Video by Matt S. I’m a massive, massive fan of the roguelike. I’ve been playing games like this as long as I’ve been playing games at all. For example, I have fond memories of losing hour after hour in my childhood to Nethack, because it was a (legally) free game…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Plague Road frustrates me, because it is so good, and yet there should be so much more to it. It’s plays beautifully, looks superb, is a lot of fun, and offers just the right balance of challenge. It’s good enough that after playing it a great…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. There’s a first for everything. I never thought that a poor translation would ruin a game. There are certainly poor translations of Japanese games out there; I grew up in those heady days with Square before it became Square Enix and I remember what Final Fantasy…
Read MoreReview by Harvard L. Enter the Gungeon is a top-down procedurally generated shooter which asks the age-old question of “what if everything was more like a gun?” It’s an irreverent and lighthearted game which is one of the most kinetic of its ilk, merging danmaku mechanics with interactive environments to…
Read MoreReview by Harvard L. Feral Fury is a violent top down shooter featuring militaristic pandas in a post-apocalyptic environment, and it’s a pretty good game. I feel like that’s all the description a game like this needs – it’s made by Skandivania Games out of Norway, a two person team…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. I’ve been more than critical of Kemco JRPGs in the past. They’re generally poor efforts, with unbalanced gameplay systems, uninspired level and character design, and ridiculously, laughably derivative narratives. But I’ve said all along that I really love Kemco’s commitment to classic JRPGs, and I’ve just…
Read MoreReview by Pierre-Yves L. It was a quiet and peaceful night. So much so that you couldn’t stand it any longer and waltzed your way over to the pub. As fate would have it, your search for thrilling entertainment was answered the moment you enter, as you are asked to…
Read MoreReview by Lindsay M. In the past, I have avoided anything labelled “roguelike” as if it were the plague. No way, no how was I going to go near games belonging to what just may be the most difficult genre of all time. Randomly generated levels? No difficulty selection, but…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. If you’re going to make a sequel to a game, make sure it’s an actual sequel. I really loved the original Siralim. It tickled my nostalgic itch with its ridiculous menu system, super old-school character design, and commitment to roguelike difficulty. It was a game that…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Thanks to NISA, the Touhou Genso franchise out of Japan is starting to get some real traction in the west. These games range across a wide variety of genres now, but what remains consistent to them is their slavish loyalty to what inspires them, and while…
Read More