Review by Matt S. I don’t think I’ve played a game that manages to misfire on tone quite as much as Xenoblade Chronicles 2. I preface this review by saying that on a fundamental level it’s an incredibly enjoyable game, and, as the first true big-budget JRPG on the Nintendo…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. I have played some truly dismal games in my time, but I can usually appreciate a dismal game if it is trying to do something. A game like Skylight Freerange, for example, at least wanted to be something genuinely different and original. I can give it…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Nintendo and Game Freak don’t have to do much to create a best-selling Pokemon game. The franchise has such a loyal fanbase, and those fans are so committed to the basic principles of the game, that the risks involved in trying to evolve the basic game…
Read MoreReview by Pierre-Yves L. Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection (Zwei II in Japan) is a fun and well designed action JRPG that has just been localised and release, finally, well after its original release in its homeland (2009). Voice acted for the first time as an added bonus to the localisation,…
Read MoreReview by Ginny W. Someone described Lost Dimension to me as a mix between Danganronpa, Fire Emblem, and anime. For better or for worse, that description is incredibly spot on. It mixes a bunch of well-known concepts and mechanics and produces a polished result that looks all set to succeed…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. There are two ways to approach the classic dungeon crawler genre. The first is a throwback right to the days of Wizardry, with turn-based combat and, generally speaking, a focus on highly detailed, largely static sprite-based art. This is what most Japanese publishers use, and everything…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Summon Night 6 has been long delayed, and the end product just hasn’t lived up to how excited we all let ourselves get about it. It’s decent enough as a traditional tactics JRPG in the vein of Final Fantasy Tactics or Ogre Battle, but an incredibly…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. I don’t think it’s an understatement to say that the Etrian Odyssey franchise has been a major cause for the revitalisation of the Japanese dungeon crawler genre in the west. It was once a substantial genre in its own right, but time had been unkind to…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. I love stories about underground revolutionary forces. The mix of ideologies squaring off against one another, as well as the intrigue as the revolutionary group attempts to get by and achieve their goals from the shadows, offers a timeless kind of narrative drama and deep suspense.…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. We all know what we’re getting from Kemco JRPGs by now, right? We all know that they’re micro-budget games with presentation that makes RPG Maker titles look like masterpieces by comparison. That in itself doesn’t need to be a bad thing, but most of Kemco’s games,…
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