Review by Matt S. The defining quality of any of the titles in the Persona series is the characters. The turn-based combat is engaging enough, as is the dungeon crawling, but it’s the cast, their relationships, and the dramas – both hilarious and tragic – that really draws the player…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. One of the defining themes of the PlayStation 4 era was the remaster, with developers taking a PlayStation 3 (or even 2) title, massively overhauling the visual engine, and giving players a reason to play a favourite all over again. If the Nioh Collection is anything…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. We probably don’t have too many more entries in the Gal*Gun series to look forward to. Sony has pulled the plug on the series, and at the very last moment, Microsoft pulled back on this new one, Gal*Gun Returns, which was originally scheduled for an Xbox…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free,” so Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote once, and Ys IX reminded me of that quote a little. It’s not such a direct interpretation (we leave that to Persona 5), but imprisonment is the…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. “Curiouser and curiouser!” Cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English). So goes the famous line from Lewis Carroll’s classic, Alice in Wonderland. Having played Märchen Forest: Mylne and the Forest Gift, I understand Alice’s…
Read MoreReview by Harvard L.I really like Olija. It’s a smartly-designed cinematic platformer with a retro rotoscope-sprite art style, engaging gameplay and an incredible sense of atmosphere. It’s designed by Thomas Olsson, the one-man behind the aptly named Skeleton Crew Studio, and it comes after a long development cycle filled with…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. One of the great risks with any anime tie-in game is whether it’s going to make sense to people who aren’t existing fans of the property. In many cases, licensed games track along with the early stages of the anime and therefore works well as an…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Japanese game developer and publisher, Voltage, is certainly prolific. Since 2011 the otome specialist has published multiple titles per year, and as many as 11(!) in one particular year (2014). Her Love In The Force is one of those 2014 titles, which has been localised and…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Koei Tecmo and its JRPG specialist developer, Gust, had a lot to prove with Atelier Ryza 2. This is the first time that any single protagonist in the Atelier series has been given a direct sequel, and doing so was going to necessitate that Gust take…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Neoverse is a highly enjoyable digital card game, but it also represents the worst of video games as an art form. This is not to say that it’s weighed down with microtransactions and similarly scummy revenue models, because it’s mercifully free of those. It’s just that…
Read More