The Two 3DS JRPGs You Must Play Now

TL;DR

The eshop closing is a loss for OnlyJRPG fans everywhere, particularly fans of Yasumi Matsuno who designed Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy 12, and Boku No Natsuyasumi’s Kaz Ayabe. 

Those who continually feel the JRPG itch will do themselves a disservice by not shoving the following digital exclusives onto their aging handheld systems, as they’re sadly scheduled to fall into inaccessibility. 

The first, Attack of the Friday Monsters A Tokyo Tale, was created by Kaz Ayabe, father of the legendarily unlocalized Boku no natsuyasumi. 

The other, Crimson Shroud, a “short story" by none other than the king of high fantasy melodrama, Yasumi Matsumo. 

In the west, we were lucky enough to get digital releases of both of these games along with the rest of the line up from the Level-5 Guild collection, but only digital releases. 

The guild collection itself was a series of abbreviated games from not only these two masters of their respective genre, but also the likes of Keiji Inafune (Megaman) and Kazuya Asano.

If you do not pick these up in the next week, they will legally be out of reach.

First up, a soft sunny afternoon in 1971.

Attack of the Friday Monsters!
A Tokyo Tale

Attack of the Friday Monsters! is a playable lighthearted anime classic, specifically Crayon Shin Chan: Fierceness That Invites Storm, The Adult Empire Strikes Back, if we were to name one. 

It asks little of you but a breezy afternoon and a little self-indulgence in imagining yourself as a transfer student from the very rural Japanese countryside to a then rural 1971 Setagaya-ku, Tokyo. 

The night before you arrived however, a meteor crashed into the town and your newly made friends have tasked themselves to investigate.

What I liked

Playstyle
Attack of the Friday Monsters is a small town Tokyo sandbox. You can adventure through your budding neighborhood in pace with your 10 year old heart beat.

When the game first gives you control, you can see a shining space rock giving you permission to ignore the dry cleaning related errands your parents assigned you and trounce around every corner of the map in search of more. 

This space rock is a collectible “monster glim” (kaiju piece if you can understand 300 words of Nihongo), which grants a monster card you can use in your battles once 7 of them are collected. 

Doing this triggers the beginnings of later episodes, setting up the curiosity that every curious explorer feels when roaming the dusty wild west of a new location. 

The game introduces mystery after mystery including a tuxedo’d man named Frank, who is studying earthlings, the 6th cutest girl in your school who transferred in on the same day as you, and oh yeah the giant monster footprints that litter the main entryway of the town.

The overflowing charms of the time period in combination with the grassy green nostalgia fields of youth make me heart eyes with every frame. 

Atmosphere
Attack of the Friday Monsters is all atmosphere. 

As an American who discovered the studio through the Disney channel’s semi-annual showing of Kiki’s Delivery Service, the comparison to studio ghibli is hard to avoid. I showed Aya the intro and she asked if it was anime. To be fair, it is.

Each background echoes the Millennium Kitchen commissioned backgrounds found in the Boku no Natsuyasumi series. 

The 3d is little more than a layer in this game and gives the feeling of little through a 4 inch window at a polygonal Shota enjoying the studio ghibli museum. 

The level of detail in Boku no Natsuyasumi is legendary as Tim Rogers mentions in the 6 hour action button review of the game, and in Attack of the Friday Monsters Kaz Ayabe gives a sample of what those hifi microphones can do when applied to the developing cityside of 1970’s Setagaya. 

Setagaya today is one of the largest “ku’ or wards in tokyo. It is where the Rakuten global headquarters is. And also where I live. In this fictional 1971 Setagaya however, it is but a sapling of its future concrete flower. 

There is one restaurant, a ramen store owned by the father of your strongest friend, that is part of the train station. The train station at which the train doesn’t stop, creating a nice hard barrier for the expedition prone youths you befriend.

The music is sparse but impactful, an orchestrated tribute to the films and time it is commemorating, joining the fray only to accent the emotions of the moment. Sweeping wistful strings accompany your leisurely strongest friend guided tour of the town, while the cymbals crash when he shows you the place the meteor fell.

