Review by Matt S. We talk a lot about Japanese games on DDNet. You might have noticed that. But there are Japanese games, developed by Japanese game developers, and then there are Japanese games that are Japanese, in the sense that they designed specifically around the Japanese cultural experience, tapping…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Dark Rose Valkyrie was meant to be a relatively serious take on Compile Heart’s usual modus operandi. The house that built Hyperdimension Neptunia, Omega Quintet and Fairy Fencer has always been polarising, and that’s for a simple reason; this studio loves showing off the panties of…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Cladun Returns: This Is Sengoku is the kind of game I never even realised I wanted on my PlayStation 4. It’s a game of micro-dungeons and pixels; a real grind of a game that never even bothers to try and hide that its core loops can…
Read MoreReview by Ginny W. I had the chance to play this game when it was in beta a little while back, and now that it’s come time to set pen to paper for the finished product, I consider my past experience with it both a blessing and a curse. I…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Back on the PlayStation 3 there was a rather interesting little game that came and went without garnering too much interest; but I found it utterly enjoyable. That game was Tears to Tiara 2 – a cross between visual novel and tactics JRPG, which in so…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. It amuses me to think that the Fire Emblem that may just represent the way forward for the series is the remake of a very old game. Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia is actually a remake of the second Fire Emblem, originally released back on…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. The idea – and philosophy – behind ‘reality’ is a subject that Japanese developers are clearly finding very interesting at the moment. Persona 5, Akiba’s Beat, and Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth from last year, all made the blurring between whatever objective reality there might be, and…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Disgaea 5 is one of my favourite tactics games. Nippon Ichi managed something truly special with that game; it took the whacky, zany nonsense (though nonsense with a purpose) that we had become accustomed to over the previous Disgaea games, and then leveraged the PlayStation 4’s…
Read MoreReview by Nick H. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd manages to do something very important for those who are fans of the series: it offers, finally, a satisfying conclusion to a believed story but takes some changes along the way as well. It would have…
Read MoreReview by Matt S Spare a thought for the poor development (and localisation) team behind Akiba’s Beat. To find out too late that you’re working on a game so similar in thematic tone to Persona 5, on a fraction of the development time and budget, must have been crushing. Related…
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