Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam went so very close to irritating me. As much as I enjoy the RPG spin-off series that makes unlikely good use of Nintendo’s two platforming superstars, I have become increasingly frustrated with the company’s persistence that Princess Peach should be a damsel in distress in…
Read MoreKeisuke Kikuchi simply cannot get away from dark games with dark themes. The producer behind the Fatal Frame (or Project Zero) series of horror games has taken on the task of producing Gust’s newest IP, Nights of Azure. And, while Gust games are often more meaningful and serious than their…
Read MoreI must admit, I do feel like I’m running out of things to say about developer Gust’s Atelier Dusk series. That’s not to say the games aren’t worth writing about, but with Atelier Escha & Logy Plus, this is now the fifth time I have written a review for a…
Read MoreTwenty, even thirty hours into Trails of Cold Steel, and you’ll still be getting to know the class of nine students that form the core cast (and that’s not saying anything of the other characters that become important later on). This is a slow burn and dense game, and, while it does…
Read MoreSummon Night 5 is a strategy JRPG and part visual novel, released for the PSP, but also playable on the PlayStation Vita. It’s not going to revolutionise the genre, but it is, nevertheless, a very fine example of it. Related reading: Strategy RPG fans really need to check out Disgaea…
Read MoreIt’s always a good idea to play the worst games in your favourite genres. That way you can appreciate the good ones. Chronus Arc is one of the worst JRPGs I’ve ever played. In theory it wants to be a glorious throwback to the SNES JRPG tradition, but in practice…
Read MoreXenoblade Chronicles on the Nintendo Wii (and, later, New Nintendo 3DS), is a sprawling game with ambition well beyond what anyone thought the console could handle. At the same time, despite the game’s openness, its love of sending players on fetch quests, and the near endless incentive to keep backtracking…
Read MoreLevel-5 has, for the longest time now, been hesitant to localise its Yo-Kai Watch franchise into western markets. One presumes that the underlying reason for that hesitancy is due to the intense cultural relevance the Yo-Kai games have to Japan, and the assumption that a great deal of the underlying…
Read MoreAtlus’ various Shin Megami Tensei spinoff series’ have always been good at using various JRPG traditions to frame social or political commentary. The two Digital Devil Saga games offered some deep insights into the role of religion in society, while Persona 4 was, in part, a deconstruction of the nostalgia…
Read MoreFans of the series have been waiting for a long time for the localisation of the second chapter of Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. Having announced only a week prior to its release that it was finally here, the Second Chapter has been made digitally available on both…
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