Matt S. is the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of DDNet. He's been writing about games for over 20 years, including a book, but is perhaps best-known for being the high priest of the Church of Hatsune Miku.
Brigandine is one of those cult franchises that you don’t really expect to be on any development radar, but every so often someone dusts it off because there is a tiny core out there and there’s not much else really scratching the itch. The original Brigandine was a PlayStation 1 release, and then in 2020 there was the excellent Brigandine:…
“Cry to save the world,” “’Classmate’ (i.e. breed) to save the world,” “Defeat a person’s deviances (sorry ‘distorted desires’) to save the world,” “Sing to save the world.” The JRPG genre is positively filled with these abstract ideas of turning a certain emotion or action into a mechanic to build…
My favourite Serious Sam title to date is the PlayStation 2/GameCube spinoff,…
As someone who travels around enough that I like to think of…
The origins of the Rhythm Heaven series are noble. One of the legends of Japanese music, Tsunku, got involved with Nintendo and produced the first game in an effort to develop the player’s rhythm skills. You might assume that all rhythm games do that, but in reality, most rhythm games…
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Dungeons & Dragons is great. Really, really great. But it’s a massive time sink and even bigger commitment from the entire group. The last couple of times I’ve tried to get in on a D&D campaign, it has fizzled out once people started to get busy with work, weekends, or…
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I know the question you’re thinking: Why would we, a gaming site, review something like the Kensington KB535 EQ Rechargeable Multi-Device Keyboard? This thing is clearly designed for office use first and foremost. It doesn’t even have lights for the keys! What gamer in their right mind would use a…
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I was genuinely concerned that Dead or Alive was, well, dead. On its original launch, Dead or Alive 6 was largely seen as a misfire by just about all camps: Koei Tecmo clearly wanted to elevate it into the rotation for serious fighting games, but on reputation alone it was…
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Lylat Wars (as Star Fox 64 was known in Australia) was a pioneering game, and people who bought into the Nintendo 64 early on probably ended up buying a copy of it. It helped that it came with a Rumble Pack, though. Remember the days when rumble was a really…
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It was originally a Wii title that, famously, fans had to fight really hard to get localised. Then it had a 3DS port because Nintendo needed something to showcase the power of a more powerful edition of the console. Then it got a port to the Switch. Now it’s enhanced…
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One of the best things about eFootball Kick-Off is that it has a global championship mode, structured just like a FIFA World Cup, with all the players and nations you could hope for, without it being a World Cup. You can buy this and enjoy all the thrills of The…
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The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is what happens when the Octopath Traveler team decides they’re going to tackle Zelda next. It’s an incredibly brave project. Zelda doesn’t really need a “spiritual sequel,” with Nintendo very much committed to its continuation. And it’s Nintendo’s single biggest property. To actively…
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As a professional writer, the experience of writing matters to me a great deal. Especially when I’m writing for pleasure. With the EPOMAKER Glyph, I have a device that I truly, deeply love writing on. The aesthetic appeal of the thing should be obvious without me needing to explain it:…
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Idea Factory and its otome factory, Otomate, is at its best when working with stories based in history. Hakuouki, for example. Or the first Birushana, which was set in the Heian period of Japanese history and let you hang out with Benkei and other famous boys (made pretty) while the…
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