. I also want to take a second look at the battle mechanics and other aspects of this game, again through the lens of having completed Rebirth. This will be my main game this month, and I hope to have some engaging conversations with other interested players!

Hey everyone! Reviewer Ryan M here! This month, I’ll be finishing up Yakuza: Like a Dragon since I’m in the middle of that. After that, I intend to play through Final Fantasy X-2, which I’ve never played despite being the direct sequel to my favorite Final Fantasy game. I’ll also try to get back to Octopath Traveler II if I can since playing and loving that game seems to be an RPGamer law.

Greetings and salutations. I’m Leogrim, a local jester and part-time shadow puppeteer being everywhere and nowhere. For this #JRPGJuly I will be jumping at Final Fantasy XIII, giving a game I never connected well to a second chance while continuing my streams of Golden Sun for everyone to partake in.

Greetings! I am Lamine, part of the news team. I heard “JRPG” and couldn’t resist taking part in this feature without knowing all the details. For this month I hope to enjoy: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona, Atelier Marie: Remake, and Monster Hunter Stories 2.

Hey, your man in Japan here, Michael Baker! I don’t have a specific game in mind to play this month, but I do have one massive backlog of stuff on Steam — some of which I don’t recall buying. So I’ll be playing through that and seeing what comes up. For this first week, I’ve got Ambition of the Slimes, a decent little tactical RPG based around those lowliest of RPG monsters, the slime. These revolting revolutionaries are out to take the world by storm, one warm human body at a time. It kind of feels like I’m playing a zombie horror RPG from the opposite end of the table, only all cute and colorful to mask the existential horror of its premise.

Salutations, felicitations, and jubilations! I’m Phil Willis and it is time for another #JRPGJuly! This time, I want to finish two great games that I got pretty far in. I started Persona 5 when it first came out, but I never finished it. Many moons later, I bought Persona 5 Royal and started over. After another 80 hours invested, I got close to the end of the fifth dungeon when I got sidetracked with moving to a new home. In Persona Q, I got right up to the end of the third dungeon before I put it down. According to the characters, I only have one dungeon left there! I need to polish these games off so I can move on to Persona Q2, Persona 5 Strikers, and Persona 5 Tactica, and #JRPGJuly is just the excuse I need to make that happen!

Hi everyone! I’m Ezra Kinnell and I do features and editorials here at RPGamer. In some ways, #JRPGJuly is just like any other month for me. I play most of the major JPRGs that are released, so Trails through Daybreak will be the main focus of my July, but I will also be playing a lot of Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance since I’m going for 100% completion in it, and that’s a daunting task!

We hope you enjoy keeping up with our staff’s adventures this #JRPGJuly. Let us know if you are participating and what you will be playing in the comments.