Review by Lindsay M. When I think of Spike Chunsoft, I tend picture Danganronpa, or those 3DS Street Pass minigames, and tend to forget about the other amazing games in the publisher’s library. 428: Shibuya Scramble is one of those games, with an original launch on the Wii in 2008…
Read MoreReview by Harvard L. Imagine being the last lifeline for someone kidnapped – you’re only in contact with them through text message, and you’re hanging on to every last message not knowing how things would play out. It’s a position of high responsibility mixed with tense anxiety, and that’s the…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. “See panties twice, cause the apocalypse.” It’s like a perverse flip of that old tagline from the TV series, Heroes: “save the cheerleader, save the world.” More importantly, if there is a more out there tagline for an anime property, I’ve never heard it. Now, I’ve…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Nekopara is not the first adult visual novel to have had its more pornographic elements shaved off for the benefit of a console release. Utawarerumono on the PlayStation 4, and Eiyuu Senki on the PlayStation 3 are both very notable examples where the developers have kept…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. There’s a romance that has been built around the very concept of the Shinsengumi that has made the military police force of a bygone era a source of inspiration for video games, manga, and other forms of popular culture. In the video game space specifically we…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. This is going to be a short review, because Ayakashi Koi Gikyoku is effectively unplayable. “How might a visual novel be unplayable?” I hear you ask. Well, consider the very first couple of lines from the prologue: When the stars and the moon appeared in the…
Read MoreNews by Matt S. The title “YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of this World” probably doesn’t mean much to you. But for many visual novel fans, the news that Spike Chunsoft dropped today is a big deal: the game is finally getting an official localisation. This…
Read MoreBy Matt C. For some reason or another, I’ve never played Steins;Gate (I know, I know, I’m sorry). That makes reviewing Steins;Gate 0 tricky, because is very much a sequel that’s tied closely to its predecessor. The central plot is broadly self-contained, but all the little details and character interactions…
Read MoreOpinion by Matt S. A number of Japanese developers (predominantly visual novel developers) have been getting notices from Valve to the effect that their “game features pornographic imaging, and this is in violation of Steam’s rules”. If the developer doesn’t fix its content, according to the note, their game will…
Read MoreNews by Matt S. Visual novel specialist, Otomate, has announced a simply staggering amount of support for the Nintendo Switch. One of the last bastions of PlayStation Vita development, this wholesale shift is perhaps the final nail on the coffin for Sony’s underappreciated console. Otomate had already announced Hakuoki Shinkai:…
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