The intro song is a bowl full of reminiscence of Totoro’s theme, with lyrics describing this boy Shota’s life and the whimsy of a child’s perspective, as the camera slow zooms through the places your adventurous heart yearns to trek through , including the road trounced on by a creature leaving enormous Greninja footprints and ending with the collision site of the meteor. 

There is magic in every small moment we share. 

The sounds alone of this small town that will one day be a big town provide so rich a summer-of-the-heart feeling that the joy of walking down the mainstreet past the ramen store with its radio playing enka, the train passing disruptively clunking its metal on metal tones of the wheels hitting the bumps in the tracks at the station, the radio news show echoing from your neighbors house as you leave your family’s dry cleaning shop, the volume of each of these curated vibe builders adjusting to the camera’s position in each portion of the map, wrapping your ears in the illusion of life in the humid green natsu in tokyo, does not wear off even after completion of the main story. 

Which brings me to my only complaint.

What I didn’t like

Length
I wanted Attack of the Friday Monsters to be longer.

It took me 37 minutes over five hours to beat, but I saw a playthrough on YouTube that was only 30 minutes over two hours, so I am sure you will do better.

I googled games like “Attack of the Friday Monsters” immediately after finishing, longing to discover another reminiscence washed experience. 

If Crimson Shroud is a JRPG Short Story, then Attack of the Friday Monsters is a Tumblr post of all your favorite curios from that land of the rising sun. We live there by the way. In that sun, and the sun is a star, a star in a sky full of stars that’s about to lose two due to cruel, planned obsolescence. (the two games we are talking about)

I can only hope the Crayon Shin Chan game can live up to my monolingual expectations, but if not, Attack of the Friday Monsters is worth every one of the 799 cents.

What I didn’t mind

Card Battles
This is the first time that I have been able to be honest with myself. 

I don’t need the battles. I don’t. 

You don’t. 

They are fun and when I first played Attack of the Friday Monsters it was a nice part of the game, but now that I am a dad and recognize how limited our time with those we love is, I can recognize that you can just have a 1971 tokyo walking mystery simulator. 

I’m just jealous because you're young and you’re young.

The End

Attack of the Friday Monsters is less of a treat in a Post Animal Crossing Intensive Pandemic world, and in a world where indie games trying to sell you a formulated vision of “wholesomeness,” whatever that may be, but instead of serving you up friendship in textboxes Attack of the Friday Monsters gives you two hours in a nostalgia fueled approximation of Showa era Tokyo deploying Kaiju in card battles.

If the first hour of Ni No Kuni spoke to your soul, before promptly refusing to speak to it again for the rest of its 30 hour run, or if you’re just a Triple Triad Guy, give your Nintendo 3DS your credit card information one last time.

OK Gamers, Onto the *real* game now, beware this next tale is not for the faint of heart.

Crimson Shroud

Crimson Shroud is a 3d-er version of what I imagined Vagrant Story would be when I had only seen the cover and had not yet subjected myself to a work-through of the game. (read how I feel about that game here, if I have finished writing it). 

Swashbuckling melodramatic high fantasy coupled with the most strategic and challenging turn based battles I have ever played. 

A game melting chance and strategy, Crimson Shroud shares connective tissue with tabletop fare like DnD or Pathfinder. 

Many actions require you to roll dice ranging from 4 sided to 20 sided, most need several of these plentiful dice in combination. When I first read the comparisons to tabletop role playing games, I was as turned off as you are, but the under $10 price tag for a game with the aesthetics of Vagrant Story was to alluring to say “pass”

What I liked

Words
Yasumi Matsuno’s does words good. Crimson Shroud is a picture book with battles; a set of menus you click through to choose what part of the dungeon you will read about what is happening in next, or if you are lucky, what part of the dungeon you will read about what is happening in and then fight in.

The description of Crimson Shroud sounds revolting as Crimson Shroud looks. That said, If you have enjoyed any of Matsuno’s other works you will enjoy this game. And you have enjoyed his other works. 

He does not miss. 

