Once upon a time, there was a comic book artist by the name of Joe Madureira. He drew some cool bits for Marvel at the start of his career, before starting his own creator-owned series Battle Chasers during the late 90's-early 00's comic book boom. Then he moved away from comics for a bit to dabble in video games and help create the Darksiders universe. Then he went back to drawing comics for Marvel a bit more, before founding a new video game studio again in 2015, going by the name of Airship Syndicate.

And their first game was Battle Chasers: Nightwar. Continuing from the original comics from way back when, but after a time skip (to conveniently skip around loose ends the comic left hanging, and mostly visible by the fact that main character Gully has visibly aged up a bit..).
The comics were some of my favorite reading back in the day, and the game looking to be faithful in tone and art style pretty much meant it was an instabuy for me.

The way it plays, despite being made by a USA-based company, is also very much a JRPG, and a pretty competent one at that. Some interesting puzzle bits, turn-based combat with it's own mechanics (a lot revolving around debuffing and playing off the debuffs), characters with strong sets of theme and abilities, somewhat cliche but no less entertaining storyline, various bonus objectives etc.
Suffice to say, I spent enough time with this one at the start of 2018, and thus I want to bring it to more people's attention.

Oh, and because this is Steamgifts, I figured I'd not only share my opinion, but also the game itself

Also, while we're on the topic of Western made games that play like JRPGs... Which one is your favorite?

4 years ago

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Best western-made JRPG ?

View Results
Anachronox
Battle Chasers: Nightwar
Evoland Legendary Edition
Saturday Morning RPG
Septerra Core
4 years ago
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Kingdoms of Amalur plays like JRPG? What?

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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It's what i get for skimming messages in between work...
...still worth playing

4 years ago
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I played it around the time it launched and was really impressed with the graphics and combat (cool skills and animations).

Anyway the game got stupidly easy once you crafted some decent gear even on the hardest difficulty, which is why I eventually just dropped it and never finished. There were some parts of the world and quests that I didn't enjoy, I think I disliked the whole fae thing for some reason but I can't remember why.

4 years ago
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I believe there is a community mod that fixes the balance issues, if you want a real challenge.

4 years ago
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Haven't played any of these, so I'm not voting, but thanks for the shameless plug sharing your opinion! 👍

4 years ago
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For me: https://store.steampowered.com/app/464150/Regalia_Of_Men_and_Monarchs/

But I have not played Battle Chasers: Nightwar and I hope to win it here :P

4 years ago
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Regalia looks good too though :)

4 years ago
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Still have to play Evoland, but heard great stories about it!

4 years ago
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I have this game on wishlist, I love the artstyle and the gameplay seems pretty decent. Didn't know about the history of it, so that's nice.
Do you need to know anything about comics to enjoy the game to the fullest?

4 years ago
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Well, you might miss a few nods to the previous comics here and there but the game's pretty much a standalone story and the relations between party members get recapped in dialogues as needed.

4 years ago
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I'd only just found out about this game this year, but it looks pretty sweet indeed. Thanks, Nana! :)

4 years ago
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sorry for being off topic, but I came here just to post this ;P
https://youtu.be/E4N6mq0IjvA

4 years ago
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View attached image.
4 years ago
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View attached image.
4 years ago*
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Thanks for sharing this game!

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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Thanks for the chance! ^^
The last Western made jRPG I played was...

View attached image.
4 years ago
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Of those JRPGs you listed the only one I played in its entirety was Septerra Core, and I rather like that one.

Western made JRPGs were almost unheard of until the late 1990s.

4 years ago
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except of course that JRPGs were heavily influenced by the western made Wizardry and Ultimate

4 years ago
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Of the 2 I've played, I had a hard time deciding between Septerra Core and Anachronox; they were both very good in their own different ways, but in the end, it had to be Anachronox, because of Dr. Rho Bowman. Among an already very colorful (both figuratively and literally) cast of characters, she stands out among even the rest of them. Yes, Stiletto has quite possibly the best character entrance in the genre, and Democratus is... Democratus, but Rho just has such unique weapons, an unlimited arsenal of sass, and such beautiful eyes to boot (if you can catch a glimpse of them behind those cool shades). I don't have any biological children, but if any of the myriad cyberchildren I've adopted ever asked me what the '90s were like, I'd just slap a copy of Anachronox in front of them and say, "Everything that this game makes a mockery of."

As for the others, I have Evoland, but haven't played it, and I am very interested in Battle Chasers: Nightwar. Saturday Morning RPG looks like it could be alright, but I think most of it would just slip past me, as I have no place for nostalgia in my life, and that seems to be the bulk of its appeal.

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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4 years ago
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4 years ago
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I've only played Anachronox from this list. Even though it is dated and has some bugs, I really enjoyed the space punk atmosphere as well as the funny dialogue throughout the game.

4 years ago
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No mention of Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark yet?
It plays a lot like Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics, and those are JRPG's in a sense, so Fell Seal could qualify as a Western-made JRPG
https://store.steampowered.com/app/699170/Fell_Seal_Arbiters_Mark/

4 years ago
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I loved Septerra Core so much. my replay on Steam got derailed so i'd have to start over to finish it now, but i remember being really into how fantastical it was when i originally played it at age... 12? 13??? around the same time i was playing ff7 and ff8 and ff9 over and over and over again, anyway.

wishlisted Nightwar because of your write-up. it looks really cool, thanks for the hype post!

4 years ago
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I can't even think of another jrpg made in western... Dammit where is my brain!
Thank you for the GA!

4 years ago*
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From games at the pool I have played just Evoland and I really liked it! There were some great references. X)
The first one more than the second though. ;)

I want to get Septerra Core and maybe Anachronox too.

4 years ago
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Had this wishlisted from the moment it was announced. Have a bump for a great game. BTW Evoland I really enjoyed (and the 2nd too).

4 years ago
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Child of Light was pretty neat but guess my favourite one is Evoland 2 (got it to 100% achievements for a reason). I didn't even realize I got the legendary edition for free due to owning both titles... should I play it again? Hmmmmmmmmm... :D

4 years ago
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○Evoland Legendary Edition
○Battle Chasers: Nightwar
σ(-Θ-` ) I do not admit that JRPG does not contain Japanese Language. (A joke aside.)

When I think about it, I feel that I have not played much RPG recently.( 'Θ`)ooO(No idea)
nep nep nep nep... Huh? Do you also count that? Yes. I played.
I feel that I used to take my hands on an RPG I don't understand well.
Ylvania - Elona/Elin Official - Elona

My memory is getting worse.┐(´Θ`)┌ Am I too overplayed?
Lisa · · · It looks interesting · ·

4 years ago
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Battle Chasers Nightwar has complete Japanese localization though ...

4 years ago
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Yup. The two marked are Japanese localization.
Other works ... unfortunately. (ノΘ`)

4 years ago
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Wait, I though that Battle Chasers: Nightwar actually was a JRPG. I thought that I'd given an honest full-size (like more than half an hour) try to at least one JRPG :(

4 years ago
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