Review by Clark A. Touhou is a franchise known chiefly for its genre-defining bullet-hell insanity. Team Shanghai Alice’s wholehearted embracement of fan-made games (“doujin” more accurately), though, has led to a bustling, open-ended franchise where creativity is bread and butter. Its characters have gone on to star in everything from…
Read MorePreview by Matthew C. As a rule, I don’t really like roguelike games all that much. Sure, there are plenty that I’ve played and enjoyed, but that enjoyment is usually in spite of the things that make the genre tick – permadeath, high difficulty curves, lots of randomisation and so…
Read MoreReview by Jim S. After eastasiasoft’s Rainbow Moon I high hopes for Lost Sea. It has a good set up, too. After a storm leaves you stranded on a mysterious island, you discover that you’re in the middle of the Bermuda triangle. You must fight to survive and escape the…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Diablo has certainly been one of the most influential franchises in gaming. That’s why we tend to call other top-down, RSI-inducing action RPGs “Diablo clones.” It has certainly become a favourite genre with Dungeons & Dragons (Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance) and the Sacred series both being…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Idea Factory is really running with its Hyperdimension Neptunia franchise. After a rough start, the main series hit on to a formula that made for some really quite entertaining games, and from there, Neptune and her buddies have become prolific stars that the company rolls out…
Read MoreNews by Lindsay M. Toronto-based indie developer DrinkBox Studios has announced its next game, Severed. The first thing I noticed upon viewing the trailer is that the first-person action/fantasy game is set in one heck of a gorgeous world, where colours, shapes, and movement merge to create something… well, fantastical.…
Read MoreNews by Lindsay M. In the halls of the ancient Grand Library is the history of the world. There’s a legend that states if one tampers with a book stored there, the past would be entirely rewritten. Enter Iffy, who is about to experience an epic disaster while in The…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. It’s been a long time since I last played a game that was truly operatic in tone. There have been titles that have effectively latched on to some of the thematic pulls of the art form, such as Pandora’s Tower and Nier, but to find the…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Sadame very much slots into the category of “kinds of games I really like to play. An action JRPG set in an alternative universe where the heroes of the Sengoku period have turned into monstrous demons, it has a strong theme and setting, and the way…
Read MoreReview by Nick H. While the Hyperdimension series is known primarily for being a series of traditional JRPGs, the series has shown with other titles like Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection and Hyperdevotion Noire that the publisher is willing to take some chances and do things differently. Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action…
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