The prose are blessings in my ears as I whisper read the text while playing my 3DS on my bathroom breaks at work. Here is an example of an amazing passage that puts to 3d screen what I tried to put to google doc about the moment you are in daylight in Vagrant Story:

"you squint against the sunlight spilling in through cracks in the ceiling dome, you were too long in the dark underways and though blinding, the sun lofts your spirits as does the fresh air that fills your lungs. A clinging weight lifts from your shoulders and even your heart feel lighter" 

All ‘show don’t tell’ moments in Yasumi Matsuno's games should be written out Dungeon Master style. I would let him tell me about Terra Battle in great detail. I would listen to an extended-novelization of the localization of Tactics Ogre. To be honest, an audiobook might be the only way I could ever make it through Final Fantasy 14; A game worse than his Final Fantasy 12.

Localization
At the very least half of the credit for my love of this game goes to the localization staff. I will try to find their names to give them credit but if they are not written here, I couldn’t find them. I type sorry and mean it. 

Combat
This is where Crimson Shroud shines through the polygon puree of the 3DS graphical limits, peak traditional RPG combat. The battles are turn based in the dogmatic sense, the closest a game has come to replicating DnD and still being fun to play.

I have never played a soulslike, but this is how I imagine a turned based Dark Souls would play. 

Giaque, Frea, and Lippy remain stationary for the entirety of every battle, as do the enemies you face. The turns progress according to character speed stat and during your turn you have the option to use a skill first or complete an action such as casting or attacking. And dice, which initially I thought I would hate.

What makes this game the peak of turn based combat is the luck element of the dice rolls as well as the skills available for each character. 

When it is your turn, you choose to perform a skill or action. You can perform both in one turn, but the order in which you do so determines the effectiveness of the action and the amount of MP you have left to complete the next action. These layers alone give a wide variety of strategic plays and make each turn feel meaningful, how the dice throw an intensifying wrench into that strategy. For almost every special action you must roll a set of dice, the result dictates they amount of HP your healing spell heals for example, or if your debuff debuffs the enemy. 

And you will need to debuff enemies, this is not a game you can grind your way through, there are no levels, only gear and skills. Your decisions get weighty during each boss fight when you can tell they are just above your stat range, and just as in it’s brother from another big gaming studio, the rule apply unilaterally to all involved in the fight. Meaning, your opponents with debuff, buff, and heal just as you do. 

This becomes abundantly clear during your second time facing your evil duplicates in the form of witch kings, but more on that difficulty spike later.

I can wholeheartedly say that I have never felt so invested in a game's battles the way that Crimson Shroud had me in nearly every fight. 

Characters
At the heart of this tale are the dashing trio of “Chaser” (odd jobers, bounty hunters, and treasure hunters all rolled into one word); Giaque, Lippy, and Frea.

Story
Crimson Shroud is an Ivalice game despite what the Level-5 lawyers want you to believe. Giaque, Lippy, and Frea are hunting the Shroud a short distance from Ala Mondé.

I am grouping plot and story together here because I am not a good enough writer to distinguish between the two. The story (plot?) of Crimson Shroud, much like the labyrinth that it takes place in, is as deep as you are willing to venture. It is dolled out in walloping servings of text in each room you visit, but only if you want it. To reminisce or not to reminisce, that is the question. The answer is up to you.

A word to the wise, as I said before Yasumi’s does words good; my recommendation is read all you can. A rich narrative speckled with political commentary awaits you. 

The story revolves around the quest for the titular Crimson Shroud, or rather the chase for the Defence of Heresy, a tome of secrets covered up by the shadowy church state that rules over the land of Not Ivalice. You and your crew have been hired by a senator to recover the overdue library book from an over eager academic of the church. Unfortunately, but unshockingly, the chase leads you to the Palace of Rahab, a cursed ruin of a bygone era when magic filled the land. Even more unfortunately for you, but fortunately for those that are paying you, the shroud is rumored to be housed in the depth of the caverns below the palace, and it will grant the bearer ultimate power. 

The plot divulges the secrets contained in the tome and you come face to face with the truth of what the Crimson Shroud is.

I loved every word. The story leans heavily into the gallant and cryptic storytelling on which Matsuno has built his legacy and it packs the punch you have come to expect.

Length
Crimson Shroud is the only time I have ever used the new game plus feature, besides Bravely Second, but I don’t count that. You can read my thoughts on why here. Unlike (exactly like) Bravely Second, you need to use NG+ to get the true ending. My first playthrough took me a bit more than 8 hours and my second more than 12, totalling my playtime at 24 hours to get the good ending.

