#JRPGJuly 2025 – Week 4 Round-up
Welcome to another year of everyone’s favorite monthly gameathon. #JRPGJuly was created as a community game-along by Anne Lee @ Chic Pixel, and hosted by MDi. Once again, the RPGamer staff is showing their support for the event by playing some JRPGs. If you’re participating, make sure to use #JRPGJuly or share your feelings over on the RPGamer Discord server.
The end is in sight, but we aren’t finished yet. Lets see how everyone is progressing as we approach the end of the month!
Joshua Carpenter
The more that I play, the more impressed I become with how well Sakura Wars 2: Thou Shall Not Die holds up. Admittedly, you’ll never confuse it for a modern release, especially with some grainy looking strategy maps and dated 3D computer animated special attacks. However, the 2D art looks fantastic, there’s plenty of high quality voice acting that helps create a sense of the character’s personalities, and there are even fully animated cutscenes to punctuate big moments in the story.
The big budget nature — at least for a Saturn game — really comes through and makes this a unique experience. In-between battles and story sections, the main character Ogami is free to wander the Theatre, triggering different story scenes. I’ve even stumbled into mini games that are missable, and you only play once. It gives Sakura Wars a more fleshed out feeling than the traditional visual novel/RPG hybrids that populate today’s consoles.
Jervon Perkins
Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin
This week, I finally reached a point in Monster Hunter Stories 2 where the story got interesting. The bond between my character and Ratha actually started to develop, and the main character had a moment of doubt that added some needed depth. For a mostly blank slate protagonist, it was nice to see a flicker of personality and emotional growth.
The downside is how long it took to get there. The number of side quests required just to progress the main story is one of the game’s biggest flaws. There’s a lot of fluff to push through before the real emotional moments kick in. Still, it reminds me a bit of Xenoblade Chronicles where the tedium can slow things down, but the payoff makes it worthwhile. I’m not sure I’ll finish the entire game by the end of July, but I’ve made good progress and plan to keep going. When the story shines, it makes all the effort feel worth it.
Andi Privitere
Farmagia has certainly thrown a curveball at me. At about 25 hours in, the plot seemed to be wrapping up, and I was saying my goodbyes to party members when, to my surprise, a full second half of the game was revealed! I did not see that storyline coming.
The last several weeks, I’ve mostly gushed about everything I really enjoy about Farmagia, but it’s also worth explaining some of the things I think could have been improved. With nearly 40 hours of gameplay under my belt, the dungeon designs are dismal. There’s no variety, even between different biomes and on different continents. Dungeon gameplay is great, which makes up for it to a degree, but it would have been nice if the dungeon graphics weren’t so boring. Additionally, as I begin to deep dive into finishing the last few sections of the talent tree, sometimes I’m not sure where to get a specific item. There’s an in-game creature encyclopedia, but it’s a little unwieldy to use. Other games that require specific item drops often allow players to specifically track them or flag the areas they’re available in. That would have been *really* nice.
Neither of those complaints keep the game from being a ton of fun, and in so many ways that ephemeral “fun factor” is the most important part of an RPG, so I’ll be finishing up Farmagia this week and highly recommend anyone who likes a mix of RPG, farming sim, and visual novel give it a go.
Sam Wachter
The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak
I’m going to be honest, finishing two games during this year’s #JRPGJuly was not on my bingo card! I did end up going through my half-started pile and ultimately decided to go back to Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak. I completed Chapter 2, and that last story beat was a chef’s kiss. It was a great surprise, and for all the plodding that this series does, often the surprises and twists are worth it. Melichor is still a creep, and I do not like him: 0/10. I’m still firmly Team Aaron, as he is such a snotty, sassy lil red head, and I love him. Poor Van, everyone in this world has no concept of what being old truly is!
I’ve begun Chapter 3 at this point, and I’m working through all the quests on Van’s chore list. I left off on a monster extermination, so I feel like I should make some good progress. In theory, I would love to have Chapter 3 completed before the end of the month, but given how busy I’ve been, it seems unlikely. Still, it would be nice to finish this game before the end of the year, as I feel like I am the slowest Trails player ever.
Robert Sinclair
This week was less than stellar both in terms of making progress in Metaphor: ReFantazio and just general mental health. I turned in all my quests, raised some follower ranks, then went into our giant Runner to start the next story bit and it’s a stealth section with bosses you must beat in a limited number of turns. I feel like this is the first time that Metaphor has done something I just do not like. After a few failed attempts, I decided to put the game aside until I feel more like smacking my head against that particular wall.
