Review by Matt S. Cherrymochi is a Japanese development company with a unique distinction – most of the team are westerners, drawn from the UK, Europe and America, but all of them have extensive experience living and working in Japan. It’s rare that a game can be truly Japanese –…
Read MoreReview by Harvard L. The premise of Incredible Mandy is simple enough – it’s a 3D puzzle platformer with particular emphasis on the puzzle side of things. It comes published by Circle Entertainment and developed by developed by Chinese studio Dotoyou Games, which also made the very charming Koi. Incredible…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. I know I took a playful swipe at The Lord of the Rings as a property in my first Dee Dee visual novel, but I actually really like Tolkien’s vision, and the Peter Jackson cinematic adaptation of it. What has been patchy has been the video…
Read MoreNews by Matt S. Persona 5 Scramble, the Warriors-like “action RPG” from Koei Tecmo and Atlus, is shaping up rather nicely indeed. There’s always a bit of hesitation when one of these are announced and released – look at how negatively fans initially responded to both Hyrule Warriors and Dragon…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Dusk Diver was released in the wrong part of the year. Given some space away from the half dozen other, excellent, JRPGs and other big releases that have come over the last month, Dusk Diver would have grabbed some attention for its cool aesthetic and lighthearted…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. City builders – or similarly-themed “builder” simulators – are a favourite genre of mine, but only when a developer gets them right. Entries into this genre feature a great deal of number crunching, and require that players have a good nose for design, balancing, statistics, and…
Read MoreReview by Harvard L. The original Cat Quest was a game often described as “comfort food”. Its simple combination of grind-reliant action-RPG gameplay and an overload of cat puns made it adept at giving players small, frequent rewards. I distinctly remember being strung along through the colourful open world, helping…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Last week, Sony released a Tim Burton/Danny Elfman-style game for Halloween-themed family fun. The remake of MediEvil was showing the age in the way it played, being a straight-up remake of the PlayStation One original, but it deserved full marks for nailing the aesthetic and tone…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. I’ve got to say this upfront; Atelier Ryza is a truly delightful game and the developer, Gust, is clearly keen to find new ways to mature the series. It has achieved that, and that’s admirable. But it’s also the Atelier title that has come the closest…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Why? That is the big question I took away from my time playing PBA Pro Bowling. Why bother getting an official license for a ten-pin bowling game? I love bowling as much as the next person, and regularly go out to bowl, drink, or (preferably) do…
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