That is about 20 hours too short for an JRPG, but a great length for a fulltime father with a fulltime job and wife that works fulltime. 

Again, this game filled my bathroom breaks for the better part of Q4 2022. Great for those who feel that JRPGs have fallen out of reach of their adult lives.

Music
I was not going to include a section about the music because I often play with the volume down or off to not disturb Aya and Niné, so I have a hard time recalling game soundtracks. But when I am writing these things I like to listen to the game music to put the ghost of the game back into my shell, and my god, this OST is spirited. 

Hitoshi Sakimoto, composer for Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy 12, need I say more?

I mean, I will because I like to talk and type. The soundtrack captures, injures, and interrogates the swashbuckling heart of Crimson Shroud. At times, haunting and arcane, others, thrilling and gallant. Yes, I used ChatGPT to give me synonyms for “swashbuckling” and “haunting”, although now that I have confessed, maybe I should have leaned into those words more. 

I would be hard pressed to find an OST that syncs tonally as well as this does. 

Take a listen here while you read the rest of this review.

Art style
In true Yasumi Matsuno fashion, everyone is sexy. The art style puts the lineage of Vagrant Story into sharp focus. Thin waists, lengthy arms, enchanting minimalist faces and poses that fall only a few meters short of Joseph Jostar himself. Each outfit is as gorgeous as the wearer, displaying the makings of their souls. It is a shame that the dated nintendo handheld splotches the features resulting in a mushy blend of lines, curves, and angles that pales in comparison to the art it was based on. 

Which leads me to the one thing I didn’t like.

What I didn't like

Visual presentation
Crimson Shroud is ugly. The 3DS serves as a blender, stunning hand drawn portraits go in and a grey brown jagged polygon parfait comes out.

It's the only game where you need the 3D on full blast at all times, not because of any interesting use of the third dimension, rather the depth liberates what would otherwise be a drab soup of blades and arrows into a visually understandable PS1 masterpiece. 

I understand it was ambitious for a 3DS title, but it is still a disappointment even when compared to its visual predecessor of 10 years, the big brother of JRPGs Vagrant Story. The camera angle was not adjustable at any point of the game, which made my optical nerves tangle during each battle. To top things off, the overlays were unmute-able, so you can’t even rest your eyes on the gooey melt of dungeons and dragons without colored lines and numbers distracting you further.

If there is ever a port, and I am praying there will be, my second prayer is spent on cleaning up the renders.

What I didn't mind

Difficulty Spike
As I mentioned above, Crimson Shroud requires a second playthrough to unlock the good ending. I hesitate to say “true ending” because as I discovered in Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lodis, true is up to the beholder. (you can read more about that soon I hope) At any rate, there is a steep difficulty spike during your New Game +. While at first the playing field feels even, there are several fights where it becomes apparent that the game wants you to grind for gear. This I didn’t mind too much because the combat is fun, but the gear you net nets you incremental stat increases and the luck element crescendos the harder battles into a cacophony of frustration.

There is another level of difficulty that raises during your Plus Game New, the “puzzles” like I said, Crimson Shroud is a picture book with battles, so the “puzzles” are hints that are buried in the text about what enemies you need to slaughter repeatedly until they drop a specific item. I missed any of these that was not the name of the location I needed to travel to next. 

For each of these puzzles, I needed to consult a guide, but because Crimson Shroud is a menu with battles, the guides are a list of locations in sequence, much like the game, thus my experience remained unspoiled. 

I was feeling embarrassed about this, but I was fondly reminded of the brady games strategy guides I would purchase and fawn over with each game. 

Again, I didn’t mind this, but I was a-raging a few times. 

In The End Again, this time for real

These two games are twinkling diamonds in the tiger head treasure den from the Agrabah level of Kingdom hearts, albeit one carat diamonds. That tiger head’s mouth is shutting and soon they will be swallowed whole, so get your keyblade wielding ass in gear and get these before they are legally out of your grasp.

Or just pirate them if you want to steal from the gaming company that brought you Decapolice, Professor Layton, Yokai Watch, and Inazuma 11. 

What I want to say in the end is that I would rather play either of these games than read a blog post about them, so you should go and do that.

I love you 

-bryan, OnlyJRPGs