Nintendo 3DS’s spring is an oasis of JRPGs

Six within a month

Fire Emblem Fates is just a few weeks away (February 19) and I’ll finally have a reason to re-glue my face to my 3DS and play nosy match-maker. But the two versions of Fates are just, uh, two of the JRPGs (and adjacent genres/styles) available for the 3DS in this early part of the year

There’s the Monster Hunter-ish, MMO-lite Final Fantasy Explorers, which just came out. Chris noted, “But players who are willing to jump in with both feet will find a lot to love, and that goes double if you’re planning to play through the adventure with a friend.” This one’s already out.

Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam — that’s the regular Mario & Luigi RPG series plus Paper Mario — is also already out. Laura reviewed it last month when it released in the UK, calling it, “really rock solid game, with a few visible creases that need to be noted before purchase.”

Project X Zone 2 is full Japanese gaming fan service with appearances by the likes of anyone from Street Fighter‘s Ryu to Devil May Cry‘s Dante and Vergil to Shenmue‘s Ryo Hazuki to SPace Channel 5‘s Ulala. It’s coming to 3DS February 16.

Bravely Second: End Layer hits Europe on February 26 and the states on April 15. There are 12 new jobs in this old school JRPG from Square Enix, including Catmancer, a class that trains cats to use enemies’ skills (like the past game’s Vampire). Another involves throwing cake at people. It also tried to “take the pain out of the grinding” with a “let it ride” system where random battles will flow into one another so you don’t have to run back and forth to trigger another. The caveat is that if you finally lose, there goes all the accumulated experience from those battles. It also “might be longer than Bravely Default.”

Plus, here are some actual lines of dialogue from Bravely Second: End Layer. Note: “Ba’als” is pronounced “balls.” Like balls.

• “She studies Ba’als.”
• “Ba’al buster Magnolia Arch is on the job.”
• “A new Ba’al is headed this way and it’s my job to bust it.”
• “It’s…it’s huge [referring to a Ba’al].”
• “I’m Magnolia Arch and it’s time to bust some Ba’als.”

The localization team went Ba’als to the wall with this joke.

Oh, hey, Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow — yes, the originals — are coming to the 3DS eShop on February 27? Time to find out how well that game is actually balanced 20 years later. Also to argue over which version’s sprites were best.

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King and Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past are also coming to 3DS in 2016, with Dragon Quest VII coming first. It won’t have random battles, instead getting treats like Dragon Quest VIII with enemies on a world map and other additions.