#JRPGJuly 2026 – Week 1 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 first week proved to be busy for our staff. Let’s see everyone’s progress!
Joshua Carpenter
Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land
I haven’t gotten too far into Atelier Yumia as I’ve spent the first week of July seeing the Swiss Alps. Nevertheless, it feels weird picking up the series again after skipping the last three games. Starting with a flash-forward scene to throw you into the action feels weird compared to the slower-paced Atelier games I’m used to, and the combat is so fast-paced that I haven’t gotten a sense of whether the bits of strategy surrounding breaking enemies are really necessary to the gameplay. I’m playing it on the original Switch, and it certainly suffers on that platform, with laggy performance and clunky traversal. Maybe that will improve when I get home to a Switch 2? Since I was craving some alchemy, hopefully the experience will pick up once that portion of the game opens up.
Matt Masem
Final Fantasy III Pixel Remaster
Whew, the Pixel Remaster of Final Fantasy III is most definitely a retro encounter for me. I played the DS version a long time ago, but I am remembering exactly zero story beats. I beat some evil Djinn early on, saving an entire kingdom from ruin, and all I got was a lousy canoe. I guess gift-giving in the early 90s was a simpler affair. I’ve gone through what I thought might be a good portion of the game, opening new jobs twice so far. Unfortunately, when I opened jobs like Dragoons, Vikings, and Dark Knights, there was literally no equipment for sale nearby. I look forward to seeing how they play later on, I suppose.
This is also the first Pixel Remaster game I’ve played. I do enjoy the ability to bump up the experience, money, and job points so I can do quite a bit of experimenting without insane amounts of grinding or risking a ton of game overs. It’s definitely encouraging me to play around with my characters’ jobs a lot. One thing that does seem like a glaring omission compared to many other remakes or modern games I play is variable battle speed. There’s no great way to speed up battles. They’re not exactly slow, but with the ability to level up quickly, I’d have hoped there was a speed-up button for animations and such as well.
Andi Privitere
Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster
I spent the weekend reacquainting myself with my ongoing run of Final Fantasy: The Ivaliace Chronicles, as I’ve mostly been focusing on Yoshi and the Mysterious Book over the last few weeks. I still need to do a couple of random battles to unlock another Dragoon and Samurai, but that will have to wait until after I’ve finished Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster!
Opening up the game and playing through the first couple of hours of Bravely Default felt like reuniting with a friend you haven’t seen in a long time – it’s been 12 years since I’ve played the original, and I’m thrilled to finally be revisiting the title. I remember very little about the story, and the gameplay is so very satisfying that it almost feels like a brand-new game for me.
I’m slowly weaving in time with my Switch 2 between watching all the amazing runs at Summer Games Done Quick (SGDQ), where I finally got to meet Sean Chiplock, who, among many other credits, is the amazing voice behind Rean Schwarzer from the Trails of Cold Steel series. Tried hard not to fanboy too hard…uncertain if successful?
Sam Wachter
#JRPGJuly has only begun, and I finished my first game for the event: Metaphor: Refantazio. I was in the final stages of the game before the month had changed over, so I spent a lot of time building up my Follower Ranks, completing all the Trial of the Dragon sidequests, and beefing up my characters so they could obtain their Royal Archetype. The final battles were long but thrilling, and I quite enjoyed many of the final twists and turns the game took. Heismay was easily my favourite party member, though Basillio was not far behind him. Overall, I can absolutely see why this game was hyped up when it released in 2024, and I am glad to have finally knocked it out of my backlog.
I also started Lunar: Eternal Blue Remastered, and I died ten minutes into the game because I forgot there was no autosave. We’ll try again this week and see if we can make progress beyond dying on the first map of the game.
Robert Sinclair
I didn’t get to play as much as I wanted, as we got nailed by a heat wave that made it very difficult to sleep for three days. I’m currently raiding Kamoshida’s castle, and my god, that man is so easy to hate. There are very few fictional characters that almost immediately make you dislike them, but this guy is terrible in so many ways. The four of us are going to steal his heart, and I’m going to revel in his eating some humble pie. I’m really curious where Persona 5 Royal goes in terms of villains because I don’t think you can really top this guy.
Elena Ng
The first week has been pretty eventful – I’m off to a flying start and really enjoying Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom so far. Accompanied by President Roland from a different timeline, I, young King Evan Pettiwhisker of the House of Tildrum, escaped the coup with nothing but the clothes on my back. I took my first steps out into the Overworld and rescued a lady named Martha, who introduced me to the wacky, fairy-like creatures called Higgledies. On my way to find a kingmaker, I ran into a bunch of sky pirates. Finally, after some trials and tribulations, I proved my worth as a king. With a kingsbond forged and a suitable block of land secured, the next thing to do is to start rebuilding my kingdom so I can be on my way to ruling the whole world.
Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom throws a lot at the player within the first few hours. Even with the introduction of the active combat system, higgledies, trials, skirmishes, and the addition of two new party members, I get the feeling that I’ve barely scratched the surface of this game, and that leaves me bubbling with excitement. Combat seems more straightforward than the hybrid real-time and turn-based combat system of the first Ni no Kuni. On ‘hard’ difficulty, the enemies and bosses haven’t posed much of a threat yet. Meanwhile, the adorable higgledies are rapidly filling in my creature-collecting-shaped void, and finally, Leafbook, the in-game social media device, is amusing for lore. I confess to snooping on Roland’s ‘private’ thoughts. Overall, I’m pleased to have taken to the fundamentals quickly and am eager to start my new kingdom next week.