So, to make myself feel better, I booted up Pokémon Fire Red and started a hardcore Nuzlocke challenge. I started with Squirtle and went off on an adventure. To keep myself even further insulated from feeling down, I watched The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit movies. It may not have broken a lot of new ground this week, but it was full of all the best comfort food media I could muster.
Ryan McCarthy
Metaphor ReFantazio has been pretty slow going story-wise, as where I’m at right now feels like the plot is finally getting started. The protagonist, with the help of Strohl and Hulkenberg, has entered the competition to see who will be crowned king. In order to get the attention of Louis, we are now traveling on their, uh…interesting mode of transportation that will no doubt be a great help in getting to our destination. They have also undertaken the bounty on an ex-knight named Heismay — who has been kidnapping children in the city of Martira — as part of the competition, as they must being the biggest monster’s head.
I’ve been having a decent time playing the game as I’ve always enjoyed the combat systems in the modern Persona games, if nothing else. I haven’t really done much of the social link-esque stuff as this is still relatively early on in the game and it will probably be some time before getting back to doing it for plot reasons. I have to admit that I don’t really feel that strongly for either Strohl or Hulkenberg as of now, though I suspect that will change as I go further into the game, seeing as I’m only 16 hours into what will be a lengthy game. To this point, I’m still in the “wait and see” mode with this game.
Cassandra Ramos
Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
I’ve spent 13 hours so far on Fantasy Life i, and I’ve really only scratched the surface of this game. I’m an adept level paladin and apprentice level woodcutter and carpenter. Aside from leveling up new Lives and completing sidequests, I advanced the story a bit further, and I’m beginning to detect a pattern in the plot. While exploring a large underground dungeon, Edward — the leader of the expedition — gets trapped in a room by a mysterious floating mage named Carla and we need to find someone to help free Edward. To accomplish this, we have to explore new parts of Mysteria Island’s past. Lather, rinse, repeat. I’m hoping this will change at some point, although there are hints to a larger plot going on. I also hope that we’ll be able to take a quick jump through this dungeon sometime soon because having to walk all the way out of it and back to wherever it is Edward is trapped in is getting a bit tedious.
To be fair, the first Fantasy Life had a weak story, and so far, Fantasy Life i has been better in that regard. Nitpicks aside, I am really enjoying this game and the quality of life changes it brings to the series. I especially like being able to change Lives on the fly. When there are enemies, instead of having to fight them as a carpenter or going into the menu, I can press the attack button to change into a paladin. I do wonder how it works if you take on two or more combat Lives, but I can try that for myself at some point. The mini-game for crafting seems pretty similar to the first game’s, but is still quite fun. I still have a long way to go in this game, but July isn’t over yet. I imagine I’ll be playing Fantasy Life i for a long time, even if I don’t max out all of the Lives. I may at least become a jack of all of them this time around.
Stream Team
The stream team continues to chug along in their various selections for #JRPGJuly. Here are some of the highlights if you missed any of this week’s streams:
- Noodle returned with more Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail! We spent some time with Hildebrand and things got…a little explosive.
- TheMightyTAM continues to entertain strategic battles with Super Robot Wars OG Generation 2. Can he be trusted to pilot a mech? Probably not, but we’re doing it anyways!
- Scar is slowly winding down several games on the Wheel of SNES RPGs. Got a hot tip for Last Bible III? Be sure to swing by our Discord and help him out.
- HeroHarmony is still progressing through August in Persona 3 Reload — a particularly plot heavy month for the game — and improving social links with his party, especially Koromaru. Best boy, or bestest boy? You decide.
- A pair of Visions of Mana streams sees us battling the next elemental boss, this time taking down the Benevodon of Darkness. SmokinJoeGamer makes juggling multiple active characters look easy in frenetic combat, casting spells and dodging enemy attacks like a pro.
- SpareOmbres sets aside his usual dungeon crawling for NieR: Automata. We’re pretty deep into the game’s story, so we won’t spoil what’s going on, but can we say it’s a whole lot of fun to hack bosses? It’s also very silly, but that’s okay too.
- Of course, we can’t forget our two podcasts — Q&A Quest and RPG Cast — who both had shows this week. A special shout out to MDi, who runs the Community Game Along all year round, who joined the RPG Cast to talk about themes for the rest of the year, what they’re playing for #JRPGJuly, and more. Be sure to follow him on Bluesky or Twitch and say hello.
Be sure you’ve given our channel a follow and turn on notifications to know when we’re going live: twitch.tv/rpgamer
That’s all for this week. Let us know what sort of progress you’re making in your #JRPGJuly game in the comments or on social media!
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