Let’s get this out of the way up front: Varlet very badly wants to be Persona. It’s a game about dungeons that form out of people’s wayward “desires”, and those desires just happen to offer an opportunity for personal reflection while casting a broader analysis on society. It’s not a…
Read More
The immersive, story-driven school life RPG Varlet will be released in one month, but until today, there has only been a single trailer showing it off. In the game, monsters are replacing students who show too much attention-seeking behaviour. It challenges players to explore the duality of their own nature.…
Read More
Even if you don’t know the name FuRyu, you may be familiar with some of its titles, including The Legend of Legacy and Reynatis. Today, the Japanese developer/publisher announced Varlet, an immersive, story-driven high school RPG that challenges players to explore the duality of their own nature. (If you want…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. The Caligula Effect was the smartest game that almost no one played. Sadly, while I would very much like to see the sequel get the attention that it deserves, I do think it’s going to be a case of history repeating here. The problem that both…
Read MoreNews by Matt S. We’re inclined to pay close attention to any JRPG that FuRyu backs. That publisher, which backed The Alliance Alive, The Caligula Effect, Lost Dimension, and Crystar (among many others) knows creative, different JRPGs, and Monark is very much looking like one of those from first impressions.…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. As a publisher, FuRyu has never been adverse to taking on projects that tackle some astoundingly complex, nuanced topics. The Caligula Effect was a deconstruction on supernormal stimulants and the potential for virtual existence. Lost Dimension took the prisoner’s dilemma questions of Danganronpa and ramped it…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. Heroland is Furyu’s latest title, and comes to us in the west thanks to a truly amazing localisation by XSeed. It is a truly impressive little social satire, as well as being outright funny and charming. In this video I take a look at some of…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. The frequency with which we need to talk about nostalgia in the context of JRPGs is startling. Over and over again we are now seeing developers who grew up with the NES and SNES finally hit the age where they’re able to helm game projects of…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. It’s important that we draw a distinction between “melancholia” and “sadness”, “misery”, and other such synonyms. The dictionary definition has the terms at roughly parallel, but in literature and other art forms, they’re really very different things. My favourite quote in defining melancholia comes from an…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. (Mild content warning with regards to a depiction of a suicide) Crystar, out soon, comes to us from FuRyu in Japan, and Spike Chunsoft in the west. It’s an action JRPG with a particular trick – it’s all about crying as a gameplay mechanic. If that…
Read More