#JRPGJuly 2026 – Week 3 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 of July is already on the horizon, but what about the staff’s chosen games?
Joshua Carpenter
Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land
I am coming to terms with the fact that Atelier Yumia is not what I want it to be. I’m warming to the characters and especially Yumia’s journey to discover what her mother was doing with alchemy and how it relates to the disasters that have befallen the world. Swapping to the Switch 2 and upgrading to that system’s version of the game has vastly improved the experience. While the differences in graphics may be subtle, the improvements in loading times are more than worth the upgrade price and are welcome in a game centered around open-world exploration.
Since last week, I’ve had two surprises in the game. One is that I finally died to the first real boss, Vesper. Combat has been so trivially easy up to this point that I haven’t paid much attention to it and that lack of attention probably caught up to me in this battle. The other surprise is that Vesper himself is voice acted by Takaya Kuroda who more famously voices Kazuma Kiryu in the Yakuza series. I was not expecting to hear Kiryu’s voice taunting me from a dragon-like demon. Now to level up a bit so I can get past him!
Matt Masem
Final Fantasy III Pixel Remaster
When Final Fantasy III tells you that there’s a point of no return, they’re not kidding. I reached what I thought might be the final boss, but of course not, because… JRPG. So I beat it and I’m sent to a place where I cannot save and don’t have the right equipment, job layout, or items for these enemies. Oops, really should’ve taken that advice about being ready. I poked around in what would be the final area for a good hour plus, but in the end had to reset the game, losing about 90 minutes of progress. I tried grinding a bit and then accidentally stepped too far and made the same mistake as I did the first time; boom, another hour plus lost to a reset.
When I finally did the right thing, grinded the right jobs and bought the right stuff, I did just fine in the final battles, but my goodness, going in unprepared made me spend 5-6 hours on the final hour and a half of the game. That was even with the EXP set at 4X level. I can’t imagine what kind of horror show the original game must’ve been on NES back in the day! I think I said this before, but I’ll say it again: it’s a good thing this didn’t come West back in the day! The Pixel Remaster ended up being a mixed bag for me. The game felt like it opened stuff too early or too late to be useful in-the-moment. While I liked the story, such as it was, this wasn’t a very memorable experience for me. The ending just left me with a bad taste in my mouth after losing 3-4 hours of progress in a 12-hour game. I’ll be looking for something more modern to finish off my #JRPGJuly.
Sam Wachter
Lunar II: Eternal Blue Remastered
I finished Lunar II: Eternal Blue on Sunday, minus the epilogue. Sadly, the wildfires where I live meant lots of forced indoor time due to high levels of smoke and poor air quality. This provided lots of gaming time, where I managed to complete the bulk of the game, and then Sunday was spent completing Zophar’s Keep. I thought level 50 was more than enough to complete this whole area, and I was dead wrong. I tried a few rounds against the final boss and had my butt handed to me each time. Finally, I sucked it up and ended up grinding to level 54, and suddenly Zophar’s third and nastiest form was more of a joke than he was at level 50. Regardless, Zophar has been defeated, and I had many feelings about the ending. However, since finishing it, I’ve had no time to rejoin Hiro and friends in the epilogue, so hopefully for my last update that will be completed too!
Robert Sinclair
During the last update, I was wondering how an artist could be as bad as the disgraced PE teacher, and Persona 5 Royal has delivered. While I still feel Kamoshida is a worse person, Madarame turned out to be an absolute piece of trash human. I will be glad to see his heart change. I’m really curious who the third bad guy is going to be. At this rate though, I’ll be playing this game for another couple months. I knew it was a behemoth of a game when I started and I will eventually finish it.
As an aside, a friend peer pressured me into trying out Dark Souls: Remastered. I made a guy who uses a bow and sword, and I’m just running around the undead berg and trying to figure it out. He tells me to “git gud” and I’m hoping some day I will.
Elena Ng
I got my ship and it’s been smooth sailing in Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom. Well, mostly. The ship will magically appear on the nearest coast at all times, and while that sounds good in theory, in reality, it can take a while to reach a coast even with fast travel. Once I’m on the ship though, it’s fine. New locations opened up as a result, and I spent a good portion of this week just exploring the map, including jumping over rifts in the ocean. The next nation I visited was Hydropolis, a wistful, seaside city ruled by a Queen with strict laws. Strict as in you aren’t even allowed to fall in love or get sick ever! There’s also a literal eye that watches your every move. Underneath this front, however, there is a really tragic backstory for why the kingdom is the way it is, and Evan and the gang do their best to help as always. It’s not without reward though, as I also get a cool new companion along the way.
