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.
I don’t often write about films these days, but I recently saw something at the Japan Film Festival in Australia that was powerful, profound, and haunting enough that it has since occupied all my thinking. Kokuho, directed by one of Japan’s most noteworthy art film directors, Lee Sang-il, is, as we enter an era where AI is undermining the very…
The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite is a good headset. This is by far the most uncontroversial thing I’ve ever written at DigitallyDownloaded.net, because with a price tag of AU$1350, you would hope that it’s a good headset. SteelSeries has packed as much sound quality as possible into this thing and,…
Disclaimer: I’m making this quick disclaimer so it’s clear and up-front. I…
Kirby Air Riders is fun. It’s not any more than that, and…
It’s easy to understand why Elden Ring Nightreign exists. The multiplayer side of Dark Souls and, later, Elden Ring has been enormously popular over the years. So too are games designed around an endless gameplay loop, whether that be Fortnite, roguelikes, or anything in between. Nightreign will be loved a…
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Look, I don’t know who decided that King Arthur worked well with grimdark, but I’m going to convene the Round Table of artists and put a stop to this nonsense. The actual fantasy of King Arthur and his knights should be flowery bastions of virtue doing good things for the…
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Scar-Lead Salvation is very close to being a very good game. The creative energy is good, the aesthetics are appealing, and the action is tight. Unfortunately, while it was clearly inspired by Returnal, it misses the mark in several critical areas. You play as Willow, who is either a woman…
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Onimusha 2 is the finest in the series. Yes, Onimusha 3 had Jean Reno, and that remains objectively hilarious, but if you’re looking for the heart of what the Onimusha team has tried to achieve with the series, it’s here. Now, with the remake in hand, we’re able to revisit…
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Last year’s Duck Detective: The Secret Salami was one of my highlights of the year. A wonderfully slim yet totally fulfilling 2-3 hour noir satire, the game offered just the right balance between quality humour, puzzles that were both puzzling and made you feel good about yourself, and the all-important…
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7’scarlet has been around for several years on Steam, but the Nintendo Switch has become a solid home for the visual novel genre, so why not have it on this nice, slim, near-perfect “reading” device? I doubt many otome fans would say that it’s their favourite Otomate project, but at…
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We do live in an era where developers and publishers are scrambling to tap into nostalgia and make some (relatively) easy money from reminding people of the games they loved growing up. There’s no end to Final Fantasy, Space Invaders, Pac-Man and Rogue-based releases going around, after all. I must…
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After a few years of work, we’re getting very close to releasing our visual novel, The Last Waltz, and you can now wishlist it on Steam! Click on over here: Click here: The Last Waltz on Steam Over on Steam, you can watch the trailer, see screenshots, and jump on…
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Like its predecessors, Death end re;Quest: Code Z looks like it should be a pretty standard Idea Factory JRPG. You’ve got cute anime girls, most of them with very large assets, and magical girl-style transformation screens that make full use of those assets for maximum impact. Then you have long…
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AFL 23 grew from a shaky start to become something that most fans of the sport could love. It followed Big Ant’s usual MO of, shall we say, responsive patching post-launch, as the feedback rolled in and the ever-vocal sports game community made it clear what they liked and didn’t.…
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