Preview by Matt S. I never thought Blue Reflection would get a sequel. As utterly beautiful, wholesome, and heartfelt as it was, it didn’t exactly set sales charts on fire, and unfortunately, it got badly mischaracterised as a trashy fanservice game, when it was anything but that. Koei Tecmo has…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. I love Blue Reflection: Second Light. So. So much. From my first couple of hours with the game it’s the perfect sequel to a game I never thought would get one. In this video I give you a first look at the game’s prologue, and chat…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. Mary Skelter Finale is the third and final chapter of one of the most fanservicey dungeon crawler JRPGs of all. This one is so fanservicey it was banned in Australia. So naturally, I’ve played it. Here are my top-line thoughts on the game (no spoilers, promise!…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Georges Bataille once wrote of Marquis de Sade that his intention was to “release dangerous movements and be their first victims.” The overtly fetishistic tone of Mary Skelter Finale is obvious within seconds of starting, and much like Sade, it proved too much for “polite society.”…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Nexomon’s console releases have come in an odd order. Last year, at around this time, PQube released Nexomon: Extinction on various platforms. I think it was a surprising success for the publisher (and it did rightfully deserve to be a success since it is excellent), and…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. Lost Judgment is brilliant on just about every level; it has the same sense of humour as the Yakuza series, and the same quality action. At the same time, just like with Judgment before it, the shift in perspective, from yakuza members to detectives, offers up…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. In many ways, I prefer Judgment to Yakuza. This is by no means a slight directed towards my beloved Yakuza, but the mobster film tradition that that series taps into is just not as interesting to me as the noirish thriller that was Judgment. Now that…
Read MoreNews by Matt S. NISA has released a new trailer for its upcoming Monark, a game being developed by Lancarse (Lost Dimension, Zanki Zero) and published by FuRyu. This trailer, titled “Allies, highlights just how visually interesting this game is shaping up to be. The game has a pretty deep…
Read MoreRetro reflections by Matt S. I don’t think that Final Fantasy – the pioneering original on the NES – is the best game in the series. I don’t even think that Final Fantasy on the NES is the best version of Final Fantasy. However, I have this almost ritualistic need…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. Tales of Arise is absolutely spectacular, but one of the most interesting things about it is that, for a series that is usually considered “gameplay first, narrative second,” this one has an absolutely incredible and thought-provoking narrative. So, in this video, I discuss one of the…
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