Joseph Tingle
A few things got in the way of me playing as much Wild Arms as I would have liked (notably, the holiday weekend and the World Cup), but I still managed to clock at about 6 hours into Wild Arms during my first week – and that in-game figure doesn’t take into account a few early “Game Overs” which, though unexpected, happened more often than I would have liked! But enough of that – let’s get to Wild Arms! On the surface, we have an overall “look” that I am very much nostalgic for: when you’re in town and on the overworld, we mostly have 2D backgrounds and sprites; in battle, we have a different view of 3D polygons in a 3D space. This falls right into the pocket of proto-FFVII, post-SNES JRPG aesthetic that activates all those warm and fuzzy receptors in my brain, for some reason. The music is also pretty good – if you like acoustic guitar and whistling. I happen to like the western theming. It’s interesting, but not as overshadowing as you might expect. It reminds me of Final Fantasy mixed with Trigun (this game predates the anime, but was released after the manga).
The game, so far, is not much to write home about, but not much to complain about either. We have three characters, each of whom has their own special puzzle-solving abilities (for example, Jack can send a rat boomeranging toward faraway switches; Cecilia can use a time-turner to reset puzzles). The puzzle-solving aspect is a nice characteristic, especially since battles can feel a bit lengthy at times and also not very strategic, at least in these early stages. And there have been a few real wrinkles to the experience so far: while the core gameplay is pretty fun, triggering story events can sometimes feel unintuitive. For example, very early in the game, there is a door-opening switch on the back of a statue that ONLY appears if you’ve talked to the right NPC first. Some stuff doesn’t work as there is an absolutely dreadful early stealth-chase segment, which put at least 45 minutes of padding into my playthrough. That said, I’m having a good time with Wild Arms and am just at the spot where the story seems to be getting started. Just when I think I’ve seen all the game has to offer, it surprises me with some fun narrative and aesthetic twists. With a little more soundtrack and enemy variety, I’m sure to enjoy my next few hours with the title!
Pascal Tekaia
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Well, I know all about “the best-laid plans of mice and men” and all that, but I honestly didn’t think my plans would be derailed already in the first official week of #JRPGJuly! Here I had another game lined up for when I finished Infinite Wealth, and it turns out I wasn’t able to clear even one chapter all week. I kicked off chapter 5 this week, and so far I haven’t seen the end of it yet!
To be fair, some of that can also be attributed to moving into a new place and trying to keep up with the World Cup, so my available gaming time has been at a premium this week. But I still managed to put almost ten hours in, and this chapter keeps stretching out more and more. For reference, the first four chapters took me a total of nineteen hours to finish. I will admit that I’m a slow player, particularly in open-world games, as I like to experience as much as I can, and boy does the Yakuza series, and this game in particular, provide that in spades! In fact, the available side activities keep expanding, and now a city-wide photo scavenger hunt has been added to eat up my time, along with the myriad things I was already doing. I’m still loving the game so far and looking forward to making a bit of progress with the story next week!
Cassandra Ramos
Ah, Final Fantasy Adventure: the Final Fantasy spin-off that started the Mana series. To clear up any possible confusion, the Mana series is known as Seiken Densetsu (Legend of the Holy Sword) in Japan. The very first game released on the Game Boy was originally titled Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden, indicating that it is a spin-off of the Final Fantasy series. Later Mana games would mostly divest themselves of Final Fantasy aspects, becoming their own independent series. Thus, this game’s North American title isn’t as much of a misnomer as the Final Fantasy Legends games are. They just made the game’s subtitle its main title. I have noticed that, while playing Final Fantasy Adventure, there is more Final Fantasy DNA in this version than in Sword of Mana on the GBA. Some sprites look like Game Boy versions of NES sprites of White Mages, Red Mages, Fighters, and Thieves. I also just recently came across the Chocobo, accompanied by a slightly altered version of the mascot’s theme music. I think the only Final Fantasy reference in Sword of Mana is the Moogle status condition, also present in Final Fantasy Adventure.
I’m not sure how far I am into Final Fantasy Adventure, or even how many hours I’ve spent on it yet. From my vague memories of Sword of Mana, I might be at or slightly under halfway there. I just made it to the Cave of Medusa. This game is, of course, a lot simpler than Sword of Mana in terms of just about everything, but I can see how this could capture the imagination of a child in the 1990s. There have already been two on-screen deaths, and I know that later in the game, the story gets heavier. I’m liking the light puzzle-solving elements, feeling straight out of the original Legend of Zelda. Maybe I would have become an RPGamer before Pokémon Red‘s release had I picked up this game first. I’m also tickled by hearing the original 8-bit renditions of music that I first heard in Sword of Mana. This is supposed to be a short game, but I’ve been known to take my time with RPGs, so I’ll see if I can finish this game by next week or not.
Stream Team
This week saw Cheezy’s debut on the RPGamer Twitch channel, playing Final Fantasy Tactics: Ivalice Chronicles!
Here is what else is happening on the channel:
– HeroHarmony continues his legal career with a fresh playthrough of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles.
– SpareOmbres returns to NieR: Automata to continue last year’s existential crisis.
– Smoking Joe Gamer grabbed his Keyblade and showed us the wonderful Disney world of Kingdom Hearts 1.
– Leogrim becomes a legendary vampire hunter who just wants his girlfriend back in Castlevania: Lament of Innocence.
– HerrFrog surprises us! After finally finishing Arc the Lad 2 last year, he’s jumping straight into Arc the Lad 3. (Place your bets now on how many years this one will take him…)
– And Scar spins that wheel of Super Nintendo JRPGs. Make sure not to miss his current line-up every Tuesday and Friday.
Stay tuned: TheMightyTAM will hopefully be back on July 11th once he survives his ongoing computer issues.
We’re rocking streams seven days a week! Be sure to follow our channel and turn on notifications so you never miss a live show: [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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