Although I’ve had a busy week, I find it really comforting to jump into Ni no Kuni II to wind down. Evermore continues to prosper, with further facility upgrades, new personnel, and a steady stream of Kingsguilders coming in. I also got really immersed in the side quests. This week, romance was the theme. I helped a couple get together with the power of cooking, confronted an infatuated witch to return a musician’s voice, and recruited a handsome Merman so that he could get away from his crowd of admirers. Lastly, I arrived in Broadleaf, a nation so technically advanced that my game crashed. Trouble is brewing here too, and I look forward to getting to the bottom of it next week!
Joseph Tingle
If you detected some ambivalence in my last update, you were right. After the initial honeymoon phase, I haven’t been having the greatest of times with Wild Arms. Notably, I’ve found the repetitive soundtrack, sparse writing, and uninspired dungeon design to be on the weaker side of what I’d expect from an RPG — even one released in 1996. There have been a few things I’ve enjoyed about the game — like the overall aesthetic, and some of the dungeon puzzles. But sadly, this negative impression remained largely unchanged for much of this week.
That is, until this latest part of the game. Fortunately, I am starting to feel excited to play Wild Arms again, and the biggest improvement so far comes with the addition of the ship, which I received after completing the game’s last “Ghost Ship” segment. No longer must I traverse the world map and its incredibly high encounter rate as I struggle to keep track of the game’s “ancient aliens” pyramid teleportation system. Instead, I’m free to explore the world at my leisure. I can go back to any town that I’ve been to with relative ease. Moreover, the ocean seems to contain many appropriately scaled challenges which I can tackle at my choosing.
Wild Arms is not a modern experience. It doesn’t tell you what to do next, and sometimes it confuses you needlessly. But with my ship on the ocean, I finally feel like I can trial-and-error my way through the next segment of the game in a way that feels more inspiring of curiosity. As for the story and characters, neither are anywhere close to being as interesting as I’d hope, but here’s to hoping that these new headwinds can help sail me through the game’s final chapters.
Pascal Tekaia
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
After starting #JRPGJuly with the sentiment of “I’m not making any progress, I’ll never finish this!” it’s nice to say that I’m on a pretty steady track to (I think) finish Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth in the next week or two. Since last week, I’ve cleared another handful of chapters, and am now mid-chapter 12 of 14. The story is still incredibly enjoyable, and I’ve just gotten to the second scene in this game that got me a little misty-eyed: the conversation between Ichiban and Akane on the beach — if you know, you know. I’m not sure yet if I’m going to keep playing leisurely, which will probably guarantee I’ll need two more weeks to roll credits, or if I’m going to accelerate the pace at any point and fast-track it to the end. If I finish this coming week, I’ll wrap up JRPGJuly by starting on Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth.
Cassandra Ramos
I finished Final Fantasy Adventure! Because of the odd way the Switch logs time spent on a game, it took me more than ten hours, but less than fifteen hours to complete. It’s a short game to be sure, but that’s the beauty of it. It’s a complete, if simple RPG experience for the original Game Boy. From last time, I obtained the Sword of — I mean, the Excalibur, but it was all rusty. For reasons either left unexplained or I just blinked and missed it, I had to climb the Dime Tower. Then I went back to the waterfall that now flows upwards, made it through the Mana Temple, and beat some dragons along the way. The heroine restored Excalibur to its former glory, and with it I defeated Julius. I knew what would come at the end, and you know, as a young child I think this scene and this whole game would have moved me. It’s a melancholic game to be sure, even though Sword of Mana captured that feeling much better than this game.
I did enjoy my time with Final Fantasy Adventure. The action battles are simple, but fun, even if switching between weapons constantly can be a bit annoying. While I guess you could call it a sort of backwards nostalgia, the simple turns of the Game Boy brought me back to the more complex music of the Game Boy Advance. The original Rising Sun, the title screen theme for this game and its remakes, is still excellent even in original Game Boy form. The puzzle-solving elements were fun, too, even though I needed a guide for a vague hint about running around trees in the desert. The story is fairly simple, but it goes the extra mile by having some of the major NPCs sacrifice themselves for the sake of the world. I think it was well worth exploring the original version of one of my most favorite GBA games, as well as the root of the Mana series.
While I probably won’t get far, next time I will write about the GBA reimagining, Sword of Mana.
Stream Team
The third week of #JRPGJuly streams is officially in the books! Missed the action? Here’s the verdict on what went down: 👇
– Cheezy made some calculated moves on his return to Ivalice with Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles.
– Scar kept the good times rolling by spinning his wheel for a stack of classic (and hidden!) SNES gems.
– Leogrim whipped those optional bosses into shape while exploring Castlevania: Lament of Innocence.
– HeroHarmony held court to show us what it really means to be a Great Ace Attorney—no objections here!
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, alongside some incredible podcasts! We’re rocking live streams seven days a week, so hit that follow button and turn on notifications so you never miss out:[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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