Over the course of the first two Hyperdimension Neptunia games, Compile Heart found itself with a very niche hit franchise. While Activision isn’t about to dump Call of Duty to develop a knock-off of this series as its new yearly release, Compile Heart and American publisher, Nippon Ichi Software America,…
Read MoreOf all the JRPGs that I have played in this generation, the Atelier games by the tiny development outfit, GUST, have been the ones that I have enjoyed the most. I realise that they’re not awe-inspiring works of art, deep-and-meaningful philosophical treatises into the meaning of life and other questions…
Read MoreThere is something very Tim Burtonesque running behind Persona 4. On the one hand players experience the banality of life in a small Japanese village. Children watch TV. Incessant rain boxes people indoors. Families complain that a big shopping mall is driving the local businesses out of town. And then…
Read MoreLast year, I was deeply disappointed by Kingdoms of Amalur. It was a good game, even a great one, but it fell short on the potential that a game developed by the minds of game developer Ken Rolston, storyteller R.A Salvatore, and artist Todd McFarlane. Bringing those three nerd-cool hero…
Read MoreI’m always up for a good dungeon crawler. There’s something endearing about boiling the RPG formula down to its very most basic elements and giving players a framework for endless battles and treasure looting. Denpa Men is, for all its gimmickry (we’ll get to that in just a second), a…
Read MoreIf nothing else, Compile Heart and Idea Factory cannot be accused of not trying to hit on a killer formula with their games. Whether you like franchises like Hyperdimenson Neptunia or the Agarest War franchise or not, it’s a fact that each game in the series makes substantial changes to…
Read MoreI’m not sure how Nintendo and Game Freak manage to do this: over and over again they repackage the same game and convince us all it’s worth playing again. Pokemon Black and White 2 add the barest minimum of new features over the top of the game engine that has…
Read MoreAs I mentioned recently, I’m a little confused about how exactly to approach Mugen Souls as a review. So I’ll just say at the outset: this game probably isn’t for you. But I love it. If you think of the weirdest game you’ve ever played, it probably doesn’t come close…
Read MoreWow is Lunar: Silver Star Story a great game. In a genre that has had its fair share of great games, Lunar’s story is breathtaking in its epic scope and genuinely compelling characters. Its release on the iPhone is a big deal for fans of classic JRPGs. So, a bit…
Read MoreIt’s hard getting into Sword of Hope 2. There’s retro, and then there’s so retro that it’s alien. With a screen that is 80 per cent made up of menus, and the tiniest, static images representing the entirety of the game’s “graphics,” Sword of Hope 2 is alien. Get past…
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